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A Canyon, not a rut
Tecolote Canyon Band's Tim Johnson is cool with playing the classics
Tim Johnson’s musical career was nearly derailed before it even left the station. “My dad was a jazz and a big band trumpet and cornet player,” he says. “As a kid, he was listening to Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and Miles Davis. We had to take band in grade school, so, of course, I had to become a trumpet and cornet player. But I hated it.”
Happily, a babysitter began showing up at his house with a ukelele in tow. Johnson became enamored with the instrument and joined his junior high school’s ukelele club. By the time he was in high school, he had his sights set on something with a couple more strings. “My ex-girlfriend's brother and I did a weed deal,” he explains. “He gave me an acoustic guitar, and I gave him weed. I started playing guitar, and my first major influence was the Beatles — those big Beatles harmonies.”
But during his college days at San Diego State, Johnson found himself playing bass in a soul band called Flashback. “We were not main act headliners,” he explains. “We would get the midweekers and the opening act slots.” But while soul was not the goal, it was during his Flashback days that he started working on soul songs that got covered by the Grateful Dead — songs like The Rascals’ “Good Lovin.’” The Dead and the general jam band scene would go on to form the foundation of Johnson’s playing.
Flashback gave way to a couple of other ‘90s bands before Johnson stepped away from the stage. For the next 15 years, his pursuits included volunteering at Ocean Beach Elementary School teaching guitar and ukelele, starting a charitable foundation that put instruments in classrooms, completing yoga teacher training, and helping to found Beyond Bridge — a local, all-acoustic benefit music festival inspired by the legendary Bridge School Benefit Concerts.
It was a chance meeting at one of those Beyond Bridge festivals that would once again make Johnson a regular on local stages. He played a short set with Mark Mendenhall, a massive Neil Young fan who had a great voice but never really played out. “His more Neil Young centric vibe and my Grateful Dead Jerry vibe really synced up nicely,” recalls Johnson. The Tecolote Canyon Band played over a hundred shows in their first year; more than half of them were duo performances at OB’s California Wild Ales. “I'm a retired medical device guy, and I can't survive without doing something,” Johnson says. “You might as well do something fun if you're going to do it. I get to pick up a guitar and do what I love.”
“It was kind of a white-knuckle ride at first, because Mark was very structured,” Johnson recalls. “He would say, ‘This is how the song goes. Here's where it starts. There's a solo. Here's where that ends.’ I was like, ‘No, no, no. Everyone loves that song, but it's only three minutes. So, we're going to spend 30 seconds or a minute getting into it, then we're going to double the solo, and then we're going to ease out. And so now you have a five or six-minute song.’ When he was like, ‘How are we going to fill two hours with material?’ I was like, ‘Oh, easy. We can do one song for 20 minutes.’” Beyond that, “Mark used to get so frustrated. He’d say, ‘I'm pouring my heart out, singing my heart out, and no one's even paying attention.’ I'm like, ‘Bro, that's how it is. It's a bar. I hate to tell you, but let's play “Brown Eyed Girl.”’”
He continues, “You know that meme that says if you've played ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ more than ten times, you may be entitled to compensation? You get people from all over the country coming in, and they want to hear some Eagles, they want to hear Beatles, they want to hear the classics. And we're a classics-driven band.”
These days, that band is a shapeshifting operation. “Me and Mark always take the gig,” Johnson says. “It can be a two-piece, a three-piece, a four-piece, a five-piece, or even a six-piece, depending on the elements that we add.” Robbie Norris (keys), Ford Winslow (drums), Joe Felix (bass), and Dennis Connor (flute), are their main, current lineup, but the band also can include players from bands such as Band of Gringos, Bothers Gow, and Jam Berries.
Here's something you might be interested in.
A Canyon, not a rut
Tecolote Canyon Band's Tim Johnson is cool with playing the classics
A Canyon, not a rut
Tecolote Canyon Band's Tim Johnson is cool with playing the classics
Tim Johnson’s musical career was nearly derailed before it even left the station. “My dad was a jazz and a big band trumpet and cornet player,” he says. “As a kid, he was listening to Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, and Miles Davis. We had to take band in grade school, so, of course, I had to become a trumpet and cornet player. But I hated it.”
Happily, a babysitter began showing up at his house with a ukelele in tow. Johnson became enamored with the instrument and joined his junior high school’s ukelele club. By the time he was in high school, he had his sights set on something with a couple more strings. “My ex-girlfriend's brother and I did a weed deal,” he explains. “He gave me an acoustic guitar, and I gave him weed. I started playing guitar, and my first major influence was the Beatles — those big Beatles harmonies.”
But during his college days at San Diego State, Johnson found himself playing bass in a soul band called Flashback. “We were not main act headliners,” he explains. “We would get the midweekers and the opening act slots.” But while soul was not the goal, it was during his Flashback days that he started working on soul songs that got covered by the Grateful Dead — songs like The Rascals’ “Good Lovin.’” The Dead and the general jam band scene would go on to form the foundation of Johnson’s playing.
Flashback gave way to a couple of other ‘90s bands before Johnson stepped away from the stage. For the next 15 years, his pursuits included volunteering at Ocean Beach Elementary School teaching guitar and ukelele, starting a charitable foundation that put instruments in classrooms, completing yoga teacher training, and helping to found Beyond Bridge — a local, all-acoustic benefit music festival inspired by the legendary Bridge School Benefit Concerts.
It was a chance meeting at one of those Beyond Bridge festivals that would once again make Johnson a regular on local stages. He played a short set with Mark Mendenhall, a massive Neil Young fan who had a great voice but never really played out. “His more Neil Young centric vibe and my Grateful Dead Jerry vibe really synced up nicely,” recalls Johnson. The Tecolote Canyon Band played over a hundred shows in their first year; more than half of them were duo performances at OB’s California Wild Ales. “I'm a retired medical device guy, and I can't survive without doing something,” Johnson says. “You might as well do something fun if you're going to do it. I get to pick up a guitar and do what I love.”
“It was kind of a white-knuckle ride at first, because Mark was very structured,” Johnson recalls. “He would say, ‘This is how the song goes. Here's where it starts. There's a solo. Here's where that ends.’ I was like, ‘No, no, no. Everyone loves that song, but it's only three minutes. So, we're going to spend 30 seconds or a minute getting into it, then we're going to double the solo, and then we're going to ease out. And so now you have a five or six-minute song.’ When he was like, ‘How are we going to fill two hours with material?’ I was like, ‘Oh, easy. We can do one song for 20 minutes.’” Beyond that, “Mark used to get so frustrated. He’d say, ‘I'm pouring my heart out, singing my heart out, and no one's even paying attention.’ I'm like, ‘Bro, that's how it is. It's a bar. I hate to tell you, but let's play “Brown Eyed Girl.”’”
He continues, “You know that meme that says if you've played ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ more than ten times, you may be entitled to compensation? You get people from all over the country coming in, and they want to hear some Eagles, they want to hear Beatles, they want to hear the classics. And we're a classics-driven band.”
These days, that band is a shapeshifting operation. “Me and Mark always take the gig,” Johnson says. “It can be a two-piece, a three-piece, a four-piece, a five-piece, or even a six-piece, depending on the elements that we add.” Robbie Norris (keys), Ford Winslow (drums), Joe Felix (bass), and Dennis Connor (flute), are their main, current lineup, but the band also can include players from bands such as Band of Gringos, Bothers Gow, and Jam Berries.
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