Gary Gerloff was one of my telephone buddies back in ’93, ’94 when I first started the Richmond Music Journal. I don’t recall if we ever actually met in person and talked, and I’ve only seen him play a time or two.
He was delighted with the newspaper and would call and tell me stories about the Richmond music scene of years ago, most of which I could not use because they were racy and I didn’t know if they were even true. He knew all the wild women of the scene, the groupies, the local girls that went on to become regional and national groupies, all the stunts they used to get into the band buses parked outside the venues. He wanted me to do stories on them, but I declined since I think they had moved on and probably didn't want to be reminded.
He often told me the paper kept him connected to the music scene, the new local bands coming up that he would never have heard of otherwise. Our stories often tickled him and he would call to laugh and comment about them. And one time he took me to task quite sternly for being lovesick over a musician he did not think was worthy of my time. He called him Pie Face and that shook some reality back into me.
I had the feeling he wasn’t working because he would call me during the day and could talk for hours. Later I heard he was a Mr. Mom who kept the kids while his wife worked and then played music at night. I don't know if that was true although his obituary didn't list any job history. It seemed like a good arrangement, if true. The running joke about him was, obviously, how much he physically resembled Jerry Garcia.
He died this past weekend at age 58.
2 comments:
Marianne,
Gary indeed did not have a conventional job for about the last 15 years or so. I would wager that all the stories he told you were true for sure. He was quite a figure and was able to realize many of his musical ambitions, which is more than most of us part-time musicians can say!
His close friends called him 'Vegas'. Long and typically crazy GG story. Still miss the man.
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