#154 – When Doves Cry

#154 – When Doves Cry by Prince

Prince

– When the film Purple Rain came out in 1984, Prince kicked up his popularity a major notch by adding a Movie Star credit to his resume. With the soundtrack single When Doves Cry hitting the top of the music charts and the video in high rotation on MTV, it would be easy to make a case that Prince ruled the music scene.

I was living in New York City and had heard of Prince a few years earlier when a musician pal of mine saw his first-ever (I’m assuming) NYC show in a small venue near the East Village. My friend’s after show review raved about his music and performance, while not sparing any descriptive shock value about Prince hitting the stage wearing women’s stockings, garters and high-heels.

He sounded like a combination of Jimi Hendrix and The New York Dolls.

Purple Rain was a huge hit in NYC – even outside of the East Village. But for some reason, possibly to avoid the long lines and crowded theaters, my girlfriend (at the time) and I never made an effort to see it.

In the theater anyway…

When you live in NYC things just seem to happen. Of course, I have tons of stories that I can refer to as life adventures to back up that boast, but not all of them could be called legit.

What do I mean by that?

Reigning Purple

I consider myself to be a pretty honest guy. Okay, I’ll admit to some minor discretions over the years, but nothing too crazy. In fact, I can’t even think of anything at the moment that can be called really bad, other than having a fake ID to buy beer when I was underage. Oh wait… There was a situation when two girls I was dating at the same time sat next to each other in the NYC restaurant I was managing and started comparing notes about their “boyfriend.”

That wasn’t a fun life adventure – and that’s a legit statement.

As mentioned, my girlfriend (and the only one at the time – I swear) and I didn’t make it to a theater to see Purple Rain when it came out in July 1984. But we still saw it that summer. It just so happened the head chef in the restaurant where I had played the failed version of The Dating Game loaned us a videotape of the film.

I know ignorance of the law is no excuse, but we didn’t think there was anything non-legit about watching a VHS tape of a movie WHILE the movie was still in theaters. Maybe that fact should’ve set off an alarm, but it failed to ring in either of our heads as we settled on the couch in our apartment to watch Purple Rain – even while fans were still lining up outside first-run theaters to view the same flick.

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Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until part way through the film someone stood up. What made it noticeable was that this action didn’t occur as a scene featuring Prince or any other cast members within the movie. Instead, it was someone in a theater getting out of his seat, moving to the end of a row and walking up an aisle until he disappeared from our television screen.

In other words, we were watching a bootlegged version of Purple Rain that some crook had filmed with a handheld camera from the back of a movie theater. It was copied onto VHS tapes and hustled on the streets of New York City, along with other first run films. This was a common practice for bootleggers and money-grabbers that we saw all the time, but never considered buying anything from them.

Obviously, our restaurant chef felt differently. He soon learned a lesson in NYC street smarts…

Flying Doves

But first, When Doves Cry became morning smarts by joining this Dream Song list on October 24th. As a huge Prince fan, it’s a no-brainer to confess I own a copy and had just heard it – which makes it a legit member of the recent memory category.

Sometime after Purple Rain had finished its theater run and probably just getting ready to come out on legit VHS tapes, I was working behind the bar of the same NYC restaurant while the same bootleg-loaning chef and his crew closed the kitchen. It was around one o’clock in the morning and though we were done feeding our patrons, the drinks could flow – legitimately – for another three hours.

As usual, a few of my buddies were hanging around trying to scam me into giving them free drinks and we all yelled “Goodnight” to the kitchen gang as they walked out the front door and headed down Third Avenue.

About twenty minutes later the chef came back into the restaurant. He was out of breath from walking fast and carrying a big box advertising a video camcorder inside.

This was a large and expensive piece of equipment in the 1984 VHS era and we all knew it. In fact, I don’t remember anyone in our tight group of friends actually having enough money to afford a video camera – especially the pals that couldn’t scam me for free drinks.

And speaking of scams…

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Our on-the-street-shopping, bootleg-buying chef also knew this was a high priced item and was all excited to brag about buying it only a couple blocks away for the cheap, under-the-table price of $50 in cash. He placed the box on top of the bar, ran back to the kitchen for a knife to cut away the plastic wrapping and told us about the guys selling these “hot” cameras from the trunk of a car. He knew there was nothing legit about the transaction but didn’t seem to care since he was now the proud owner of a camcorder he couldn’t wait to unpack and show us.

The first clue something was wrong happened almost immediately.

Once he cut through the plastic, images of the valuable camcorder that should have been part of the packaging fell off with the wrapping, leaving a plain, brown cardboard box. I can still hear his gasp and the half-laughs from my buddies around the bar watching this major unveiling. He ripped through tape sealing the top of the box, pulled out a pile of crumbled-up newspapers, reached in and pulled out…

Another brick in the wall

A brick.

Yeah, just like you would use to build a house or a brick driveway. Cursing, he ran out of the restaurant to “get these guys,” but as can be predicted, they were long gone – with his fifty bucks – and probably in search of more customers with not-so-street smarts.

Okay, to be honest (legit) I don’t remember When Doves Cry being a soundtrack for this particular life (learning) adventure. But when I think of the song, I think of the movie. And when I think of the movie, I think of the bootleg film. And when I think of the bootleg film, I think of the chef. And when I think of the chef…

Well actually, I don’t need to think of the chef. I can pretty much look at any brick house and be reminded of my own street smarts. Never buy unless it’s legit.

Have a comment? Please use the form below.

Thanks for reading – and keep rockin’!

Here’s the video of When Doves Fly that should remind Prince fans when MTV was truly Music Television.

 

 

To purchase the Purple Rain soundtrack with When Doves Fly visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

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#155 – On The Road Again

#155 – On The Road Again by Willie Nelson

– My wife Cowgirl Debbie and I are sitting next to each other at a table on Willie Nelson’s tour bus. Yeah, that’s pretty cool in itself. But to make the scene even cooler, sitting across from us is Willie Nelson himself. I’m kind’a fumbling around for something to say that will keep him interested in our conversation. I hit on something, his face lights up and Cowgirl Debbie says…

Okay, now that I might have you somewhat interested, we’ll go back a couple decades before continuing with this scene.

