Danny, Chas and now Steve are gone but they live in me.

Notes and Dope

So I haven't had much time to jump in with stories about the "Glory Days" but many of the mentioned (and unmentioned) gigs and tales come rushing back like the warm rush of some good NY dope.

I do remember the sullen look on the late Grateful Dead musician Ron "Pigpen" Mckernan's  face as he silently sat in the grim back room of the Cafe Au Go Go.

I also remember former Storrs band fan Peter Tork (Thorkelson) of the Monkeys coming out of a limo on St. Mark's Place giving a nod to his old hero group NGC sitting on the stoop.

Others:
The uptown eastside club run by some connected mob guy who made the band tuck in their shirts before getting on stage.
Taking acid at Minty's - putting on his father's prized Princeton Tiger mascot outfit  and having the father come home and go nuts.
David and Danny buying their first sets of beads in a Hartford department store ... blowing minds as they went.
David finding a copy of a strange band from California, The Mothers of Invention's first album in the Jazz section of the record store. 

More later,

Cove 

More Words

Wow! Major fucking Lance? Link Wray and the Wraymen? Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers? How about Ivory Joe hunter? You guys are playing hardball! Who'd be in Gray's shoes now? I'll bet he wishes he never asked!

In reality NGC wasn't a band, but a bubble. A permutation. A number 5 bus on the bone road to . . .? A possibility amongst many of what to do next for lots of lives across the country and beyond, for whom the only certainty remaining was that something had to give somewhere. This one drifted by to break my fall just as my fingers slipped away from my last handhold. I climbed on to see where it might go, if it was going my way, how far it could take me. Others got on too, with various impressions and agendas, but more or less headed in the same direction, and so we went a-ways until it started to deflate and it was time to see where we were - and where we were going. When we looked back the bubble had gone, vanished as in a dream. In a bandman's band, this would never happen. There would be Band discussions of what The Band should do, Band changes that could be made in direction, location, personnel, whatever it took to preserve The Band. Here however, we never quite attained the level of self-obsession necessary to survive, and the band blinked out of existence as quickly as it blinked into it. Ceased to be physically directly it ceased to be spiritually. Very trippy. I mean who ever heard of a proper band folding out of mere poverty and homelessness? The truth is it was never a stand alone thing, but something which evolved -almost accidentally - from the energy around it.

By the end of '67 some people had moved on from pop bands towards wider more radical expressions of consciousness - notions of urban communes, self sustaining homesteads etc, whilst others sought to find re-entry points into the world formerly known as 'real' - and others still, attempted to reside somehow in the no man's land in between - but that's all another tale.

That a more enlightened approach to life appeared not to materialise as expected is really neither here nor there, nor is the fact that the band appeared not to achieve a successful reflection of those ideals. Appearances are deceptive. Subjective even. What is it you want to see? Has there ever been a period of time since, that remotely compares in what was being idealised then, however childishly? Peace? love? compassion? understanding? inclusion? wonder? Look where we are now for fuck's sake with the human race falling all over itself on every level to self-destruct!   To change!   It takes time! Lots of people know all this on some level, whatever their state of denial, probably through their manifest need for some fare that is fundamentally different than what they are getting. Whatever energy was being pushed out then still abides. It does not go away. It is leaking quietly out of the general consciousness into the ether. Why else do you think we are all re-pondering over this nonsense, this reissue, this not very good representaion of the best the time had to offer? Because it is authentic. A genuine curio from a time that needs reassessing to see if there is anything there for us. You boys sell yourselves short with your talk of tall egos. You forget yourselves. You were(are) singing it, living it, spinning it out at the centre of the wheel. Like the dark matter surprised physicists now realize comprise the vast majority of the universe - nothingness in fact - 'real' life would appear to consist chiefly of inconsequential scatterings: creative scribblings to no obvious purpose, playings for no obvious ears; chance encounters, serendipitous occasions, nonproductive moments enjoyed with friends and loved ones; pointless meditations and fanciful pursuits; idle meanderings at the sheer inventiveness and diversity of life. The rest is a fucking nonsense as far as I can tell. Well thats my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it.


Say, none of you has mentioned the naming of the band, although you all have seen a few comments Steve and i made some time ago. Should any of that be mentioned inasmuch as it was such a bizarre choice? Also, do you think it appropriate to have a 'for Chas' or something at the very end, or other 'credits' to those around us?


"If it feels right, just drive for the light,
that's the groove-essential fact.
One day we'll all meet at the end of the street,
at the tea house on the tracks."

(from 'Teahouse on the Tracks' ('Kamakyriad', Donald Fagen) - one of the best songs you will ever hear regarding the healing properties of playing/hearing music)

Danny’s Thoughts…



Rashamon Part IV: The Band from Coventry





Before I start,I should point out that my memory of the time line of all this as very fragmented. Maybe it’s the effect of the forty some years since it happened… maybe the effect of the chemicals that were so much a part of those years, or maybe the effect of the massive stroke I suffered nearly three years ago. Whatever, I have absolute clarity with specific scenes, words,feelings  and sounds experienced. But there are high gaps (the “white and gray shadows” on my last brain MRI.  And maybe there’s some difficulty with context.



