The Leonard Zelig of Punk Rock — Part VI — Leonard Zelig vs. Richie Cunningham
Because When You Know, You Know, and When You Don’t…
(Links to past chapters at the bottom if you are just joining us).
When you don’t — you might be the Richie Cunningham of the situation that you are in.
It’s pretty apropos that I be writing this at this time of year. Because this chapter ends, right around this time in 1987. Or rather, on January 1, 1988.
But the chapter begins sometime in late July. The location, still Passaic, NJ. Our summer in the hot box in Passaic was an experience. There was no good way to get there. Turnpike, Exit 15W, Route 7, Route 21, Passaic local streets seemed to be the most reliable. I hacked it every which way trying to make it faster, but there was no silver bullet to be found. Pile on top of that through the summer the repeated requests for rides back to the city from Four-Way and Mike. When overheard by Pete or Tom, I would get pulled aside and told “you will do no such fucking thing — they can get home on their own”. But from time to time, usually on Saturday’s I would acquiesce and take them home.
August 15, 1987 — Hillsdale
This went on through the summer and through the infamous “8/15” date of the Four-Way/Gloria wedding.
Everyone’s asking me Four-Way are you doing what you think is right / Everyone’s asking Four-Way is alright putting on that ring tonight / It’s 8/15 and I’m singing my song / 8/15 won’t you sing along / 8/15 and I’m singing my way back to you / singing all the way back to you / I’m singing all the way back to you!
These were the lyrics I remember for “8/15” Four-Way’s ode to his impending marriage to Gloria. They could be wrong-ish, but I am betting they are pretty close. Probably only one person can tell me that they are wrong.
The wedding was scheduled for August 15, somewhere in Hillsdale (I think), NJ, the hometown of the Truppi family. The wedding had everything. Four-Way’s also tall parents, a quaint brick church, a lovely catering hall with a swinging wedding band, reputed mobsters, and everything one might expect from an eighties wedding except for Adam Sandler.
Not to be outdone by the Wedding Singer, Four-Way decided we should play a set on the vintage instruments of the guys being paid to play that day. He asked, pointed, and they outright refused. So he went to Ralph (Truppi), who did a North Bergen handshake with the band leader, and before you knew it we were being handed some lovely instruments with which we would play a short set that to my recollection included the day’s theme song, 2nd Street or potentially Quick Skin and of course our standard closer, Link Wray’s Rumble.
As the band took their instruments back, to a man they looked at their stuff like Marvin Berry looked at his guitar after Marty McFly finished going Eddie Van Halen with it at the Under the Sea Dance.
The wedding was a hit. Good times were had. It was likely a 90 minute drive home, for which, Tom had to give me directions on how to get out of Hillsdale and pointed due South back to the rock.
Demo Days
From a timeline perspective, the discussion of the upcoming wedding with Four-Way while sitting on the hood of my car in Passaic is a solid memory, and so that’s problematic with a number of things that follow. The time in Passaic was unraveling quickly and at some point we decided that we had enough material for a demo and started to shop around to figure out where to record it. I had known a guy, who knew a guy, on Staten Island who had a recording studio on Bay Street in the Rosebank area.
Close to this time, I had been interning at a studio called Calliope on 38th Street in Manhattan, and tried to see what kind of discount magic I could work there. Spoilers — NONE — Chris Irwin the proprietor of the place, who lived in a loft in the office was not about to give a bunch of punk rock crossover upstarts a discount when he had Grand Master Flash coming in to kick the tires, and engineers that were on the phone with their colleagues about who mixed the new Diet Coke spot with the Manhattan Transfer. It just wasn’t that kind of place. So I followed my nose on the Staten Island tip and we managed to work out a deal that we could afford for a night or two of recording to get a few songs on tape that we could send out.
To my shock, when asked about it at Calliope, I shrugged, and said “don’t worry about it I figured it out”.
Irwin was indignant. “What I am guessing you guys are doing is sort of a live rock thing, am I right”? he asked.
“Yes, that’s it exactly”.
“Well I don’t know what the fuck you guys think it’s going to sound like on that shitty 16 track one inch tape. You are going to lose so much fidelity that way”.
Not realizing that he was contradicting himself in what he was saying, I punted, and said that while it would be great to do it here, we just couldn’t afford it. And that was that.
I can’t remember if we moved out of Passaic first, as we had at least one “looking for a new home” practice session on Staten Island in the waning days of that summer. Four-Way and Mike were interested in a Staten Island slice so I took them to one of the better places. There was a picture of Dwight Gooden behind the counter. They immediately asked the owner of where he got the picture of Dwight. “Oh Dr. K, you mean”?