In the late 1970’s I had a pretty cool apartment in New York City. I’ve talked about it before in these Classic Rocker ramblings, but to be brief it was in the Gramercy Park neighborhood, had three levels and a small terrace. For NYC it was living in style. However, since I was still basically a just-graduated college student trying to figure out what I was going to be when I grew up, most of my funds went into paying rent.

The furnishings consisted of whatever my parents didn’t want anymore and how much of it I could stuff into a station wagon for my move from Ohio.

My first big splurge of spending money for pure enjoyment was a subscription for Manhattan Cable Television. It’s now sort of a laughable starving artist memory since the only television I had was another parental castoff small enough to be balanced on my stomach while lying in bed. It also scores high on the memorabilia meter since it can be described by another castoff term – black and white.

As Ralph Kramden often said in a black and white sitcom classic called The Honeymooners: I was living in the lap of luxury. And as another piece of memorabilia for dedicated NYC television viewing veterans from the era, that show was aired every weeknight at 11 pm on Channel 11.

I know, because I watched.

HBO’s Finest!

With my cable television subscription, which included an extra length of cable in case I wanted to put the television on a table next to the bed instead of on my stomach, came a relatively new network called Home Box Office (HBO). This was revolutionary since movies and special features (comedy and music concerts come to mind) were broadcast without any commercials.

Hey, if they could land a man on the moon only a decade earlier, why stop there? Commercial free paid television was the next logical step.

After a few years of progressively improving personal finances I eventually had a color television in the living room with added cable networks like MTV, ESPN and Cinemax. But HBO was still the go-to for watching movies if you didn’t feel like heading out to a theater and paying an exorbitant seven dollar ticket price for a first-run feature.

But HBO didn’t seem to have an exorbitant amount of feature films at that time. In other words, they seemed to air the same movies over and over and over…

But that was okay if the movie was really good or – even better – if it was really bad. The frequently run HBO classics that immediately come to mind during the early 1980’s fitting both requirements were Can’t Stop The Music with The Village People (and Bruce Jenner!), Thank God It’s Friday with Donna Summer and Honeysuckle Rose starring Willie Nelson.

Yeah, there were others. But this trio of music flicks were aired so often during my insomniac late nights they’ve been burned into my lasting memory.

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Speaking of memory, On The Road Again joined the subliminal category of this Dream Song list on October 21st. There’s no other explanation for its inclusion other than my burned-in memory since I don’t own a copy and probably haven’t heard it since we saw Willie Nelson in person the evening we sat with him on his tour bus.

To connect all the dots between the movie memories and our in person Willie Nelson experience…

Real life Honeysuckle Rose

On The Road Again was the Academy Award nominated theme song written by Nelson for his 1980 movie Honeysuckle Rose that seemed to be on HBO over and over and over… And of course, the title of the movie was also the name of his tour bus both in the movie and real life.

Got that? Okay, then one final classic movie note…

Not only was Willie Nelson the romantic lead in this “on the road” country-music-flavored film, but his co-star was one of my favorite American actors, Slim Pickens. Yeah, I know, a quirky choice on my part. But he made my personal all-star list with roles in the films Dr. Strangelove (riding on an atomic bomb into glory), Blazing Saddles and 1941. After playing these burnt-into-my-mind roles, I found it a bit unreal to watch ol’ Slim as a guitar player in Willie’s band, which is probably another reason I found it impossible to switch on a different cable channel whenever the film came on HBO during another late night round of sleepless viewing.

Two decades later, in 2002 to be exact, I wasn’t quite grown up yet (I’m still working on that) but was doing something I could’ve never dreamed or predicted when I made the long ago decision to splurge on Manhattan Cable Television. I was writing a weekly country music column for a newspaper in northern Ohio. Again, I’ve mentioned this in past Classic Rockers and how it gave me a fresh outlook on music I hadn’t paid much attention to previously.

Press Pass

It also brought me face to face with the country legend and star of Honeysuckle Rose on his tour bus. And though I’m not sure his 2002 updated traveling home shared the same name, I’ll go ahead and say it did just to keep you somewhat interested.

With two review tickets for Nelson’s July 22nd concert in Cleveland and a confirmed post-show interview, Cowgirl Debbie and I were psyched for a somewhat interesting evening. Debbie’s reason was based on her being a big country music fan (hence the name) and me because…

Well, come-on. I’m sure you’d also think it’s pretty cool to meet Willie Nelson.

Willie and his band played all his classic hits, but I somehow felt disappointed Slim Pickens wasn’t standing next to him playing guitar. On a sad note, Slim passed away almost two decades before in 1983. On a techno-psychological note, that shows the lasting power of cable television on the human brain.

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After Willie walked off stage following an encore or two, we flashed our media passes at a security guard and were escorted behind the outdoor venue to a closed off parking area and a large bus. Another guard stood outside protecting the open door.

After checking our passes, he told us to go inside and have a seat.

Willie’s living room

The front section of the bus was a living room that included a table with booth seating big enough for four people to have dinner or a card game. Then there was a closed door dividing what I assumed were private sleeping quarters in the back. The decor (if I remember correctly) included wood paneling and dark red curtains over the bus windows.

After just a few minutes the closed door opened. Willie Nelson walked in, said hello and sat at the table with us.

Doing my best Ralph Kramden impression from The Honeymooners, I probably started my newspaper interview with, “Homina, homina, homina…” BTW – veteran Honeymooners fans will know exactly what I’m referring to.

But as I should have expected, Willie Nelson was very cool. Soon we were talking about the concert, his tour, music and… well, it could have been somewhat more exciting than that. It was obvious to both of us I was asking – and he was answering – questions he’d heard countless times before.

So I went with something else:

“What would you have done if music didn’t work out?”

Willie looked at me, smiled and said, “I’d like to be a professional golfer.”