How did it end? After the west coast trip originally planned for NGC was handed to Spanky and Our Gang in August of 1966 (for I forget what potential hit) we all had pretty much had it. With St. Marks place, with the frustration, with the waiting, and maybe, just maybe, with each other?   That’s when we threw in the towel. Just one positive affirmation would have held it together for at least another couple of months. But I get ahead of myself. The story began perhaps a year before, maybe two. Or, for me with an awakening to the power of Rock when Dylan Brought it all Back Home on “Highway 61 Revisited”. In any case, we could maybe start in 1964?

The Beatles were making creative waves high enough that they swept along  the Beach Boys, Four Seasons, Barrie Gordie’s tribe  and many others; all were finding legitimate ways to grow the music that had started with Peggy Lee singing “Fever” and Frankie Lymon when I was in sixth grade growing up in Brooklyn,.  But  now I’m too far back.

Storrs Connecticut in 1962/63/64 had a strong musical life on campus … Rock cover bands played at least a half dozen fraternity house parties every weekend. I was in “The Enchanters”, a five piece combo with a front man whose voice   sounded like Bobby Comstock of the Righteous Brothers.  We played soul music more than top forty. I remember sets including Major Lance, Temps, and Impressions  back to back with “Paperback Writer” and “Louie Louie” . On the other end of the spectrum, the hootenannies in Hillel house (or was it one of the Churches?) were a great opportunity to meet and jam with some interesting characters, as we covered Erik Darling, Hedy West, and of course Seger and Josh White.

   

 The outside world  was  a place to hide from. Our generation dove under desks in the first through fifth grades,  and UConn was a nice shield from the complexity of the newly erected Berlin wall and the continuing threat of nuclear escalation and devastation. JFK took the bullet and went down with all of our dreams of a cultured egalitarian world. But things in Boston soon changed that.

The New Culture in Storrs was probably way ahead of the rest of the country when I arrived in 1962. Maybe including most of California. Alpert (not Herb) and Leary were already waist deep in their exploration of the internal worlds, and although little white tabs of Osley and Tan caps of I’m-not- sure-what hadn’t quite started spilling down the Mass Pike and Merritt Parkway from Boston, there were fields of home-grown in the area surrounding UCONN. The “scene” consisted of a blending of Folkies joining together and showing off at open mike “Hootenanies” which I recall were monthly affairs;  various “thinkers” ( in addition to  intellectuals?) from the Theater, English, Philosophy and Psychology departments; also from Physics and Chem grad students,  and the general riff-raff  hanging out at the subterranean Campus Restaurant … the independents’ alternative to the Student Union on campus.



  Music was undergoing changes… Dylan’s first electric album, Blonde on Blonde (is that what it was called?) was startling. Tyner and Coltrane were taking us deeper into the pure spirituality of music. Lambert, Hendricks and Ross were blending scat, jazz and vocals into something I had never heard. Gil Evans “Out Of The Cool” added another dimension to big band stuff. And Cecil Taylor had abandoned all the technicalities of classical music altogether for jazz, save the  neurological imprints in his wrists and fingers when he threw his hands at the piano.



Against this backdrop, Acid struck our little enclave in Storrs like the brilliant white blast of a Nuclear Bomb… blowing down everything and everyone away in its’ path. A Cerebral Tunguska event, if you will.  From the Hoots at the Hillel House to the basement of the Campus Restaurant,  people started jamming… and talking.  Who got the idea for a band I don’t know.  I think it was when Starger showed up. A VERY silent ex-military guy. But it didn’t take  three minutes to realize that this was not a militaristic guy. We must have jammed somewhere, because it was a given that he could play. It turned out he was a ‘townie’ … which meant nothing to me (my town was Manhattan, and we didn’t know from “townies”). Someone else from the band will have to help remember exactly how the band got started. All I know is I woke up one morning in Minty’s folks house in Stamford and there we were. The den, I suppose it was, had a big picture window looking out over Long island sound, and that’s where we set up our equipment  permanently to live  and write until we had enough songs to play out, Which we did.

. Silly stuff (“Sea Ballad”) and music from heaven (David’s solos… particularly the second half of his two parter on “Imagination Dead, Imagine”) all rerupted  there. Chas brought “Colors” to the party and would have created a lot more honey stuff had the magic lasted.



I must admit for myself, that for a bunch of guys singing about ego death and all, mine was so strong that I hardly remember anything about anyone else in the band, around the band, etc. Well … not exactly, but it sure is difficult to nail down some chronology.



