Ken Wiles with his wife, Yan, and young son, Steven.

After I posted the contract for Fort Dodge, both Ken and Art checked in. It should be noted that sometime in 1979, after our New York trip, the band decided to go ahead and try booking ourselves. As I said elsewhere in this website, it was the single biggest mistake we made as a band by dropping Art as our manager .

Ken said: “I kind of remember Fort Dodge. Two young punk musicians came up and asked me how I got the vibrato effect on “Surrender” by Cheap Trick. That’s all I remember. I told them, but maybe I shouldn’t have. It’s like giving away a magician’s secret.

From his Facebook page. Art “Smart” Stenstrom.

Art said: Orton, (Art used to call me Ortunes) I just took a minute and looked at your SL website, those were not actually contracts but my work orders that I prepared prior to typing the contract. Interesting that you have those copies. It could be those are some dates that you played after you gave me the boot!!!! I probably made you pay me commission if that was the case. I think I threw out all of the old contracts that I had for my band booking days. Too bad, you could have a heyday putting them on the web.

Categories: History