Still Crazy After All These Years?
Okay, part of the fun of my day is setting vendor meets for technicians... it's usually a five minute call that takes you off the firing line for a second, AND you hear some Inn-Ter-Rest-Ing things on Muzak while waiting.
Just a minute ago I heard "We Are the World." ['Tis the season, so they say...] Now the only reason I mention this is because it used to be a family tradition [Galupi/Zottola/Leone/Horn, bunch of misplaced Yankees from Pittsburgh in Texas] to make these videos at holiday time... Like one year, we decided to do a Letterman show and I mean complete with guests and "Brush with Greatness" and my friend Marty as Paul Schaeffer...I got to be Dave and write a monologue and all that... I remember at the time that John Gotti had just had someone whacked outside Spark's Steak House and that was one of the jokes... My aunt Donna as Gloria Vanderbilt and my dad and Uncle Rich as "G and Z" who made "music for toads." One year we did Dallas, my dad as J.R. It's a great way to keep yourself entertained when there's NOTHING on TV and the stores are all closed...
Anyway, of course one year we had to do "We Are the World..." now the kids are all in high school by this time and I think my cousin Sherri had some friends over and the great thing is that my aunt Donna [Z] has a personality that just brings EVERYONE into the fun with us... and they all talk about it later and the parties keep getting bigger and bigger, which is great at, oh, graduation and weddings... So we're doing "We Are the World" and the big debate is who gets to be BRUUUUCE and who gets to be Ray Charles and all that... funny, I don't remember anyone asking to be Michael Jackson, though...
Anyway, I just mention that in passing... it's great to have fun folks like the Zotts and Leones and Hornes, great people who will grow old but never "grow up."
Roger Wilco?
Been kind of blue with the holidays, but I am in a major Wilco groove this week, contemplating the genius of Jeff Tweedy... Somehow I can connect with those songs... not just great titles [Should've Been In Love, I'm the Man Who Loves You, Nothingsevergonnastandinmyway [Again], How to Fight Lonliness] but lines like "There's rows and rows of houses/with the windows painted blue/ with the light from the TV..." from Sunken Treasure [the same song with my mantra: "I was named by rock and roll / I was tamed by rock and roll / I was maimed by rock and roll"] ... plus he writes great pop songs, though I was contemplating on the drive in today JUST how important Jay Bennett was to the last three records and how different they will sound without his input. Whose idea is all the mellotron and that plaintive harmonica on She's A Jar? If nothing else, the next one may sound different because Bennett engineered a lot of Yankee Hotel and Summerteeth.
Anyway, I have just found them to be so perfect for my mood. Even the lines that are nonsense: "Take off your band aid ' cause I don't believe in touchdowns" but then you temper that was "You were so right when you said that I'd been drinking / What was I thinking when I said good night?" And of course there's even a line for LB: "It's become so obvious / you are so oblivious to yourself." Then, of course there's this one:
"You’ve been dealing with all these feelings
They’ve got you believing that they got no meaning
But they do
Life’s been stinking, you’re heart’s been sinking
And you’re too busy thinking
You stop, you blink and you’re blue
Should’ve been in love
Mind’s been racing, your heart’s been chasing,
And you might as well face it,
Time’s wasted it’s true
You’re life’s been stinking, your heart’s been shrinking
And you’re too busy thinking
You stop, you blink and you’re blue"
Great Christmas
No, not this one... I just don't feel it this year. Something's missing. I have the folks ad the kids and all that, but it just feels blah this year...
However, I can remember one Christmas in Arlington, I want to say 78 or 79, that I got the Steve Martin Wild & Crazy Guy album... well of course you put on, and at 6 o'clock in the morning Steve busts out a few shits and fucks and I am sure my parents are horrified to hear this and realize they've just given it to their 12 year old son... remember, this is before all those silly warning stickers and all that... but they never panicked, they just suggested I listen to it in my room, away from my 'little sister.' Still it was a far cry from the Bill Cosby I had been listening to before that... never had any Richard Pryor, though and only a couple of George Carlin to this day... Mark, of course, has Cheech and Chong's Big Bamboo that came with the 12"x12" rolling paper... of course we heard that stuff and Gallagher [censored of course] on the Dr Demento and the hour long comedy show that used to run after that when Demento got switched from the Zoo to the Eagle... I'll never forget seeing Gallagher the first time out at Richard and Donna's in Andrews, which is out between nowhere and Midland-Odessa; I don't remember which one it was, but I liked that humor right away. Might have been the first time I saw HBO, too...
Other great Christmas presents: gee, records were always a safe bet... one year I got the Red and Blue sets of the Beatles [1962-1966 and 1967-1970] since I was always borrowing the neighbor's. I was disappointed that mine weren't on red and blue vinyl like his were... gee, really nothing that makes an impression... getting a bike was always cool, think I got two in my time, one was a replacement for one that got stolen by some 'friends' of mine...
But now it's about the kids, and I still like to see them opening gifts, though I know they'll become jaded eventually, same way we all do...
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Its A Wonderful Life: a quick hit
Okay, I know it’s cheesy to call a holiday column that, but hear me out, especially with all we went through this year.
First of all, I’d still like to thank everyone for love and support through a Trying Season this summer. I hope I was able to give back as much as I got. So I am sitting watching most of It’s A Wonderful Life tonight, and I thought of all of us milling around out there at Restland and how surprised Becky and Roger and Andee were at the outpouring of love and respect from the people who were there and people who were unable to be there. I wasn’t. Those two lived by the ‘do unto others’ and ‘treat people as you expect to be treated.’ I think it reinforced the message of Frank Capra’s classic movie: “We each touch so many lives and we never know it.”
