Friends make the world a better place

by Peter Twitchell

This morning when I got up, I looked at my wall. I have a wall full of pictures and some of those pictures are with bands I used to play with. I looked at the picture of the electric air band – Mutt Jung on drums, Nick Dull on lead guitar and vocals, Stan Nevak was on rhythm guitar and sang songs, I was on the fender mustang bass and also sang.

I looked at the band members and remembered what good times we had playing rock music together, and I thought of Nick who became a good friend of mine and wondered to myself how he was because I hadn’t seen him since 2016 when I invited him to my house.

Well, this afternoon, I heard the sad news that my friend Nick had passed away last week. I remembered when I first moved into Anchorage in 2016 how Nick Dull and I used to jam together in the basement of his house in Anchorage. We played songs that we were friendlier with from the 1970s.

We were a little rough on the edges because we hadn’t played together in 45 years, but we both laughed through each song as it began to sound like the old days. And I remembered when Nick had helped me replace some tuners on my guitar in 2016.

So I say to you today, cherish your friends, always be there for them, because friends make the world a better place to live in.

I told us same story some time ago in one of my articles of when I first met Nick Dull. It was at the Sheldon Jackson junior college in Sitka when Nick and I were asked if we wanted to be roommates at the men’s dorm, the Condit Hall at SJ.

Immediately, Nick and I shared our music background starting at the school that we went to playing rock music of the day. Nick had a great singing voice and had been telling me stories of the concerts he attended when he went to school on the West Coast. One of his favorite groups was Paul Rivera and the Raiders.

Right away Nick and I, after doing our homework, would talk about starting a band. We were a three-piece band and we had become friends with a guy from up north who could play the drums.

It wasn’t long when we asked the owner of the 3 1/2 Club if he could use a band. Almost instantaneously the owner of the club put us on the stage to play from 7 o’clock that evening until 3 o’clock in the morning.

The three of us from the college ran through Totem Park on Fridays and Saturday nights. It wasn’t very well lit as a matter-of-fact. I don’t remember lights being in Totem Park, but we could see the traffic through the trees to where we were going. It was a good half a mile away from the college.

After our junior year at Sheldon Jackson College, we returned to our home of Bethel and started playing gigs. Nick spent time with his relatives, Art and Junior Dull and family. Nick was very capable of being on his own and made friends very easily.

I want to share again when we played for the KYUK fundraiser one weekend with Phil Melbaum. Since we hadn’t played together with Phil in a while, we decide to come up with a name for the group.

Rhonda McBride, who was the KYUK news Director suggested we call ourselves the Electric Era Band.

We were featured as one of the talents playing at the KYUK fundraiser and I convinced Rhonda and the lady from the city office land manager to sing background on Roy Orbison’s great hit, “ONLY THE LONELY.”

We will miss our friends like Nick Dull but we will never forget them for as long as we live. God bless you Nick, rest in peace. God willing we will see each other again in God’s Kingdom.