The Boyzz were the Midwest kids that were too wild to tame! Their story goes back to the days when they were playing in high school bands in west suburban St. Charles.
Singer Dan Buck (nee Dan Buyck) says he started singing when he was just four years old, performing for his dad and his army buddies at the local VFW hall, and continued in church choirs until he was a teenager. “When high school came around, I thought I wanted to be a drummer,” he remembers. His high school days found him migrating through a number of bands – The Lower Zone, Eastside Apple Tree, and the Berlin Airlift.
One night when he went down to a local teen club, the band’s drummer didn’t show up. “They made an announcement that if anyone could play the drums, but before I could get up there some skinny little kid whose big sister was dating one of the guys in the band, was already up there.” Not expecting much, “when he started playing, he sounded ten times better than I ever could! The very next week I sold my drums and focused on singing and hooked up with that skinny little kid and started a band called the Weed.” The drummer was Kent Cooper, who would eventually be an integral part with Buck in the formation of The Boyzz.
The Weed didn’t last long, as Buck was drafted, spending the next two years in the service.
Meanwhile, Cooper had connected with another St. Charles native, bassist Dave Angel. That resulted in the formation of Ultima Thule along with Rich Wigstone (guitar), Dan Smith (piano) and John Krahenbuhl (organ). Borrowing the name from literature, the connotation meaning “the furthest possible place habitable in the world,” the high school quintet played locally in the early ‘70s. After graduating, linked up with a Wisconsin booking agency and decided to move to Milwaukee. They found a 14-room Victorian mansion in Milwaukee where they lived, rehearsed, wrote, and started to tour the Midwest covering groups like the Beatles, Eagles, Pink Floyd, as well as Crosby, Stills and Nash.
“It was a great time,” remembers Angel. “We were 17 and 18-year olds just trying to find ourselves. The good thing about Wisconsin is there’s a bar on every corner so plenty of places to play. And usually we’d be booked for a week and many of the clubowners actually had housing for the band.”
When Buck returned from his military obligation he formed Cock ‘n’ Bull, “playing every dump and dive there was for three years,” he remembers. While the band went through numerous personnel changes, the final lineup included EZ Dave Haines (sax, harmonica) and Mike Kane (bass). Guitarist Gil Pini, who had been working with the local band Black Cat, would join in. “We were a blues-rooted rockin’ boogie band,” noted Buck.
Ultima Thule would often head back to St. Charles to visit home. There conversations between old friends Buck and Cooper took place about new directions. As Ultima Thule was more of a melodic rock style with strong vocal harmonies, the vision of Cock ‘n’ Bull was leaning toward a heavier, harder rock sound. With that Cooper, Angel and Wigstone from Ultima Thule merged with Buck and Pini in the creation of The Boyzz.
“Our new direction was going to be a much harder rock edge, so we decided to bring in another guitar,” remembers Buck. Wigstone just didn’t have a hard enough edge on his playing style. “Gil suggested an old high school buddy of his, Mike Tafoya.”
There was still one more piece to fit. The very first version of the Boyzz included keyboardist Tim Hopkins. But he did not stay long, leaving because of other obligations he had. Putting out a call for a keyboard player, answering was Anatole Halinkovich, previously with Zipperfoot. That was 1975 and the Boyzz from Illinoiz was complete.
“We gave ourselves five years to get a national record deal,” notes Buck. “We did it in three.”
Managed by Jon Poulos, former drummer with the Buckinghams, he secured relationships with Steve Popovich from Cleveland International Records, along with Al DeMarino from Epic/Columbia. Popovich had just started up the Cleveland International label and was enjoying success with his first signing, Meatloaf, looking for fresh talent. The Boyzz fit that bill.
There was no lack of energy from the Boyzz. Lead singer “Dirty” Dan Buck with his raspy, growling, in-your-face vocals lead their Midwest “biker boogie” sound epitomized by the album’s title track, “Too Wild Too Tame” https://youtu.be/9aHCp8TK_Tw. There was Mike Tafoya’s hard-driving lead guitar and rock image, matched by Pini’s dueling guitar. Bass player Dave Angel whipping his waist-length hair like a hurricane. And the “mad Russian” Anatole Halinkovich literally destroying his Hammond B-3 on stage.
Buck would yell, “What you say?” “Phuc-in-ay” crowds screamed responding to “Lean and Mean,” “Wake It Up, Shake It Up,” “Shady Lady” and other songs from their repertoire that became club anthems.
The band had started working on their second album, a live recording tentatively titled Midwest Kids, when changes in management put a rift in their relationship with their label, brought a dissension among band members, and put an end to the Boyzz.
As Pini recalled, “There had been a few mistakes we made in our careers that we had to suffer for. Some of them were made by us. Some of them were made by our management. We just started getting too many different opinions, too many little things started boiling under everyone’s skin, and they all burst at once.”
As the band splintered, Angel, Cooper, Halinkovich and Tafoya enlisted Chicago club stalwart and former Hounds vocalist/guitarist Tommy Holland and drummer Stephen Riley, who had been working with Roadmaster in Indiana, in the creation of the B’zz. Buck and Pini recruited guitarist Danny Hurc and bass player Mickey Gentile from the Pearl Handle band, along with drummer Scott Kelly from Black Cat, forming Dirt’s Raiders.