“No”, Four-Way replied. “Doctor ‘C’ is more like it”. Making friends on Staten Island fast, I rushed them through pizza and over to the studio.
As the liner notes on the demo tape say, we recorded the demo on a Friday night at Direct Sound on Staten Island (or Stagnant Island as Four-Way and Mike called it), with an additional little kicker session that was done about 3 weeks later after we got the mix back.
During this time, we gigged, we practiced three times a week, we gigged, we practiced, we drove, and drove, and drove.
The Rumble Over Rumble
If you’ve gotten this far, then you probably know who Link Wray was. Funny, I’ve gotten this far, and there was a time in my life that I didn’t. In that first discussion about Bad Posture with Pete, he told me about their cover of Link Wray’s Rumble. For those that don’t know it — just watch the Netflix thing, you’ll love it. After playing me the Bad Posture version, Pete put on the Link Wray — Live at the Paradiso (1979) version. Link’s band at the time included Anton Fig (later of Letterman fame), and a bass player named Jimmy Lowell. Since then, I have heard probably dozens of iterations of Rumble, including ours. But the one on Live at the Paradiso will always be the Rumble of Record as far as I am concerned. Link’s guitar was incredibly edgy and loud, the drumming was strong, and the bass line was a loud walker that made me remember why I wanted to be a bass player in the first place. It wasn’t incredibly difficult to play, but it made me feel less like I was in the background, and more like part of the band. I loved listening to it. I loved playing it. After Pete introduced me to it, I bought the album, ripped it to a cassette and listened to it over and over. Every time we played it I tried to play it faithfully to Jimmy Lowell’s Live at the Paradiso walking line. And every time I played it like that, Four-Way had a fucking problem with it.
So apparently Bad Posture had these two dudes. Eddie, and Emilio. I couldn’t tell you who did what. But every time Four-Way wanted to put someone (usually me) in their place, he would cite how Eddie and/or Emilio would do it. How great their gear was. How bad ass they were. Given my Richie Cunningham status in this outfit (I promise we are getting to that), I didn’t feel that I had the right to say what I thought about Eddie/Emilio — that I didn’t give two fucks who they were, what they did, or how they did it — to Four-Way until sometime toward the end in a very close to physical altercation outside our last rehearsal space in Hoboken. But more on that another day.
For the time being. I was stuck with hearing how they did it, and every time they played “the Stumble”, as Four-Way often called it when he wanted to end a show early, (“fuck this, let’s just do the stumble and get out of here”), one of those guys (the bass player), would rip stunning and paralyzing power chords on his bass, reminiscent of how Lemmy would play it, and nearly bringing the house down, as Four-Way shouted his “hey-oooooooo” vocal track over a song that was written to have no lyrics. That’s how you should play it.
Each time I replied simply: “I am not going to play it like that — call me when you become a bass player”.
He would reply in kind: “No, call ME when YOU are a bass player”. Touche.
And so in one of the only passive aggressive activities of my life, I did it my way every time we played it live, and he was powerless in those instances to stop me. But the demo, that was another story.
As our primary recording wrapped up in Staten Island, Four-Way was given the go-ahead to ship the master off to a guy named Chris Grayson on the West Coast. Touted by Four-Way as “Sound Lord” Chris was supposedly the end-all, be-all producer who would bring the magic and put us over the top. By all accounts, ole Sound Lord preferred the Eddie/Emilio method of bass on Rumble as well, and so I was overruled for the recording. Pete and I were dispatched to Staten Island to re-record the bass track and, even while equipped with Pete’s Gibson Thunderbird, I couldn’t seem to get the whole power chord mess down right. (And after two miserable years at rhythm guitar — ay caramba).
Luckily, Pete was able to step in knowing exactly what Four-Way and Sound Jesus were looking for, and laid down a pretty impressive track. So if you listen, that’s not me on that one. It’s Pete.
Truth be told, the bass track didn’t make or break it. Pete’s brilliance as a musician notwithstanding. The vocals — that definitely fucking broke it. Great job Four-Way. Really good. But I’m not bitter.
Tu Casa— Avenue B
Sometime after the wedding we high-tailed it out of Passaic, and found new digs at a place called Tu Casa on Avenue B, between 6th and 7th. Long before Mantioba’s Wild Kingdom moved into the neighborhood. Before Rent was a hit, and before the great gentrification started, there we were in the thick of Alphabet City. Just blocks from Four-Way’s pad on 2nd between B&C, and not too far from whereever Mike was currently living. It must have been the end of August (coinciding with not paying rent in Passaic), and working out a deal with Tu Casa where we shared a room with 3 or 4 other bands and used the equipment that was in the room for the most part.
