MUSIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

Page 1 of Many

That there is a picture of 1992.

I knew then what I know now: I didn’t belong in that picture. Everyone in that group but me had musical chops. I had JUST picked up a guitar that year. Jodi Marolda met me at the WINNING TICKET one night that very well could have been New Year’s Eve 1991, if I recall correctly. It all kind of ties back into itself with that moment. The TICKET had 99.1 WPLR on the speakers, and they were broadcasting live from TOAD’S PLACE in New Haven, CT. There was a band CRUSHING on the stage.

They would eventually, years later, be revealed as NRBQ.

I mingled in the crowd at the TICKET and the ‘Q was ripping through “HOWARD JOHNSON’S (Got His HoJo Workin’). I was now distracted. I was a fan of the blues, (in as much as that white kid in the boat above could actually be blue about), and these guys on the speakers were playing the happiest, most out of control, bordering upon rock-a-billy and jazz-infused improvisation mixed with blues chord progressions and blues turnarounds that were, (IF you knew the musical landscape they were all taken from individually), HILARIOUS.

THE MUSIC WAS FUNNY. It was all a huge in-joke. They could all play, and they were poking fun, and HAVING fun, with the blues forms I had been raised upon. There was ZERO angst and sturm-and-drang. No drama. Any drama was forced and farced.

Then, the show stopped. To this day, I don’t know whether it was a live broadcast, or a taped show that they were just playing. However, it stopped, and like a lightning bug in a field of hay I kept mingling.
The station moved on to classic album rock. The song they chose to get back into reality was ‘LAYLA’ by Derek and the Dominoes. Instantly recognizable, and my ears were overly familiar at the age of 21 with the song. Actually the whole album. I sang along, and that’s when Jodi, who is in the photo above on your left in the back of the boat, mingling nearby with all of our Raggie friends, heard me singing. He and his friend Gabe told me I should come back to their apartment after the night ended and we should jam. I knew all the songs by heart, and they played them with their bass and guitar. Derek Reeves, top right in the boat, was also there. He was younger than all of us, and for some reason, was a Texas gunslinger on a Stratocaster-type guitar. The whole thing is fuzzy after all the years that have passed, but that’s where it began.

I don’t even think I owned a guitar.
But, that didn’t take too long.

I was way behind the 8 Ball, though….these guys were really musicians. I was a poser.

That didn’t stop me from writing a song or two almost immediately.
One, I wrote with Keith Eisenlohr and Darren Barrett at the boat shop seen above. That was called ‘Sit on Somethin’. And it was funny. The next was less funny, had a bluesy stomp to it, and, now that I sit here and type this can tell you I was trying SO HARD to recreate the sound of NRBQ I had heard at the TICKET that night. The song was called ‘WHITEBREAD’, and it was an allegory to the old blues songs that would use food to make sexual innuendos and seem sneaky doing so. Here’s some idea of the lyrics, with a direct reference to a funny visit to THE WINSTED DINER with Kevin Beck (Bottom right in the boat) with the ‘cruller’.

“She don’t like moistened cruller remnants, wipes ’em on the side….
Meat and potatoes? I’ll catch you later…..
I’m tryin to watch my size.
Just gimme that whitebread; WHOOOOO…
And make sure you let it rise!”
I believe I could play it right now if you put a guitar in my hands.
‘WHITEBREAD’ was our first REAL song, and MY first real song. I still adore it.

It showed me that I could do this, and I did…..and noone told me I couldn’t. Sure, there were some people that would give me criticism, but I needed the guidance and welcomed it.

The following pages have songs from the years 1997, 2000, 2002, and 2017.

It’s the most fun I’d ever had and thanks to all for the ride.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Share this: