Open Road Conspiracy
- Jay EuDaly
- 18 hours ago
- 15 min read
I think sometimes I run the risk of writing stuff that no one is interested in and thereby crossing the line into self-indulgent crap. This story may fall into that category. I mean, who cares about an unknown guitar player living in fly-over country who tells little stories about more-or-less making a living as a guitarist for 50+ years in a medium-sized midwestern city? Granted, a city with a rich musical heritage and legacy.
A few people who know me, friends &/or fans, might be interested. Some of my students and former students might be interested. My grandkids and great-grandkids might be interested, someday.
Yet, I am compelled to write, whether anyone is interested or not, just like I have been compelled by whatever forces are at work in the universe to keep playing the guitar, whether anyone is listening or not.
And so after decades of gigs, I estimate well over 10,000 shows - that’s roughly equal to 40,000 hours on stage - and more ”bands” than I can count, I decided to tell this story; the band that started it all for me.
My First Band - Open Road Conspiracy
At some point in my musical development, probably in 7th or 8th grade, I'd say sometime in 1968, I started jamming with this other guitar player who lived down the street from me, Brad Waldo. Brad was a year older than me.
Originally all I had was a cheap steel-string acoustic (purchased in 1966) but in 1968 or ‘69 I bought (with parental help) a Burns Bison guitar and a Kustom 100 amp. Brad had a Fender Bronco guitar and a Sears Silvertone amp.
We would play in Brad’s bedroom. I remember doing “Wild Thing” by the Troggs. “House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals, and so on. Over time, other guys began to be added. Charlie Fielder on bass – I think I met Charlie at church. He was maybe a year younger than me. Chuck Johnson on drums – I can’t remember how Chuck got involved.
I think Brad knew Dave somehow. Dave Dayringer was a year older than me but was two years ahead of me in school, and was the clincher. He was a charismatic, blond, long haired singer (who also played acoustic guitar), and he was the guy, I think, who said, “We should be a band!”
Dave had the look, the weed, and the girls – he was perfect! He was one of those guys who is always at the center of what’s going on. It was Dave who came up with the name, “Open Road Conspiracy.”
We rehearsed in Charlie Fielder’s basement. Charlie’s parents were actual, real musicians, with careers and everything. His mom was a classical pianist and his father, Arthur, was a cellist of some renown. He was the Assistant Principal Cellist with the Kansas City Symphony. Charlie’s parents performed as a chamber duo for events like the Plaza Art Fair and at the Nelson Art Gallery.
Charlie’s dad resembled Charlton Heston; he was tall and intimidating, with a mane of hair and a stern countenance that made him look like Beethoven’s death mask, of which there was a cast sitting on the piano in the basement where we rehearsed.
So there we were, putting our little band together under the image of the dead Beethoven himself.
Arthur, I think, was kind of interested, perhaps amused, by what we were doing. I never felt disapproval from him. I have a vague memory of him telling me I had some talent.
So there are feelings of affirmation when I think of him but I can’t remember anything else, specifically. Charlie’s experience is probably completely different. After all, that was his dad! Arthur seemed fairly tough as a father figure. He likely let us make our racket in his house because he wanted to keep an eye on us.
Dave was friends with a Baptist pastor’s daughter, Lady Norfleet. Yep, her actual name was Lady. So we had access to the church facilities and we took the liberty to throw our own little private parties there. I remember doing at least one show on a Friday night on the main platform in the sanctuary (I can’t believe we got away with that).
Dave’s dad was also a minister but didn’t pastor a church. He was the official Chaplin at Baptist Hospital in Kansas City. So yeah, Dave was a PK (preacher’s kid) as well.
We played quite a few coffee houses and events that were put on by churches in their attempts to reach the youth demographic of the time. I didn’t care much for church but I appreciated the venues where we could play.
I don’t know how many gigs that unit played, but two stand out in my memory.
The first one stands out because it was the first gig where we actually got paid. There were other issues involved that also made it memorable (see How Quickly They Turn).
It was a 3-hour sock-hop; a dance in the afternoon in the gym of a local junior high school in the Spring of 1971. Most of the band ditched school to play it. Charlie's dad went along with it and transported Charlie and his gear to and from.
