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.