GARY PFALZBOT Aka, “THE JOLLY GERMAN”
Born in California and raised in California, Oregon and Kentucky, Robert Gary Pfalzbot is a Disabled American Veteran who served 4 years in the Air Force. He has also worked as an Electronics Engineer and currently is a Small Business Owner, Webmaster, Author, Musician, Songwriter and Composer. His engaging sense of humor and friendly personality have carried him successfully through all manner of adversity. This served to define his character early on and because of his also largely German heritage earned him the moniker, “The Jolly German,” which has stuck with him for nearly 50 years.
Armed with a lifelong passion for music, the Jolly German’s songwriting experience, live performances and a background in formal music training have led him down many interesting paths in the Music Industry. He started playing a homemade cigar box guitar at an early age. Once his Grandfather saw how serious Gary was, he gave him his own Silver tone guitar to learn on and Gary never looked back, teaching himself how to play and practicing daily to learn all he could about the guitar. He had been told after having open heart surgery as a child that he would not be able to run and play with the other kids. But determined to beat the odds, he joined the school band and performed as a proud member of the school marching band in several Rose Parades while growing up in California. He eventually was allowed to play football and went on to serve in the Air Force (with a waiver for his heart) for 4 years. While in the Air Force, he joined Tops in Blue backing band and started his own personal band on the side, which performed in Southern Germany for 2 years. Spurred on by the success of his band in Germany, once Pfalzbot finished his 4 years in the Air Force, he went on to Community College with the intent of studying Music and Guitar at the Guitar Institute in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, his Grandmother, who had helped raise him and whom he dearly loved, became ill. So Gary left college to help his Grandfather take care of her. Meanwhile, he took electronics and computer jobs and started his own rock band, Rizen Osiris, which performed in the Orange and Los Angeles county area for 2 years before breaking up to go their separate ways. In early 1996, Gary met his wife, Pamela and moved to Missouri to be near her and her family. The couple married two years later and after nearly 25 years are still writing music and sharing life on a farm together. She helps him build websites, works on her art and crafts and still writes many of their lyrics. Over the years she has helped him with his personal music promotion and band management, to include their Rizen Osiris Band in Missouri.
With Gary on Lead Guitar and as Band Leader and Pamela as Manager, Booking Agent and Promoter, the new Rizen Osiris received great reviews after debuting several of their original songs in Southwest Missouri area venues. This included the FestaJam Concert held in Lampe, Missouri in the summer of 1997. During that historic 3 day concert, they opened as a local band for Three Dog Night. After their performance, they were asked to stay the weekend to close for Creedence Clearwater Revival and open for Blood, Sweat and Tears that Sunday – an amazing complement for a relatively new local band, especially considering they performed only their own original songs. However, although their subsequent performances (covers and orignals) became very popular and even included radio play of their songs in the local area, the group struggled to find and keep Bass players because of their rural location, over an hour away from the city. Without a steady bass player, it was difficult to keep up the momentum they had at first and the band finally disbanded.
Never one to remain idle, Gary went on to found and operate Music Monster Network Radio, one of the first and most popular online radio stations in the country at that time.
His mission was to give Indie Artists a voice and air time to help promote their original music. He figured even if he no longer had his own band, the need was great for Indie artists to have someone on their side to get their music heard by the public. The couple started Rock Lane Records, Inc. to help with promotions and seemed to be on their way until the corporation, Monster Music, filed a trademark dispute regarding their MusicMonsterNetwork.com domain name. Of course, despite their claims, there was no confusion on the part of fans as to what Monster Music was about at that time – they built great audio cables, nothing to do with online radio or Indie Artist promotion. But because the Pfalzbots could not afford a lawyer to fight the cease and desist order, they were forced to retire their dream of becoming an alternative to the Music Industry as it was at that time. They could have just changed the station’s name, but they had spent alot of money to pay for licensing fees and marketing, so were reluctant to go down that road again and potentially lose that too. Gary’s efforts were not totally in vain, however, as his weekly Music Monster Network Radio charts had been picked up and were printed by CMJ and Billboard in their magazines for the short time they were in operation. Artists like Kelly Moneymaker (former member of Destiny’s Child), even used Gary’s online radio station to get her Indie music recognized. His pioneering spirit and efforts with the Music Monster Network Radio helped to pave the way for online music and radio as we know it today.
