NEW YORK SONG

Roger Gemelle

Excerpt New York Song:

The East Side Kids

I think it was Jan who lined up the East Side Kids Gig. Really this was a portent that all was not well. We took on a crappy song that we didn't actually record, and we were supposed to perform publicly as the group that did it. The producers at Hollybrooke records had hired a session guy to do the vocal track on the record, and they had a gig, but the session guy (wisely) wanted nothing to do with it.

We however, had no such pride to speak of.

The song was a weird thing about, “The Great Guardino and The East Side Kids, All the people turn around and Flip Their Lids!”

I don't know what to tell you, except they were writing, and selling, (or in this case attempting to sell) some pretty bizarre stuff around 1969. All the old Brill-building guys, the old fifties jingle-guys, didn't know what to make of the new Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane stuff and they were desperately grasping for hits in a tumultuously changing musical period they couldn't figure out. I suppose this song was supposed to be cute in a “Yummy Yummy” way, but it wasn't working!

And I was gonna have to be the Keith Partridge-looking guy to front for this nonsense. I felt myself sliding into a sort of prostitution here, but then a gig's a … I'm afraid I'm gonna have to get back to you on this one!

The whole thing had a stink about it to me. And they wanted us to wear these corny shirts with pleated shoulders, that looked like they belonged on a circus clown. Well as a famous clown once said: “Homey don't play dat!”

Here's the shot:

So we learned the idiot song and some disco stuff they wanted, and drove up for the gig. It was a decent little loungy kinda place, with good lights and a decent stage.

The band was pretty good but Danny had told us he was not doing the gig (some integrity?) and luckily we had found a killer replacement in our friend Tom Tewksbury! A great bass player. And we had the rest of the line-up: Animal a very good drummer, and of course Jan a killer on keys and harmonies. With Larry on lead guitar and harmonies, and me on lead vocals and rhythm, we were pretty good.

We were broke all the time and when we got to New Haven we couldn't afford to eat. So I decided to cook the band a simple spaghetti diner. We had bought the ground beef at the store across the way but we had a problem. There were no pots and pans in this shitty room they had stuck us in!

I rummaged around the place and found some old paint cans which still had a little white paint on the bottom. But I figured what the hell, and cleaned em out as best I could and filled them with water and put them on the gas burners.

I could not find where the hell to light the damn things! We were crawling all over that stove until Larry says with a twisted smile, “Thats because it's an electric stove.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it's electric.” And he reaches over and turns the knob and the element starts to get red. At which point he cracks up and falls on the floor laughing.

I didn't have a clue. I had never even seen anything but gas stoves.

The spaghetti wasn't bad … but you'd be amazed how the guys whined when I poured the pasta out of the paint can onto their plates. Jesus, they were fussy for musicians!

Larry was nervous about the gig, sort of a stage fright thing I guess, so we thought we'd give him a half of a 10 grain valium. For me and Jan, this was an amount we could no longer feel, 5mg of valium was a joke, a none-drug dose. But Larry was of a different (possibly alien) physiology.

We were having orange juice so we gave him the half valium with it;

“What will I feel like … are your sure it's okay?” Larry asked

I said in my sweetest bedside manner, “Just take it you fucking idiot, you probably won't feel anything at all but it might calm your nerves a bit.”

But thirty seconds after this maniac took it he suddenly collapsed into a dead faint next to me. There had not been time for the valium to enter his bloodstream, but he acted as if he'd just mainlined a hot dose of heroin! Fuck me!

We pick him up moaning about how high he is, Madman! I'm gonna kill him! And we have a show to do! Aarrrghh!

The place was called Arthur's Discotheque ... and we had to do some of the more current dance stuff which wasn't our thing, but Jan was on top of all that kind of material and showed us the stuctures, and Tom and Animal could cut this stuff, so it was pretty good.

The band was dressed in the corny matching shirts, all purple, that the agent had wanted us to wear during the promo photo shoot. I was wearing a suede vest over a shirt with none of that weird pleated, whatever the fuck it is on the shoulders. There was not enough money to get me to wear that … but I was the lead singer so ...

Now, during prep for any first set, which is the time when you make or break, that all important first impression that will affect the energy of the room, I am usually so focused on set-lists and so obsessed with trying to prescience any problems, that I am not paying attention to anything else.

And in addition I'm having a problem with this arrangement.

Larry leans over to me and whispers,” Hey Rog … where's the girls? I don't see any girls.”

“Huh? I guess it's early.” But I did think it was strange. “Look will you do me a favor? Would you please get me an Irish coffee? I gotta go over the chords for this crap. Can't seem to remember the bridge.”

“Sure.”

I look over the chords to some remake of an old classic. The original was good but this sucks, all they really do is add this pounding kick drum on all the quarter notes! Very subtle. It's shit compared to the originals, but they're pumping these things out every day and a lot of em are going to the top of the charts. And yes it sucks, but a gig is a gig … right? Jesus!

Larry comes back over and hands me the cup and I take a sip of the cream and get that coffee and whiskey and it's very good for my pipes. And Larry looks a little pale and whispers, “Rog I know why there are no girls.”

“Hmmm?”

“Rog, when I got the coffee a waiter was wearing this bright red fluffy shirt (which was funny cause, so was Larry's- but his was purple) and I said to him, “Wow you look look a stop sign!”

“Ha.”

“You know what he said? … “Why don't you stop me sometime! Rog!” he hissed, “this is a gay club! Our piece-of-shit agent booked us in a gay club!” Larry looked like he was gonna pop!

I looked around the dance floor in front of the stage and, yep, not a woman anywhere.

I shrugged, “Come on man get your axe and let's go.”

And it was an interesting, educational night of bearded guys bumping and grinding and having a good time, and kissing later in the hallways. And yes, it would have been nice if the agent had told us, although he must have thought we wouldn't go, and he'd have been right.

But my attitiude was, on the cosmic and comical entwinings of love …

You gotta stay open. Right?