I worry sometimes that we, as in my circle of friends, have fallen immediately back into old habits and gotten caught in old ruts, even after going through this thing and saying “we need to get together more often.” And I am as guilty as anybody, because the phone and the email go both ways. It is easy to go back to our old ways. I don’t know how many times I have said in the last two weeks ‘I need to call so and so.’ Roger and Andee’s email is off and I know they’ve been trying to get moved and I wonder how they are coping with the holidays. I know people get busy with work parties and family and all that stuff, too. Just remember to be careful out there. Remeber, Jim Dunnigan used to not drink on New Year's Eve; called it "Amatuer Night."
A few nights later, sitting here listening to the new Unearthed box by Johnny Cash. I have started with My Mother’s HymnBook to try and get myself some ‘Pure Religion’ [That’s a Rev. Gary Davis/Hot Tuna reference]. Having some hummus [you can get hummus at Albertson’s? Cool, but not as good a Gyro House… need some falafel for Xmas!] and typing here. Never did find pita bread, but tastes good on a tortilla! Just lonesome John and his guitar here, how powerful, even for a 60-70 year old man.
Been having a discussion with LB [for Lizard Breath] about finding your soul mate. I find it hard to believe that one could have [or need] a list with 14 points on it! Of course, she’s been through the wringer a couple times, so she’s entitled. But I think that takes the magic out of the whole thing. And even if she finds someone who meets all those criteria, there are no guarantees. Me? *sigh* I just want to feel the electric kiss that sends a tingle down my spine and makes my big toe shoot up in my boot. It’s been a long time. I want to feel the sickness of being separated from someone that squashes your heart down like a six ton steamroller… the swell of being near or having them smile at you… the electric of a touch between people that says all that needs to be said… laying next to someone who makes you feel complete and listening to them breathe in the night... SICK ISN’T IT? That's what I get for running across Serendipity on TV last night... How jealous I am of all of you who have found that person that makes magic possible in your life!
I think I have been close a couple of times, though I am refusing to name names. I look back and I know who it was NOT very easily with a little distance. Who knows why? Some I was painfully attracted to, but once I got close, where I wanted to be, it just didn't work out.
Jesus! Johnny and Joe Strummer! Fucking FANTASTIC! Doing Bob Marley's Redemption Song... wow. Two great talents. Two great singers lost in less than a year.
Ah, love lost, such a cost, give me things that don't get lost, like a coin that won't get tossed... Why sometimes CAN'T we see what we had until it's gone? One mistake in judgement and a good thing rolls right away... so caught up in appearances and what other people might think... burned and afraid, pretending aloofness...
Hmm, starnge thoughts this night, maybe making a close of the circle of another year gone and wondering what was accomplished. That's all things like New Years and birthdays are for really. Measue your time and see if you've accomplished what you said you would at this time last year. This year I've had two funerals in one, a wedding, lots of questions answered [too late, but good to know things], pondered the meaning of life, been reminded to take care of myself and that I matter, no matter what I might think, and not had that electric kiss.
Robbie Robertson once wrote [and Rick Danko sang] "There's no love as true as the love/ that dies untold." Is that crazy? But is it true? What about knowing that 'falling in love ' with someone will just break your heart? Do we do things like this just to keep up hopes and ideals? I can think of three people, one recently and two from a few years ago that I just wound myself up for and knew nothing would or could come of it... none the less, I kept looking for that look that would gie me a hope or a word... why do we do this to ourselves?
Wow, finished the second disc all ready... how powerful... great take of Wichita Lineman, too...
Okay, I know it’s cheesy to call a holiday column that, but hear me out, especially with all we went through this year.
First of all, I’d still like to thank everyone for love and support through a Trying Season this summer. I hope I was able to give back as much as I got. So I am sitting watching most of It’s A Wonderful Life tonight, and I thought of all of us milling around out there at Restland and how surprised Becky and Roger and Andee were at the outpouring of love and respect from the people who were there and people who were unable to be there. I wasn’t. Those two lived by the ‘do unto others’ and ‘treat people as you expect to be treated.’ I think it reinforced the message of Frank Capra’s classic movie: “We each touch so many lives and we never know it.”
I worry sometimes that we, as in my circle of friends, have fallen immediately back into old habits and gotten caught in old ruts, even after going through this thing and saying “we need to get together more often.” And I am as guilty as anybody, because the phone and the email go both ways. It is easy to go back to our old ways. I don’t know how many times I have said in the last two weeks ‘I need to call so and so.’ Roger and Andee’s email is off and I know they’ve been trying to get moved and I wonder how they are coping with the holidays. I know people get busy with work parties and family and all that stuff, too. Just remember to be careful out there. Remeber, Jim Dunnigan used to not drink on New Year's Eve; called it "Amatuer Night."
A few nights later, sitting here listening to the new Unearthed box by Johnny Cash. I have started with My Mother’s HymnBook to try and get myself some ‘Pure Religion’ [That’s a Rev. Gary Davis/Hot Tuna reference]. Having some hummus [you can get hummus at Albertson’s? Cool, but not as good a Gyro House… need some falafel for Xmas!] and typing here. Never did find pita bread, but tastes good on a tortilla! Just lonesome John and his guitar here, how powerful, even for a 60-70 year old man.