We made $15.00 apiece and I was like, “You mean I can have this much fun, be popular, get the girls, AND get paid? THIS is what I want to do!” I was 15 years old, Dave was 16 – he was the one with the transportation (we miraculously fit the PA and my guitar and amp in his Carmen Ghia).
It was at that point I realized that not only did I dearly love to play music (I already knew that), but playing music was my ticket out of pencil-necked geekdom. I went from a pencil-neck geek to cool in an instant - all because I played guitar in a band! I realized that the world is full of pencil-neck geek musicians mated with supermodels.
The other gig that stands out was a Battle of the Bands at a school on the Kansas side. I need to set this story up.
Our bass player, Charlie, lived in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. It was a little more upscale (I guess Arthur and Mrs. Fielder did alright) than the neighborhoods the rest of us came from in Kansas City, Missouri.
Our PA system consisted of a power amp with a couple of input jacks and two speakers that were still in the cardboard boxes they were shipped in. We had no PA cabinets and no mixer. Every gig we would wire up the speakers to the amp by hand and prop them up in their cardboard boxes. Many times we would take a break so we could solder a loose connection.
The amp had a circuit breaker that would pop out when the amp got too hot, which was always in the middle of a song. We had a guy whose job it was to sit by the amp and when the circuit breaker blew he would punch it back in. This would allow us to finish the song and then we would take a break and let the amp cool down. I can’t believe we didn’t blow that amp up.
Anyway, we walked into this gymnasium, wheeling in our gear and our sorry-ass excuse of a PA, to be confronted by 3 or 4 other bands, rich kids by my estimation, with the latest equipment. I saw Gibson Les Paul guitars, Fender Twin amps, and Kustom PA columns as tall as I was. Imagine black, roll-pleated PA columns 5 or 6 feet tall, all new and shiny, next to our speakers-in-cardboard-boxes. I wanted to just turn around and walk back out.
I don’t know if it was Dave who insisted that we go ahead, I think it was. Brad was like, “We’re here, we might as well play.” I was intimidated and had no hope. If my memory serves me, I think we did “Goin’ Up the Country” by Canned Heat, “Blue Suede Shoes” (the John Lennon version from the “Live Peace in Toronto” album), and “Purple Haze” – and we WON!
One of the other guitar players came up to me and asked if I gave lessons. That whole episode taught me a valuable lesson – it’s about the musician and the music, not the gear. NEVER be intimidated by lack of gear, sub-par gear, or raggedy old gear.
The musician is the most important element to the thing. The music is in the hands and the heart, not the gear. Since then I've learned it's about drink sales, not the music. Having a hot, narcissistic lead singer also helps.
Other gig-memories include playing the Cole County Fair in Jefferson City, Missouri; probably the summer of 1972. Jackie Barrett was our bass player by then. I remember being fascinated by the Cole County Blues Band doing a rendition of the Allman Brothers' "Whipping Post." I had no reference for 11/8 time back then. I thought it was in 3/4 with a weird bar of 2 every 4th bar.
Another one was a coffee house in Overland Park, Kansas; probably late '71 or early '72 (Charlie was still in the band). It was an old converted 2-story farmhouse at about 76th and Mission Rd, just south of Shawnee Mission East High School, called “Stone House.”
There were two bands, one upstairs and one downstairs. The other band was called, "Beowulf." When we took a break I went to check them out. The guitar player only used one scale - Minor Pentatonic. He had some chops, but what he would do is solo in one position, then flip the pickup switch on the guitar to get a different sound, and move the same pattern 12 frets up to make it an octave higher.
I was like, “You might be foolin’ these people but you can’t fool me! I know what you’re doing!”
Looking back on it, I have more compassion; we all gotta start somewhere.
The stories are endless. Dave and I became very good friends. Drug use was inculcated into the scene at the time and a lot of our activities involved or revolved around it. For maybe not so obvious reasons my nickname was "Reefer.”
Jay = "J" = "joint" = "reefer" - bet my parents never saw that coming when they named me "Jay"!
I have many memories - surreal memories - of Dave and myself spending days and nights in various altered states of consciousness. Good memories; I was naive, the dark side of drug use had yet to manifest. As far as I know, Brad and Charlie were straight. I don't remember about Chuck.
