On the origins of the band Sweet Wine:

The story of the band is also the story of two rival cities five miles apart on the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. The primary employment of the population was open pit iron ore mining by U.S. Steel, Jones and Laughlin, and Eveleth taconite. Eveleth and Virginia were longtime sports rivals in football and especially hockey. The men of the mines worked hard and drank hard in the numerous bars that lined the main streets of both cities. The film North Country with Charlize Theron is a good example of what the mining life was like. In the mid to late sixties, there wasn't alot for the youth to do except hang out on Virginia's main drag. It was like a scene from American Grafitti with kids in cars going up and down the street. Two men started production companies to cash in on the rock and roll phenomena started by the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, when kids across America picked up guitars and drums.

They started holding teen dances at the local National Guard armories, bringing in bands from the twin cites. As wanna-be rockers we had the great chance to see The Litter, Crow, The Jokers Wild, The Unbelievable Uglies as well as our own Range bands, The Electras from Ely, Virginia's own Tomorrow's Children and The Small Society. Understand for those of us not athletically inclined and chose to pick up an instrument, the musical community in these two small cities merged in mutual friendship, unlike the hockey games that could end up in fist fights among our classmates. Some even carried their rivalries to the teen dances where it wasn't unusual to see a fight break out in the middle of kids dancing.

So, back to Sweet Wine. I met bassist John "Ozzie" Oberstar from mutual friends in Eveleth. As I said, it was a small group of musicians. We both came from a psychedelic band we called The Cranberry Armada. We had the Nehru suits, scarves, beads and bell-bottoms. The group disolved following the death of lead guitarist Mike Doyle in a car accident. The guys in the band were all two years older than myself, I sang and nobody else wanted to! So, we heard of this guy Semi in Virginia and had the chance to go over to meet some of the local musicians. He was a guitar player and had a band of his own. I was expecting with a name like Semi to meet a large individual. Come to find out his last name was Simetkoski, hence shortened to Semi. He was about 5'8 and very charismatic. Through him I made the acquaintance of one of my very best friends from my youth, Michael "Meatball" Sachetti, an excellent drummer. The Iron Range was settled by immigrants to the US and Italians, Slovaks, Finns, and Croatians worked side by side.

So to this mix came a new kid in town, Cal Haluptzok. His family came from the upper peninsula town of Marquette, Michigan. His father's business had relocated to Virginia hence the move. Cal was an outstanding guitarist and brought with him his love of Eric Clapton as well as the Detroit scene bands we hadn't heard of. Like The MC5, Savage Grace, SRC, The Amboy Dukes and The Stooges. We took the name Sweet Wine from the song on Cream's first album. Our song list consisted of a mash-up of tunes from heavy blues to early punk like the 5. We only could play teen dances as none of us were old enough to get into bars, though we'd sneak some beers or smoke a joint sometimes before playing.

"Semi" decided he wanted to be our manager and encouraged us to make a record he could use for promotion. So Cal and I wrote a couple tunes, we all contributed to the lyrics sitting on Semi's couch, and off we went to Sound 80 studios in Minneapolis. The record was done in a four hour session with the vocal by me being the only overdub. The track was all cut live in one pass with Cal's guitar solos on the spot. A black Gibson Les Paul Custom into a Fender Super Reverb. After some time of playing teen dances, the group just disintegrated from no forward progress. Meatball and I went on to form Hooke with another friend Mike Lemieux and we did the trio thing playing songs by Cream, The James Gang, Hendrix, and Black Sabbath, believe it or not. One of the strangest memories I have is playing "War Pigs" at a local ski resort in the evening for the skiers' apres' ski. Thanks to Face Book, I've been able to stay in contact with Mike, Ozz, and Semi. What happened to Cal no one seems to know. I had heard he had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized, though that may just be rumor. I hope he's still playing, he was brilliant.