Been having a discussion with LB [for Lizard Breath] about finding your soul mate. I find it hard to believe that one could have [or need] a list with 14 points on it! Of course, she’s been through the wringer a couple times, so she’s entitled. But I think that takes the magic out of the whole thing. And even if she finds someone who meets all those criteria, there are no guarantees. Me? *sigh* I just want to feel the electric kiss that sends a tingle down my spine and makes my big toe shoot up in my boot. It’s been a long time. I want to feel the sickness of being separated from someone that squashes your heart down like a six ton steamroller… the swell of being near or having them smile at you… the electric of a touch between people that says all that needs to be said… laying next to someone who makes you feel complete and listening to them breathe in the night... SICK ISN’T IT? That's what I get for running across Serendipity on TV last night... How jealous I am of all of you who have found that person that makes magic possible in your life!
I think I have been close a couple of times, though I am refusing to name names. I look back and I know who it was NOT very easily with a little distance. Who knows why? Some I was painfully attracted to, but once I got close, where I wanted to be, it just didn't work out.
Jesus! Johnny and Joe Strummer! Fucking FANTASTIC! Doing Bob Marley's Redemption Song... wow. Two great talents. Two great singers lost in less than a year.
Ah, love lost, such a cost, give me things that don't get lost, like a coin that won't get tossed... Why sometimes CAN'T we see what we had until it's gone? One mistake in judgement and a good thing rolls right away... so caught up in appearances and what other people might think... burned and afraid, pretending aloofness...
Hmm, starnge thoughts this night, maybe making a close of the circle of another year gone and wondering what was accomplished. That's all things like New Years and birthdays are for really. Measue your time and see if you've accomplished what you said you would at this time last year. This year I've had two funerals in one, a wedding, lots of questions answered [too late, but good to know things], pondered the meaning of life, been reminded to take care of myself and that I matter, no matter what I might think, and not had that electric kiss.
Robbie Robertson once wrote [and Rick Danko sang] "There's no love as true as the love/ that dies untold." Is that crazy? But is it true? What about knowing that 'falling in love ' with someone will just break your heart? Do we do things like this just to keep up hopes and ideals? I can think of three people, one recently and two from a few years ago that I just wound myself up for and knew nothing would or could come of it... none the less, I kept looking for that look that would gie me a hope or a word... why do we do this to ourselves?
Wow, finished the second disc all ready... how powerful... great take of Wichita Lineman, too...
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Part 1: Eight Tracks, 45s and AM Radio
Some people are just born to music, I suppose.
I don’t know where this love of music comes from, anymore than I know where my greatness at trivial banal facts comes from. I really would rather go blind than deaf, though I know I will still hear music in my head when I am deaf. Unfortunately it’s always someone else’s music and not my own, which is why I am a great critic and not a great songwriter.
I thought at one time my Dad was the source for this music madness, but it turns out my mother liked all the cool things that were brought into the house. She has a small but very select collection of scratchy 45s of early 60’s soul that was popular where she [and my dad] grew up, the Steel Belt and former pollution capital of the USA, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Lots of the early Motown [Mary Wells, the Four Tops especially] with a touch of James Brown and some doo-wop groups on small labels.
I know my grandfather was a guitar player. During the war, [“The big one, WWII” as Archie Bunker used to say] he and some guys from his company would go around to other units in the area and play country music. [Remember, this was when there was “both kinds, country and Western.”] They were loosely known as the Ozark Mountaineers, Ozark being the name of their company. I just asked for the clarification, as I thought he played in a band in the States, but he said, “No, other than some guys that used to come around once in a while.” [I called him a “Hootenany-ing Hippie” for this]. He used to play for me, up to about 1995 or so before his hands shook so much. Last time my cousin’s fiancée was up, he learned a couple of the songs and he said it “nearly brought the old man to tears, not being able to play anymore.” I know he always liked music and was always humming or whistling something. Unfortunately, he was also a big Hee Haw fan, and there was no better way to clear a room of a bunch of little kids in 1974 than to turn on Hee Haw. Now I kind of wish I had paid more attention to the Hee Haw, but oh well.
[If I’d get ‘home’ more than once every couple of years, I might know more about my family history. Apparently it used to be a Saturday night thing to go up to Grandma and Grandpap’s (I assume this is up the hill to the Vodderbrogen house) and have square dances and card games. Apparently Pap was a fiddler and could call dances.]
One of my first memories, I couldn’t be more than three or four, is of my mother ironing and listening to the Temptaions Get Ready album. I remember the album cover more than the song, though I definitely hear the Temp’s trademark vocals. The album cover is a bright blue with the Temps in a dressing room [“Getting ready” for the show, ya dig?].
There is a family story of Grandma Galupi [or Mrs. Webb at the time] sitting with a very sick young Charles who refused to move his ear from a record player playing Marvin Gaye’s great I Heard It Through the Grapevine [Mom’s scratchy 45] playing over and over again.
