What The Hell Is a Morning Reign?.......

Top Row, Doug "Shad" Heatherington, Bob Baker, Craig "Cac" Chastain, Ric Seaberg
Bottom Row, Gene "Geno" Heliker, Steven "Little Stevie" Tate

What the hell is a morning reign?.....is a question I may have asked myself, back in the day, when those guys up there, including me, were plying our trade as a Northwest Frickin’ Rockin’ Machine from 1966 to 1972. None of us has really been able to pinpoint how we ended up choosing “Morning Reign” as our moniker, maybe it was Cac, who would’ve calmed us down with all the names we were throwing around, and picked one, dammit! I do remember that among the names on our list were The Yellow Brick Road and Peanuts and The Warm Puppies, which of course I favored, since I would’ve been Peanuts. This is the absolute truth people, my memory is golden. I mean for an old coot.

If you google Morning Reign, besides a few entries for The Real Morning Reign, that’s us, and some other entries for The Pretend Mourning Reign, with a “u”, an outfit out of California who coincidentally were attempting to rock about the same time we were, you will find several other entries where “morning reign” is used to describe, well, a reign that happens in the morning, like say, a morning DJ team has left the airwaves, and their “morning reign’ has come to an end. 

When my Morning Reign days were over, I sought out a baker’s apprenticeship in Seattle, and within 4 years, opened up my own bakery in Oregon, which became my tiring livelihood for the next 20 years. Those hours that bakers like me keep, sheesh, up at 2 or 3, and then start crankin’ out the danish and other sweets so that by 7am, when the doors open, your showcases are sparkling with all those goodies, eclairs, doughnuts, napoleons, pies and cakes. I would sometimes stand like a fly on the wall, watching customers ooooh and ahhhhhh, at 7, which was basically past my lunchtime, King of the Bakery, all duck lippy and feeling like I’d accomplished something great. Kind of like my own personal morning reign. So that’s weird. 

Yesterday, Sunday, October 7, 2012, we all traveled to the home of Steven Tate, our illustrious drummer, our Baron of the Backbeat, The Sultan of Sticks, The Maestro of the Metronome, and general all around great guy, to finally get him worked into the 40 minute set we will be doing at The Salem Armory on October 20th. Of course we had a great time just hanging with Steven, and then adding his musical touch to the band is another thing, because when you have a drummer as good as Steve, it is a bit of magic. 

We all met at a rehearsal hall in Bellingham, Washington, and then Steven’s sweetheart Debbie was kind enough to prepare a delightful array of foods for us hungry hardworkin’ rockers.

So that’s The Morning Reign up there, in the Morning Reign 8x10 glossy 2012, the six once slim and sexy heart throbs, who have now thrown down their damn canes, and picked up their damn axes, and who will soon rock ya’ll like your backbone ain’t home. Something like that. 

But one thing is for certain. With Steven drivin’ the bus, we WILL be rockin’ da house.

Website: http://www.ricseaberg.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ric.seaberg.5

CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/m/artist/RicSeaberg

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/ric-seaberg/id7749841

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ric-seaberg

Thinking of you and missing you Larry Sieber!!