Brickman Meltdown

Jan Flato walked into our rehearsal wearing an apron from his duties as a waiter in the dining room and sits at the Farfesa and starts to play. Holy shit! So that's what it's supposed to sound like!

Jan who has been classically trained since a young boy plays with the consumate touch of a prodigy, it's as if he isn't even trying, and we are stunned.

A day later he comes to me surrepticiously and says, “Hey Rog, ya know my Dad can get us a really good gig at this place called the Homowack, and I got this great drummer. We could go over there as a three piece if you want.

“What? I can't just leave the guys here with no band.” But I think I knew instantly that this was the shot I had been waiting for. I knew I needed to go with this guy and learn to play properly. It was long overdue, and I was already gone.

“Let me think about it maybe I can get Larry and Steve to fill for me.”

When I told the twins they were not happy. But I had made up my mind that I would not be swayed, and I told them I had already called Larry and Steve and they were coming up to replace me in a day.

The Homowack was a nice resort. It didn't feel as cozy as the Brickman which had been my summer gig for over two years, and felt like home, known territory you might say. This new place was okay and we had a really nice band room.

Jan introduced me to Bobby Sher and the three of us set up on the stage, which was a much more intimate and pro type of club room. We would be playing for all ages here not just kids. It was definitely a more serious gig.

As soon as we started to play I realized we had a much more complex sound and Bobby was an amazingly snappy and versatile percussionist. Within two days we had cobbled together some really good stuff and it sounded tight.

This was what I had been looking for and I knew I had made the right decision!

The band room here was actually a little bungalo of our own! It was a short walk up a dusty road to the place and on many a sultry evening we walked curious girls down that path. It was well lit as opposed to the old rooms at the Brickman, and Jan kept it filled with the sounds of his current favorite band, Traffic, most of the time. He had fallen in love with Last Exit their newest and last album, and Steve Winwood's voice was a constant companion that entire summer, with Dave Mason running a close second.

Winwood's high plaintave In a Chinese Noodle Factory would play and then, Heres a Little Song you can all join in with it's very simple and I hope it's new …

It was all new to me!

My musical senses were embigened (ha ha) … okay, were fed new chordal structures on a daily basis, the diet was very different from my Beatles and Bee Gees staples. And that was exactly what I needed, although it was an uncomfortable and foreign territory.

Jan began to show me the proper chords for tunes we were playing and all of a sudden something that was just a G would become a G major seventh and the complexity was nectar to my ears. And I began to learn.

When I had called Larry and Steve and asked them to fill for me with the twins, I really did think it might be do-able. In hindsight I see that it was an insane proposition. I am a steadying factor for both sets of twins, and yes, I realize I am also several bricks short of a load, and have an Italian temper that does not serve to calm the waters at times, nevertheless, I still held us to a modicome of sanity. I think it was because I really wanted the gigs to work, to continue to be able to play, to keep the gig!

So when the tensions and frustrations that all neophyte bands have to deal with occurred, I tried, hard, to keep us from self-destructing. When some little kid is running through the stage front area below us screaming and smacking little girls in the head, while we are doing a tender ballad, or some despotic entertainment director rudely yells for us to turn it down in the middle of a set, I tried to work without going postal. There might be murder in my heart, but I wanted to play music, to keep the gig!

It was not that I was good at it, it's just that without my slight, very slight, ability to keep us on the rails … it was sure to be a short summer.

However at this time I had jumped ship and it was they only shot we had. Again in hindsight I should have let Arnie and Al work it out. What was I thinking? Two sticks of dynamite would have done less damage!

Why and how Steve came up with a set of drums is a mystery to me. No make that, not why and how, but why and WHY??? Steve is not a drummer, anymore than I am. And his sense of rhythm is even worse than mine.

A four year old, beating the hell out of a rock with a hammer, has a more refined technique than Steve.

A jackhammer in the streets of New York, down a roped-off manhole, has a sweeter tone.

A flat tire whoomp, whoomp, whoomping to a stop, has a more even tempo!

And I mean that in the nicest way, Um, yeah.

Add to this, that he had a unique gift for instantly switching the downbeat to the upbeat, and you have what we in the business call: Cacophony!

… and he never even took a lesson. Hhmmmm.

The very delicate balance of brotherly sympatico and murder, were tested to it's limits, Cain and Able got nuthin' on these guys!

So when they started to play that evening, as Larry and Arnie strummed guitars, and Al thumped away on his patternless root notes on bass … Steve started to play on the upbeat.

Larry gently said with (I'm sure) well-meaning intentions, “Steve, you fucking idiot, your doing it backwards again!” Maybe he said it through clenched teeth and with an edgy hiss, because Steve responded with, “Fuck you!” and instantly fired a drumstick, with the accuracy of a stinger missle, at his mint Tennessean guitar.

The stick riccocheted off the semi-hollowbody with a loud crack. Larry said, “You could have blinded me!” Steve just got up and recovered the drumstick. Arnie and Al looked tense but Arnie said, "C'mon guys, let's just calm down." And good for him. An attempt at diplomatic reconciliation.

