I left the service in 1976, settled back in Cleveland, and like everyone else, I got a job. I had stayed in touch with Jim, and we reminisced about the band, but it wasn’t until 1980 that we decided to put something together. My wife was pregnant with our second daughter, and I was looking for a second source of income to prepare for the addition of another family member. The concept was that we would play one or two nights a week, preferably on weekends. Jim got to work recruiting a band. Jerry was living in Florida, so he was out of the picture. Gus was working hotel management and couldn’t spare the time, so Jim recruited Roland from the original Squires and Doug McCutcheon, the former keyboard player from The Baskerville Hounds. On drums Jim found Tom Napier. Roland was a talented overall great musician gifted with perfect pitch. Doug was, and still is, the best keyboard player I have ever heard. We didn’t stay together long because the club owners weren’t satisfied with just booking us on weekends, so we disbanded. Before moving on, give a listen to what we sounded like in 1980. Once again, that same old reel-to-reel-recorder!
I wound up moving to northern Kentucky, and then, after a divorce, moved to New Jersey where I took a job with the Federal Government and wound up hooking up with a lovely lady I had known since I was a teenager. We subsequently married, retired, and moved to Florida where we have remained since.
Through all that, Jimmy and I remained in touch. We each had small recording studios in our homes and could easily collaborate by emailing song tracks to one another and sharing ideas for new material. We recorded stuff Jim wrote, stuff I wrote, and stuff we wrote together.
Over the years we lost some of our bandmates. Tom Kent, from the original Jaguars, and Tom Napier, Gus DeAngelo, and Bobby Dillinger from the City Squires all passed away. Jim and I eventually realized that the new recordings really had no place in this Website, so we decided on a new name. Due to our age, Jim felt himself to be an old Geezer, and I commented that I felt like an old Koot. And GeeZerKooTz was born. I have placed a link to GeeZerKooTz.com below. There you will find the music and videos that Jim and I have written and recorded, as well as more recent photos of us. That in itself is worth clicking to the other site!!! There is also a brief history of the City Squires, which you have already seen here.
On a previous page of this Website titled “Music” I have uploaded most of the studio recordings we did. Because most of them were copied from acetate demos, the quality is not great. But, as a wise man once said, “It is what it is”. I hope you enjoyed your visit.