My Mom and Dad, from what I have been able to gather, were at least into rock and roll, which is more than I can say for a few of my friends. I remember being home ‘sick’ about 1974 [well, maybe I was and maybe I discovered the ‘I-go-to-school-sick-so-I-need-a-stomach-ache-day’] and sitting playing DJ with my folks 8-tracks: Crosby Stills Nash & Young 4 Way Street, Led Zeppelin II, Elton John Madman Across the Water, Traffic John Barleycorn Must Die… I know there were a couple 60s compilations [16 Great Hits from Motown and shit like that], Aretha Franklin 30 Greatest Hits, the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival Pendulum [after their big hits period, but has Have You Ever Seen the Rain and Hey Tonight and it is still a favorite of mine… call it nostalgia for sitting in the back seat on a road trip to see grandma…], Alice Cooper Killer [which scared the shit out of me]… a collection soon to be augmented by classics [courtesy of the Columbia House Record Club] like Steve Miller Fly Like an Eagle, Aerosmith Toys in the Attic, Earth Wind and Fire Gratitude and Spirit, the Ohio Players GREAT Honey [which recently re-acquired on vinyl and still kicks your ass as a great soul record! Imagine me sitting on the porch with the windows open on a mild fall night and these 70s soul licks and layered vocal of L-O-V-E coming out of my bacelor pad windows, not too loud because it was late, you understand...] My Mom always liked a little soul; we had a band called Brass Construction on 8 track which I do not really remember, but we also had the Brothers Johnson’s first Lookin’ Out for #1, before they did Strawberry Letter #23… glad to see y’all caught up to my mom a couple years later! Of course I found out later my Mom also brought the Stones Black and Blue and the Eagles Hotel California into the house! Sigh I remember a new girl at school just before we moved to Texas and hearing New Kid in Town and thinking about her… I was an advanced romantic for my age. Of course, I also remember driving all over Charleston West Virginia and hearing those great Linda Rondstat singles like When Will I Be Loved, early Hall and Oates; singing ‘It’s a BITCH girl’ on Rich Girl and knowing I was getting away with SWEARING! Roller skating to great 70s singles… going to Pennsylvania and hanging out with my cousins who were playing the Sweet and stuff like that. Talk about bubblegum pop shit, there was one song I remember from one summer with Grandma Galupi, who kept a radio on a lot of the time, maybe just for us kids, a song called Playground in My Mind that was just awful and would become one of the famous Sound Warehouse [on Collins, 1986-87] ‘closing-time-is-coming-drive-them-out-with moldy-oldies’ songs, things along the lines of Paperlace The Night Chicago Died, Blue Suede Hooked on a Feeling and Mac Davis Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me. Though I was almost truly offended when David Eckstrom cued up Louden Wainright’s Dead Skunk for Moldy Oldie because I still like the song! Of course we also had LOST CLASSICS like The Jimmy Castor Bunch Troglodyte, the Rockin’ Rebels Wild Weekend and Donovan Atlantis.
I know I heard things when I was very young that still bring up images of Grandma Galupi’s place in Ambridge: Deep Purple Smoke on the Water, Hocus Pocus by Focus, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey by Paulie and Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road by some band called the Beatles… I know they had one of the radio contests at the time for a Pittsburgh station called 13Q [call letters unknown, sorry!] that you had to answer the phone with some phrase like “I only listen to the new 13Q” or something and you’d win a jackpot of 50 bucks or something and I would answer the phone with that as a four or five year old kid. Like they were going to call into the next county to Ambridge, but what did I know? Shows you where my priorities were.
I guess I always had an ear for music and certain songs recall certain periods still. David Bowie’s Fame recalls driving through Canton Ohio past the Football Hall of Fame in a canary yellow Capri. Band on the Run recalls driving to the pool way back in the hills at Kanawha County State Park… driving through the hills and back roads in West Virginia, where there is NO SHOULDER, just cliff!
We ended up in Charleston, West Virginia because my Dad worked for a man named Sam McBride who ran a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and bought the franchise right to Charleston and took my Dad as the manager. That’s right: there was NO McDonald’s in Charleston West Virginia until 1974-1975! I remember the first store in downtown [truly downtown with a cheesy old style parking lot, where the guys got your keys and moved cars to get your car out; none of this park it yourself and put the money in the slot crap behind the restaurant, and rows and shops downtown. The McDonald’s was a Capitol and Quarrier [damn if I know which was which, the only two streets I remember are Virginia Street, which had an exit off I64 and a bridge that crossed the Elk River a couple blocks up from where it ran into the Kanawha, and Patrick Street, which had its own bridge across the Kanawah at the bottom of which was a building that was or had a mural for WXIT radio and a Borden’s hamburgers and a McDonald’s next to the Kmart [third of four in the area I believe, the last when we were still there being out by the St Albans Mall.] I was just looking at a map and restaurant guide for the city and if you ever find yourself STUCK in Charleston, go to Grazziano’s Pizza at 243 Capitol, it’s still the best pizza I can really remember, though I had an affinity for Punky’s Pizza in Indiana PA. Always have loved a great, greasy slice of pizza!
Anyway, I made my first purchases of music and received my first albums while stationed at the ‘way station’ that is Charleston. I mean ‘way station’ meaning it’s a place people spend a couple of years on their way up the chain. A lot of kids I went to school with had Dads who worked at Union Carbide or Dupont plants in the area and would be gone in two or three years. Lots of chemical and coal related work in the area I guess. Anyway, my first 45 paid for by me was Rick Dees Disco Duck, followed by the Spinners great Rubberband Man and Gordon Lightfoot Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald, ALL of which I still have, thank you. I received my first album, Bad Company’s Bad Co. when one of the radio stations had a promo gig at the Cap and Quarrier Mickey D’s. My second was a copy of the Doobie Brothers What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits [featuring Black Water] from a Creeker babysitter girl we had during the summer named Becky.
