In my little hometown, I was gaining notoriety as the guy with green hair (Sex Pistols) or the guy with the nail polish and bracelets, or the guy who knew Alice Cooper, or the guy who knew big shots in the music business. Any of that was far better than Fat Jack, and all of that got me attention (good and bad) and girls (good and bad). To give you an idea of my hometown, it was nice enough, but the biggest excitement was the annual Halloween parade which one year had as its Grand Marshall J.J. Jackson from MTV and well past his prime in popularity as a V.J. The next big event was the Little League team winning the World Series and them shutting down the highway and renaming it in their honor. You get the point right?

So to Toms River, I was almost Jimmy Page, or least a reasonable facsimile of him. There was the big local band who begged me for my opinion of them (way before J.J. Jackson hit town), and I went to see them rehearse. At this point the light bulb went off, and we joined forces. Bringing in my best buddy Michael, we became my next band. Not a duo or trio, but a six piece!

The lead singer was amazing; he was a massive star, incredible charisma, charming as all out, could make friends everywhere, one slight problem, well one big problem, he couldn’t really sing. Lord knows he tried, and I loved him madly, but he made David Johansen sound like Steve Perry. Regardless of that, we rocked, and we rocked hard. We used to rehearse in a bait house without heat on the Barnegat Bay, and you know what? It was awesome, even though we wore parkas while we rocked out. Well, the fitting ending to this would be a pot of gold, but it was once again Stu Fine at Arista, and this time around, no one else, no walk down the halls of Mercury, no nothing.

So what does one do when failure comes knocking a second time? Come on, take a wild guess. Break up the band! There started to be a pattern here, and I left out some great moments, like when the singer and I were stranded for a weekend at Sarah Lawrence College during a snowstorm when we were visiting some girls, and we got into trouble for every rule infraction you could think of, or how we upgraded from practicing on the bay to practicing in a converted and hidden chicken coop that was used as an afterhours gambling den.

A ton of details, but the same end game: no band and go back to writing songs. This time, my friend Michael left to move to New York after finally figuring out he was gay (which I knew all along, but he didn’t). I felt truly alone, but I understood what was happening with him. He was the best and sadly was the first person I knew to die of AIDS. Tragic end for such a great soul. It broke my heart, but I always cherish having known him. Interestingly enough, one day after he and I left yet another Stu Fine meeting at Arista, Stu phoned to ask in an embarrassed tone if Michael were gay because a senior VP was interested in him having seen him in the halls. No record deal but a date offer.

The next band brings in all those names you want to read about like Bon Jovi, Springsteen, Southside Johnny, and Billy Squier (well maybe not Billy, but he was there). This time I almost got it right; you’ll see what I mean by almost. My magical summer of 1980 at the Fast Lane in Asbury Park, New Jersey, if I could ever relive any time in my life, it would be then. It was the pure rocking, rolling, spine tingling, heart beating, sweating, petting and groovin’ summer of 1980 (almost sounded like Bruce there!). So after the breakup of the last band, I spent a much longer time writing and honing my talent (what little there was of it). My only carry over from the last band was the road manager, and he was a good friend who cheered me on.

I should mention here that my family was still as poor as the day was long, and now I was starting to not only wish upon a star for revenge but I was wishing upon stars, comets and galaxies hoping to find a way to get my family off of welfare and food stamps. It became a great inspiration to go hand-in-hand with the great equalizer. Maybe it was that realization coupled with the fear that drove me even harder, made me write even more and practice like there was no tomorrow. I was ready, ready for something, ready for a miracle.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Label Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.