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My First Band (1978)…

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The band was a fixture in Lake George, playing on the paddle wheel steamboat Minne-Ha-Ha. By the time I joined they had moved across the street from the boat into the Steamboat Wharf – an old D&H rail station turned night club and decorated to look and feel like a New Orleans hot spot. It was a great time – especially during the summer when it was hot and sticky, the place would be packed, people dancing and screaming and weaving conga lines of dancers with umbrellas (ala New Orleans) between tables and inside and out and back…

The band was comprised of Woody Strobeck – trombone, Charlie Comstock – trumpet, Lloyd Brush, Tommy Elison, Marc Pratt or Leo Russo – clarinet, ’12 Fingers’ Doug Archer – piano, Jamie Dier – bass and myself on drums with occasional guest appearances by Bill Richards – valve trombone and vocals and Marilyn Beuhler – piano and vocals.

Here are a few samples…

That’s A Plenty

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Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet

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The South Rampart Street Parade

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My Next Band (and the next and the next)…

While with the Dixie band I became friends with Jamie’s family (bass player from Dinner Theater and the Dixie band)… his baby brother Mike was in the drumline when I came back to teach at LG back in the fall of ’78 and would become an excellent drummer himself… I would move my kit into their basement and setup facing Mike and the two of us would practice to various recordings together… I have no idea how his family didn’t lose their minds… 🙂

One night Jamie brought me to this dimly lit hole-in-the-wall in a plaza in Glens Falls called Bud’s Day & Night Club… During the day the place would serve lunches (and probably drinks) to local businessmen on their lunch hours but at night it was a different story… especially on jam session / open mic nights!!

This was his regular ad in the local paper (remember, this is 1978… long before social media and the like)…

Many of the local musicians would turn out at one point or another and it didn’t take long to figure out who was who in this zoo… 🙂  I loved getting asked to play – usually with people I’d never met… and I never knew what tunes I might be asked to play… needless to say I learned a ton of songs I’d never heard on the fly… it really taught me to listen and to watch and that still pays off to this day!!

It was here that I met Gus Russo… a local guitarist / composer and I’d record several radio jingles with him for local stations and a few originals… Gus and I would play together in a couple bands down the road as well…

And there were so many other great people and players… so many that I’ll never remember them all… John Delong… another keyboardist known only as ‘Lazy Fingers’… Dave Nichols – drummer with ‘Panache’… Dick White… Joe Collura… Mark Caruso, Ed Beecher, Billy Warner, and Rick and Sharron Butto from ‘Toulouse Street’… Pete Jarvis, Mike LaPoint and Dave Rozelle from ‘Bittersweet Harmony’ whose harmonies were anything but bittersweet… Harold ‘Clutch’ Reiser – the ‘Carl Palmer of Schaghticoke’… and the list goes on and on and on… such a great place!!

It was also here that I met Bob ‘Boppo’ Howard… an amazing local keyboardist (following in the footsteps of his father Don) and I would get to play a number of local gigs with him and various groups he’d assemble… some nights were musically magical but most were, from an audience and musician standpoint anyway, deeply forgettable and seemed like they would never end… one crazy night at Bud’s Boppo and Clutch probably had a bit too much to drink, started horsing around and ended up shredding each other’s shirts… Another time I remember playing a wedding with Bob… the bride happened to be obviously pregnant so he plays ‘I Should Have Danced All Night’ for her… it was then that I understood what the term ‘paying your dues’ meant…

I was still more into jazz than rock at this point and was thrilled to be invited to the Tuesday night jazz jams… bebop… blues… Latin… remember, this was about 1979 – long before MP3’s and Pandora and the like… I was playing things I’d never heard and was on my own to come up with grooves… oh to go back armed with the musical knowledge and access I now have… It was a trip thought and I got to play with some amazing players… and some not so amazing ones but it was still a valuable learning experience that I’m eternally grateful for.

I would introduce my friend Gary Moon – an accomplished acoustic / solo performer and composer (who I’d later play on some of his original CD’s) to the place and before long he was hosting some of the acoustic nights… at one of these I met Val Lord who I’d work with a couple times down the road – once in a band and once in an incredible high school production of ‘The Wiz’ with some of the most talented kids I’ve ever heard… the massive pit orchestra and choir were built around the rhythm section of a band named ‘Swing Fever’ we were putting together that you’ll see later…

Bud’s became our go-to hangout – even on nights without music… I’d pound down a few OJ’s on the rocks – usually thanks to bartenders Bob Jackson and Mike Kendall – while shooting pool or playing video games… sometimes Bud and I would play pinball a-penny-a-point… Bud was a short stocky guy which is important for the next visual… one night we’re banging away at the pinball machine and I beat him so bad that he had a minor temper tantrum which culminated in his grabbing me by the neck and crotch and banging my ass into the hanging ceiling!! After he put me down we laughed until we couldn’t stand… 🙂

It was a one-of-a-kind place… the first in the area to have a large screen projection TV!! On quiet nights he’d play concert videos and crank the sound through the house PA (my favorite was a Doobie Brothers concert in California)…

And the various jam sessions lead to the creation of several local bands – many of which played for several years after debuting at Bud’s!!

