|
A long, long time ago… before there was Robert DeNiro I walked in the streets of New York City - downtown and midtown. In the Village, David Peel hung around near the Washington Square arch. Bruce Springsteen walked by me early one evening on Third Street. I remember his beard. Some guy named Loudon Wainwright 3rd had made an unusual record with a strange and interesting album cover. He looked like a drifter or a loner. The kind of guy that shoots presidents or something. I met Don Maclean in Manny's music on 48th street one afternoon. I told him I was working on an album for Vanguard Records. He paused and smiled, as he told me Carol King's new record Tapestry, had the same title as the record he was about to release.
I was living at the famous Chelsea Hotel working on what was to be called 'Years', my first record. I was signed to Vanguard in an exclusive recording contract. I was nineteen years old. One night I met a guy walking down 23rd street that noticed I was carrying a guitar. He instantly flashed an album cover at me. On the cover of the record was a picture of him looking completely and exactly like the way he looked at that moment. There on the cover was his name, Edwin Birdsong.
It was New York and things were beginning to happen for me. I didn't have a real game plan to speak of. I would just get an idea that seemed great to me and the next thing you knew, the idea was up and running, sometimes within hours.
I believe I had learned this technique a few years earlier when I would come into the city and hang out around the United Artist Records building on Seventh Avenue. My high school chum and band mate Bruce de Sousa and I started riding the train into the city when we were fifteen years old.
His mother Gloria, worked for United Artist. We used that as an excuse to explore what was at that time, the center of the music business scene in New York City. I personally got off the elevator on every floor of the United Artist offices just to look around. After all, U.A. had put out The Beatles first movie 'Hard Days Night' and the soundtrack album. I would get into conversations with people who had worked on Beatle projects. I was beside myself.
By the time I was sixteen, I had made visits to a few record companies with the Glen Larko demos before Glen died. I remember a guy, whose name escapes me now, working at Mercury Records, upon hearing " You Can't Catch a Street Car in the Rain" a droning minor key ballad, wanted to put me in the studio. If you were young and had some talent, most every door would open like magic. I somehow sensed I would do all right if I really made half an effort.
After Glen died, I froze up in a way. I didn't care about becoming a teen-age recording star as much. However, I continued to play music with a band in Merrick, Long Island, my hometown.
Scott Lang became the drummer of our group, The Gay Intruders. The Gay Intruders had been founded by three fifteen year olds, Roger Mason, Billy Servideo and myself, at Camp Crystal Lake in Roscoe New York. We were all about playing up - tempo catchy material. The band was named after the camp's basketball team. It was the summer of ninth grade into tenth. It wasn't until that winter when Life Magazine did an article on the 'Gay' scene that we ever heard of gay meaning anything else. We didn't know people who were gay. Every now and then because sexuality will always be the great mysterian, we joked about it as all kids do. Now the joke was on us. We really didn't care. We thought it was threatening so we kept it.
Roger, whom had originally played base switched to rhythm guitar. I moved from the drums to lead singer without a guitar. With Scott now on drums, we asked Bruce de Sousa to play lead guitar and Bruce brought Rob Lyons in to play base. Billy quit. After we recorded the "in The Race" demo Roger drifted away and we got a fellow named Joe Minacello to play second guitar.
Bruce and Rob had very long hair. It was great. They were the only guys who didn't look too clean cut. It cemented our rebellious reputation in Merrick. We were going Hollywood. We had business cards printed that said, "Incite Your Own Riot, The Gay Intruders"
On the second floor of the United Artists building, we found an odd recording studio that went by the name of Dick Charles Recording. It was a small independent facility. I kept going into the waiting room to get information on how to make a demo. Finally, an engineer there let me look inside. It was like stepping into a rocket ship. I felt vibes. I didn't know it at the time but plenty of my favorite artists had recorded demos and masters at the Dick Charles Studio. We booked time there and prepared to make our first demo, "in The Race" as in I'm in the Master Race and your not. It wasn't anti Semitic at all. Bruce and I had re-worked a Glen Larko song called "Bed Pan" one night upstairs in my room. The new lyric was from the point of view of a smitten lover who was now informing his unfaithful partner that "It's you who's out of place - it's me - I'm in The Race" It was teen angst turned up to ten. We cut the demo in two sessions. I came back in on day two with Bruce and overdubbed a bitchier vocal and Bruce did a guitar overdub. In the Race had a Bo- Diddley drum part provided by Scott that set the mood for the song. Bruce screams in the beginning not me. Bruce de sousa was the musician's musician in the group. His guitar and lead work on "in The Race" is the real meat of it all. Like a wild animal stalking through the arrangement, never letting up.
One day Bruce, Scott and myself were in the city hanging around Forty Eighth Street at Manny's music.. Scott must have seen a beautiful girl in a business suit walking down Eighth Avenue around Fiftieth Street. He began walking along side her and started a conversation. They walked for blocks, him talking and her just listening. I couldn't believe this. We all walked to the subway, Bruce and I following close behind, happy and amazed. Scott even got her phone number and they began to date for a while. It made an impression on me that anything was possible.
This was New York City to me. A boom- town of golden opportunities. I was fearless. I'd look up at those tall buildings and all the windows and think; it all belongs to me and I've got new ideas everyday.
|
|