Perhaps the most significant single thing that occurred for me was finding a record called Bass Strings by a California group called Country Joe and The Fish. It was about seven or ten minutes long. It was an instrumental. It was on 33-1/3, but the size of a 45. And it was on their own label.  They did it alone. It heralded the new music for me. We never got that far, but I still think if we’d had a little more time, we might have brought some new things to the party.



The next move… to “The City”.    Cov’s amazing find on West 24th Street took us into phase two. I remember an occasional groupie passing through by this time. I remember being amazed that we had attracted  groupies. Justine. I name that only for the other guys benefit. I was younger than everyone… maybe David was a babe too, but I was still wet behind the ears. I had no idea, until perhaps five years later, that Justine climbed over the roof with me to the vacant apartment next door (as she had with two or three of the guys by that time) for a reason. I was so clueless that we chatted a while, and climbed back! Big rock star.



Did anyone mention the orphans at the loft yet?  Three young things, from Boston showed up and hung with us for a while. None of the guys touched them. At least, I don’t think so. I hope not. They were kids)  It wasn’t that they were jailbait. I can’t say why. Maybe, because they felt like family.  One of my crystal clear memories is the three of them coming back up to the loft after a ferocious rainstorm looking like so many sorry cats left out overnight.



I think our best gig was at the café Au Go Go. Al Koopers band was just playing out for the first time. I had seen him when he was



Grey:  If you want more of this type of trash I’ll keep going.



Meanwhile, here’s comments on tunes for liner notes:



Going home –A work of remarkable courage. Usually, anyone who explains the secrets of finding your way “home” pays for it.

Skipping Through The Night: One comment only: the image “a bag of roses in your hand” refers to the bright red bloom of blood backing into the eyedropper…

Nova Express: After “Dream Street” not yet recorded) Tthis was David’s best?  Bob’s “Yeah yeah yeah, yeah   carried the joy to a new level.

So Bright: Actually, on this one, the Wurlitzer sounded fine.



Imagination, Dead Imagine     My favorite. Except for the vocal “style” But I loved this song. What a tune



“Forever Gone” was done in David’s best pirate voice. He has such a fabulous twinkling self deprecation that carries a tone of sinistrality.   Who could better a line like “If you wanna quench that Godly thirst, give up this world of life until death”. Yes, baby, the wheel will turn and there’s still more to come.

Photos and Words

Far be it from me to be the one seen talking about drugs - let alone to seem to be promoting them, but ... what can I say...we were as you hear us here. How to pretend otherwise now, when listening to the lyrics of these songs for the first time in years it
is blindingly obvious we were singing almost exclusively about drug experiences - God knows to whom - the psychedelic experience and its ramifications - both personal, and for whatever collective speculations as might apply in any subsequently changed world. It was that old 'turn on, tune in, drop out' thing really, not because it was the mantra of the day, but because it did seem to be the inevitable progression in the dynamic set in motion by the frequent use of LSD and other psychedelics.

-the sense of dissembling, and coming together again in not quite the same way - that nothing, internally or externally could ever be the same again; of realities blurring; of merging, of wordless communing, of orgasm in some vast context of life; of total interconnectedness, inclusion, of One-ness even; of the pointlessness in obsessing about trivialities, game-playing relationships, manipulative behaviour, self absorption (although many modern rags depict our whole generation as being self absorbed); of the necessity of letting go (on psychedelics at least) of everything, self included; 'ego death', 'clear light', and trusting somehow under the spectacular and seemingly permanent alteration of every known certainty, that all would be well somewhere down the line.

It does look a bit weird now, in black and white, even for pop music, but underneath all the barnacles and crusty shit that have attached to me over the years, the changes wrought in me then still strangely abide. But I can't get into that old chestnut here, of what was lost and what was gained by it all. Incredibly, even in my own mind, the jury is still out, and who cares now anyway.

You know that old Philip Dick book 'A Scanner Darkly'? I think they made it into a film as well. Anyway the main character who is really an undercover cop is so deep into his cover with a bunch of drugheads - doing this highly addictive drug himself of course - that he really doesn't know which end is up anymore. Completely loses it. Doesn't know who he is or what he's doing. Drifts from one reality to another, most reference points to the real world sliding irresistably away into the distance.

It was a little bit like that with me, only without the negativity and paranoia, or even quite the intensity of the book. I'm not sure about the other band members, as we all remember such different things - differently -  or possibly the whole thing. Nevertheless, it is certainly true (I think) to say that once we washed up at Minty's place, having at last got off the can and left University to actually, intentionally form a band, we didn't surface in the real world again for a matter of months.