Flash forward to the early 2000’s when a group of people put together a Bud’s reunion jam and the players came out of the woodwork!! It was extremely impressive!! Though I was gigging and couldn’t stay long it was great to see so many familiar faces – especially Bud himself who I gave CD’s of some of the bands I’d been in that all stemmed from our meeting at his jam sessions…

Flash forward once again to January 2020 and another reunion jam – this time sadly to raise money for Bud’s medical bills as he battles stage 4 COPD… the place was packed and the musicians came out in droves once again!! Yes tribute ‘Alice Frost’… Tom Petty tribute ‘The Brokenhearted’… ‘Crispy Critters’… ‘Dirt Cheap‘… Then the open jam started and players started subbing in and out on various instruments – just like the old days… I guess I’m not the only one who feels indebted to him and the special place he created way back in the day… Thank you, Bud!! Best of luck!!!

Here’s a picture of most of the musicians and the reunion organizers…

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Back to the timeline and one of the players I got to work with not once but twice that I met on one of the jam nights…

1981… One of the more sought after players at Bud’s was a keyboardist named Matt Donnelly… one night I’m in the back room with Big Dave McKee –  a phenomenal drummer with a rock band named ‘Shooz’ that played Rush and the like… Dave was working with the drumline at Warrensburg Central and I was showing him some licks I’d learned from the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps in California when Matt walked in… He asked what we were playing and I told him it was from the Vanguard and he said he knew that but wanted to know how WE knew that?? Turned out that Matt was a drum corps alum from the Purple Lancers in Auburn!! That would have been around 1979 or ’80… We struck up a friendship that continues to this day…

During a 13 week engagement at a local Sheraton with ‘Phoenix’, where we were entertaining some locals but mostly ski tours, I became very sick – weak to the point where the other band members had to carry me to and from the drums between sets. After the last night of the run I got about 4 hours sleep then headed to the college to setup and perform a Stravinsky concert – ‘The Story of the Soldier’. This is a narrated classical piece for small ensemble with some amazing time signature work (practically no two measures the same). I got through the concert, came home, passed out and found myself in the ER. Apparently one of the ski tours had come through loaded with Mono (and I guess the bar wasn’t cleaning their glasses very well)… I was diagnosed with Mono, Yellow Jaundice and Hepatitis!! A few days later Matt was elected to call and tell me that ‘due to my failing health and I really didn’t hit hard enough the band had decided to let me go’ and with that I was out of my 2nd band. Matt and Paul then morphed the band into a campy, costumed, hard rock band named ‘Halloween’ that was pretty short-lived so I guess they did me a favor…

I was still working at the college and my association with Mike Stone lead to the forming of ‘The Carbon-Based Units’ – a jazz / fusion quartet featuring Mike on keyboards, Frank Conti from L.A. on sax and Jack Wilcox on bass who had two sons – both drummers… John who worked with Todd Rundgren and Jimmy who played with Blue Oyster Cult, Rick Derringer and Patti Smyth and Scandal before settling down locally and playing for a number of years with local legends Bobby Dick & the Sundowners. Jimmy went on to form The Master Cylinders after Bobby retired. The Units became a quintet for a short time – adding Mark Caruso on guitar who I’d met back in the Bud’s days when he was with the wildly popular Toulouse Street (currently he’s with the Marcabes and the Electric City Horns) and I would later work with in that successful trio with Matt. One of Mike’s other projects was an original off-Broadway contemporary musical called ‘The Lucky Ones’ which had a large pit orchestra of which I was glad to be a part even though the show’s run was brief…

It was somewhere along in here I met Alan W. Prince – President and Chief Recording Engineer at Trackdown Recording Studios. I forget what the original call was (I think a radio jingle) but I soon became the first call session drummer. I played on thousands of projects – everything from radio spots and jingles to full blown albums and CDs and even a series of holistic healing tapes.

By the end of the ’86 riding season I realized that with the stereo and all I was getting waaaaay too comfortable on the bike which is usually when bad things happen… I never had access to a smaller bike to take a road test on and never gained the level of control over the bike that Al had to where I could even consider taking the test on my beast so I sold it and went back to 4 wheels full time.