While all this was going on in the Music world, the Pfalzbot’s rural earthberm home was being overun by a noxious and virulent weed known as Kudzu. The “Mile a minute weed” had been planted several years earlier by their neighbor, who refused to try to control it, even after it invaded the Pfalzbot’s property. When they bought their house, they had not even heard of Kudzu, so this was not a battle they had expected to fight. Gary tried to cut it, burn it and had the electrical company use chemicals to control it on their utility easement, all to no avail.
Finally, he had the idea to try to get goats to eat it down to a manageable level. Their property was ringed with woods and the Kudzu was already well on the way to taking over a hundred year old oak tree in addition to their roof, so the threat was real and growing. These amazingly strong vines were known to have pulled down whole barns and powerlines in the South, so they knew time was not on their side. They had to do something or potentially lose their home to it.
After doing some research on university sites, they learned Kudzu was a nutritious treat for goats. Since Gary had raised dairy goats in 4-H as a young teen, logic told him it could be a positive experience since he and Pamela were both huge animal lovers. They bought a livestock dog and 6 goats which they stuffed into their Mercedes station wagon and began a life-changing journey as goat owners on 7 acres next to a sub-division.
This decision greatly interrupted the music path they were on as they now had livestock to tend to and needed to know how to care for them. Pamela gave him the GoatWorld.com domain in 2000 for Valentine’s day and the rest is history. Gary taught himself to code and built the now world-famous website from scratch into the huge educational resource it still is today. As diligent as he was about practicing his guitar daily, he was twice as dedicated to improving his website. The couple built it into a thriving community site where information was shared worldwide with experts and new goat owners alike.
He fervently researched every aspect of goat care he could find and built a reputation for caring not only about the animals, but also about the owners in what used to be an industry dominated by dairy goat owners and organizations. Government research used to group sheep and goats together, even though their nutritional and behavorial needs were entirely different because there were not many voices at the time willing to promote the benefits of goat meat, goat fiber vs. wool and goats as pets and therapy animals, for example.
Gary’s websites helped to changed all that. Today, the U.S. goat meat and pet goat industries stand on their own as seperate industries thanks in large part to Gary’s efforts to highlight the usefulness of goats as more than just providers of goat milk and cheese. He also created Goat911.com which was a free service offered by GoatWorld.com and staffed by experienced volunteers (who he called Capri-medics) from all over the U.S.and Canada who willingly gave up their time and energy to help sick goats whose owners had no access to or could not afford vets who knew how to properly treat goats.
This free service, like GoatWorld itself, soon was imitated across the country and today there are goat vets, goat schools, camps and retreats to teach people how to care for their breeding stock as well as their pet goats. Gary Pfalzbot’s musical dreams once again took a backseat to something greater than himself – bringing people together for a common purpose.
Trying to pursue both paths at the same time has been difficult to say the least, but now that he has established his legacy in the agricultural world, Gary is intent upon finishing what he started years ago with his songwriting efforts, which brings his story to this website.
Here you will find the unfinished remnants of his original music, personal photography and videos. He is constantly writing new music and working hard to finish or polish those songs already written or performed live.
Living now (for nearly 20 years) in Southeastern Colorado on a small farm, Robert Gary Pfalzbot (aka Gary “Hook” Pfalzbot in the music world or simply Gary Pfalzbot in the Ag World) still raises goats (albeit a much smaller herd), still builds websites and still writes his own original music. He has embraced the new promotional opportunities available with the likes of YouTube, ReverbNation, Facebook and other social media. Meanwhile, he is also learning to integrate newer web design software with his existing skills to make his catalogue of work available in one accessible place at TheJollyGerman.com, for those who care to follow his progress and support his creations.
The Jolly German’s musical tastes run the gamut Heavy Metal, Rock, Pop, Blues, Jazz , Country to Classical, with few exceptions in between. His specialty instrument is lead guitar, but he also plays bass guitar, keyboards and a variety of other instruments. He will tell you himself that he has mellowed a bit (in a good way) with age from preferring heavy metal and explosive rock and roll to more of an easy listening, uplifting pop and jazzy/new age style, although he can definitely still hold his own on the lead guitar and bass no matter the genre! The couple’s lyrics have always been about exploring feelings and telling stories about life, love, pain and hope for a better future – that has not changed.
As a result of the Covid lockdowns and forced Social Distancing, his days of playing live were brought to an abrupt halt, which prompted him on the business side of things to breathe new life into his JollyGerman Web Services site. He has also expanded his online GoatWorld Store, which members had asked him to do for years, but which he had previously put on the back burner in favor of working on his music.