David Maki -

I was born on a snowy day in Virginia Minnesota, 1952. My father worked two jobs. In the early morning he delivered milk and dairy products for Kangas Jacobsen dairies and in the afternoon/evening he worked at a local gas station. My mother was a secretary for the local Civil Defense department in the basement of the Eveleth library. In the 50's, America lived with the possibility of a nuclear attack and had stores and provisions located throughout the city. My first exposure to music that really resonated with me was hearing Roy Orbison on my little transistor radio at night. The song was "It's Over" and I thought it was the most beautiful melody I had heard. Roy's plaintive singing and heartbreak came across through my tiny little speaker pressed up to my ear. My uncle Lyle, my mother's younger brother, 15 years my senior, turned me on to the Everly brothers and I loved their harmonies. I got the same chill when I first heard The Beatles harmonies, straight from the Everlys.

My father quit his dairy job to attend a new program in computer programming at Hibbing junior college and kept his night job at the gas station. This would end up landing him a job in Minneapolis for Sperry-Rand and he would commute weekly from the Range to work, a distance of 200 miles. Eventually he was transferred to Washington D.C. to work at the Pentagon. We moved to Arlington, Virginia where I met my second cousin Brian, another devoted Beatle maniac. He was further along on guitar and showed me what he knew and we learned together, dissecting Beatle records. Arlington was where I attended seventh grade and made my first foray into garage rock. A few friends gathered at the cool kids garage and we thought we were IT. Especially when the audience consisted of the neighborhood girls. We played "Gloria", "Satisfaction" "Hanky Panky" and some of the other hits of the day. The first electric guitar I had was a Sears Silvertone with the amp in the case that my parents bought for me for the price at the time of $35.00. They're going for much more these days. Brian and I would peruse the few pages in the Sears and Montgomery Wards catalogs that featured instruments and amps. Funnily enough, I ended up with an Airline three pickup Valco fiberglass model in white with a Bigsby vibrato that I traded off and thanks to Jack White their value went through the roof!

So after a year, my parents missed their friends in Minnesota and dad took a job in Hibbing with the Hanna mining company as a systems analyst. I remember visiting his office once and seeing a bunch of women making punch cards to feed these huge computers that had reels of tape. In later years my dad would tell me when I showed him my PC that I had more power in that little box than he had in that whole room of computers. He really saw the advancement in data processing. Were he alive today, he'd say the same things about our cellular phones these days! So, I'm back with my childhood friends in Eveleth and this is when I met my musician friends that were a little older than me. John Oberstar was another Beatle fanatic and had a beautiful Rickenbacker hollow body bass. After some whealing and dealing with guitars, I acquired a Fender Telecaster from a local teenager that gave it up for $175.00 Wish I hadn't sold it, it was a late 50's or early 60's in Coral pink. DOH! This was before there was such a thing as "Vintage", to me it was just an old guitar.

This was the formative years for the Cranberry Armada, our foray into psychedelia. Our song list was Hendrix, Spirit, Moby Grape, and of course the Beatles. We played the local teen dances and high school gymnasiums around the Range, driven by our good friend Bruno, the only one that had his own car. My dad would offer us use of his pickup truck to haul our gear, trusting one of the guys to drive, though he did drive us to Ironwood, Michigan once. This was when the band split up and Mike Sachetti, John Oberstar, and myself met newcomer Cal Haluptzok and formed Sweet Wine. We got together in Cal's basement to rehearse. I can't honestly say I recall our first gig, though I do recall playing the upstairs Chisholm community center because we had to haul our gear up those stairs! That may have been partially the reason we broke up! Ozzie had a Dual Showman cabinet with two 15 in. JBL's, and Cal had a custom cabinet with two EV SRO 12's. Both HEAVY!

This photo was taken the day Sweet Wine recorded their lone single on Arcaide circa: 1970 (below).

