User:Thetoastman/Gene Frenkle
Gene Frenkle (August 23, 1950 - February 5, 2000) was one of the foremost cowbell players in the modern musical world. He first caught the public eye when he joined the rock band Blue Öyster Cult in 1972, and was pivotal to the success of their most famous song, (Don't Fear) The Reaper. He quit soon after the song's release, however, to focus on solo performances and classical pieces in an orchestral setting. He was killed in 2000 while performing John Cage's The Detroit Symphony Orchestra Drowning in a Piranha-infested Swimming Pool in B-flat Major with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Early years[edit | edit source]
Frenkle spent his childhood in Bensenville, Illinois, where he learned what would become a lifelong love of jarring noises at a tender age. He grew up in a small, one-story house that lay about thirty feet from Chicago O'Hare Airport's 13,000-foot Runway 14R-32L, the longest runway at the world's busiest airport. As a result, sudden, extremely loud sounds were a regular part of his daily life. His parents, Earl and Charlene, were so deafened by the constant, earth-shaking roar of ascending passenger aircraft that not even screaming could attract their attention. Young Gene was forced to carry around a small cooking pot and a wooden stick, which he would clang loudly to signal his parents.
In 1965, after the family had replaced their blown-out back windows for the seventeenth time in a month, local authorities ruled that constantly shattering glass constituted a danger to nearby children, and had Child Protective Services remove Gene. At the time, his parents were out at a local shooting range, one of their favorite activities, as their near-deafness eliminated the discomfort felt by most participants at the loud sound of a gunshot. They didn't even notice the screech of the police sirens until Earl turned around, gun in hand, to face the swarm of police officers, in firing position, crouched behind six squad cars. The officers reflexively shot the couple to death. Gene would remain in a Chicago orphanage until he was 18, when he was released.
Chicago origins[edit | edit source]
Homeless and penniless, but determined to get his life back together, Frenkle rounded up two drummers, a tambonist, and a tambourine player into an all-percussion band called Banging on Things with Sticks. Frenkle bought a cowbell and took lead vocals, and the band became a regular act on the Chicago club circuit. This enterprise was short-lived, however, as critics loathed the band's music. One reviewer from the Chicago Tribune, in particular, called it "like construction yard noise without the lunch break" and compared Frenkle's vocals to "an infant being put through a meat grinder". Another said the band's trademark song I Wanna Invert Your Nasal Cavity with a Sledgehammer was akin to "having a nose hair trimmer forcibly shoved into your ear".
Unable to pay his rent and desperate for money, Frenkle resorted to classified ads in an attempt to find an opening with a band. After being rejected from three auditions, he contacted Blue Öyster Cult frontman Eric Bloom.
Blue Öyster Cult[edit | edit source]
Bloom was entranced with Frenkle's graceful cowbell technique, which he would later refer to as "the repetitive-percussion equivalent of having your testicles gently stroked by an expensive French prostitute". Frenkle joined the band in 1972, shortly before it would record its debut self-titled album. The record was a critical success, and Frenkle was catapulted from the streets of Chicago into a fast-paced tour schedule.
When their popularity died down, however, the band found itself in a rut. Session after session was a failure, and bad writing and high stress levels contributed to tension in the band. It was clear, as backup vocalist and lead guitarist Buck Dharma would later put it, that "most of the time, there was so much pressure that we were on the verge of either murdering each other or spontaneously letting loose our aggression in a really hot man-orgy. Personally, I was hopeful for the latter".
In 1976, the band tried to scrape together new tracks for another album, but repeated setbacks proved too much. It looked like the band was finished, until Frenkle called up an old acquaintance of his from Chicago- producer Bruce Dickinson. In a recording session in November, under Dickinson's direction, the band pulled together and released what would become by far their most successful album. When their second album, Agents of Fortune was released, it was lauded as one of the greatest records of the decade. Critics hailed it as nearly flawless, although a recurring minor complaint was that Frenkle's cowbell was subdued, and could have been more prominent.
Orchestral career[edit | edit source]
Despite Blue Öyster Cult's success, the band soon fell back into a chaotic state, and this time Frenkle decided he would take his leave. He left under a storm of controversy in early 1978, burning the bridges by allegedly whacking Eric Bloom in the face with a cowbell at the end of his last recording session. The two would avoid contact for the next two decades, but reconciled their differences in 1996.
A disillusioned Frenkle resolved never to go back to the popular music industry, and turned toward classical and symphonic music instead.
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