This will be my first in a series of ramblings about some of my long time musical meanderings, associations & observations
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The Curmudgeons
I first heard James 'Spider' Barbour when I was playing with the Crows in the late 80s. I was at Crow's bassman, Mike Dunn's house one day listening to some music when he pulled out a cassette of "Dog's Life". I was completely blown away by this tune. Mike told me that he was a local guy that he had played with a few years back in a group called "Imago". Back in 1968 Spider had a deal with MGM for his band "Chrysalis".The Chrysalis record was being recorded @ Electric Ladyland in NYC. Another band that was also there recording @ the same time was The Mothers of Invention. Spider, being the crazy brainiac biologist that he is, became fast friends with Frank Zappa. They spent hours recording free associative conversations under the lid of the studio's grand piano...'Pigs & ponys don't understand the BIG NOTE!'... Many of these raps became incorporated into Frank's material. I made Mike promise to introduce me to Spider asap. A few weeks later the three of us became the original Curmudgeons.
We would get together twice a week & learn Spider's 'book'. I would chart out the tunes & we would arrange them. Spider has a unique way of voicing chords & the way his melodies flow through them is truly mesmerizing. I can honestly say that going through this process has given me a more complete understanding of music which has carried over into every project I have been involved in since. The greatest thing about Spider's music is that, when it's done right - it sounds completely simple & straightforward. When you try to play along with it, then you'll realise what a completely twisted genius he is!
About a year later I had gotten involved with Michael Birnbaum - a talented, young engineer who wanted to build a recording studio. I had cut some tracks in his home studio when I was singing & playing guitar with the Crows & was very impressed by his drive & focus, in addition to the high quality of his engineering work. Since I had a pretty extensive carpentry background, he asked me to check out an old barn he was thinking about renting with the idea to turn it into a real studio. The place was interesting. A wall would have to come down & a couple more would have to go up. A booth & a control room would need to be built...it could happen...
There was no budget, of course, so I opted to do the work in exchange for studio time. Spider had some construction experience as well so between the two of us we got the job done in a few weeks. There were several 24 hour work days involved in making that deadline, but it was basically happy work. Having this opportunity to make a professional recording for our sweat equity motivated us to begin pre - production using Mike's old Tascam 40-4 & Spi's Kelsey mixer @ Mike Dunn's house. As fate would have it, some of these demos turned out better than the 'real' studio!
We cut: 'Dr. Root's Garden', 'Chilicothe Wind', 'Dog's Life', 'Storybook Windows', 'Lime Kiln Road' & '(let me) Hibernate'. These 4 track tapes had a significant effect on my 2 young sons. I swear that they, & all their friends, knew these songs better than we did! This collection of demos really helped inspire them to write their own songs. Today they both have careers in music. Joey is making his 6th record. (1 - solo, 5 with his group '3' ) to be released summer /07 on Metal Blade. Josh, after cranking out 3 certified gold discs for columbia/equalvision records with 'Coheed & Cambria', is finishing up his 2nd 'Weerd Science' hip hop release for EqualVision. This isn't just me being a proud parent, it's a living, breathing, WORKING testimony to the inspirational power of great music. Either one of these guys will tell you that Spider is the MAN!
The Curmudgeons @ Applehead
We hadn't (as yet) worked a drummer into the act so when Ken Lovelet offered his services for the recording, we were psyched! Ken is a very acomplished player & we felt lucky to get someone of his caliber to throw in with us for what was basically a lobor of love (read: NO MONEY!). Of course, there were no rehersals either...
We cut basic tracks for 'Dog's Life', 'Raging Stream', 'Lime Kiln Road', 'Storybook Windows', 'Wanderlust', 'Chilicothe Wind', 'No Dice' & 'Turtle Surgery'.
Having another (new) musician in the mix, especially one who wasn't well versed on the material was a bit of a double edged sword. Ken's drumming is excellent on all these tracks, but some of his ideas were different than ours & a lot of times we went with his instinct, which meant that, in the ensuing weeks, we had to recut some of our parts to 'fit' with what he had laid down. Mike Birnbaum actually took it upon himself to record another drummer over Ken's tracks on 'Raging Stream' - without any consultation. This kind of put me in a funny place because, at the time, I was working construction for Ken & I thought that song, in particular was one of our most cohesive basic tracks. Cest La Vie... Anyway, Robert 'Chicken' Burke played Jerry Marotta's Taos drums on the track & he turned in a fine performance, but with no input from a band member - the result was definitely further from the original concept than it was before. That being said, this track has stood the test of time and - bass or drums, player or producer... Chicken is one of the best musicians I know.