Now I will advise you right now that in West Virginia, there are TWO breeds of rednecks from the hollows: Hillers and Creekers, Hillers live on the hills and Creekers live down on the creeks [DUH!] and they don’t like each other. Well when I was smaller, my Mom had these two Creeker girls who would baby-sit us in the summer while Mom worked. I remember going out to their house a couple times and you had to cross a shot one lane wooden plank bridge across the creek to get to their house! Weird, eh? Anyway, one summer it was Becky, the next it was her sister Vicky, nice girls just watching rugrats for some summer cash. Probably spent it on pot and concert tickets… When I was six or seven, the local babysitter of reference Lisa Crow would come by and watch for an hour or two; she taught me to run my sock feet across the carpet to build up a static charge and walk up behind someone and ZAP them!
Some people are just born to music, I suppose.
I don’t know where this love of music comes from, anymore than I know where my greatness at trivial banal facts comes from. I really would rather go blind than deaf, though I know I will still hear music in my head when I am deaf. Unfortunately it’s always someone else’s music and not my own, which is why I am a great critic and not a great songwriter.
I thought at one time my Dad was the source for this music madness, but it turns out my mother liked all the cool things that were brought into the house. She has a small but very select collection of scratchy 45s of early 60’s soul that was popular where she [and my dad] grew up, the Steel Belt and former pollution capital of the USA, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Lots of the early Motown [Mary Wells, the Four Tops especially] with a touch of James Brown and some doo-wop groups on small labels.
I know my grandfather was a guitar player. During the war, [“The big one, WWII” as Archie Bunker used to say] he and some guys from his company would go around to other units in the area and play country music. [Remember, this was when there was “both kinds, country and Western.”] They were loosely known as the Ozark Mountaineers, Ozark being the name of their company. I just asked for the clarification, as I thought he played in a band in the States, but he said, “No, other than some guys that used to come around once in a while.” [I called him a “Hootenany-ing Hippie” for this]. He used to play for me, up to about 1995 or so before his hands shook so much. Last time my cousin’s fiancée was up, he learned a couple of the songs and he said it “nearly brought the old man to tears, not being able to play anymore.” I know he always liked music and was always humming or whistling something. Unfortunately, he was also a big Hee Haw fan, and there was no better way to clear a room of a bunch of little kids in 1974 than to turn on Hee Haw. Now I kind of wish I had paid more attention to the Hee Haw, but oh well.
[If I’d get ‘home’ more than once every couple of years, I might know more about my family history. Apparently it used to be a Saturday night thing to go up to Grandma and Grandpap’s (I assume this is up the hill to the Vodderbrogen house) and have square dances and card games. Apparently Pap was a fiddler and could call dances.]
One of my first memories, I couldn’t be more than three or four, is of my mother ironing and listening to the Temptaions Get Ready album. I remember the album cover more than the song, though I definitely hear the Temp’s trademark vocals. The album cover is a bright blue with the Temps in a dressing room [“Getting ready” for the show, ya dig?].
There is a family story of Grandma Galupi [or Mrs. Webb at the time] sitting with a very sick young Charles who refused to move his ear from a record player playing Marvin Gaye’s great I Heard It Through the Grapevine [Mom’s scratchy 45] playing over and over again.
My Mom and Dad, from what I have been able to gather, were at least into rock and roll, which is more than I can say for a few of my friends. I remember being home ‘sick’ about 1974 [well, maybe I was and maybe I discovered the ‘I-go-to-school-sick-so-I-need-a-stomach-ache-day’] and sitting playing DJ with my folks 8-tracks: Crosby Stills Nash & Young 4 Way Street, Led Zeppelin II, Elton John Madman Across the Water, Traffic John Barleycorn Must Die… I know there were a couple 60s compilations [16 Great Hits from Motown and shit like that], Aretha Franklin 30 Greatest Hits, the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival Pendulum [after their big hits period, but has Have You Ever Seen the Rain and Hey Tonight and it is still a favorite of mine… call it nostalgia for sitting in the back seat on a road trip to see grandma…], Alice Cooper Killer [which scared the shit out of me]… a collection soon to be augmented by classics [courtesy of the Columbia House Record Club] like Steve Miller Fly Like an Eagle, Aerosmith Toys in the Attic, Earth Wind and Fire Gratitude and Spirit, the Ohio Players GREAT Honey [which recently re-acquired on vinyl and still kicks your ass as a great soul record! Imagine me sitting on the porch with the windows open on a mild fall night and these 70s soul licks and layered vocal of L-O-V-E coming out of my bacelor pad windows, not too loud because it was late, you understand...] My Mom always liked a little soul; we had a band called Brass Construction on 8 track which I do not really remember, but we also had the Brothers Johnson’s first Lookin’ Out for #1, before they did Strawberry Letter #23… glad to see y’all caught up to my mom a couple years later! Of course I found out later my Mom also brought the Stones Black and Blue and the Eagles Hotel California into the house! Sigh I remember a new girl at school just before we moved to Texas and hearing New Kid in Town and thinking about her… I was an advanced romantic for my age. Of course, I also remember driving all over Charleston West Virginia and hearing those great Linda Rondstat singles like When Will I Be Loved, early Hall and Oates; singing ‘It’s a BITCH girl’ on Rich Girl and knowing I was getting away with SWEARING! Roller skating to great 70s singles… going to Pennsylvania and hanging out with my cousins who were playing the Sweet and stuff like that. Talk about bubblegum pop shit, there was one song I remember from one summer with Grandma Galupi, who kept a radio on a lot of the time, maybe just for us kids, a song called Playground in My Mind that was just awful and would become one of the famous Sound Warehouse [on Collins, 1986-87] ‘closing-time-is-coming-drive-them-out-with moldy-oldies’ songs, things along the lines of Paperlace The Night Chicago Died, Blue Suede Hooked on a Feeling and Mac Davis Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me. Though I was almost truly offended when David Eckstrom cued up Louden Wainright’s Dead Skunk for Moldy Oldie because I still like the song! Of course we also had LOST CLASSICS like The Jimmy Castor Bunch Troglodyte, the Rockin’ Rebels Wild Weekend and Donovan Atlantis.