Following Sweet Wine, Mike and I formed a power trio with Mike Lemieux on bass called Hooke. We played teen dances and rec centers, we were still too young for the bars, though when Wisconsin dropped their drinking age to 18, we would sojourn to Superior to party. Following graduation I attended Jr. College for one quarter, dropped out, and was promptly drafted. This was during the Viet Nam conflict and I decided to enlist in the Navy. It was either 2 years in the army or 3 in the Navy. I figured I had a better chance of staying alive on a boat than dodging bullets in a rice paddy. I had an older friend that came back with nerve damage from Agent Orange and was never the same. I served aboard the U.S.S. Guam. A small carrier that was designed for helicopters and marine squadrons to be lifted to hot spots in close. We were based in Norfolk, VA and did a lot of training for the pilots, though I did get to spend two weeks in Lisbon, Portugal. I'm also an official "Blue Nose" serving a tour up inside the Arctic circle.

After the Navy, I got back into music with my friends Mike Lemieux on bass, Steve Sandstedt on drums, and Tim Cerar and myself on guitars. This was the band "Skyler". Mike and Tim would play significant roles in the rest of my music career. So the band line-up of "Skyler" with Steve on the drums was short lived, though Steve would return later. He joined another local band with the Driscoll brothers Bob and Dennis. This would have been around 1975. We knew of a drummer from Biwabik named Mike Koski and asked if he'd like to join Mike, Tim and myself in the band. He had seen us perform at teen dances at his end of the Range and we were good friends. Now we were old enough to get into the bars and able to rock the dance floors. One night in Ely a girl came through the side door facing the stage, our eyes met, and it was love at first sight. We immediately hit it off and spent as much time together as we could. Peggy's parents were very cool about letting me stay at their home when I would make the 60 mile drive to see her. Skyler's song list consisted of two harmony guitar bands like Wishbone Ash, Thin Lizzy, Climax Blues Band, and the first Fleetwood Mac group.

If you're starting to see a pattern here of groups banding and dis-banding, you're not too far off the mark. I'm not sure of the reasons after all these years, lineups seemed to always be in a state of flux. I now found myself between bands and needed a gig. One of the largest clubs in the area became the place to party during the disco era. The owner was a real gentleman and gave me a job as a d.j. for the patrons that came to dance. For the guys that hung at the bar, I would slip in some Cheap Trick or Jeff Beck in lieau of The Bee Gee's. The disco trend was never popular on the Range, they loved to rock. Can you imagine blue collar miners dancing to disco? Bizarre indeed! The groups that came through the area were typical commercial show bands. And one night while I was d.j. before the band started, the groups guitarist quit on the spot. I volunteered my services, they gave me an audition, and I was in. The problem was they were based in upstate New York.

It was a leap of faith that Peg's parents let her go with me. We loaded up my van with my gear, P.A. and our personal belongings and hit the road. After a week of rehearsal, the drummer, Lyle, asked if I would accompany him to Hazleton, Pennsylvania and form a new band. He'd been with the leader of the group for awhile and wasn't happy. He said once you get to know him, he's a real s.o.b. So off we went to Hazleton. The group we formed was called "Peaches and Cream" because we had a girl singer named Pam, not peaches. The bass player Joey was a good singer and front man so the duo of he and Pam were visually entertaining. The other guitarist, Jimmy, and I covered the guitar and keyboard parts, and Lyle was a solid drummer, able to do the disco backbeat that was so relevant to that form. We played around the area lounges and clubs and were always working. Some of the most memorable gigs were playing the honeymoon resorts of the Poconos. Newlyweds would come in, drink for the first two sets, then head back to their rooms leaving the bar empty. The manager would then come to us and say "that's it, guys. you can quit. Here's your money". We'd get paid for a full night and only play for half. Easy money.

Peg and I were renting a small upstairs apartment and it was very lean times. Between rent and my van payment there was not a lot left. The music I was playing was not to my liking. Aerosmith's first album had come out and for Christmas, Peg gave me Tommy Bolin's solo album "Teaser" and I gave her a carton of cigarettes. That's how broke we were. So, Jimmy and I, being the guitarists wanted to rock out. Totally against what the others in the band wanted. They were content to work and didn't mind playing disco. In the days off, Jimmy and I would jam in Lyle's basement with Lyle's brother on Hammond organ and a guy from the Philippines named Sandy on drums. In my subversive way I convinced Jimmy and Sandy that I knew a guy in Minnesota that would be great on guitar if Jimmy would consider playing bass, and we could gig around the Range. They both said that sounded like a good idea and back to Minnesota we headed.