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Here are a few audio clips from ‘Doc Scanlon’s Rhythm Boys’ – Scott Black – coronet and vocals, Greg Rosano – guitar and vocals, Cliff Lyons – sax and vocals, Don Dworkin – bass and vocals, Richie Lainhart – vibes, organ and vocals and myself on drums…

Choo Choo Cha Boogie

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Stardust

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All In Love Is Fair

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Straighten Up and Fly Right

I played with two incarnations after this one which included Jeannie Blake on vocals and another with Nadine Toma on vocals and John Eisenhart on guitar, keyboards and vocals and I started playing some keyboards as well.

I start the solo on the kit then in the middle I actually got up from the drums and played a steel drum melody on a Roland Octapad while a drum machine plays on. Then I sit back down and complete the solo by playing ‘trades’ with the machine. The whole thing sounded like this in 1986 with Danny Lombardo – keyboards, pedal bass and vocals, Nadine Toma – vocals, John Eisenhart – guitar, bass and vocals and myself on drums, drum sequencing, keyboards and vocals…—

Conga

Coincidentally, it was on Memorial Day Weekend 1986… Matt (from Phoenix) and I were trying to make heads or tails out of Dr. T’s M.I.D.I. software when I received the news that my Dad had passed away. He was in the hospital battling another case of pneumonia complicated all the more by Diabetes that would cause ulcers that had taken a toe, a foot and eventually part of his leg. He didn’t get out much but I’m thankful that he did get to see me play with the Dixieland band and, even though he wasn’t the type to let anyone know how he felt, I think he got a kick out it.

Below are some pictures from the Tropicana’s weekly Oldies Night… That’s Gerry and myself on top and Danny and I below

I left the group after about 3 years – frustrated with the musical quality and performance consistency of the group. Looking back I can now appreciate how difficult it was for Dan to ‘be the clown’ when he had to ‘run the circus’ too. I returned a year or so later to help Dan make the leap into M.I.D.I. technology when he made the difficult decision to replace his drummer with a machine. But he didn’t just play over a pattern or two like many others with drum machines – rather we were programming legitimate drum tracks.

Today Danny is the ‘house band’ on the cruise ship Lac Du St. Sacrament on Lake George and has a top notch setup (actually two identical setups in case he has to play a club at night) utilizing the latest in MIDI, sampling, vocal enhancement, sequencing and Bose PA gear all run from a laptop computer.

Overlapping my time at the Tropicana, I was also on the writing and teaching staff of the Vagabonds and Freedom Knights Sr. Drum & Bugle Corps and the Avant Garde, Volunteers and Golden Marauders Jr. Drum & Bugle Corps and found that M.I.D.I. was useful in that environment as well…

M.I.D.I…. As long as I refuse to shutup about M.I.D.I. let me take a little detour here…

Years ago I used to work under the umbrella of MIDI-Evil Music which came out of a conversation with some fellow musicians back in the mid 80’s – just after M.I.D.I. (pronounced MID-ee) was developed and gaining popularity. As I said earlier, M.I.D.I. stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface – it’s the way electronic musical instruments like drum machines, MIDI controllers, samplers, keyboard synthesizers, sound modules, light controllers, etc. communicate with computers or each other. When MIDI was first introduced back in the early ’80’s, many musicians were outraged. They were sure that MIDI was going to put live musicians out of work – the same way they thought drum machines were going to put drummers out of work (if you hear a ‘band’ without a live drummer, it can be painful and even worse when a non-drummer is doing the drum sequencing – the computer term for recording a drum or any other instrumental track via MIDI). During this one particular debate about musicians being replaced by machines I said that I thought that it was going to be good for musicians – a useful tool – ‘MIDI is not evil’!! MIDI… evil… MIDI-Evil!!! I thought it was an interesting twist of words so I adopted it for myself.

I guess I must have believed some of the ‘putting musicians out of work’ hype though because I went right out and bought a drum machine and a MIDI interface. I had only been in the music business a few years and wasn’t ready to get out just yet. I also had a budding interest in computers so I decided to learn as much as I could about how it all worked. Besides, someone would have to show the ‘technologically challenged’ people how to use the stuff and it might as well be me.

Sequencing – the multi-track recording of MIDI events to form songs – was a major use for MIDI. Without starting an ‘Introduction To MIDI’ course, the term sequencing, I believe, comes from the way that MIDI tracks are recorded. I learned MIDI sequencing on Dr. T’s Sequencing Software courtesy of Matt (from Phoenix – a friend, keyboardist, drum corps alum and now school Superintendent – who says musicians never grow up and even if you’re not playing – if you haven’t sold all your gear you’re still a musician). Anyway, I began sequencing with Dr. T’s software on a Commodore 64 computer (MIDI does not require a lot of computer horsepower). Dr. T would record the notes as you played them on a drum machine or MIDI capable piano keyboard and then you could go back afterwards, add other tracks (just like a multi-track tape or digital recorder) and view the recorded data and make corrections or whatever. This data was nothing more than a list or sequence of note events indicating what note was played, when, how hard it was hit and how long it was held down as well as other information like instrument volume, pedal information, pitch bend and on and on and on… There was a separate track for each instrument you were recording and a separate line for every event in the sequence for every track and you had to scroll through thousands of lines of events just to find whatever particular event you might be looking for. The note information is still recorded in much the same way today but the software interface is much more user friendly so you never actually have to edit the raw note data directly.

