GONN: '60s Golden Garage Punks Form 'The Loudest Band in Town'

Dirty Water Records continues our weekly dig through the back catalogue to 1967 with Keokuk, Iowa's one and only legends, GONN. Like many garage bands of the '60s, they achieved (slight) international fame beyond anything they attained in their lifetime when their single "Blackout of Gretely" was rediscovered by collectors and reissued in the '80s.

GONN released only a couple singles on tiny local labels in 1966 and 1967. Probably the toughest garage band in Iowa (not that there was an enormous amount of competition), GONN took their inspiration from the raunchiest aspects of the early Rolling Stones, adding the raw, throat-shredding screams that American groups of the kind were wont to use during this period.

Bandleader Craig Moore grew up in Keokuk, along the Mississippi River. Before he learned to play an instrument he hung around other high school rock bands, particularly The Gallows and The Outcasts. Moore was taught how to play bass guitar by Roger Dougherty, bassist of The Outcasts, who gave him three basic lessons and sent him back to The Pagans with "Last Night" by The Mar-Keys and "Steppin' Out" by Paul Revere and The Raiders his only repertoire on the instrument. Moore says he played the three-note bass riff on "Gloria" backwards for six months and nobody knew the difference.

By the summer of 1966, The Pagans consisted of founding members Craig Moore (bass guitar) and Gerry Gabel (organ), plus Gary Stepp (rhythm guitar), also from Keokuk. Rex Garrett (lead guitar) and Brent Colvin (drums) from Fort Madison were in a band together called The Rogues and were added to the band after an impromptu meeting at a Rogues practice during which Rex and Brent simply walked out with Craig, Gerry and Gary and never went back. 

Garrett's mother did not like the band name, so after some discussion, the bandmembers finally settled on "gone" but with a "psychedelicized" spelling, in tribute to a band from Ottumwa that the band admired called MADD, which had a similar all-caps, double-letter spelling (and predates the anti-drunk driving organization MADD). Craig Moore put it: We were throwing words and names around; we were almost the Trees, after The Leaves.

The band appeared at the Iowa State Fair from 1966 to 1968 and finished second in the 1967 competition (behind Echos V). GONN opened for several national acts at the Burlington Memorial Auditorium, including The Trolls, The Mauds, The American Breed and others. GONN put in many appearances in teen centers and Knights of Columbus halls throughout the region, traveling everywhere in a 1951 (or 1952) hearse. They gained renown as the "loudest band in town" and notoriety for performing in front of a large Nazi flag. Following three additional line-up changes in the latter years, the band finally broke up in 1969.

Order GONN "Don't Need Your Lovin" b/w "Death Of An Angel" on 7" vinyl here. ( Limited edition only)