The thing is, we worked basically in isolation. Weren't playing the circuit, the bars etc as we learned, meeting other bands, hearing what they were doing, as most bands do. I don't even remember listening to much outside music, nor incredibly, even leaving the house, except to gaze blankly at the sea occasionally. In truth, all I really see in my mind's eye is the room in which our equipment was permanently set up, where we spent most of our time, playing, writing, getting high, partying - various other people drifting in and out of the place randomly. Having decided to have a go, we were down there practicing, trying to find a lttle discipline musically, and writing as much as we could. But with no one else really to bounce off, we were writing about what was going on in our heads, even if not quite intentionally.


In September 1966, I was beginning what I hoped would be my final year at university, if I could just hold it together long enough to see it through. I was sharing rooms over an old tavern with a couple of friends: a fine arts student named Bud Swenson, who produced the paintings that adorn this booklet, several of which, as panels, were to form the backdrop of an early lightshow for the band, operated by Buddy himself playing his legendary 'light piano'; and Cove, a naturally creative madman and theatre/film student, who later contrived out of nothing, to mother, nurture and manage NGC in the early days. Fab guys and brilliant talents. At the time however there was no talk of bands, although I used to do a bit of jazz and quirky noodlings in a local coffee house. We were students just trying to finish school somehow against the groundswell of a 'perfect storm' that had been forming over the previous couple of years, gorging itself on the energy of an assassinated president to whom our generation ascribed, rightly or wrongly, many idealistic themes which now lay withering on the ground; a dramatically escalating war in Vietnam, which was suddenly grabbing the attention of 19-26year olds from every background, as they were now liable to be drafted; an increasingly high profile and noble fight for equality and civil rights with all the attendant opportunities for personal involvement and expression; rampant disaffection everywhere with the way the older generation was running things; and oh, not forgetting the pill of course - all serving to unite young people as never before, right across the board, and fuelling a desire to cast off all the old bullshit, and try new things they might not otherwise have tried - including drugs. LSD had hit the scene bigtime in the previous year and was working its weird subversive magic from coast to coast, especially in universities. Mix in the Beatles too, who had just made the brilliant 'Revolver'. The place was really starting to pop. Amazing times, and for awhile, amazingly optimistic times too, in serious anticipation of the new order. My education had no chance!

Danny and I already knew each other. Had been friends for a couple of years. Ran with the same crowds etc. We also had similar interests in music - jazz and such, and had even played together, so I'm told, in that coffee house mentioned above (piano and harp). Live music of all sorts till late - poetry even, as I almost recall. God where are these places now! Danny knew everybody though he'd only been on the planet five minutes. Like Cove he was a master networker, before the notion was even invented. We went to a party one night where he introduced me to Chas who was sitting on the floor with an acoustic playing 'Colors', a song he had just written. Steve was there too. They knew each other. It was an older crowd. Post grads etc. Gentile. Highbrow. Closer really to Ginsberg and Pound than the Rolling Stones, but then that's what characterised the 60s more than anything else I think: some Acapulco Gold passes round the room and hey presto! - all that alpha posturing goes out the window and those pesky boundaries just melt away. There was talk of us all playing together sometime, and that, as far as I can recall was the unseen germination of the band.

I can't remember how we sorted ourselves out for those first jams. Steve and Danny were both versatile musicians. Both were decent piano players, and amazingly, could also play guitar. Steve could even play drums, and Danny was a passable singer. But for all their proficiency, they had to be bumped unfairly off their strongest instruments because Chas and I were basically one-trick ponies! Thus Steve had to take up with a Farfisa organ I had bought and didn't get along with (although it became a characteristic 60s sound), and Danny had to take up a new instrument altogether, the bass, which of course is a very different animal to the guitar. Chas got an electric guitar from somewhere, and I bought an old Wurlitzer piano, which was actually quite funky, but had the annoying habit of breaking off keys in mid flow and sending nerve shattering static through the amplifier. Electric pianos were such crap back then. Actually I'm not sure that Steve didn't play drums and I played the Farfisa at the outset. Danny had moved in temporariliy over the tavern - I can't remember why - and we were playing most evenings, but this was still just jamming really. School was somehow still the priority, and there were no plans for there to be a band.

Over the winter months however, the whole school thing went pear shaped for me. Each trip I took pushed me further and further into space until I could hardly see the continent anymore let alone a picture of myself in a classroom, taking notes, writing essays, reading books. Smoking far too much dope than was good for me, it all just disappeared without my really knowing, until one day I realised I was no longer a student. It simply could not be maintained. I was not going to pass go and collect my diploma, which left me in a bit of a quandry as to what I was going to do.

 In the meantime, Minty, whom I didn't know at all appeared on the scene needing a place to stay. Or had heard about the playing, joined in when he could and ended up staying. I can't remember. He was probably the catalyst for the band becoming a band. He was the quintessential band man who will never ever call it quits. An uncompromising spiritual rock. He wasn't actually even a musician then, but he was bloody well going to be, and he was going to be in the band. I think he nicked a flute and a tambourine from the music department to get a leg up and set about the thing furiously all night every night. Ok maybe he bought them.