I know I heard things when I was very young that still bring up images of Grandma Galupi’s place in Ambridge: Deep Purple Smoke on the Water, Hocus Pocus by Focus, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey by Paulie and Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road by some band called the Beatles… I know they had one of the radio contests at the time for a Pittsburgh station called 13Q [call letters unknown, sorry!] that you had to answer the phone with some phrase like “I only listen to the new 13Q” or something and you’d win a jackpot of 50 bucks or something and I would answer the phone with that as a four or five year old kid. Like they were going to call into the next county to Ambridge, but what did I know? Shows you where my priorities were.
I guess I always had an ear for music and certain songs recall certain periods still. David Bowie’s Fame recalls driving through Canton Ohio past the Football Hall of Fame in a canary yellow Capri. Band on the Run recalls driving to the pool way back in the hills at Kanawha County State Park… driving through the hills and back roads in West Virginia, where there is NO SHOULDER, just cliff!
We ended up in Charleston, West Virginia because my Dad worked for a man named Sam McBride who ran a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and bought the franchise right to Charleston and took my Dad as the manager. That’s right: there was NO McDonald’s in Charleston West Virginia until 1974-1975! I remember the first store in downtown [truly downtown with a cheesy old style parking lot, where the guys got your keys and moved cars to get your car out; none of this park it yourself and put the money in the slot crap behind the restaurant, and rows and shops downtown. The McDonald’s was a Capitol and Quarrier [damn if I know which was which, the only two streets I remember are Virginia Street, which had an exit off I64 and a bridge that crossed the Elk River a couple blocks up from where it ran into the Kanawha, and Patrick Street, which had its own bridge across the Kanawah at the bottom of which was a building that was or had a mural for WXIT radio and a Borden’s hamburgers and a McDonald’s next to the Kmart [third of four in the area I believe, the last when we were still there being out by the St Albans Mall.] I was just looking at a map and restaurant guide for the city and if you ever find yourself STUCK in Charleston, go to Grazziano’s Pizza at 243 Capitol, it’s still the best pizza I can really remember, though I had an affinity for Punky’s Pizza in Indiana PA. Always have loved a great, greasy slice of pizza!
Anyway, I made my first purchases of music and received my first albums while stationed at the ‘way station’ that is Charleston. I mean ‘way station’ meaning it’s a place people spend a couple of years on their way up the chain. A lot of kids I went to school with had Dads who worked at Union Carbide or Dupont plants in the area and would be gone in two or three years. Lots of chemical and coal related work in the area I guess. Anyway, my first 45 paid for by me was Rick Dees Disco Duck, followed by the Spinners great Rubberband Man and Gordon Lightfoot Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald, ALL of which I still have, thank you. I received my first album, Bad Company’s Bad Co. when one of the radio stations had a promo gig at the Cap and Quarrier Mickey D’s. My second was a copy of the Doobie Brothers What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits [featuring Black Water] from a Creeker babysitter girl we had during the summer named Becky.
Now I will advise you right now that in West Virginia, there are TWO breeds of rednecks from the hollows: Hillers and Creekers, Hillers live on the hills and Creekers live down on the creeks [DUH!] and they don’t like each other. Well when I was smaller, my Mom had these two Creeker girls who would baby-sit us in the summer while Mom worked. I remember going out to their house a couple times and you had to cross a shot one lane wooden plank bridge across the creek to get to their house! Weird, eh? Anyway, one summer it was Becky, the next it was her sister Vicky, nice girls just watching rugrats for some summer cash. Probably spent it on pot and concert tickets… When I was six or seven, the local babysitter of reference Lisa Crow would come by and watch for an hour or two; she taught me to run my sock feet across the carpet to build up a static charge and walk up behind someone and ZAP them!
Saturday, December 06, 2003
from my life story, a work in progress...
Part 2 : FM Radio and LPs
My golden age of rock and roll began in 1978 when I received a new record player [with eight-track player] for my 11th birthday. That year I also received ELO’s great A New World Record and I could listen to mom and dad’s eight tracks in my room. I gave The Best of BTO and Frampton Comes Alive a lot of plays. That was also the year I discovered Sly and the Family Stone’s Greatest Hits in their LPs.
This is when I discovered FM radio. In 1977 we moved from Charleston West Virginia to Arlington Texas. In West Virginia, as far as I know, we only listened to AM radio, lots of top 40 AM radio at that. I still have good memories of winding around the West Virginia hills lsitening to Grand Funk’s We’re An American Band, all those early Wings hits like Band on the Run, Silly Love Songs, Let ‘Em In and Listen What the Man Said, and Jefferson Starship’s Miracles. Of course the problem winding around those hills was losing the signal. On the other hand, on clear nights you could get the great WLS out of Chicago, which became an after dark favorite winding from Charleston through Ohio into Pennsylvania to visit the family. “Boogie Check, Boogie Check, ooh ahh.”
Anyway, we arrived in Texas and suddenly we were on the FM dial, mostly the top 40 leaning Z97, [which became Eagle 97 and finaly just the Eagle] with ocasional trips next door to the late great KZEW [“The Zoo”]. I remember hearing longer, stranger songs on the Zoo, things like Zebra’s Who’s Behind the Door and hearing Foghat and Led Zeppelin. When we moved across town in late 78, there was Cheap Trick At Budokahn all over the radio, with the first few Journey hits with Steve Perry, the Blues Brothers and the Knack’s My Sharona.
