Gus Kodros, Remembered (Pt. II)
Featuring Thoughts from Members of The Bishops and Small Ball Paul
Steady, calm. Yet a heavy hitter behind the kit. A person who could keep the van on the road and a player who enjoyed taking part in the writing process. A music fan, through-and-through. Gus Kodros, to those who played with him, was a valued member of any group in which he played.
Let’s start with a bit of discussion on Gus The Drummer… nay, Gus The Musician, before seguing into Gus The Person.
“Gus was a very solid drummer, with great tempo,” says Fritz Beer of The Bishops. “We played everything too fast in those days, but that's what we did and Gus held it. Years later when we did reunion shows, we acknowledged that we played good songs too fast and we slowed them down a touch and made them better. Gus was still utterly solid. As far as song writing, every song that came in, no matter who brought it in, got the same treatment. The bare bones would come in and we would all attack it in our own way. Gus was a writer of our songs as much as anybody.”
Small Ball Paul’s Maureen Relling, the bassist throughout that group’s history, remembers her eventual rhythm section partner by saying “Gus was just easy to work with; as the other half of his rhythm section, I always knew he’d be on the back of the beat, never rushing the song, but swinging from the elbows and shoulders (not the wrists, like young over-anxious drummers do). Our songs would fall apart live sometimes, but Gus and I could hold it together as long as we didn’t lose each other. Gus had a vast knowledge of bands and could pull crazy references of nowhere.
“He was very collaborative and appreciated that we wanted to be an alt-rock band, so didn’t try to ‘metal’ our songs with double-bass or any of that annoying drummer crap,” she adds. “We tried to use dynamics and texture in songs, and if you have a drummer who is deaf and ignorant to that, it just fails. Gus was great at it, and we both stayed in our lane so that vocals and guitars had a lot of room to maneuver.”
The Bishops’ Tim Bramstedt adds that “Gus worked really hard in Culture Shock and Palace to really improve his chops. Later, after he joined the Bishops, he was obsessed with being a professional and really pushed all of us to tighten up our songs and have a set list for every show. We would wing it most shows calling songs off as the spirit moved us. That drove Gus insane and after he threatened to quit we committed to structured set lists.”
And here we should note that while Gus Kodros is perhaps best-known for his work in the two bands mentioned above, some others preceded his time with them. And like other young players, he went through a time of bands forming, splitting, splintering, renewing.
Young Gus was a sought-after drummer in his day.
“I knew Gus from the early Alton punk scene right out of high school,” Bramstedt says. “He was drumming for Dead Planet or The Plague (maybe both) and I was singing for an awful cover band. Most of the Alton bands played the pizza circuit, i.e.: Pizza Limited and church dances. I had tried to join Club Zero (pre-Judge Nothing) as a guitar player but I really didn’t know how to play yet. I ran into Gus after that and he told me about his new band, Culture Shock (with Darin Gray on keyboards and Darin’s high school girlfriend on bass and Gus on drums), which was looking for a guitar player so I dropped in on them. I could barely play some Chuck Berry riffs over the goth keyboard stuff that Darin was playing but they weren’t too picky so off we went.”
He adds, that “We practiced a ton for a few months at extremely high volume, working out unique arrangements of punk classics with our strange mix of goth, punk and rock’n’roll. I played a few shows before I got sacked for not fitting in with the goth stuff. Gus continued on for a while before leaving Culture Shock for a glam metal cover band called Palace that made tons of money: $1,000 a show. The Bishops (we had started by 1986) were lucky to get 50 bucks and a pizza. Culture Shock would morph into the Dazzling Killmen after a few lineup changes. I ran into Gus again while he was in Palace and talked him into joining the Bishops to play original music after our original country boy drummer quit the band to get married.”
Beer remembers that the fit was natural, instantaneous, as “we had a couple of classic rock drummers (it wasn't classic rock at the time) who just didn't know what we were doing. The covers you play in a start-up band often indicate what you are about. We covered The Clash and The Sex Pistols and our drummers had never heard of those bands until we got Gus.”
If he had a good instinct for keeping up with the new and notable acts of that time, he was open to listening and appreciating all the bands that crossed his path.
As Bramstedt says, “The Bishops played so many shows in our first two years. Some of the bands we played with were really good and some were just gawd-awful and everything in between. No matter who we played with and how bad they were, Gus always found something positive that he liked. He was such a true music fan. He also would make friends with every drummer and stay in touch. He was such a nice guy and supportive of everyone. You just don’t see that with egotistical band people but that’s just who Gus was.”
Relling also notes the impact he had on her band, one that extended far beyond the stage or the rehearsal room.
“Gus was the calm that saved SBP on the road,” she says. “He was the band therapist, the designated driver and the self-appointed best-friend to each of us when we hated the three others. In the van for weeks on end, it happened. And then add in the whole Jeff + Maureen chaos, plus way too much alcohol (full blown alcoholism right around the corner)… it was nuts a lot of the time. I have often wondered why Gus, out of the four of us, stuck it out. I think he just liked the ‘rock-n-roll’ thing.
“One of the best stories about Gus that comes to mind is another road story,” she says. “He and I both had black leather jackets that looked very similar. At one point, I put on ‘my’ leather jacket and stuck my hand in the pocket to grab my cigarettes and came out with a pocket-sized Bible instead. Being the born-n-raised heathen that I was, I gave a little yelp of shock, not being aware that Gus carried a pocket Bible. Gus and I had a laugh over that, and it led to us talking about his religion and how he tried to keep prayer, etc., with him, even on the road. In hindsight, I expect that, whether or not we knew it at the time, Small Ball Paul can probably thank Gus’s pocket Bible and his prayers (not to mention his sober driving and big heart) for keeping us on the road, out of jail and out of the hospital/morgue while we wound our drunken stupid way through several tours together.”
She adds that “I stayed in touch with Gus and was able to make my apologies to him, which I’m super grateful for now. I wish he was still here. I’d love the chance to be the friend to him that he was to me back then.”
=====
Gus Kodros will be remembered by his musical and familial kin with a memorial concert on Saturday, October 21st at The Lodge at The Lovejoy (401 Piasa St., Alton, IL, 62002). Doors at the cash-only venue open at 5 pm and bands begin at 6:00, the lineup includes a number of bands with Alton and St. Louis pedigrees: The Bishops (opening and closing the show) along with the proto-punk Avon Ladies, Matt Taul (Stubblefield), Doug Raffety (Judge Nothing), Todd Keith (Autumn Clock), Chuck Lindo (The Nukes, American Professionals), Flea (Judge Nothing), Gigi Darr, Dead Planet, and Bob Monroe (Breakmouth Annie). A Facebook event page with all the details can be found here.
A press release for the show notes the underlying reasons for the event, as “In August 2019, Gus Kodros - drummer for pioneering St. Louis rock bands The Bishops and Sony recording artists Small Ball Paul - took his own life. His friends and loved ones had little indication that he was on the brink of something catastrophic. Everyone was devastated, and the urgency of understanding why this happened was immense. Gus made us realize the importance of mental health outlets for people in distress and we all wished we had been informed enough to help Gus find these outlets. This Tribute to Gus and Benefit for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (988lifeline.org/) is a great way to bring attention and funding to the important but often overlooked organizations that help people in mental distress.”
A commemorative t-shirt and a silent art auction will help raise funds for 988lifeline on the evening of the show.
We preceded this post with another in this web space, featuring thoughts and memories from Eric Harnetiaux and Andy Dykeman.