We were introduced to Bob by a friend and fan who had been touting him as a great lead singer, which franky we didn't have, although Danny, Chas and myself could do reasonable backing vocals if no one was paying close attention to it. He wasn't from the area and none of us knew him except Minty who, strangely, was from the same town. As it happened, he also played drums. Perhaps it was then I got the Wurlitzer and Steve moved to the Farfisa. Anyway, Bob, surprisingly, really was a great singer, unlucky even not to have fallen into an outfit more able to exploit that, and suddenly the thing started to assume a kind of shape. We were an unlikely crew that's for sure, like the crew of the fucking Pequod, but there was a shape. People, including ourselves, were starting to get off on it. Minty could stand it no longer, and insisted we all had to go down to his family's house on the coast - can you imagine? - and stay there as long as it took to get our shit together, and that's when we started to call ourselves a band.

I think we did two or three gigs towards the end of our stay at Minty's, the first of which was back at UCONN in a big auditorium. A sort of a reunion or homecoming type of affair the details of which have long escaped me. We had left many friends behind when we left, who were interested in our progress, and consequently there was a great turnout for the event. The place was jumping in fact; we played well, Buddy had the lightshow up and running, and by any standard it was a real happening, leaving us feeling that we were really on our way. The next job, which we won by audition was to back up a big soul revue down state headed by the Five Stairsteps, a brilliant family soul band. If the first gig was an unqualified success, this one brought us back to earth again with a bang, although again, we played well. Everyone took away different feelings from that gig, but I quite enjoyed it, and we all got some jellybeans to take home. The last gig was a resort job about which I remember very little, but when we got back to Minty's at the end of it, the general consensus was that we were ready to try our luck in New York.

Cov had been in New York most of this time, and had managed to get himself employed at CBS - with a big estate car no less - and amazingly, had also landed some sort of situation whereby he was looking after a whole building on W24th St. Steve reckoned it was a condemned building or something. Maybe we were squatting, I never knew, but all our power came from one socket in the basement. It was a depressing hole really, all dark and dingy, but it might as well have been a brownstone on the west side. Hey, you try and find accommodation for a six piece rock band in New York City with no money or worthwhile credentials! What a star! Anyway, Bob produced some positive memories of band pictures being projected on a nearby building, and stargazing from the roof, so it wasn't all bad, although, as I mentioned once before, my abiding memory of the place was huddling round in a room and listening to the first airing of Sgt Pepper on a little transistor radio that Danny had brought in, and wondering why we were even bothering, when the innermost stuff I was clumsily trying to express could be, was being done so much more subtly, beautifully, easily even, by others. I couldn't really be depressed to hear it, but I was stunned.

Fortunately we didn't have to stay at 24th St. too long, as Buddy, who also had been in town pursuing his own agenda, was giving up his loft in St Marks Place on the Lower East Side for which he had taken out a years lease, thereby giving us a more legitimate space in a far hipper area.

Two things were immediately on the agenda: to get a professional manager/agent, and to get a recording contract - and ridiculously soon, they were both in place. Somebody knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew - Danny of course! We got an appointment with a Herb Gluck and Herb Allen, frankly, an exceedingly unlikely duo with an office in uptown Manhattan. In conversation we formed the idea that they were almost as inexperienced as ourselves who probably just felt they needed an act such as ours on their books. and in the end we decided to tell them if they could get us a record deal - or maybe it was just an audition - with a decent record company we would sign with them, never believing for a moment that they could pull it off. But they did, in a matter of days, catching us a little on the back foot, as we had not really done much practicing since coming to New York, and there were several newish songs - 'Blooming' for one - which weren't really organised or rehearsed properly. And so it was that we trooped across town to Mercury studios, on foot and on the subways, instruments in tow, and looking more like escapees from the Grapes of Wrath than the next big thing, to the audition contained in this cd. The producer in charge of the session was Dick Corby, whose chief claim to fame at the time was the writing of the Beachboys hit 'Barbara Ann'.

He told us to just run down live everything we did, which we proceeded to do, to no particular effect, when all of a sudden during 'Colors' he started going potty in the mixing booth. That was it, end of audition. He wanted to sign us and record the song. So we signed, not only to the Smash (Mercury) label, but to Gluck and Allen thus honoring our end of the aforementioned bargain. I confess to some misgivings and even guilt at not letting Cove continue to handle us. He had done nothing wrong after all, although he had no knowledge whatsoever of the industry, and would probably be found out sooner or later. Nevertheless he loved us, and was that type of personality crazy enough that could make stuff happen on a given day. God, the shit you do!