One of my sixth grade teachers, Mary Miles, told us about the Dr. Demento show, which was then airing at like 900 on Sunday nights on the Zoo and how they payed this obnoxious song every week called Fish Heads. Well of course, me and my pal Mark “Margarita Ledbottom” Lederman had to hear this and we became fans. Mark also turned me on to Kiss. I’ll never forget it, I borrowed his Kiss Alive! and Alive II to tape them, my first crude tapes placing a cassette player between the two speakers of my stereo. I had been curious because record 2 of Alive II; the first two songs on either side couldn’t be played because the record was broken, big jag out of one corner. Well, I was getting on the bus and I picked up the albums and I watched this slow motion horror as one of the records slipped out of the sleeve and a big corner got torn off. It was record 1 of Alive II, so now he had a matched set of broken records. I felt really bad because it took two of the best songs, Calling Dr Love and Christine Sixteen out of play.
Mark and I had gone to school across town the year before but his parents moved over a few blocks from us and we became good friends. Mark had been born in New York and he was WAY cooler than me. He had Led Zeppelin and we discovered Queen. We also had our first drinks [scotch at his bar mitzvah... I remeber us being at the bar and someone told him "you're a man now, have a man's drink." I only tasted it and the smokey flavor and whiskey burn... blech!] and found his dad’s Playboys and Hustlers and I smoked my first joint with Mark.
After we moved out to Burleson I gradually lost touch with Mark. We saw Queen and Billy Squier in 1982, my first concert without my parents. We would also see Aerosmith, once when they did their first reunion tour with my sister from the lower balcony, once two days after Mark twisted his ankle running around his folks pool. We parked over by Union Station and I made his hobble about a mile down the railroad tracks on crutches [where he lost one of those rubber tips on the crutches], which was kind of funny, and THEN we had to get him up into the nosebleed seats[!] and once from the front row on the Permanent Vacation tour. I guess I was forgiven for the crutches when I got those front row seats [the secret was, I learned, to get the operator on line a couple of minutes before the tickets went on sale and keep them on line; you can't do that now, it's all computerized!], but that was also the next to last time I saw Mark. The LAST time I saw him, I ran into him at a friend’s college graduation at TCU and I tried hooking up with him a couple times after, but never did.
I place this part up here because I mentioned Mark in an earlier piece and never got back to the subject. Like I said, he was around for much of the 'maturing' process we went through as teenagers... the pain of discovering girls and being shot down and all that... Mark at least had confidence. He was originally from New York, and he was proud of it, though he did not have the accent. I spent a few months of my 4th grade and my 5th grade year [though he was in the next class, we shared a common area] in central Arlington before we moved over by the lake... about a month into the school year, Mark moved about a quarter mile from me and we were buddies until I moved out to Burleson in the middle of my 8th grade year. For you girls, that's when boys FINALLY notice girls. Though I had been noticing girls for a long time before. There is a legend of me in the 1st grade [I am not making this up] of me lifting up my my 'girlfirend' Jessica [last name not given to protect the young, but I know what it is] mask at Halloween and kissing her in front of the class...find someone who was in the Oakbrook Elementary class with me and they may confirm... unfortunately Jessica and I were separated when she was[I am not making this up] held back in the 1st grade. See, I have ALWAYS been a lover! Unfortunately I peaked in the 1st grade... 7th grade was a torture of Stephanie Sheehan, 8th grade was Robin Hatfield and Franny D'Augustino. [8th grade was also when girls began really developing... ah the sweet ememories of 14 and staring at girls boobs in class!] Skating at Big Wheel in Arlington [before the fire and they went totally roller disco] to the Eagles, Steve Miller and Ted Nugent! But I digress...
Anyway, we went through talking about girls and rock and roll and reading Playboy. My parents were pretty liberal, but Mark's let him put up the Bo Derek /wet t shirt poster with the nipples prominently showing and the 'Start of the Nude Bicycle Race' poster from Queen's Jazz album. Mark joined Columbia House and he picked up a handful of records that would havge a big influence: Led Zeppelin IV, the Scorpions Blackout, Judas Priest British Steel, AC/DC Back in Black and For Those About to Rock... aside from the Queen, some of the albums that set me up for the 80s!
Mark had confidence that I certainly never had. I know he nailed someone I would truly have loved to have nailed one night when we were going to a party. I also remeber him drooling over one of my sister's friends one weekend he was out in Burleyville.
I say all this only because the first page of my book if/when it is published will be: Dedicated to Mark Harry Lederman who taught me all about sex, drugs and rock and roll... yep it's all HIS fault. I raise my whiskey glass to you wherever you are Mark! Salud!
Part 2 : FM Radio and LPs
My golden age of rock and roll began in 1978 when I received a new record player [with eight-track player] for my 11th birthday. That year I also received ELO’s great A New World Record and I could listen to mom and dad’s eight tracks in my room. I gave The Best of BTO and Frampton Comes Alive a lot of plays. That was also the year I discovered Sly and the Family Stone’s Greatest Hits in their LPs.