The B’zz headed in a more Midwest pretty-boy power pop direction. They became the only unsigned band to ever appear on American Bandstand https://youtu.be/6PzmxZU5kUM with that appearance stirring label interest. Signing with Epic they released Get Lucky in 1981 supported by the MTV-aired video for “Get Up, Get Angry” https://youtu.be/WK-XOHCsLek, their album debuted on the Billboardcharts at #38. Epic released the single “Too Much to Ask For” https://youtu.be/58sjJSxRcyQwhich garnered some radio airplay, although it was questioned why they didn’t support the video track instead. Ultimately, with labels issuing a barrage of new artists trying to find the next big hit, The B’zz got lost in the pile. “It was just bad timing,” recalls Angel. “We weren’t hard rock, we weren’t new wave, we weren’t pop. The label couldn’t decide where to place us.” A year later, The B’zz were history.
Dirt’s Raiders signed a deal with Atlantic Records, recording the album Back the Attack, but the label never released it. With that, Pini departed. “I was going broke,” he said in an interview in the Illinois Entertainer.
In the meantime, Dave Haines re-teamed with Mike Kane from the Cock’n’ Bull days adding guitarist Dana French and drummer Mike Hoge in the creation of Deluxury. Once the Dirt’s Raiders deal fell through and the B’zz were dropped from Epic, manager Dan Davis was instrumental in bringing Cooper and Pini in replacing French and Hoge, along with adding keyboardist Denny Daniels from Freeze. Their blend of uptempo, good-time “let’s have fun” rhythm & blues built a strong regional fan base. As much as their music, their success also stemmed from Kane and Haines business sense. They developed a business plan for the band. Owning their own gear so they weren’t losing money renting. Getting a sponsorship from Miller High Life to support them. And, what he termed as key – enjoying themselves and entertaining their audiences. “None of the people in the band are trying to be the best at what instrument or what position they play. Everybody is just trying to play together and have a good time.” Manager Dan Davis next suggested the band cut an album to sell during their summer festival and state fair dates, with the self-titled project Deluxury (Hot Vinyl) picking up record store distribution through M.S. Distributing. Deluxury enjoyed a six-year run but when the recession hit in 2006 corporate sponsorships dried up as did the good paying jobs the band struggled on. Gil Pini got married and decided it was time for him to settle down, replaced by Jimi Kidd. Finnally the writing was on the wall and the band decided to go their separate ways in life.
Meanwhile, Buck continued pushing the sound that made the Boyzz so popular, with Dirty Dan’s Original Sinners, including longtime Chicago club stalwarts guitarist John Abel (Arson), basisst Ron Anaman (Trillion), keyboardist Ted Pitzen, guitarist David Carl and drummer Chip Holloway. And Tafoya teamed with Angel, adding Trace Zabar from the local band Casanova and Pete Pagonis from Hammeron, taking more of a metal-edged direction with T&A.
When T&A talked about heading west to search out a deal, Angel decided it was time to face the reality of having given it a shot, time to raise a family and get a real job. He went into the health care business where he spent the next 30 years. Then Gil Pini and Mike Tafoya took positions in a different segment of the music industry, going to work as product managers for Gibson Guitars.
There was a short-lived attempt to revive the original band in 1992 with Buck, Pini and Tafoya touring briefly as the New Boyzz with Robert Perales on bass and Eric Goins on drums.
Since that time “Dirty” Dan Buck has continued that Boyzz biker band image with various lineups as the Dirty Dan Band, Spirit of the Boyzz, the Cool Rockin’ Daddies, Small Change, and currently as One of the Boys https://www.facebook.com/oneoftheboyzz/.
Mike Tafoya has lead Raw Dogs and Tafoya’s Lost Boyzz, currently fronting the hard rock power trio Tafoya https://www.facebook.com/groups/302819256757951/ with drummer Craig Cederholm and Leslidiana Biocic on bass. They’ve released their new onslaught of music with the album Freedom which kicked off with an official video for the lead track “Boogie with Me” https://youtu.be/9WArtnJtc8k and currently touring the regional club circuit.
Dave Angel never really left music behind. He opened a small project studio in Aurora.
All five members of Ultima Thule including Cooper and Angel reunited in 2008 as The Willing (https://www.thewillingband.com/). Working out of Angel’s recording Rave Recording studio, they have produced five albums which they categorize as “original music in the adult alternative/Americana arena” with Unfinished Business in 2010, Alive & Willing in 2011, Right Direction in 2016, E*motion in 2018; and their new album Full Circle They also have a number of digital singles to their credit including “Ancient Astronauts,” “Angels Sing (of Christmas”), and “Wonderful Life.”
When keyboardist Anatole Hanlinkovich left the Boyzz, he changed his working/stage name to Tony Hall and went on to a solo career. He wound up creating soundtracks for film and television, most notably for scoring the entire run of the early ‘90s TV series “America’s Most Wanted.” Unfortunately, he has since passed away. Sadly, Denny Daniels from Deluxury has also passed.
After the demise of Deluxury Dave Haines bought a houseboat and spent five years living on the Mississippi River. He’s back now and started performing again in the western suburbs with the Chicago Blue Dadds. These days he’s re-united with Dan Buck as One of the Boyzz.
The Boyzz will long be remembered as “Too Wild to Tame” has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Memories of the Boyzz can be found on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/toowildtotame/