It took a year or so to get all the overdubs done. Mike & I eventually mixed "Storybook Windows" & "Lime Kiln Rd". The rest of these tracks languished for years without being finished. We finally hired another engineer and we got some good mixes of "No Dice", "Wanderlust" & "Raging Stream". Unfortunately "Chilicothe Wind" (imo, the best track we had recorded), was accidently erased by Mike Birnbaum & Robert Frazza. "Dog's Life" was all tracked, but for some reason (probably because we ran out of $$$ to pay engineers) was never finished. Ditto for 'Turtle Surgery'. I'm sure that these master tapes have been recorded over or discarded by now...so it goes...
I Hear a Dog...
Fast forward to November 1997...
Les Gerber is the owner of Parnassus records - a small classical label of some renown. Les is also a huge Spider Barbour fan. He especially loves Spi's animal songs (specifically: Dog songs). He offered to executive produce (meaning: foot the bill for) a recording of Spider's music performed by the group for release on his new label, Loki records. After some discussion we decided to book time @ Tom Mark's studio, the Make Believe Ballroom in Shokan, NY. Tom is a great engineer & had recorded Spider's Imago album. He also recorded some of my favorite NRBQ records (Yankee Stadium, for one), & being a huge Q fan, I was down with the program. We still didn't have a regular drummer at this point, so we decided we would record the songs to a click track & bring in a drummer later. So began the work on what would become "I Hear a Dog" - the first album by the Curmudgeons!
We had 9 'dog songs' ready to go:
(1) Dog Star, (2) Didy Mo, (3) Nobel Beast, (4) Peziza, (5) Rhexia, (6) Baffin Bay, (7) I Hear A Dog, (8) Eyeball to Eyeball, & (9) A Dog's Life.
we also had 7 other 'animal songs' to throw in:
(10) Animal Tears, (11) Riding on Mothra, (12) It Came From Beneath the Sea, (13) The Great Chameleon, (14) Virginia Creeper, (15) The Mole & the Miner, & (16) Turtle Surgery.
We tracked all except for 'Noble Beast') to a click track & brought in Dean Sharp to cut the drum tracks. We felt that Noble Beast ( a kind of raucous stonesish groove) needed to be tracked live to get the right feel, so we saved it for last. Dean nailed the whole record in about 3 days. Tod Levine mastered it @ Magnetic North & Les had it out by July '97. Interested readers can check out sound samples at: www.cdbaby/curmud
The Movie
Spider has a lot of very dedicated fans. The ones who really get it & can't understand why he's not on a par fame-wise with Dylan, Van the man or even Donald Fagan...One of these fans is film maker Robert Pappas...
Spider called me up one day to say that his friend Robert Pappas is making an independant film. The title, "Some Fish Can Fly" is one of Spider's tunes. He not only wants us to cut the title tune but also to appear in the film as nightclub entertainers during a scene. The 'Mud's has expanded to a quartet by this time. We shanghai'd one of my old compadres from the old Country Rock road band days, Tall Paul Verdon to play drums with us. We cut the title track, "Some Fish Can Fly" @ Applehead. Mike Dunn was late for the session so I played bass (This is my first recorded performance on bass, btw). Spider played rhythm guitar & sang the lead vocal. I overdubbed Wurlitzer electric piano, electric sitar, a synthesizer solo & background vocals. This is one of my favorite Spider recordings. I think it's because it's the only Applehead track that got overdubbed on & mixed right after we recorded it. Mike Dunn finally showed up, so we cut '(Let Me) Hibernate' also. All I ever got of that was a very rough mix with a major guitar clam - contributed by yours truly - right in the bridge. In spite of that it's still listenable...
Some weeks later Spider & I went to New York's east village for the film portion of our program. We're going to play duo in a gin mill that they've rented out for the day. I don't have much experience with film, but it always blew my mind that movies cost as much as they do. After watching this crew of 25 people work their asses off all day for what was probably going to be, at most: 6 minutes of a movie, I can honestly say that I have a greater understanding & appreciation of the filmmaker's art!
The More Things Change...(added 4/15/07)
Bassman, Mike Dunn & I were founding members of a group that kind of morphed out of our band,'The Crows' called 'the Crowmatix'. We made a few good records, including a few with us backing up members of "the Band", but I knew after a while that it wasn't the right thing for me. I left the Crowmatix sometime in 2000. Mike stayed in the group. Around the same time he was going through a divorce & some serious health problems which necessitated the end of his long standing, storied relationship with alcohol. He stopped playing with the 'Muds shortly thereafter. In the wake of Mikey's departure, I decided it would be a good opportunity for me to learn to play the bass. Really, it was my only option. I had been playing with Mike for more than 20 years @ this point & we had gotten to that legendary place where we could anticipate each others every move. I knew I would never find another who would play that way - unless I did it myself! The Curmudgeons would be the perfect vehicle for me to get the job done! I mostly played my '65 Telestar V4 strung with GHS flats during this period...WHATTASOUND!