Willie Nelson & The Classic Rocker

That takes us back to the beginning of this epic rambling story. Cowgirl Debbie, who had been uncharacteristically quiet (trust me on that) up to this point, saw his face light up and said…

“On what? The Senior Circuit?“

Okay, obviously Willie didn’t look like a teenager – even back in the days of filming Honeysuckle Rose. But Cowgirl Debbie’s remark was like a sucker punch to his funny bone. Willie started laughing and might have pretended to be offended by her age-related joke. But it didn’t matter since the timing, delivery and his reaction had all three of us cracking up.

After that ice-breaker the rest of the interview goes down in my memory as fun time. Willie was a genuine nice guy with a great sense of humor. And I’m sure if we had asked, he would’ve let us ride on Honeysuckle Rose with him to the next tour stop.

Okay, probably not. But the idea of us on the road (again?) with Willie Nelson might have kept you somewhat interested enough to read this far.

Have a comment? Please use the form below.

Thanks for reading – and keep rockin’!

Here’s a 1983 video of Willie Nelson performing On The Road Again.

To purchase

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#156 – Smoke on the Water

#156 – Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple

Deep Purple

– Two decades after this song came out Nirvana was grunge-ing about Smells Like Teen Spirit. But for boomers that frequented college parties and dance clubs when Smoke on the Water was released as a single in May 1973, after first appearing on the Deep Purple album Machine Head in early 1972, your sense memories should be drenched in teenage sweat at just the thought of one of the best known guitar riffs in rock, heavy metal and now, classic rock.

And like all great rock guitar riffs, you know exactly what song is playing after only the first couple notes. Chances are good you’ll also remember immediately jumping out of your seat and bouncing onto a dance floor whenever every local rock band cranked this one up to the max volume.

How am I so sure of that? Because that’s how I remember it.

I really don’t know what Nirvana was shouting about in the classic grunge-rocker from the 1990’s, but their song title fits what my sense memories recall from the pre-disco music scene in the 1970’s. I doubt there was any local rock band that didn’t have Smoke on the Water included in their repertoire – along with Roundabout by Yes.

And though I won’t earn any new classic rock fans and will probably lose a few by saying this, I remember both being way overplayed.

Did I just say that – really? Yeah, I did.

Blurred by 3.2% beer?

For a couple of years anyway, Smoke on the Water and Roundabout were guaranteed party-starters. The first notes of either song would cause a stampede of late teens and early twenty-somethings to abandon their “legal at age eighteen” 3.2 percent (alcohol) beers and jump around on a dance floor until the sweat of teen spirit was added to the already thick aroma of brew and smoke (as in cigarettes, which any twelve year old could buy at the time). These songs were such a sure thing to get everyone up and rocking we heard them so often I seriously can’t remember ever wanting to hear either again after we were done with the 1970’s.

That’s why Smoke on the Water joins this Dream Song list as a subliminal member. I hadn’t heard it in a long time, I’ve never owned a copy – and have no desire to change that. When the opening notes jolted me awake on October 15th I must have been unconsciously dancing under the covers since I was breaking into a sweat. I can only assume I was having a dream influenced by long ago teen spirit memories and was back on a dance floor jumping around like a college student powered by watered down beer on the last day of final exams.

Now, if you’ve followed these Classic Rocker ramblings you know I can’t leave you with just a general vague description of hearing Smoke on the Water at every music club we went to. There is one specific memory that jumps into my mind when hearing the opening notes…

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A few weeks after a bad breakup with a long time girlfriend (is there such a thing as a good breakup?) I escorted a new girlfriend to one of our local live music clubs. It was big place and typically crowded for a Saturday night. So of course, the first person I spotted was my “ex” hanging out with her pack of loyal girlfriends. With experienced knowledge you can’t learn in a college classroom, I immediately steered the new girlfriend to the opposite side of the club and found an empty table.

After ordering a couple 3.2% beers we suddenly had company.

To take the suspense out of this sense memory, it wasn’t the “ex” dropping by to say hello or put her cigarette out on my arm. Instead it was two of her friends that had obviously been given an assignment in espionage. Their mission (and they chose to accept it) was to scope out what the heck I was doing with this new girl and to gather any information and perhaps incriminating evidence that I may have been seeing her before the bad breakup with their friend.

Yeah, real teen spirit stuff.

They were on a mission!

Of course I hadn’t talked with the “ex” friends in what seemed like forever, but suddenly they acted like we were all new friends. Over whatever loud early 70’s rock the band was playing, we verbally danced over the obvious, “How are you?” “What have you been up to?” and more specifically, “Who’s your friend?” interrogation that was both awkward and annoying. But the new girlfriend and I handled situation like a team from Mission Impossible (the television series, since we were still decades away from the movies) with fake smiles, polite answers and another round of 3.2% beer.

Then Smoke on the Water came to the rescue.

When the local band hit the first few notes the current girlfriend grabbed my hand and gave me a look as if we’d been granted parole. I called out a (polite) “See’ya later!” and made a beeline onto the dance floor.

End of conversation.

After a lengthy version of Smoke on the Water that was most likely followed by the band’s cover of Roundabout, I suggested we go to another (probably hyped by me as better) club and we split the scene. I’m tempted to add I could feel a few sets of teen spirited eyes trying to burn a hole in the back of my head as we made for the exit, but that would only be speculation on my part. Where there’s no smoke (on or off the water) there’s no fire.

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Eventually the “new” became an “ex” and the first “ex” became a friend. Yeah, I know. It’s complicated. But in the teen spirit of the 1970’s, we all kept dancing – just with different partners in different places. But if I can assume at least one thing stayed the same after going our separate ways, it would be wherever we were and whatever local band was playing, we’d join the stampede onto a dance floor as soon as we heard the opening notes to Smoke on the Water.

Have a comment? Please use the form below.

Thanks for reading – and keep rockin’!

Here’s a 1972 video of Deep Purple performing Smoke on the Water

To purchase The Very Best of Deep Purple with Smoke on the Water visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#157 – All By Myself

#157 – All By Myself by Eric Carmen

 – It was never a definite thing, or as we would’ve referred to it in college as a lock. There were no promises or guarantees made, but if the planets aligned in a positive way there might be a very slight chance I could meet a Beatle.

Okay, I didn’t. But for this Classic Rocker it still turned out to be a pretty cool experience. Here’s the scoop – and yeah, I mean that with ink-stained, newspaper lingo.

In 2000 I was writing entertainment columns for a newspaper in northern Ohio. It wasn’t the big one in Cleveland, The Plain Dealer, but it still came with decent-enough credentials to score interviews and concert review tickets for most of the music and comedy shows I wanted to see. But there was one road block when it came to the music I really enjoyed. I wasn’t the official the pop-rock journalist, since that was how another writer earned his paycheck. I was the assigned country music expert, even though I knew nothing about real country music before accepting the gig.

What do I mean by real country music?

I’m talking about the original artists out of Nashville, Bakersfield and other locales south of my northern locale. When it came to my personal country playlists, they were limited to most of the tracks Ringo was assigned on Beatles albums and the occasional Rolling Stones efforts at twang on songs like Wild Horses and Far Away Eyes.

But I gained an appreciation while reviewing concerts and interviewing Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, Tanya Tucker and quite a few others. And as a bonus, my country column also allowed me to hang out backstage one night with The Everly Brothers since the newspaper’s too-young, pop-rock reporter wasn’t classic rock savvy enough to realize Don and Phil were rock star royalty.

That was also a pretty cool scoop on my part.

I’d always feel a bit like a lottery winner whenever my writer colleague’s personal opinion that classic rock wasn’t really happening worked to my advantage. That’s also how I scored review seats for Paul McCartney and an invitation to a private rehearsal by The Monkees.

Ringo + All Starr Band 2000

I had a system going within my local newspaper gig when it came to classic rock and I played it like an all star.

So, I was more than psyched to learn Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band would be playing in Cleveland that summer. A quick call to my editor confirmed our pop-rock guy had no interest and I started polishing up my media pass for the concert.

I grabbed a press release sent to the newspaper and immediately called Ringo’s publicist. I was politely told I would be sent review tickets, but the former Beatle would only do one newspaper interview in each city. Cleveland’s belonged to The Plain Dealer’s legendary journalist (and my friend) Jane Scott.

Okay… so one win and one loss. I could live with that.

But then came a big score I didn’t see coming. The publicist told me one of the All Starr’s had a north coast connection and asked if I would be interested in doing a phone interview with Eric Carmen.

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Are you kidding me? My answer to that question was easier than the lock I’d had once on a college exam when the teaching grad student gave me the answers in advance.

Sign me up!

Let’s get this out of the way right now. I’m a major Eric Carmen fan as both a solo artist and member of The Raspberries. I can attribute this to a few things. I grew up near the band’s launching pad of Cleveland and even though I’ve never met any of the members, it almost feels like I know these guys. The nucleus of the group (without Carmen) were well-known throughout the area as The Mods, then after changing their name to The Choir scored a hit song in 1966 with It’s Cold Outside.

It was one of the songs that always brought together the guys and the girls from opposite sides of the school gym to dance during our junior high dances. And yeah, I have a copy on my digital playlist.

The Choir + Eric Carmen

Eric Carmen was in another area band in the early 70’s called Cyrus Erie. By this time, we were in high school and old enough to drive. That also meant we were old enough to hang out in teen dance clubs. I remember seeing them in a club west of Cleveland that was also called Cyrus Erie, but with an added tag of “West” to separate it from a same-named club on the east side.

Another memory of that long-ago night in Cyrus Erie West was when a cute girl with a flower painted on her cheek asked me to dance. And to really show off my memory, she said her name was Sunshine. I mean, really – how could any sixteen year old guy ever forget that?

The Choir and Cyrus Erie somehow merged, resulting in The Raspberries and international fame. Their brand of power-pop music was the needed alternative to (in my opinion) a rock scene that was getting too stuck in alternative music.

I seriously could not listen to twenty minute drum solos, over-long guitar improvisations or some guy blowing on a flute. Give me two to three minutes of rock and roll and I’m happy. And I know my college frat house pals would agree since our parties with sorority girls would’ve never been the wild times we still reminisce about if we hadn’t had everybody on their feet and dancing to Go All The Way, Tonight and I Want To Be With You.

Eric Carmen – The Choir

Then sometime during my college daze The Raspberries broke up. But my fandom was saved when Eric Carmen released his self-titled solo album that opened with All By Myself. It was one of the rare LP’s I could listen to all the way through without picking up the stereo needle and skipping any songs. It was also the go-to soundtrack at the end of our college parties with sororities when the lights were low…

All By Myself was also a go-to for my waking mind when it joined this Dream Song list on the morning of September 27. Of course I own a copy (duh), but surprisingly hadn’t heard it in awhile. I must have been rocking to The Raspberries or It’s Cold Outside that week instead. So for that reason, welcome to the subliminal memory category.

My phone interview with Eric Carmen to promote the Ringo and his All-Starr Band concert was scheduled and confirmed. I was psyched. Maybe a little too much…

I wish I could say the interview was one of my stellar moments as a music journalist, but that’s not how I remember it. I had done quite a few interviews previously with artists I consider to be heavyweights in the entertainment biz, but with Eric Carmen I very quickly morphed into fan-boy.

Remember the Saturday Night Live bit where Chris Farley interviewed Paul McCartney? All he did was tell the pre-Sir Paul how great he was and asked if he remembered all these great things he had done. If you don’t, here’s a reminder…

 

 

It was just like me talking to Eric Carmen.

Okay, maybe it turned out to be a bit more than that. I reminisced about everything mentioned above, including Cyrus Erie, The Raspberries, my college parties and his solo work. He was extremely polite and a nice guy, but all he really had to reply was, “Yes, I remember” and “Thank you.” Then I was onto my next memory.

Eventually we talked about the tour and performing with an ex-Beatle. So the article was salvaged and ran in the newspaper. I also saw a link to it on his website years ago, but in a recent search for this particular Classic Rocker rambling I couldn’t find it online.

It’s probably just as well – at lease for my journalistic reputation.

At the end of our talk I mentioned that my review tickets usually included a pass to go backstage after the concert. If it was cool, I’d like to say hello. He said that would be fine and if there was an opportunity, he might be able to introduce me to Ringo Starr.

Say what?! Call me fan-boy x2 and sign me up!

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The outdoor All-Starr concert was a major blast from the past with Carmen performing All By Myself and Go All The Way and Ringo singing his fab-twang classics. After the encore I temporarily ditched my wife Dancin’ Deb and our friends for a possible rendezvous with my hoped-for new best friends Eric and Ringo backstage.

As mentioned at the beginning of this rambling fan-boy confession, it didn’t happen.

Alas (do people still use that term?), my newspaper and name wasn’t on the list and I couldn’t talk my way past the strong-armed security guard road-blocking the backstage entrance. I’m sure I stood looking longingly (do people still use that term?) as Jane Scott and other VIPs walked through the gate and joined the far away inner circle that I could only imagine included Ringo Starr and Eric Carmen.

But in the long run, I can still claim to have had a very cool experience.

I rejoined Dancin’ Deb and our friends to share reviews of our favorite moments from the show. And if my more recent memories are correct, we ditched playing a Ringo CD during our drive home and turned up Eric Carmen. That’s called hometown loyalty.

Have a comment?

Please use the form below – and keep rockin’!

Here’s a video of Eric Carmen performing All By Myself on The Midnight Special television show from the 1970’s. This is the complete song – and not the edited version released as a single for radio play.

 

 

To purchase the album Eric Carmen with All By Myself visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#158 – Stay With Me

#158 – Stay With Me by Faces

Faces

– Summer heat and a packed stadium of wannabe boomer hippies morphing into mod rockers. Okay, maybe you won’t think it was as game-changing as I’m making it out to be, but let’s put it this way:

You had to be there.

Since The Classic Rocker is all (well, mostly) about memories this song brings back more than a few – including the scene mentioned above. Rod “The Mod” Stewart, future Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood, future Stones keyboard sideman Ian McLagan, future Keith Moon replacement in The Who, Kenney Jones, and original Small Faces bassist Ronnie Lane were throwing a booze-fueled rock and roll party on stage and everyone was invited.

And it was a needed party. At least that’s how I remember it.

This was happening in July 1972 following my first year in college and the country was going through a very heavy scene. We were hearing a lot of message songs on FM and campus radio not only about protesting the Vietnam War, but also serious odes to peace and love and coming together as a community. These were important topics for our generation and had been growing stronger since the late 1960’s.

In the Navy!

It especially hit home when my age of U.S. males became eligible for the military draft. With the end of student deferments and low draft lottery numbers (mine was #52 which was way too low for comfort), some of my college friends had no choice about their futures. You either went in or went on the run.

It was pretty serious stuff.

We still had rockers like The Who and Led Zeppelin blasted out future classics with attitude, but a lot of music was meant to be listened to. Acoustic guitar playing troubadours with flannel shirts and denim bellbottoms dragging on the floor were a popular sound and style. But as teenagers in the early 1970s some of us could only sit cross-legged around a stereo digging the heavy vibe for so long until feeling the need to cut loose.

The Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar had kicked off the summer of 1971 and offered us an alternate vibe. The message was sex and being wild – and if that’s not rock and roll someone needs to come up with a better definition. It had crunchy electric guitars, a heavy beat, a screaming saxophone from Bobby Keys and major attitude. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards weren’t going to waste their time or ours by standing around with acoustic guitars looking introspective and thoughtful.

As soon as the stereo needle hit the vinyl we were in a better place.

Faces also sang about rock’s main topics, backed by electric guitars, keyboards and a drum beat that made sitting cross-legged on the floor virtually impossible. And it was a heck of a lot of fun.

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Legendary as the ultimate ode to backstage groupies, Stay With Me by Faces – as opposed to “The” Faces, which would be like saying “The” Led Zeppelin – was a definite party-starter. The song closed the first side of their late 1971 album A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse and opened my eyes on September 26th as a recent memory. It’s one of my all-time favorite rock songs (along with Brown Sugar) and rarely off my digital playlists for any great length of time. In other words, I had just heard it.

So, what did I mean earlier about morphing from wannabe hippies to mod rockers? It all started on July 3, 1972…

As a nineteen year old U.S. male home from college with the second year riding on the results of an upcoming U.S. military draft physical, I was doing my best to emulate the Woodstock culture of the boomers a few years earlier. The style included hair to my shoulders, a faded t-shirt and faded denim bellbottoms long and wide enough to drag on the floor. My three best pals were also clones of the look as we took off in a beater car for a major rock concert experience at the Akron (Ohio) Rubber Bowl featuring Cactus, Badfinger and the main attraction, Faces.

When we arrived, the stadium was already packed with like-minded hippie wannabes. But for some reason we felt brave enough (stupid enough?) to wade our way through the crowd sitting cross-legged close to the stage. When we reached a space that gave us a great view, we sat. Seriously – we just sat down, practically on top of the fans who were already there. I remember some teenage girls and guys giving us the evil eye and saying something about our arrogance (stupidity?) but it worked out. We were basically good guys and actually funny enough to resemble a hippie comedy team.

It didn’t take very long before we were making friends and they let us settle in for the show.

Come to think of it, we probably made these fast friends because one of my pals had hid a bottle under his shirt and was free in passing it around. Combined with the 3.2 percent beer we were allowed to buy from venders at the legal age of eighteen, everyone seemed pretty friendly and the atmosphere could be described as party central.

Badfinger

Except for being a hot, humid day in July with more dirt and dust than grass covering the stadium’s pre-Astroturf college football field, I don’t have any highlights of the opening acts to share. I don’t remember any of us being into Cactus. They might have been part of the country-rock scene out of California, which we weren’t into at the time. I was psyched about seeing Badfinger since they were a Beatles-related Apple band, but they were a bit of a disappointment. I have a memory of one or two of them sitting on stools while playing the hits we wanted to hear. Not exactly the rock and roll energy we expected.

Faces fronted by Rod Stewart were the complete opposite.

They rock and rolled, pranced and posed and made no secret they had a party central happening on stage. We were close enough to see bottles of booze on the amplifiers and they took healthy swigs before, during and after songs. I’m not sure if Stay With Me was the closing number, but I like to think it was. As a dedicated soccer fan, Rod kicked soccer balls into the crowd and at one point either he – or it might have been Ron Wood – landed on his butt after an especially energetic and booze-fueled kick.

We roared our approval.

But what did I mean about a change from wannabe hippies into mod rockers?

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Faces were far from being flannel shirt and denim rockers. They were decked out in brightly colored slim-fitting, wide lapel jackets, flashy shirts, bellbottoms and high-heeled shoes. There’s no way these guys would’ve felt comfortable walking through the mud at Woodstock or showing up for a military draft physical.

They were traveling in style. Which is something I started to do within a few weeks of the concert.

My goal was to fashion myself like Rod and the band with what I can only call a “rock and roll jacket.” It had to be slim fitting with wide lapels, which turned out not to be as easy to find in northern Ohio as it must have been in London.

Not as cool as this!!

After hours of driving with my concert-going buddy Gary to every clothes store we could find near and far from Cleveland, we finally wound up back in Akron at a then-known but now-gone 1970’s fashion trendsetter clothes store called Chess King (as opposed to “The” Chess King). A mod-rocker sales dude pulled out a jacket in my (tight) size and I reached for my wallet.

And even though muddy brown sugar would never be called a flashy color by Faces or London fashionistas, I proudly wore it to add mod to my rocker status.

To end this Classic Rocker rambling in a way I feel is even more dramatic than landing on my butt after an energetic and booze-filled soccer ball kick into a standing room only stadium crowd of boomer, mod-rockers, the military draft fizzled out only months before my lottery number was scheduled to be inducted. That meant the rock and roll jacket would be my main uniform during a second year of college.

That also signaled another needed party – and I’m sure I wore my jacket. And even though it didn’t inspire the Rod Stewart solo-hit, in my teenaged mind I probably thought it: You wear it well.

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Here’s a live video of Faces performing Stay With Me looking like 1972 rock and rollers!

 

 

To purchase A Nod Is As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse visit Amazon.com.

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#159 – Fun, Fun, Fun

#159 – Fun, Fun, Fun by The Beach Boys

 – Though I’m tempted, we won’t go all the way back to 1964 and when we first heard this one. In fact, there’s no reason to even focus on just the 1960’s since Fun, Fun, Fun has lived on through the decades. It’s still almost impossible to visit a beachside bar, diner, ice cream stand, or fast food joint where sand could be called a condiment, without hearing this classic rocker on the sound system.

By the way, if we were returning mentally to the 1960’s I’d have to change that statement to read “jukebox.”

Fun, Fun, Fun is one of the Brian Wilson and Mike Love collaborations that defined the Southern California lifestyle many of us could only imagine while growing up in the Midwest. For the boys of summer, it was year-round sunshine, surfing, riding in convertibles, and hanging out with girls at the beach (listed not necessarily in preferred order). For me personally, it only took a few decades after The Beach Boys started sending us these messages via Top 40 AM Radio that I finally surfed into the 1990’s and was living in Los Angeles.

But it wasn’t quite the easy fun, fun, fun that they had promised.

After a cross-country drive from New York City, I crashed with a former girlfriend who after a few years of Splitsville had morphed into the close friend zone, in The Hollywood Hills for a month and began my California lifestyle. The first non-fun shock was having to buy a car and pay insurance after years of subways, taxis, buses and walking. The next step was embarking on a career move, which took a while but eventually turned out pretty good. But the move that was the biggest hassle was a physical one. When the rich girl that owned the house where I was crashing learned an extra person (me) was sharing the large basement apartment (I had my own room, just to make the arrangements perfectly clear) she decided to double the rent.

The California Sound

It’s too bad because it was cool starter space while I tried to figure out Los Angeles. And though we called it a basement, it only fit that description if you looked at it from the front of the house. From the back it was just another ground floor space with lots of full windows and a private entrance.

It also came with a bit of star power.

The renter before us had been the actor Randy Quaid who was still getting junk mail sent to him at that address. My close friend zone roommate also told me our rich landlord, who was a semi-famous model, actress (with a very famous New York sports legend father) and lived in the upstairs house, was dating one of The Eagles. I took her word for it, though I never saw him and can’t remember which one. But we also assumed she was dating the actor Andrew Stevens since we looked out our window one day and he was mowing the back lawn.

Fun, fun, fun in The Hollywood Hills.

With the threat of raised rent meaning I’d have to start paying my fair share, I felt it was a fair idea to get my own place. Through the connections of an actor pal who had also made the move from Manhattan to Hollywood, I sublet a super-fab condo in the Silver Lake neighborhood (with a mountain view looking down at Dodger Stadium) for the summer. The owner, who was also an actor no one had ever heard of, scored a gig touring the country doing regional theater and for a fair price I would take care of his place and his cat. Fair enough.

But he had one stipulation: no one else was allowed to live in the condo with me. Okay…

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I moved in on a Saturday as he was leaving for the airport. A couple hours later my best rock and roll pal from NYC (imagine Steven Tyler and you’ll be close) who was also making the move to Southern California, arrived at the same LAX Airport. I picked him up in my Mustang convertible and moved him into the condo’s off-limits spare bedroom.

Okay, not exactly fair as a renter – but a great way to kick off a Southern California summer of fun, fun, fun.

Inspiring Place

Being a Beach Boys fan, one of my first goals was to find a Foster’s Freeze. If you’re not familiar with the legend of the song, these are well-known ice cream stands (and restaurants) with locations around California. Supposedly Brian Wilson and Mike Love were hanging around the F.F. on their home turf in Hawthorne when they spotted a girl drive by in her daddy’s car and looking like she was having too much fun.

It inspired the 1964 song.

For a couple guys from NYC making this new turf their new home, I thought it would be a symbolic way for my Steven Tyler-ish pal and I to kick off the fun, fun, fun. We may not have made it all the way out to Hawthorne, but we found one not too far away in The San Fernando Valley and toasted with what we referred to as “A Bucket ‘O’ Shake.“ In other words, the Foster’s Freeze milkshakes were SO huge that a steady diet would have us looking like Brian Wilson in the 1970’s. Not a pretty thought, so we kept ourselves on a strict limit.

And speaking of the song, Fun, Fun, Fun joined this list on September 23rd. Of course, I own a copy as any wannabe sun drenched rocker dude should, but since the beaches where I live now are closed by Labor Day, I hadn’t heard it for quite a few sunsets. It surfs its way into the subliminal category of Dream Songs.

Finding a Foster’s Freeze held promise of a Beach Boys inspired summer, but then reality set in.

Beach Boys Landmark

Since Silver Lake was nowhere near a beach and we discovered it was a long drive to the sand and surf. One of our first potential beach bum lessons learned was if you didn’t arrive before… oh, let’s say eight o’clock in the morning – regardless of the day – good luck finding any parking within an hour or two walking distance. In our seemingly endless desperate searches for an open parking space, we spent more hours cruising packed streets and full lots from Santa Monica to Redondo Beach than the amount of time the girl in the song spent behind the wheel of her daddy’s T-Bird.

More often than not we’d scrap the idea of meeting any California beach girls and hit a Foster’s Freeze where we’d make plans to find an apartment with a swimming pool and reserved parking spaces when my sublet was over.

But we were still enterprising guys from New York cruising into our first summer in Southern California. If we couldn’t get to the party, we’d bring the party to us.

When I had hit Los Angeles a few months earlier, I immediately – and I’m talking within the first week – got involved with an acting group and an improvisational comedy troupe. The benefits of both were not only as creative and performing opportunities, but also a fast track to make new friends. The acting group actually cost money to belong since we rented a weekly rehearsal space and occasionally a small Hollywood theater to showcase audition scenes for agents and casting directors. The improv troupe performed in bars and clubs on the weekends, but our “pay” usually consisted of chicken wings and beer. So neither could be considered a get rich quick showbiz deal. In fact, it turned out to be the opposite.

But the real payoff was fun (fun, fun).

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The majority of my friends have always been creative people. And who would be more creative than actors, writers, comedians and rock and rollers? Right… I can’t think of any either. So instead of stressing out about making early morning beach treks hoping for nonexistent parking opportunities and if we were lucky, enough empty space on the sand for a beach towel, we decided to throw Saturday night parties in my condo sublet and let the fun happen on its own.

At least a few of these might still be legendary for our Southern California guest list attendees. The condo would be standing room only packed, with the overflow filling our backyard patio. My Steven Tyler-ish pal (who shall remain nameless to protect any possible identity crisis) gave the rocker girls someone to drool over and there was never a shortage of alcoholic beverages that were either brewed and iced or blended and decorated with tiny paper umbrellas.

The laughs were loud and the music was louder. And the only time the parties would end was when my New York actor pal, who had turned me on to the condo in the first place and lived upstairs with his wife, would appear somewhere in the early morning hours and politely suggest it might be time to shut everything down.

Out of respect to our good pal, we would. Some partiers would hit the road while most crashed on whatever piece of furniture or empty floor space was available. The next morning would resemble an outtake from the movie Animal House, but no one was allowed to leave until the place was clean, spotless and damage free.

It’s the least I could do after promising no one else would inhabit the condo. And yeah, I know… not fair at all. But at least I got away with it.

Or thought I did…

After an amazing summer and a growing crowd of creative friends, the landlord’s regional theater tour was coming to an end and my Steven Tyler-ish pal and I had to vacate the premises. We put our Foster’s Freeze planning sessions to work and scored a large two bedroom apartment in North Hollywood with parking and a swimming pool and moved out. But before we left there was a major and thorough (at least we thought) cleaning of the condo. Everything was left looking just as it did the day we moved in.

But when you’re dealing with actors, writers, comedians and rock and rollers, there’s always the unexpected.

SomeTHING like this…

About a month after our North Hollywood relocation I received a call from the actor who had sublet me the condo. He was sitting on the couch watching television when his hand slipped between the cushions. He felt something funny, so he reached in – and pulled out a rubber human hand.

Needless to say, he freaked out – at least a little bit. But on the good side, he thought it was funny.

As mentioned, our crowd was creative. And though no one aspired to be Carrot Top, there was no shortage of gag gifts, stupid decorations and a general sense of craziness at our parties to keep everyone entertained. I don’t remember what improvised excuse I came up with for the rubber hand in the couch, but I had the feeling he knew I hadn’t been living the lifestyle of a solitary monk all alone in the condo taking care of his cat.

That was the last conversation we had.

Of course, those weren’t our last parties in Southern California as we shifted our focus into making North Hollywood more fun (fun, fun) than sitting in beachside traffic jams. And though we didn’t have the same Hawthorne experience as cousins Brian and Mike decades before, I remember hanging out at a Foster’s Freeze in the San Fernando Valley creatively coming up with a theme and guest list for our next Saturday night hit.

Have a comment?

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Here’s a video of The Beach Boys from 1964 performing Fun, Fun, Fun.

To purchase Sounds of Summer: Very Best of The Beach Boys with Fun, Fun, Fun visit Amazon.

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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#160 – Those Were The Days

#160 – Those Were The Days by Mary Hopkin

 – Take an old Russian folk song, rewritten English lyrics, a talent show winner and a Beatle and you come up with a 1968 hit record. That was the formula for one of the earliest releases by Apple Records that hit number one in England. In the States it was kept from the top spot by another early Apple release, Hey Jude by the same Beatle and his three business partners.