I had no real complaints about the two Herbs. Yes, they were a bit square, but to my knowledge they weren't crooks, as some bands had to suffer. If there was a complaint, it was that we started a bit high in the food chain, our first gig being at the well known Cafe a go go, sharing spots with the likes of Al Kooper (or was it Blood Sweat & Tears?) and Jethro Tull downstairs, with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention playing upstairs. A few similarly profiled gigs followed, and of course the trouble with that, is that there are only so many of those going around, and if you don't capitalise on them - which we didn't - your trajectory can suddenly look vulnerable. A longer foreplay in lesser venues where a fan base can be developed has been known to prove more beneficial. Not that we were complaining. We were young and in a hurry. 

Not too long afterwards, Dick took us to an outside studio to do 'Colors', but at the end of a long day, having made a complete pig's ear of it, - and after about a million takes - we had to call it quits and go home thoroughly depressed; and no one more so than him as he now had no idea what to use for the single. Everyone seemed to lose faith in ever getting 'Colors' right. You know what it's like if you whack at a thing too long in the studio - the bloody thing is more dead than alive even if you get it right.

Some time later we were playing at a club in uptown - the Doors were headlining the thing, with an excellent band called Free Spirit I think, and ourselves in support - and the audience was really getting off on 'Going Home'. Dick happened to be amongst them, and decided then and there that that would be the single. We had no objections because it was always a strong song for us live, and was really quite central to our collective ideology, (although the flipside 'Skipping Through the Night' proved far more sought after over the years) and moreover, we might all hopefully get off the hook for the previous fiasco. In reality though, 'Colors' was by far the most commercial song we ever did. Listening to it now it was a much stronger piece than perhaps any of us gave it credit for at the time.

The trouble with recording 'Going Home' as a single - apart from it being considered too outrageous for radio stations on the east coast to even play (bastards!) - was that it was essentially a longer piece than was currently allowed. The old 3 minute rule! Live, it benefitted from a little arrangement, with time for people to take a few unrushed licks here and there. But to make it fit inside 3 minutes, it had to be stripped to the bone, which did not really suit it. To be fair, Dick should really have seen that coming. He  wanted to cut a verse out which we couldn't accept, so it had to go out in the no nonsense in-your-face way that it does. In spite of that, or maybe because of it, it still stands up. It is wistful, honest and totally spaced out, and I well remember Herb Allen running into some other uptown joint we were playing and telling us excitedly that it was some San Francisco dj's pick of the week. All the same, it was just as well this was a 'double A' record and that 'Skipping Through the Night' came out so good.

I personally had no problem generally with the way Dick Corby or the record company treated us, and believe me I have heard some horror stories over the years. Mercury bought the most urgently required pieces of musical equipment for us up front. On the audition tracks you can clearly hear the distinctive Wurlitzer sound, whereas on the 45 it had been replaced by the sound of the wonderful Fender Rhodes which had just come off the assembly lines. Bob had a new drumkit, and Chas a Gibson. It could have been more. They could have bought Danny a new bass; they could have given us a bit of subsistence money when the gigs dried up, and things could possibly have worked out differently. They could have supported a trip to the West Coast for instance, where records were being sold. But they didn't. You can only carry out these autopsies so far. We were lacking a little political will ourselves by then. As for Dick, you also hear of producers who think they are stars in their own right, and muck around in the studios and elsewhere to the detriment of the bands and their music. He wasn't like that. If anything, we could have done with a bit more direction, as we were novices in the studio. He was onside most of the time and prepared to let us do our thing. A good guy. The only time I think he failed us was towards the end, when clearly having lost his bottle - or otherwise pressured from above - he wanted us to cover the Valley of the Dolls film theme as our second contractual single for the year - effectively our last shout - which had already been recorded well, and successfully, by Dionne Warwick - purely on the basis that it was about drugs. I couldn't go with that and told him so. It was a poor and probably terminal business option. We should have gone back and done 'Colors'. Again, he and the record company might have supported us to the extent where we could have gone into the studio and record the album to which we were sort of entitled in the contract, and which we couldn't logistically do without some help. The lease was up on the loft, and we were not in a position to look for another space. But in all honesty, I think there was some energy loss from all quarters. Perhaps they sensed that.

_____________

This is great fun!  I have already found out some stuff that I didn't know until now.  For example, Dave said that I was brought into the group because they needed a singer.  I thought I was brought in because the group needed someone that was "good looking" who could play drums...ha  ha  ha.
Seriously, I think that Steve has the right format.  So, I too will include a little background.  Pre NGC stuff...
I have always played the drums.  I can recall drumming at three yrs old.  I was singing on stage in theaters by the age of 5.  While in 3rd grade I was a regular member of the Junior H.S. band.  By the time I was eleven I was working in clubs as a solo drummer attraction, and occasionally singing.  I just loved to play and perform.  I would practice 3 to 4 hours daily.  After performing on the Ted Mack Original Armature Hour, I was offered a music scholarship to New York Military Academy to play drums.  Eventually, I got a degree in music, with a concentration on voice.
Before college, I had played mostly jazz.  I had never played rock!  However, I formed a "rock" band the first day I arrived on campus.  We worked a frat party the 2nd day.  Anyway, it became a fairly good band that paid my way through college.  We worked the N. E. college circuit and had a few clubs that would book us whenever we were open.  Working in many frat houses at Dartmouth, UNH, and etc gave me an opportunity to observe the college frat scene.  I became a committed independent.  I was exposed to grass at the beginning of my sophomore year...and haven't stopped yet.
After graduation, I was singing and playing in a very sharp and excellent combo that played 7 NIGHTS a week for about 6 months.  Even though I loved what I was doing, when you have to do something 7 nights a week it can become hateful.  It did, and I decided to quit making music.  I was married, (mostly to avoid the draft) so I decided to get a straight job...and I did.
A few months later, a smokin buddy asked if I was interested in playing drums with some friends of his from college.  They came over to my house, set up in the living room and we played and we talked and we got high.
I don't mean to offend anyone, but these were my first impressions.  From a musical point of view, it was rough.  However, there was great energy, high creativity, much enthusiasm, wonderful personalities and the potential for a spectacular package.  The concept of performing with Buddy's paintings and the light keyboard, with this very new and beautiful music was, to me, a winning package.  So the fire was ignited once again.  Even though I had been completely turned off to the business...there I was, back in it again.
I had known Minty since 6th grade.  Well, we said hello to each other...I didn't really know Minty.  Through 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Minty sat in the back of the class at St. Mary's Parochial School and rarely spoke.  So, after I left Military School, and had to repeat my Sr. yr because I got expelled from the class of "60" for smoking cigarettes, Minty was again in some of my classes at Stamford High School.  Again, he would be sitting in the back of the room, and would usually put his head down and sleep.  I used to chuckle when the bell would ring at the end of class.  Minty would wake up...his face would be all wrinkled from sleeping on his arms and there would be large amounts of saliva over his face, arms and desk. He just didn't care.  In retrospect, he was probably way ahead of his time.  I feel compelled to tell one more Minty story:  One night, during the summer of my junior year in college, I found myself at a party at Minty's house.  There  had to be 75 to 100 kids there...mostly college kids all sitting around in that fabulous room...all smoking, all stoned...great fun.  But, the fun was interrupted by Minty's aunt or grandmother who came into the middle of the room and started yelling at Minty, and the rest of us.  The room became absolutely quiet as she angrily yelled at all of us saying that she knew what we were doing...we were all perverted drug fiends and etc.  I was very afraid that we were all about to be busted!  Minty, (what a guy) looked at her, speechless.  Then he started laughing, and then the whole room joined in laughing with him.  The laughter became so surreal that the lady just screamed and ran back to her room.
That's what I knew of Minty.  I had no idea that he played flute or that he was into music at all until that day when they came over.  But, for some reason, his being there gave me confidence in the project.
So, this is what I thought I know coming into the group.  They were all from Uconn.  One had dropped out of his Doctoral program for this group. one had dropped out of a masters in literature program for this group, and the rest had walked out of college during their sr yr...for the group.  To me that was commitment!
Dave's portrayal is so correct.  We were always making music...but it was always our music.  I don't recall that we ever jammed to existing tunes.  I don't think we ever tried to play a cover. I liked that...and I still do.  In fact, for the last several years I only make music that I have never heard before.
When I try to recapture that period, I have to remind myself that although we were on the same location, we were all making our own movie.  We may have been on the same scene, but were were all using different cameras, taking different shots...wide angle, close ups, fades, etc.  We supplied our own commentary and made our own conclusions.  I am certain that although we were all there our experiences were very different.  And, if it were possible to make 6 movies of that experience they would each be very different. 
The music:
    It speaks for itself.  Authentic, honest, pure and conflicted.  Mostly polyphonic with many melody lines happening at times.  What I liked about our music was that it was like a trip.  It had the chaotic acidic moments, but that was only part of the trip...it also had the beauty and purity that comes around the 8th or 9th hour of that trip.  Let's face it.  Drugs were very influential in everything we did.   That was good...that was not so good.  When we were all doing the same type of chemical it was good...when half the group was going fast and the other have going slow...it wasn't so good.  I am certain that I caused some chaos...at that time, I didn't know any better.
My drumming on most of the tracks was way too busy. (my jazz background, I suppose, and speed)  My singing was ok, but I wasn't ready at that time.   
   I loved the sound of the Wurlitzer.  (In fact, I still have one)  Dave' s style and abilities was very attractive.  Chas's crystalline solos were like tiny diamond stars that would developed and then fade into the ozone.  Danny's bass lines were melodic and strong and his songs were entirely from a different place.  In my opinion, Steve was the most reliable and consistent of us all.  His solos were never overstated, or reached further than he could go.  His accompaniments were thoughtful and tasteful.  Never overbearing...but always pleasing.  Minty's flute solos were at time breathtaking, (as in Skippin) and at other times were as confused as were the times and us.

