***In the fall of 1972 my brother Daryl Frazier [a/k/a Billy Nightshade] started school at Bemidji State College in northern Minnesota. I was 11 years old and Daryl was 18. Every weekend he would come home and bring me amazing used records of rock and roll bands. His good friend Gary Zerott from BSC knew music inside out, and turned Daryl on to all kinds of brilliant artists! Kinks, Bowie, Alice Cooper, Stooges, MC5, Patti Smith, Velvet Underground, Slade, Deep Purple...the heavier the better.
Back home our neighbors the Grossmans lived half a mile down the road, seven miles north of Pelican Rapids. Alan and Glen were very good friends of ours, as was the rest of their family. Alan was the first to purchase a reasonably-priced acoustic guitar, and I followed suit within a couple of months!
I learned how to play guitar and Daryl learned bass guitar. Soon Daryl and I realized it was easier to write our own songs than figure out ones by the Stones or Kinks. We found the process of writing songs in our own haphazard way! Gradually the songs got better and we decided it was time to put a band together!
At this point Alan Grossman had started playing drums and he was practicing nonstop. He was an amazing and natural drummer from the very start! His influences were Alan White, Simon Kirk and Charlie Watts. We talked Alan into joining and started a three piece band named Terminal Intensity! A little later we decided to fill out the sound of the band. Phil Stratton was brought in to round out the two guitar attack!
Around the fall of 1976 we cleared out one side of the Grossman's barn hayloft and started practicing there. When we took a break from playing songs, we would take turns shooting at bats in the rafters with a BB gun! Soon the hay fever got the best of us, we came to our senses and decided to move into the chicken coop next to the barn. It was a small log outbuilding, we cleaned it up, put on a new roof, and were ready to move into our new clubhouse!
I had bought a Sony stereo microphone with a Sony cassette deck that we used to record these songs. During the summers of 1976 to 1978 we were always primed and looked forward to Daryl's return from grad school at Indiana University. Daryl was our leader! He brought and encouraged an attitude to keep us working on a song until we got it right. He passed on to us the experience and fun that he had after joining and playing with the Gizmos!
During mid-summer of 1978 Alan left the band to take a job as a radio DJ in northern Minnesota. His brother Glen took over and didn't miss a beat! He was also a rock solid drummer.
I was 15 years old at the start of these recordings, and I have to say I never have played in a better band or had more fun than playing with Terminal Intensity!
—Mark Frazier, January 2024
These Recordings are Dedicated to:
Daryl Frazier 1954-2017
Alan Grossman 1958-2007