Mario, the proprietor had known Four-Way in a past life and was always a pretty entertaining guy to talk to. He always had some kind of a story, and would gave me the best advice ever about having a car in that neighborhood.
“Just park it out there, and if it’s dry, roll down the windows, and don’t leave anything in the car”. This way, if there was nothing to steal, and no glass to break to find out that there was nothing to steal, you never got broken into. Over the next few months I would find some of the neighborhood regulars rifling through the car, or maybe contemplating sleeping in it, but I was usually able to catch it in time, and so I was able to maintain my sanity while still insisting on driving in whenever I could. Whatever bass I had, was all I had, (still the banana necked Frankenbacker 4001 at this point), and so there wasn’t much to leave in the car to begin with.
The studio itself was fine. But it was still likely early September and hot as balls. Crocodile Dundee 2 was shooting up the street, and I remember seeing an interview with Paul Hogan at one point about how hot it was, where you were able to see Tu Casa in the background. Not that anyone who had never been there would know what it was. And so we settled into the Fall, and the new neighborhood. I think the driving at times had me going to NJ, pick up Pete sometimes, drive, park, practice, and then Pete would go back to NJ with Tom and I would slip into the Battery Tunnel to get back to the Rock through Brooklyn.
Well after we moved in, I for some reason met Four-Way at his place before heading to practice. We walked together from 2nd between B&C to Tu Casa. It was starting to get colder, and I was wearing a long coat. As we proceeded up E. 2nd Street toward Avenue B, I saw a bodega and said “I’m going to duck in and get a beer for practice”. Having barely turned to face the place, I felt Four-Way’s giant hand grab my shoulder, basically pulling the coat away from my body, and pulling me back.
“Don’t go in there. That’s not a beer store, that’s a heroin store”.
Richie Cunningham meets dope world.
The Meaning of Life Part VII — Death
Fall went on, and from what I can remember we were wash, rinse, repeat on most of our activities. Tu Casa doesn’t hold a lot of great memories, as it was a very tense time with everything. I was still trying to keep up with, and build some kind of a rapport with Mike as a rhythm section, Tom had decided that he should somehow be the lead guitar player, and “the grown ups” Pete, and Four-Way seemed to be in a battle of wills about where this was really all headed. Looking back I think that this is where a lot of bands might have said fuck it. Somehow we hung in through the fall and as mid-December hit, there was a bit of tension that was being universally felt.
Around the 15th-20th ish of December in 1987, I got to Tu Casa early, and so did Mike. This seemed like a good time to chat and get to know him a little better, maybe figure out why he refused to take me seriously, who knows. In retrospect I can say that’s probably what I was after. If Mike thought I was good enough, then well, Four-Way would think that, and maybe Four-Way would get the fuck off my back. That’s the logic I have now assembled for myself nearly forty years later. I will stick with it. Sue me.
Mike was a nice enough guy, a bit thorny at times, tough to know, but overall from what I could tell a nice guy. I want to be clear on something as I tell this story. I am relaying the events as I know that they happened, and put together from everything that happened from that day forward. Mike had a problem and I don’t fault or judge him for that. But the problem didn’t end well and it had an impact on the rest of us, and that’s the only reason to tell the story.
I started setting up and tuning up, while Mike was putting his cymbals together. I don’t remember what we were talking about but we got on to the topic of New Year’s Eve and what my plans were, and what his plans were.
“I have been clean the last two weeks, and going into next week. On New Year’s Eve, I am going to do two bags of Spiderman at once. Never done that before. Never two at once. Will have been clean for 3 full weeks when I do it so I can feel the whole thing. Never been clean that long. What’s the longest you’ve ever been clean”?
I looked at my watch. “What’s today? Tuesday? Almost twenty-one years”.
“Jesus — really — never done heroin”?
“Never”.
Conversation over as everyone else was filing in. As we got started, Four-Way had mentioned that maybe we ought to take a break for the rest of the month as “the silly season” is upon us, and it will just be too crazy to keep going multiple nights a week during the holidays. We all agreed.
The holidays happened. New Year’s Eve came and went. On New Year’s Day, some friends gathered at my place to watch Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. As we got to Part VII — Death — the words had barely left the TV speaker when the phone rang. I picked it up and heard Pete’s voice.
“Mike’s dead”!