I use MIDI to this day – it enables me to do drum tracks for various studios without ever leaving my home! But probably the greatest use I found for it personally was in teaching drum & bugle corps because lines are often comprised of players that don’t read very well or at all. I’ve found that giving these drummers recordings along with the printed music has greatly cut down on teaching parts a bar or less at a time and, over time, many of these players have learned to read in the process.

In a few years (down the page) you’ll come to the ultimate M.I.D.I. group that I performed with – composed of my friend Matt (from Phoenix), Mark Caruso (of Toulouse Street) and myself in a band called ‘The Upstarts’.

Pete and I were regular tennis opponents and tournament doubles partners and he used to enjoy visiting the Tropicana when I was playing. Maynard’s tour would regularly come through the area and Pete would call and ask if I wanted to go… of course I would!! It was still a huge thrill to see Maynard and his band!! It became more of a thrill as Maynard started inviting Pete up to play with the band and he could pull it off at 15!! I remember one show in particular… they used to bring Pete up for MacArthur Park… the first lead is played in a normal range but the second part is an octave higher. Pete would play the first line himself then Maynard would take over but not on this night… Pete started to walk away and Maynard motioned him to keep playing… and he nailed it up the octave!!

It got to where we were invited to meet the band when they arrived in the afternoon and hang out until the bitter end… I’m not sure how big a deal it was for Pete – I mean, he’s just visiting an uncle albeit a famous one – but for me, getting behind the scenes like that was the thrill of a lifetime!! I even got my own tour jacket which I still have (of course) and break out every once in a while…

Pete would go on to attend SUNY Purchase and study trumpet privately with Lew Soloff – the original trumpet from Blood, Sweat & Tears. After school he did a couple cruise ship gigs and inevitably landed with Maynard’s band – even taking on the personal valet duties for a time. For me the thrill just got bigger because when Pete would call to meet him and the group I actually knew a playing member… I thought this was all pretty cool and hanging with these people was a blast!! But the best was yet to come…

Pete calls me up to say the group is going to be playing the Troy Music Hall and asked if I wanted to stop down. Certainly!! I asked if I could bring my brother who, you may have read elsewhere on this site, was a pretty good trumpeter in school and now is an accomplished bagpiper. Pete said to bring him along but asked if I could do him a favor and pick up ‘the Boss’ at his motel and bring him to the music hall. I agreed of course but decided to have a little fun with my brother… I told him we had to leave a little early because I had a stop to make before the concert but didn’t tell him what… As we pulled up in front of the motel I told him he’d have to ride in the back seat because we were picking up Maynard… his eyes got huge as he was as big a fan as I was!!! We loaded up the horn cases and ‘the Boss’, drove to the venue’s side entrance where my brother carried Maynard’s horns (he still talks about this) and in he went with the valet and ‘the Boss’ while I went to park. I didn’t think anything could top this but a few years down the road it would reach a level that I never would have anticipated… back to the present…

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Work was rolling in and we were prepping for a busy summer when – the last week of June – who should call but Dave Maswick from the ‘Stony Creek Band’… he asked if I was ready for my first gig with the band on the 4th of July in their home town of Stony Creek… REALLY?!? After over 6 months without a word?!? I explained to him that I believed I hadn’t got the gig because he was the first person I’d heard from since the audition and I was now committed to another group… he was furious and lit into me about being extremely unprofessional and threatened that I’d never work again in this area… if you continue reading the pages of my site through the years, I think you’ll agree that I did alright for myself… and if you ever meet Dave in person, I think you’ll agree that I made the right decision… 🙂

I left Voyager in 1989… I had experimented with MIDI during my time with them to try to augment the live instruments but wasn’t thrilled with the sort of venues we were playing… I was looking for something more and decided to look elsewhere…

Here are some VIDEO links from the late 80’s at Wade’s in Lake George, NY

Hitchin’ A Ride          Love Potion #9

Johnny B. Goode          Ol’ Time Rock & Roll          Young Girl—

Another visit to Wade’s – March 31, 1989… We were entertaining the the N.Y.S. Women’s bowling league members in town for the state championships… and celebrating my birthday!!

Good Lovin’          Runaround Sue          Stuck On You

Again from the late 80’s at Fort William Henry in Lake George, NY.

Here’s one of Ray’s originals… Friends To Lovers To Strangers

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Click here to continue the journey on into the 90’s and beyond…