This is when I discovered FM radio. In 1977 we moved from Charleston West Virginia to Arlington Texas. In West Virginia, as far as I know, we only listened to AM radio, lots of top 40 AM radio at that. I still have good memories of winding around the West Virginia hills lsitening to Grand Funk’s We’re An American Band, all those early Wings hits like Band on the Run, Silly Love Songs, Let ‘Em In and Listen What the Man Said, and Jefferson Starship’s Miracles. Of course the problem winding around those hills was losing the signal. On the other hand, on clear nights you could get the great WLS out of Chicago, which became an after dark favorite winding from Charleston through Ohio into Pennsylvania to visit the family. “Boogie Check, Boogie Check, ooh ahh.”
Anyway, we arrived in Texas and suddenly we were on the FM dial, mostly the top 40 leaning Z97, [which became Eagle 97 and finaly just the Eagle] with ocasional trips next door to the late great KZEW [“The Zoo”]. I remember hearing longer, stranger songs on the Zoo, things like Zebra’s Who’s Behind the Door and hearing Foghat and Led Zeppelin. When we moved across town in late 78, there was Cheap Trick At Budokahn all over the radio, with the first few Journey hits with Steve Perry, the Blues Brothers and the Knack’s My Sharona.
One of my sixth grade teachers, Mary Miles, told us about the Dr. Demento show, which was then airing at like 900 on Sunday nights on the Zoo and how they payed this obnoxious song every week called Fish Heads. Well of course, me and my pal Mark “Margarita Ledbottom” Lederman had to hear this and we became fans. Mark also turned me on to Kiss. I’ll never forget it, I borrowed his Kiss Alive! and Alive II to tape them, my first crude tapes placing a cassette player between the two speakers of my stereo. I had been curious because record 2 of Alive II; the first two songs on either side couldn’t be played because the record was broken, big jag out of one corner. Well, I was getting on the bus and I picked up the albums and I watched this slow motion horror as one of the records slipped out of the sleeve and a big corner got torn off. It was record 1 of Alive II, so now he had a matched set of broken records. I felt really bad because it took two of the best songs, Calling Dr Love and Christine Sixteen out of play.
Mark and I had gone to school across town the year before but his parents moved over a few blocks from us and we became good friends. Mark had been born in New York and he was WAY cooler than me. He had Led Zeppelin and we discovered Queen. We also had our first drinks [scotch at his bar mitzvah... I remeber us being at the bar and someone told him "you're a man now, have a man's drink." I only tasted it and the smokey flavor and whiskey burn... blech!] and found his dad’s Playboys and Hustlers and I smoked my first joint with Mark.
After we moved out to Burleson I gradually lost touch with Mark. We saw Queen and Billy Squier in 1982, my first concert without my parents. We would also see Aerosmith, once when they did their first reunion tour with my sister from the lower balcony, once two days after Mark twisted his ankle running around his folks pool. We parked over by Union Station and I made his hobble about a mile down the railroad tracks on crutches [where he lost one of those rubber tips on the crutches], which was kind of funny, and THEN we had to get him up into the nosebleed seats[!] and once from the front row on the Permanent Vacation tour. I guess I was forgiven for the crutches when I got those front row seats [the secret was, I learned, to get the operator on line a couple of minutes before the tickets went on sale and keep them on line; you can't do that now, it's all computerized!], but that was also the next to last time I saw Mark. The LAST time I saw him, I ran into him at a friend’s college graduation at TCU and I tried hooking up with him a couple times after, but never did.
I place this part up here because I mentioned Mark in an earlier piece and never got back to the subject. Like I said, he was around for much of the 'maturing' process we went through as teenagers... the pain of discovering girls and being shot down and all that... Mark at least had confidence. He was originally from New York, and he was proud of it, though he did not have the accent. I spent a few months of my 4th grade and my 5th grade year [though he was in the next class, we shared a common area] in central Arlington before we moved over by the lake... about a month into the school year, Mark moved about a quarter mile from me and we were buddies until I moved out to Burleson in the middle of my 8th grade year. For you girls, that's when boys FINALLY notice girls. Though I had been noticing girls for a long time before. There is a legend of me in the 1st grade [I am not making this up] of me lifting up my my 'girlfirend' Jessica [last name not given to protect the young, but I know what it is] mask at Halloween and kissing her in front of the class...find someone who was in the Oakbrook Elementary class with me and they may confirm... unfortunately Jessica and I were separated when she was[I am not making this up] held back in the 1st grade. See, I have ALWAYS been a lover! Unfortunately I peaked in the 1st grade... 7th grade was a torture of Stephanie Sheehan, 8th grade was Robin Hatfield and Franny D'Augustino. [8th grade was also when girls began really developing... ah the sweet ememories of 14 and staring at girls boobs in class!] Skating at Big Wheel in Arlington [before the fire and they went totally roller disco] to the Eagles, Steve Miller and Ted Nugent! But I digress...
Anyway, we went through talking about girls and rock and roll and reading Playboy. My parents were pretty liberal, but Mark's let him put up the Bo Derek /wet t shirt poster with the nipples prominently showing and the 'Start of the Nude Bicycle Race' poster from Queen's Jazz album. Mark joined Columbia House and he picked up a handful of records that would havge a big influence: Led Zeppelin IV, the Scorpions Blackout, Judas Priest British Steel, AC/DC Back in Black and For Those About to Rock... aside from the Queen, some of the albums that set me up for the 80s!
Mark had confidence that I certainly never had. I know he nailed someone I would truly have loved to have nailed one night when we were going to a party. I also remeber him drooling over one of my sister's friends one weekend he was out in Burleyville.
I say all this only because the first page of my book if/when it is published will be: Dedicated to Mark Harry Lederman who taught me all about sex, drugs and rock and roll... yep it's all HIS fault. I raise my whiskey glass to you wherever you are Mark! Salud!