This band became "Skyler" mark 2. We used the name because Tim and I had established it in the clubs. My parents had divorced and my mother was generous enough to let Jim and Sandy room in her basement, where we also rehearsed. Our song list was made up of Aerosmith, Thin Lizzy, Sweet, Queen, and some of Johnny Winter And with Rick Derringer. Jim and Sandy eventually found a cheap apartment in Virginia upstairs of a store. In a similar story, Jimmy was homesick and Sandy started drinking. Enough to where it would affect his performance, so back to Pennsylvania went Jim, and Sandy moved in with a girl that got him to clean up his act and start a solo career. He had an excellent voice and could play guitar as well, and established himself as a fixture on the Range lounge circuit.

So while Peg and I were in Pennsylvania, Tim and Mike Lemieux formed a trio with drummer Rick Spolar, son of one of the promoters I spoke of earlier. They called themselves "Epic". But like the story goes, they were not together very long. Rick had known some guys from the towns of Hibbing and Chisholm, one in particular a very unassuming keyboardist named Al Oikari that would later join Minneapolis' Big Wu and tour the country. When Rick, Mike and I jammed with Al in Rick's garage, we all felt a great musical connection and thought this could really go places. Where, from northern Minnesota, we had no idea, but the music was really tight. We had our own P.A. and light guys and bought an old school bus that we retro-fitted with some old seats from an old Greyhound bus, and installed a wall to put the equipment in the back. After much rumination on coming up with a name, we decided on "Scarlet" just throwing out colors.

Peggy and I got married and rented a small upstairs apartment in Virginia, though we would separate for a short period of time. Here I was, 24 and married and still playing bars six nights a week, getting home late or sometimes not for a week. Scarlet's song list was pretty prog rock for the time. We were doing songs by Genesis, Nektar, The Alan Parson's Project, The Jeff Beck Group, Aerosmith, as well as Led Zeppelin. Al was a brilliant keyboardist and his piano intro to Beck's "Going Down" always brought down the house. People would actually cheer when he would slip the Linus and Lucy Peanuts song in the middle. So, as fate came calling, we picked up a hitch hiker on our way home. He was heading back to Canada and asked if we had ever played up there. He gave us the name of the Hungry I booking agency in Winnipeg and said we should contact them to get some gigs. So we put together a promo pack and sent it off to them. They arranged some gigs for us, one in particular in Winnipeg to see us live. One of the agents, Linda Zagazewski was impressed with us and could see an opportunity to manage us. Since we had no management and Linda could get us gigs, we emphatically said yes. So began our Canadian adventure.

So here we were working with The Hungry I agency in Winnipeg and traveling across Canada from Regina, Saskatchewan where we opened in a club for Mitch Ryder and his group, to the college in Thunder Bay, Ontario. In Canada, there are no "bars" like the States, they're all hotels with "pubs", reasoning being if the patrons are too drunk to drive they can get a room to sleep it off. State run liquor stores are the only place you can buy alcohol to consume at home, unlike here where you can buy alcohol just about anywhere and any time. This worked out well for us because rooms were always included if we played the pubs. Having Linda as our manager we were always working, though due to immigration laws we had to return to the states every three months for at least two weeks. Fortunately, she was able to get us gigs down home so we were making her commission and well as the agency's. One of my most memorable gigs was a one-nighter in the small nickel mining town of Thompson, Manitoba, four hundred fifty miles north of Winnipeg. The town was up near the tundra and we were going there in December! The population was primarily miners and their families and the businesses to support them.

They didn't have much in the way of entertainment, having only a movie theater, so our audience was made up of everyone from young children to aging grandparents. They were all so very appreciative of someone making the trek up to see them, they treated us very graciously. In the morning, when it came time to leave, it was forty degrees below zero. The bus was so cold it wouldn't start so we had to get an aluminum pie pan and put some lit charcoal briquets under the oil pan to warm up the oil enough to start and head back. It was such a desolate drive that when you had a chance to get gas, you'd better fill up. Getting stranded on that road would be a death sentence, no one would find you for days. During this time Peg was living with my mother in Eveleth and visiting me in Winnipeg when she could. On one of her visits she informed me we were expecting. I hadn't given a thought to having a family and once I realized I would be a father, it changed me. Suddenly I would be responsible for a little human life. My son was born in January, 1979 and after attending his birth and getting he and Peg settled with my mother, I headed back to Canada. Mom was overjoyed to be grandma and loved taking care of a baby again. I was an only child and 26 years old by this time, well beyond nurturing.

The band's vision and Linda's vision finally came to loggerheads at some point. We took ourselves seriously as musicians and Linda wanted to market us to teen girls as the next pretty boy band. This was particularly offensive to Al, he took himself quite seriously and didn't want to be a poster on a teen girl's wall. Pete Frampton was never taken seriously after his "Live" album cover, though he had a stellar reputation with Humble Pie as a rocker. Our poster was indicative of Linda's vision. There we were in satin clothes and I think we actually had make-up applied in the photo shoot. So with the conflict with Linda and my desire to be with my new son, I told the guys I was leaving for Minnesota. That was the tipping point, if I was leaving, so was Al. Michael came back soon after, but Rick stayed on in Winnipeg and joined a local group aptly called "The Freeze".

The next chapter in my musical journey was the formation, with Tim, Michael and myself, of The Flyboys. Again, Steve Sandstedt was the original drummer, and deja 'vu he again quit to go to California and Mike Koski again took his place. This was the summer of 79 and the mines of the Range were in a period of expansion, so everyone was employed and making good money. We were a rockin' good time band playing the new wave style of music like Rockpile, Elvis Costello, The Cars, and rock and roll classics. Six nights a week we'd play from 9 til 1 and the money was good. The bar owners had packed houses and were very appreciative. In 1980 we decided to make a record to sell at our shows and went to ASI Studios in Minneapolis to record. Our sound man Kelly and I had written a few tunes and we recorded five songs that day, two being covers.

The "A" side was a song called "Jetsetter" and the "B" side had two songs, "Cruel World" and Tim singing the rocker "Hippy, Hippy Shake" which always went down a storm live. Unfortunately, there was a downside to the good times when the liquor flowed freely. A problem developed with Tim and Michael having heated arguments and ended with both Mike's quitting. This would be the last group I would be in with Mike Koski on drums. Mike L. would end up returning to Winnipeg, marrying a Canadian girl and having three sons, though he would return to my story one more time. He lives in Winnipeg to this day and has played in bands there. Mike K. joined another Range band "The Jackets" and did quite well.

Tim and I didn't really have any issues between us so we started looking around for other musicians to carry on with The Flyboys. We'd been playing together for so many years, we intuitively knew each others style and blended well. A young drummer, whom I'd known through his sister, named Rob Halunen was enlisted and Dennis Driscoll (remember him?) a friend from way back took over on bass. We carried on with the new wave music of the day but started adding in some lesser known bands like Split Enz, Fingerprints, Producers, and Novo Combo. Since hardly anyone had heard of these groups we were often asked if we had written their songs. I had a Rickenbacker twelve string so of course The Beatles played heavily in our song list also. During this time I was also attending a trade school during the day in a program called Automated Systems Maintenance. Peg and I had two more girls added to our family and were living in Midway, between Eveleth and Virginia. Feeling the responsibility of a family, I thought I had better get some form of trade education to fall back on. I couldn't see myself playing bars for a living at fifty years old with three kids and a wife.