Try as they might the smooth workings of a musical group was not forthcoming with this peculiar lineup, and the songs drifted from, uneven to unacceptable. Finally having taken all he could Larry stepped behind the curtain.

Now when the confused and slowly dispersing audiece looked up at the stage, just a disembodied, black coil chord could be seen, gently vibrating off into the wings, as the amp continued to sing.

It was the beginning of a very short summer indeed!

A testament to their resiliant natures, and against all odds, the twins and the twins, managed to survive for three more days. A feat of brotherly cease-fire with the laudable hope to, keep the gig!

When it was time for the Brickman Talent Showcase, the guys were informed they would, as usual, do the music between the acts. Poor Murray Posner did not yet know it, but he had met his Waterloo.

Because I had covered the Showcase fairly well with the boys, or more cynically because we cost him nothing more … he naturally, (having no interest whatever in what was going on in the kids theater) assumed the current band would continue to fill this role.

The lights dimmed the announcer welcomed the crowd and the guys began to warm-up the crowd. Warm-up the crowd might be too prophetic.

As they played Arnie and Al looked nervous but Larry and Steve had no time for such limp sensitivities. They went straight for the violence! Steve and Larry began their musical snake-dance, hissing and weaving at each other like cobras. But Arnie was prepared for this, and stepped in and managed to keep the ship off the rocks, for one more song. Maybe there was hope after all?

But then poor Murray Posner made the evenings critical error. He told Larry to, “Turn it down.”

Larry with a maniacal gleem in his eyes reached a shaking hand for the volume knob … and turned it to ten!

As Bobby showered, Jan and I kicked back in our beds after our set. Two girls had come back with us to the bungalo, one sat on bobby's bed, and one on Jan's.

There was a knocking on the door and Larry and Steve came banging into the room laughing uncontrollably. Larry threw himself at me and grabbed me by both arms clamping down like a vice and screamed, “We got fired!”

Steve immediately fell on the floor rolling with helpless, mad cackles. Jan started to grin like a chesire, and I said, “What do you mean?”

“We got fired from the Brickman!” And he joined Steve on the floor. Now Jan and I started to laugh. But I managed to ask, “What happened?” Steve was slapping the floor with the flat of his hand, the closest he had come to a steady rhythm in months.

Larry explained how they killed the showcase and we, and the girls, collapsed with them.

Then came another band. This one I found for myself. This one would be transformative.

An album, On the cover three guys are on an old faded berry colored couch, which sits in the dirt in front of a lemon clapboard house. Maybe an old farmhouse. Long hair and jeans. The one in the middle holds an acoustic and the one on the left sits up on the back of the couch, and the one on the right wears an impressive soup strainer.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

Oh boy here we go! Voices that blend in the way atoms lock together to form steel. The harmonies shimmered with a sweet brilliance.

Larry and Steve and I jumped captivated, into this well, and it's seemingly bottomless. That sound! But the boys had that kind of range, and we were able to match the vocals closer than most.

We ate those songs up! Wooden Ships, Suite Judy Blue Eyes, Woodstock. Man oh man!

We couldn't get enough. But here was an issue. These vocals were moving, complex structures and Steve had a tough time hearing his part against ours.

Larry took the insanely high Graham Nash parts and I took the low Stephen Stills bit. And Steve would take the middle David Crosby part. Sometimes.

Other times he would drift into mine and others into Larry's. And we would be left with a seperated harmony. Not even a two part harmony, which while incomplete, was at least a familiar sounding form.

No, if you take out the middle, your left with a strange sound, that may have been sung by ancient chanting monks! But we were not ordained, and Larry would look at Steve with daggers glinting in his maniacal eyes and hiss, “Steve your on my fucking note!”

Upon which at first, Steve would respond with a confused, “What?” Through clenched teeth Larry repeated,“I said ...”

Where upon I would put out a hand, to stop a needless death, (probably Larry's) … and say, “Let's just do it again. Here's your part Steve, listen closely while I sing it.”

And then I would. And I'd make Steve repeat it alone and then yet again, trying to get it burned in his brain and to build sense memory in his pipes, of how it feels on that note, the vocal chord at that exact tension.

This was a process that needed patience and Larry was not strong on that. Especially for his twin. I never did understand that. I fucked up plenty in other areas and Larry would never think to talk to me in that tone … but maybe there is a special stress in sharing amniotic fluids, a residual anger that your egg split, a closeness where familiarity breeds contempt.

It was constant rehearsal and we must have sung Suite Jude Blue Eyes a thousand times, and I don't think I'm exaggerating. But by God when we got it right it was good! It was amazing!

The next trip we took to Fort Lauderdale, as we wandered the beaches carrying two guitars and walking into the sun as it began to fall, we came upon an empty bandshell. A large music shell that I believe might have been where a year before I had seen The Vanilla Fudge, allthough I'm not sure.

In anycase we climbed onto the stage with no actual plan, but just because, well, go ahead and put an empty stage in front of us. Go ahead! I dare ya!

Because it was the real deal, when we started to sing our voices were amplified and rang with a sweetness and clarity. Within a short time people started to drift over to the seats in front. In fifteen minutes it was a small crowd, and they kept coming.

Ah, there were some sweet times for Larry and Steve and I ... yes there were!