Working off trivia memory that I must have read somewhere, Paul McCartney heard this song performed in a London club by Gene Raskin, an American folksinger. Raskin is the guy that wrote the English lyrics, which is information I can’t claim to have in my memory bank. He’s given songwriter credit on the record.

One Beatle and Mary

McCartney liked the song, but never had any intention for the Beatles to record it. Those Were The Days was so very different than anything else on the pop charts that he needed someone very different to record it. When Mary Hopkin won the televised British talent show Opportunity Knocks, he found the voice. Taking a break from recording The Beatles (The White Album) he took her into EMI Studios and produced this very different sounding song.

It was also a very different way to wake up on September 21st with Mary Hopkin’s voice singing this song in my mind. It’s not one you hear… well, at all on Classic Rock Radio. And since I don’t own a copy and haven’t heard it in… well, it seems like forever, it goes in the subliminal category of Dream Songs.

But I did own a copy at one time. It’s a very catchy tune and after hearing it on Top 40 AM Radio late that summer, I bought the 45 rpm single. But it wasn’t the type of song my friends and I would play at parties because it wasn’t exactly uplifting. It wasn’t the vinyl you’d put on a turntable to get everyone up to dance.

But speaking of parties…

My best friend and I were fifteen years old and had summer jobs at my family’s bakery when this song was climbing the charts. We lived in a tourist town on the shores of Lake Erie and though we started work early in the morning, we’d usually be finished around noon. That gave us plenty of daytime to hang out at the beach or ride our bikes around town looking for adventures. And since fifteen year old guys don’t need a lot of rest, we’d stay up most of the nighttime supposedly sleeping outside in one of our backyards (both with and without a tent), which was actually an excuse to have no parental supervision. That meant we could also ride our bikes around town all night looking for more adventures.

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We were pretty much inseparable and kept ourselves – and our circle of friends – very entertained.

I’ll go ahead and say Kevin and I were ringleaders of fun because we always had ideas and something going on. One of our objectives was to have parties so we could hang out with the cool girls in our class. But we didn’t want to throw a party like everyone else. We had to make it seem like an event, which meant we would have a theme.

Our most popular was a movie premier.

If you wanted to see a movie in 1968 you either went to the local theater or watched television. There were no video rentals, we had never even heard of Beta, VHS or the very futuristic DVDs, cable, internet or streaming services. Of course that lack of technology wouldn’t stop this great theme idea. We just had to make our own to make it happen.

Something like this!

Kevin’s family had a home movie camera (we’re talking about using a reel of film) so we became producers, writers, actors and directors. Kevin and I were cast as the stars (hey, it was our movie) and if we needed villains for any scenes, we’d use his younger brother and best friend. We’d pick on them anyway, so the only difference would be filming it.

We’d create short scenes of craziness and comedy bits, separated by brief psychedelic light shows. This visual effect was accomplished by holding the camera lens directly on different colored light bulbs for a few seconds each, resulting in changing color bursts when we projected it on a screen, signaling the end of one bit and the beginning of the next.

We had no editing capabilities, so whatever we shot would be in the movie. There was also no sound with 1968 home movie cameras (at least not on the one we had), so like silent movies we had to write out any important dialogue on poster boards and hold it up in front of the lens. It’s no wonder our sight gags (silent) worked the best.

Much of this is lost to memory, but one bit is worthy of being stuck in my mind.

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The scene opened with me sitting at an empty kitchen table. I’d rub my stomach acting like I was hungry, act like I had a great idea and snap my fingers. Kevin would stop the film and I’d stay motionless as he put an empty dinner plate in front of me. He’d start the film and just like in the television show Bewitched, it looked like I had magically made the plate appear. We continued with the routine until I had silverware, a napkin, lit candles, a wine glass and then the glass filled (but not with wine). In what should have been my final finger snap conjuring up a delicious meal, an old shoe appeared on the dinner plate.

But wait – that wasn’t the end of the bit. Acting disgusted, I snapped my fingers again. Then, like magic, I disappeared and Kevin was sitting in my chair at the table with a sandwich on the plate. Acting happy, he reached for the wine class (not with real wine) and took a sip.

Laughter and applause from our audience, a psychedelic light show on the screen – and then onto the next scene.

Samantha Stevens

As the scene’s featured thespian my emotions had to run from hungry, to surprise, to almost elated and at the end, disappointment. Too bad we never came up with an awards ceremony theme to our parties because I would’ve been a shoe-in (pun intended – thank you).

The final films were about ten minutes long. But just so our invited guests (especially the cool girls) didn’t have to watch a completely silent movie, we’d also record a soundtrack playing various instruments (we had some talent) onto my reel-to-reel tape recorder. We’d do our best to sync the sound and film when we’d hit “play” on both at the same time.

Together we were also a good promotional team and built up the anticipation for these premiers that would happen at one of our houses. And since we also had a good group of friends these were successful parties. There were always enough laughs for us to show the latest film a few times, then play the latest records, dance, laugh some more and talk up the cool girls. And if our star power was bright enough (like a psychedelic light show) the evening might end with a kiss, or two… or three.

So, would I say those were the days? Yeah, they really were fun.

But even though I enjoy reminiscing as The Classic Rocker, and Mary Hopkin with Those Were The Days stirred up memories of my cinematic career as a fifteen year old child actor (where was The Disney Channel when I was looking for a job?) I don’t think I’d ever want to go back. Just like each song on this countdown serves as a reminder, I think there are plenty of adventures, laughs – and even a little magic – down the long and winding road ahead. I’m still finding ways to entertain myself. Yesterday was cool, but you never know – tomorrow might be even cooler.

I just wish there was a psychedelic light show I could use to signal my next bit. Why? Because it would look very cool projected on a screen before my entrance into the new scene.

Have a comment?

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Here’s a video from 1968 (with production quality a lot better than mine!) of Mary Hopkin performing Those Were The Days.

 

To purchase Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records with Those Were The Days and Mary’s follow up hit Goodbye (written by Paul McCartney) visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing

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