So The Flyboys mark 2 played around the Range until Tim and Dennis could no longer work together. Don't know what the deal was with Tim and bass players, but he seemed to criticize them unnecessarily. Dennis, being the pro that he was, resigned. This was the end of Flyboys and the start of the short lived band "Skates". It was Tim and I, Rob on drums, Bill Mohar on bass, and Mick Wudinich in front on vocals. I was glad to have someone else to sing lead for a change so I could just play and get a break. I was also toting around a Hammond Porta B organ and Leslie speaker to the dismay of the guys that had to help load the gear. Again, the songs were new wave. Producers, Marshall Crenshaw, Robert Gordon, and TheTremblers for a few. This would be the last group that Tim and I would play guitar together. Mike Lemieux and I wanted to start a rock-a-billy trio called The Stray Cats and began looking for drummers. Virginian Mike Schaefbauer was a few years younger and had attended The Drum Institute in LA and was available to gig. As we rehearsed we realized keys would help fill out the sound, so our old sound-man and songwriting partner Kelly said that he'd just bought a Yamaha DX7 to play around on and if I could teach him a few things that weren't too hard, he'd love to. This became the first iteration of The Advo-cats. We mixed in Stray Cats, Robert Gordon, Elvis and Buddy Holly with The 80's synth/guitar pop like U2, Big Country, Flock of Seagulls, and Duran, Duran. Kind of an odd blend, but the one thing was that all the tunes were danceable, people danced and drank so the bars were happy.

Eventually Kelly quit and we hired another guitar player from Babbitt named Karl Anderson. Karl was a Range music veteran and had played in numerous bands and he sang which was a big plus. We started leaning more to guitar rock again like John Mellencamp and still did the rock-a-billy material. We performed across the Range, but again this line-up was short lived. Drink and attitudes almost brought Michael and Karl to blows, so Michael quit and we were in need of a bassist. My good friend Dennis Driscoll offered his services as long as Tim wasn't involved so he came aboard. The Advo-cats now consisted of Dennis, Mike Schaefbauer on drums, Karl and myself. It wasn't long before Karl became dis-enchanted with the band. He was making the thirty mile drive from Babbitt every day we played so he resigned. Now, just by good fortune, Bruce Schaefbauer, Mike's older brother, another excellent guitarist and singer was available and stepped in right away. He had attended GIT in LA and easily learned our material, but a shift was in the music again. Bruce also played keys opening up our options. We added songs by Tears for Fears, Bryan Adams, Don Henly, and still played Marshall Crenshaw, Producers, and Fingerprints. After nearly completing my vocational program, I began a job search. My father said "You've never liked cold weather, if you're going to make a career move, go somewhere warm."

Again, the hand of fate played it's part. When I had gotten out of boot camp in San Diego I had two weeks to go home for Christmas before reporting for duty in Norfolk. The temperature in San Diego was a beautiful eighty degrees when I got on the plane. Dad picked me up in Minneapolis and it was twenty below zero. A one hundred degree difference! I made my mind up then and there that if I ever had the opportunity to get back to San Diego, I'd jump at it. Peg's parents happened to be visiting her cousin in San Marcos so I asked if they could send me the San Diego help wanted ads from the Sunday paper. Lo and behold, Sony was looking for Automation Technicians for their television CRT manufacturing facility in Rancho Bernardo. I quickly sent them my resume' and they offered me an interview. Long story short, Peg and I flew out, I was offered the job if I could start in two weeks. We found an apartment the day before we were set to leave, flew back to Minnesota, packed up everything in a U-haul, Peg took the kids in the car and I drove the truck. After four days on the road, we arrived in San Diego. Peg's cousin and friends were there to help us unload and get settled. And in 1986, that brought to conclusion my adventures in performing music.

Addendum: In 1996 the original Flyboys had a re-union for Eveleth's fourth of July celebration. The United States Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Eveleth and Tim thought it would be a good idea to make a promotional CD for them. So while I was in Minnesota, we went to Oar Fin studios in Minneapolis and cut a single called "Hockey Town" which was broadcast on television coverage of the US Olympics. That was a surprise and was possible only through Tim's hard work to get it some exposure.

Dakota Brown

David Maki & Mike Sacchetti - Sweet Wine (Part One)

David Maki & Mike Sacchetti - Sweet Wine (Part Two)

Billy Dyer - Ambrose