The business:
    I hated that part of it.  Having been burned in the past by agents, bookers and managers, I was unreasonably intolerant of trusting anyone on the business side.  However,  That we had a manager with contacts, studio time, and a contract was amazing!  That we had all of that so soon, now seems incredible.  We just didn't know enough.  And as Dave observed, we weren't out there checking out the other groups...we weren't sharing ideas and concepts, and we were inexperienced.  Too inexperienced to demand that the paintings and lights be included in all of our performances...that the drums be amplified...that we didn't have to worry about 3 minute songs. (our best stuff happened when we jammed)...we should have done more of that.  But we were inexperienced.

The culture;
    I knew nothing of the tribe until I saw the Marshmallow thing on Cov's website last year.  It is good that I didn't know.  I was, and still am skeptical of that communal stuff.  Clearly my experiences leading up to NGC were different than the rest of the group.  I had been doing acid for a few years.  Actually, the first time I dropped, it was legal.  Amphetamines were always available in college and I liked to go fast.  The one thing that I have mentioned to Dave in past e-posts is that I always knew that whatever I was experiencing on any of chemicals, was because of the chemical.  It wasn't me...it was the drug.  I didn't see god on acid, I experienced phenomena, but I couldn't take responsibility for many of the accompanying revelations, or cataclysms.  It was the drug.  Now that seemed to be in conflict with some in the group.  After dropping a couple of hundred times I am convinced that one gets out of a trip with what they go into it with.  It's all subjective. 
I know now that regardless of my music background and training, I realize that I was and still am basically a show-off!  By the time we were in the loft on St Mark's Place, my main drives were to get laid, (A LOT) stay high and make music. 
Over the years I have tried to describe the experience to those close to me.  I really can't.  The closest I can get is to refer to Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.  On a much smaller scale, and on the east coast.  But similar.

The last days:
     I went back to Stamford for the weekend.  I came back to the loft on Monday to find it almost empty.  My drums were gone.The sound system was gone. in fact all the instruments were gone.  I don't remember who was there, but who ever it was explained to me that over the weekend, some acid had been dropped.  The conclusion was that New York City should be burned down...that playing the commercial game was fruitless...that we should sell the instruments and get out.  And as I was told, they did.  I was told by friends later that Dave went to work on a farm.  Chas went to work in a bakery.  Danny went to work for IBM,  Minty went to the coast, and that Steve was having residuals.  To this day I really don't know what happened to all of us.  During the early 70ties I ran into Steve a few time while working the Connecticut club scene.  Other than that I have not seen or spoken to any of the survivors from that very epochal time in my life.  i turned out ok!

2010:
NGC 4594 is worth a listen.  Yeah, some of it is unmixed, and unfinished...but the work does have substance!  Some of it is still current!  Some parts are astoundingly beautiful.  Mentally, Spiritually, Emotionally...it will lift you...It may open up your mind...if you will just give it time.

Contact

Still in Storrs?

It has been wonderful making contact again with David, Dan, Annie, Steve, Minty and many other from the band time.

And just today:
Hi Cove

I don’t know if you remember me from my days at UConn in the 1960s. We had a few conversations at the Campus Restaurant, but I don’t know that they were sustained enough for you to remember me.

Yesterday, just for the hell of it, I Googled “Bliss” and “NGC4594,” expecting to find links to used vinyl shops. Instead, I discovered your blog and that people from “The Tribe” were excited to be back in touch. I agree that NGC 4594 was one of the most interesting rock bands I’ve ever heard. I’ve been telling this to Starger for a number of years.

Would you be interested in trading a copy of the NGG4594 CD for some books of fiction I’ve written and some

recordings of jazz and poetry that I recorded in the 80s and 90s? If I’m an unknown quantity to you, Starger will vouch for the quality of the work. He played keyboard in my poetry band during its final year, but we never got to record the edition of the group that he was in. He also reviewed most of the books and records.

Vernon Frazer

People can contact or send mailing address to Cove at:
coveymaya (at) earthlink (dot) net (I write it that way so spammers don't pick up my e-mail automaticly to try and sell me Viagra)
Speaking of spam, don't forget to go to Cove's other (the outrageous one) blog site:
Fat Bill and Me





Who is the guy in the tree? What is he doing there?

It's late september and I really should be back in school

Autumn in New Jersey ... and there's Dave Bliss on an email! We've almost got us all.

don' even know what to say or why we're doing this.

"The Bass Player"

Buzzy

Buddy

Quist rolls one

The Tribe: Steve and Ellen's Wedding

Still Crazy

If I did this correctly, there's a shot mf me on my way to Oakland to visit son Marc. Number four son did the ride with me from Chicago west.

How come no one else is loding on the site?

Jack and Buzzy