In the beginning...
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    Group Photos
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Member Photos



The band had been an icon in the Delaware Valley music scene for more than 25 years.  Having started as a 10-piece horn band, Whale has built it's success over the years by playing weddings, proms, private parties and clubs up and down the East Coast.  The band has understandably gone through some changes, yet continues to perform with an additional supply of impeccable local area talent.  Over the years WHALE has had the pleasure of opening for such acts as Dave Mason, The Guess Who, Gary US Bonds, Tower of Power, The Spinners, and Average White Band.



We have gathered some pictures to honor the performers who have taken part over the years to provide you with great partytime entertainment, and to visually commemorate some of the many musicians who have performed for you since that time.
If there are members who wish to be included here (we think we got most of you) please send us a photo!

Many of the text and photos seen in this honorary historical section were obtained from Pete Mayforth's and Mark Paris' photo albums which they were nice enough to supply. Thanks Pete and Mark!

"In the beginning...
there were many musicians on the face of the earth. Some were content with their present musical situation; be it performing regularly to huge crowds [in those days, these performances were sometimes called Rock Concerts, and to be the feature act of such a performance was the social ideal of many young, aspiring musicians] or occasionally plunking out a few notes on one of the musical instruments of that particular era.

However, there also existed, scattered throughout the land, a few discontent musicians who had a pang located deep inside themselves, a yearning to become more than themselves, to join together with others of their kind to create their own special brand of music; where the sum of the individuals' efforts and talents blended and gelled, led and followed, and inspired and developed, until the whole becomes much greater than the sum of it's parts.

In northern Delaware, in the summer of 1974 A.D., such a consciousness began to grow. At first, it was just a gentle flow within many individuals in many different directions. The flow waxed and waned, grew and subsided, and changed directions many times, until it gradually began to have substance and form, and after many, many, trials and tribulations slowly began to assume size and shape, although it never remained constant. Thus the flow became an entity, and the entity began to have some small degree of influence on the history of the sun's third planet, and the entity began to need its own special identity.

This collection of ideas, ideals, and personalities was peculiar in its own special way, just as everything is peculiar in some manner, and it tried to identify with its peculiarness. It was a large organism, compared to ints own special subclass, yet it fed on the tiniest of thoughts and technicalities, as small as the plankton in the sea. There were few of it's kind in existence, and the number would probably grow smaller as time progressed. It lived in one medium, and yet took an essential portion of it's lumbering life from another.

Thus, in a somewhat symbolic way, this substance and shape borrowed the name of the largest living earth mammal, one who spent it's life apart from most other mammals, and whose continued existence was somewhat in doubt in the evolution of species at the particular time in the earth's life.

Thus, WHALE began...

The first traces of the group appeared in the summer of 1974 and, memberwise, it became stable in October of '74 with the following members:


Keith Irwin
Derek Forsberg
Derek, I need a photo!

I won't list the various talents (or lack of) of the members of the group, because no one outside the group will ever read this; unless of course we become famous, and then everyone will know already.

All of us were going to the University of Delaware at this time, except for Derek (Derek was still a high school senior and was giving us quite a collective scare about which college he might attend), and the early consensus of the direction of WHALE was to become rich and famous as soon as possible, and to try to stay in school and have a great time while failing to do so; which is a good example of the dream versus reality struggle we were all having at the time.

Although the possibility of doing original material was open to us, with several creative geniuses in our midst, we decided to follow the standard route and play popular music until we became "well established", as they say.

We started out rather humbly, as I suppose most everyone does, practicing in Bob's basement. [We practiced at Mike's for a while in the very early stages and moved to Kenny's basement in December '74]. We began using a Kustom 300 PA system and about 8 microphones and assorted paraphenalia from "Crossroads" which we must eventually pay for ($100) and some microphones, paraphenalia, and 2 V.O.T. cabinets from "Persimmon Hill" which we sort of hope we never have to pay for, and other personally owned equipment, which we already paid for.

Jim, Mark, Ken, and Derek (in order of most done), did most of the early arranging, with everyone else throwing in bits and pieces. We are indebted to Jay Synder for arranging several "Tower of Power" songs, and to Dale Dallatrida for an arrangement and a couple of original songs we intend to perform.

From here on, I will attempt to maintain an accurate finacial account, along with a running commentary of what goes on. A "*" will indicate pieces of trivia." -

DATEVERBAGECREDITS/DEBTSBALANCE
1 Jan 75 Collected $10 from everyone to give us a working balance. Joe lost a bet to Derek, so Joe had to poay Derek's $10 + $90 $90.00
8 Jan Borrowed $625 from Mike Hazuda at 5% annual interest, the total sum to be repaid on or before Aug 31, 1975 + $625 715.00
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