A humorous aside: I remember a conversation with Brad Waldo about why he wouldn't smoke weed. He told me he wanted to be the President of the United States and if he got caught smoking weed it would disqualify him from the office! What he didn't realize is that all you have to do is say,
“But I did not inhale!” (See: Bill Clinton.)
Dave and I had another band, an acoustic trio, with a guy named Greg Hill. We all sang and played acoustic guitars. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, John Sebastian, Arlo Guthrie and the like were the order of the day. That group was called, “Timberline” and, yes, Dave came up with that name too.
It's a frustration to me that I can't come up with any pictures of Dave from this era.
As time progressed and we became more experienced we began to play bigger gigs - like opening for regional and national bands, playing concerts and events at larger venues with multiple bands on the bill and so on. By this time Charlie was gone (don't remember why - maybe his dad drew the line at out-of-town gigs?) and Jackie Barrett had replaced him.
Jackie was a year younger than me, a wonderful bass player/singer and a beautiful girl on top of everything else. She added a lot to the band!
Some of our gigs involved road trips where we would take off with a couple of cars and a trailer. Speed was consumed to stay awake and then weed on top of that to mellow out (I never took the speed; I didn't like "uppers,” that was Dave’s thing. I was a weed/opiate kind of guy), a day or three without a shower or bath (filthy hippies!). We would sleep in the car or on the floor at somebody's house, partaking of the "local color." If we made any money it was negligible - probably enough for gas and food and that was about it.
I don’t think we ever officially broke up. I played in other bands, much of the time more than one at a time - I've always been a gig-whore!
So, with all the variables, and the fog (both literal and mental) of all the pot and various drugs that were commonplace in those times and in those circles, my memory cannot come to certainty concerning the details. I have a lot of visual memories, of playing here and there with different groups but the names of the bands, the gigs, and the people are all kind of scrambled up – like my brain at the time.
I do know that one of those "other bands" was a trio with drummer/vocalist Brian Scott and bassist Bill King. We called ourselves "Virgin Rainbow." It didn't have the connotations then that it would now! As far as I know, no pictures exist but in 2024 we reunited at Kansas City’s Southwest High School Class of '74 50th Reunion Jam:
Anyway, getting back to Open Road Conspiracy; after a year or two, Dave volunteered and joined the Navy for a 3-year stint to avoid the draft and the possibility of having to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. Since I was younger than him, I didn’t have to face that prospect until later. I talk about my strategy in relation to Vietnam at the end of Tribute to Ed Bickert.
The night before Dave left for the Navy we partied all night. As we were laying on the driveway the last thing I remember him saying before passing out was,
“Wow, man - look at all those stars!
Open Road Conspiracy replaced Dave with a friend of his, who shall remain nameless. There were several areas of incompatibility.
Turned out that this friend and I didn’t see eye to eye on the musical philosophy of the band. I didn’t agree with how this person said I should play my solos. He was about recreating the record; I was about using the record as a starting point and taking it somewhere different. I talk about the conflict arising from these two differing approaches in Birds of a Feather Flock Together.
Another thing: this guy was gay before most gays were "out." It didn't bother me; I didn't care. However there were several "incidents" with not just myself, but other band members, that looking back on it suggest to me that maybe this guy was somewhat predatory. He was at least 2 years older than any of the rest of us, and two years difference when you're 16 is more significant than when you're 26. Having said that, he never crossed any major boundaries with me, other than I could sense he was angling for it - and so I would cut him off at the pass every time.
More importantly, this person had taken the place of Dave as my main source for weed. He also introduced me to smoking opium (which I suspect may have been part of his predatory strategy).
In case you’re too young to remember, things in relation to weed were different back then - way different.
Possession of marijuana was a Class A felony; you could go to federal prison for fifty years just for being caught with a roach in your car ashtray. A “roach” was the butt-end of a marijuana cigarette; I don’t know what they're called now.
Therefore, the weed subculture was very close-knit and trustworthy, at least in my experience up to that time. We had our own slang and social cues in order to recognize each other. Nowadays you just go down to the corner dispensary to score.
That's why the following incident was kind of the last straw for me. I thought Dave's friend was my friend, but one day he tried to sell me a nickel bag that was nothing but seeds and stems. At that point I realized he was taking the good stuff and giving me the leftovers, and expecting me to pay him for it. I (finally!) realized he wasn’t my friend and so we parted ways.