The details all came flooding back to me as Pete told me what had happened. He stayed clean, two bags, the whole nonsense of getting the maximum return on whatever it was that he had.
We got more of the story a few weeks later from Four-Way. He had been worried about it and knew what the consequences could be. He told Mike to wait until he got there so that there would be someone there in case it went sideways. He and the paramedics had to break down the door as Mike was locked in, and gone. The paramedics told Four-Way that Mike didn’t feel a thing. He was likely gone instantly. It was more than he could handle.
It was up to Four-Way to handle things from here out on Mike’s behalf. Mike’s parents who lived somewhere in Virginia, were devout Catholics. Mike had told Four-Way during their relationship that he wanted to be cremated. His parents were very much against that and said so. Four-Way oversaw the cremation out of respect for Mike’s wishes. I can’t verify the story that Four-Way told us, but there is nothing that would make me not believe it. Once cremated, Four-Way was told the “preferred box” would be $400. Four-Way promised to return to the funeral home, and did with a tupperware container. With Mike’s ashes in hand, he went to the nearest FedEx office ot send the remains to Mike’s parents. When asked “is there anything biological, blood samples etc..”, Four-Way demurred, and said “No”, and shipped the package.
Moving On
Not knowing Mike as well as Four-Way, I can’t say that it was a profound emotional loss when it happened. I know it was for him and rightfully so. But it was disturbing as fuck. This guy who basically told me what he was up to, and the road he was headed down was now gone. It had gone the ultimate version of sideways, and I had to make peace somehow with the knowledge that I had going in. But I was powerless to stop it. For as little as I knew Mike, I was conversely, I am sure, nothing to him. The Richie Cunningham in me didn’t know what to make of all of it.
I don’t think I remember how we made the decision to keep going. My guess is that an ad went in the East Coast Rocker, and before long, there we were on 30th Street again. The product of probably not many auditions (I think we took the first guy who showed up), was a Barney Rubble sized/shaped beatnik named Josh. Josh had a little flavor-savor beard and occasionally wore a pork pie hat. It seemed scarcely a good replacement for Mike, but it was what was on offer. More on him in the next chapter.
For any faults or problems, Mike was an incredibly talented drummer. A lot older than me (I am only realizing now how much older), our loss with him was the end of the first phase of things. I didn’t know how much I had learned from him until he was gone.
The Demo Release
The demo now being returned to us and ready, had a cover that was designed by a friend of Four-Way that was all NYC. A graffiti Ditch Witch bursting through a brick wall. Oh wait — I have a photo.
So now the onerous and boring work of sitting in Four-Way’s apartment and stuffing the cards into cassette covers, and stuffing the assembled cassettes into padded envelopes to send to labels. It was my turn, and this was somehow one of the ways I was paying my way through this experience. So there I sat on the couch working as fast as I could, while Gloria needled Four-Way about ever label that we were sending to, and how that guy wouldn’t like us, or this guy wouldn’t listen to us, or those guys wouldn’t sign us. Finally, he broke, and exploded “Would you stop it with the negative bullshit already”?!
I was now on the inside of whatever they had going on, and in that instant I wanted to be anywhere but there. It went on for another couple of hours, and I can’t remember what broke that party up, or how I got sprung from cassette duty. Probably, we just finished and had them all stamped and ready to send.
For all that I was bitter about with the demo, somehow the fact that it was Pete that played the bass line on Rumble made it easier to take. If you’re going to get broomed, get broomed for a pro. But all that said, the demo was good. It was a good start, and it was music I actually liked, which made it that much easier to tell friends about and talk about. With all that was behind us, to this point, maybe it was the fact that the demo was ready to go that pushed us to keep going, maybe we all just didn’t want to start over. Maybe both. Tough to tell with all that noise. Anyway, as luck would have it — someone posted the demo on YouTube at some point. So have a listen — hit me back in the comments with your thoughts.
Up Next: Submit to Genocide, Fear and Loathing at the Pipeline. Coming soon: The Rockford Peaches.
Just joining us? Catch up here:
https://medium.com/@chris-geiser/the-leonard-zelig-of-punk-rock-part-i-3d4e5b68b540
https://medium.com/@chris-geiser/the-leonard-zelig-of-punk-rock-part-ii-963c55fd6d52
https://medium.com/@chris-geiser/the-leonard-zelig-of-punk-rock-part-iii-b21cc2685442
https://medium.com/@chris-geiser/the-leonard-zelig-of-punk-rock-part-iv-3676a8297f6d
https://medium.com/@chris-geiser/the-leonard-zelig-of-punk-rock-part-v-ecdbf832aa56