Now, he is trying to rebalance passion for music with the reality of his place in the agribusiness world, amidst uncertain inflation and all the political turmoil that entails. Music now even more important to him as his true “happy place to relax and create” and he would love for you to accompany him on his personal journey to leave an indelible mark in music history once and for all. Who knows what next year will bring or for that matter next week. He decided it was time to buckle down and take stock of what needed working on, refining or finishing.
In order to make his work from home plan a reality, Gary was forced to rethink his approach to writing original songs. As a result, he created a new home studio where he now writes original music alone rather than with a band. He still plays his own instruments live, such as lead guitar, bass, keyboards and even banjo here and there. The good news is the changes that the lockdowns brought also created unexpected benefits. For one, it saves alot of money previously spent on gas traveling to live music venues – very important in this age of high gas prices and inflation!
While he misses the camaraderie that a band can provide, he also appreciates the fact that he is can augment his writing with digital recording software and has more control over his personal and work time.This new approach to creating music allows him to write and record his compositions, note for note on his computer without the normal worries about availability of bandmates for practices, conflicting recording schedules, etc.
No more long hours on the road to and from venues and he gets to spend more time at home with his wife. This helps him better manage their farm life, his online store, his Jolly German Website Services and still continue the pursuit of his passion for music. Universities, organizations and magazines still contact him frequently to get his opinions and advice on animal nutrition and frantic goat owners still call him for help with their sick goats.
The coveted and often-imitated Goatworld.com Library is now thousands of pages, articles and photos strong. It is still growing, thanks to Gary’s continued daily dedication to the site. Since he has been off the road, he has also enlisted the graphic design help of his wife Pamela, to give the 22 year-old website a much-needed facelift, which has been a tremendous help to him. They both know newer, smaller sites will continue to come and go, but none can match the wealth of resources offered by Goatworld.com. Even the Smithsonian has recognized his efforts much to his surprise.
But, if Robert Gary Pfalzbot has had one major failing, perhaps it has been that he has been TOO humble when it comes to promoting his music. Anyone who has ever played live with Gary will enthusiastically tell you what a great musician/person he is. Onstage, he is a powerhouse and loves to entertain, but offstage, whether as a musician or a songwriter, he is often shy about promoting his own talents, even though he definitely wants the accolades someone of his caliber deserves. With all that in mind, where he would still really would love to shine is with his original music. This website, his YouTube channel and his ReverbNation page are where those efforts will be recorded from this point forward for you to explore and enjoy.
When first starting his YouTube channel, he once said, “Even when you feel you’re very good at what you do, it’s still nice to hear it from someone else. I’ve been doing this for nearly 50 years now. When you’re on stage , you know immediately if a crowd likes your performance. The down side of working alone from home, is that while people online may listen and may even like your music…they often forget to leave a comment, a Like or to Subscribe to my channel. So I don’t have that immediate feedback. I’m just starting out with my YouTube channel. I’m not used to asking for likes and such as that yet. Until I get better at promoting it that way, I’m kind of like a child in the wilderness, as it were – as far as knowing what my visitors really think of my efforts.
Also, many of my non-musician visitors don’t understand that alot of what they are listening to isn’t finished yet. While my musician friends will understand how to gauge songwriting progress relative to a “riff” or changes in the melody or tempo as I update the files as well as the importance of letting someone know what you are capable of, others won’t have a clue as to why I’m bothering. Good, finished songs take awhile to produce by yourself, but someone with a good ear for music can hear the potential of a piece of work in different stages of progress. I’ve got to get better at explaining that to my non-musician visitors, so they don’t just scratch their heads, wondering why I am posting unfinished work at all and just walk away.”
That said, if you are interested in following his progress, please share your thoughts (positive input please) on this site, ReverbNation and/or on his YouTube channel. You can find him by searching, Pfalzbot, Gary Pfalzbot, Gary “Hook” Pfalzbot or Robert Gary Pfalzbot…or clicking on the links on this website. You are welcome to send him your constructive comments or suggestions regarding his music, photography and videos.
Even a simple “Hello…I like it so far…” comment here or a simple LIKE and/or Subscribe on his YouTube Channel, will be very welcome!
Anyway, thanks for stopping by. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it! Lol! We really hope to see you here often and would love to hear from you if you like what he is doing.