After that, by necessity, I started singing lead and Open Road Conspiracy became a 4-piece with myself, Brad, and Jackie sharing the vocal duties.
Dave eventually came back from the Navy (around 1975) but things were never the same. In 1973 (while he was still in the Navy) I had experienced a spiritual awakening as the result of an LSD trip gone horribly wrong (the naïveté was gone by then!) and was no longer doing drugs of any kind, and when Dave returned from the Navy we were both different people - me more than him, I suppose.
We spent a little bit of time together but without the pharmaceutical communion it just wasn’t the same. He married and moved away. I haven’t heard from him since. But I think with fondness about him from time to time and have wondered what became of him.
Brad went on to work in radio; he's retired and living in Florida. I lost track of Chuck. Jackie continued her music career and relocated to Boston among other places. She lived in Australia for a while and is now back in Kansas City. Charlie became an Architect and is retired in Colorado.
In 1973 I reconnected with Charlie and we did quite a few gigs as an acoustic duo for about a year or so. I moved away from Kansas City in 1976 (I returned a year later). The last time I saw Charlie Fielder was in 2009; he was in town and Brian Scott and I met him for lunch and we caught up.
In 1979 I got a call from drummer Chris Symmonds. There was a gig he wanted to play as Open Road Conspiracy. He thought I should be involved since nobody else from the original band was around - we had all scattered to the 4 winds.
I agreed and Open Road Conspiracy played one more gig at Manor Hall in Kansas City.
It was the last gig anyone played under that name – as far as I know. The band was myself, a girl singer name Jamelle Qualls, Bill King on bass, Joe Nickell on keyboards and sax, and Chris Symmonds on drums. It was a one-shot deal. According to the poster, we were the headliner - which seems kind of strange seeing as how that unit was put together for that one gig only.
We rehearsed the night before (I still have a recording of the rehearsal) and then played the gig and that was it.
My memory is that we were opening for the Fabulous Thunderbirds but there's nothing on the poster indicating that. I'm obviously confused. I probably opened for the Fabulous Thunderbirds somewhere else, sometime else, with a completely different band. I have a vague memory of meeting guitarist Jimmy Vaughan (he was a founding member) before his brother, Stevie Ray Vaughan, became famous.
In September of 2009, in response to an Open Road Conspiracy webpage, I received this email from England:
Greetings!
Way back in 1981-2-3 period in Southern England, I played bass in a hard rock band that inherited the name of an earlier incarnation, a country-rock semi-pro outfit we played around workingmen's clubs in North London. We called it Open Road Conspiracy - a name I know for sure I invented for myself!!
The weird thing is, the hard rock version, we had an English guitarist playing a red SG called John, I think Riggins was his last name. And he looks exactly like the bloke in this picture....
Small world, or weird coincidence?
Cheers, Nick Peck
My Response:
Coincidence. I have never been in England. That picture was taken in the early seventies, 10 years before your band of the same name. The Open Road Conspiracy I was in was named by the lead singer in the band, Dave Dayringer. We played mostly in the Midwest of the US.
Apparently there was/is an English guitarist named John Riggins who looks like me! I would love to meet him.
In the Spring of 2025 I decided to try and find Dave Dayringer, intending to make contact and catch up. Unfortunately, I waited too long. I found that he had died on February 21, 2023 in Little Rock, Arkansas at age 68. Sadness.
Turns out he had quite a successful and illustrious career as a firefighter, first in Tulsa, where he spent 28 years and retired in 2009 as a Deputy Fire Chief. Then he joined the Fire Department of Fayetteville, Arkansas as Fire Chief in 2010. He was there for over 9 years.
According to his obituary,
"David had a musical gift. He and his brother Steve played coffee houses in their teenage years and played music with his equally gifted cousins, in Gold Dust; and with Steve later in life in The Dayringer Duo."
So in spite of his full-time Fire Department career, he apparently never stopped doing the music.
I wish I had made the effort to find him earlier than I did.
P.S. This is the only picture of Dave I could find wherein he looks more or less like he did in the early seventies. This picture is probably at least fifteen years after the Open Road Conspiracy era. The guitar is a Gibson Hummingbird, which is what he played when I knew him.
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