Beginning in late '99 into early 2001 I designed & built the new Applehead studio. Mike Birnbaum & I had a long history of knocking around ideas about studio construction & how to get the best 'bang for the buck'. An 11 acre piece of property had become available & Mike had come into a small inheritance that could cover the down payment. I only mention this here to set the background...
After the place was up & running for a while I happened to be there one day & Mike asked me to listen to some drum tracks he had recorded that day. They were killer! Apparantly the drummer wouldn't be back for a few days so they had to leave the setup intact...Hmmm...I was s'posed to get together with Spider that night...since there was no session until the guy came back I figured we could do it there & take advantage of these great sounding drums! I could tell that Mike was not too psyched about my idea, but what could he say...Pauly loved the drums (a cool Ayotte kit) but it was difficult for him to play because we couldn't move any of them into his comfort zone. We tracked: "Back in Time", "Bergamot", "Crystal Baby", "Golden Handcuffs", "Lime Horizons", "Inside the Palladium", "Pumpkin Lane" & "Sally Lightfoot". All we ever got from this session were rough 2 track mixes. They actually still sound pretty good today!
The 'muds plodded along for a while doing a few opening act slots at the Joyous Lake in Woodstock for my new band, the 'RetroRockets', playing at various farmers markets & small town fairs. This group was never about gigging, per se...it was more about just creating some really unique, interesting music sort of just for us. Most people don't really get it at first, & thats okay with us, but most nightclub owners are not interested in supporting art for art's sake unless they can make a buck in the process. We aren't interested in becoming anyone's living jukebox or arranging our music to fit some imaginary pidgeonhole.
...the More They Stay The Same (added 4/16/07)
Spider is a fantastic rhythm guitarist, in fact he has one of the best acoustic guitar strumming techniques that I have ever heard...it's all about his touch... His electric rhythm guitar technique is similarly touch sensitive. His lead guitar chops, however, are...umm...less than fully developed... In any case, Spider wasn't enjoying his new role as the sole chordal & principle soloist of the group & it was seriously impacting his very necessary role as the lead vocalist! I knew that this was tough for him, but I hoped he would grow into it... It was not to be.
Spider's friend Dan Green is a bass player - in addition to being a world class illustrator, mainly known for his work in the comic book genre. Spider asked him to join the group & pitched it to me saying that this would allow me to return to the lead guitar chair. He seemed pretty excited about it. By this time I'd been badly bitten by the bass bug. I was a little disappointed at this turn of events, but managed to soldier on through a few rehersals. Dan turned out to be a very good bass player with good solid instincts. Spider's music is not easy to play & it takes a keen hand (& ear) to bring the songs out. Dan had really done some homework. He had studied our recorded material & had a good sense of where we were trying to go with it.
( following added 4/17/07)
I was a little rusty with Spider's tunes on the guitar after more than a year of concentrating on the bottom end, but it all came back to me after a couple of rehersals. It wasn't like I hadn't been playing guitar in many other projects during this time, I Had! It was a mental thing...
Different instruments occupy different roles in the creation of musical accompaniments to songs. The bass is fundamental. The bass part, because of its ability to create a pulse - (a 'groove', for you hipsters), establishes the whole feel of a song - (the 'pocket', if you will)... perhaps it should, more properly, be called a 'base'. A lead guitar part is supportive of the melody (at least it is - the way I try to do it!). It can weave in & out of the spaces in the vocal line, but most of all... it can STOP! If the bass stops, the song stops. If the lead guitar stops, sometimes the song is better for it.
So here we were...a quartet once again. It wasn't completely there, but it certainly had potential. Time to book some shows!
The Colony Cafe
I moved to Ulster county in upstate NY in 1963. I was 10 years old. I didn't live in Woodstock, I lived in Lake Katrine, but our family had friends who lived in Woodstock. I remember visiting them as a kid & wandering around the area with my younger brother. The town in the pre - festival age was set up as an outdoor art gallery with pedestals displaying the works of local artists spread all over the village... It was really quite fascinating to a couple of young rubes who had never lived in the same place for longer than a year... It certainly beat the hell out of Marquette, Michigan!
Once, we went wandering behind an old building trying to find a shortcut to Andy Lee field when we got chased away & yelled at by an old man...a curmudgeon, perhaps? Later, we asked our parent's friends what that place was. "It was an old hotel that's been closed for years" was all I ever knew about the place that opened sometime around 2003 called the Colony Cafe.
(following added 4/21/07)
This is a great place...a large common area with a bar...a balcony on 3 sides of the room terminating in a beautiful double staircase. A low stage is located in front of the staircases with a beautiful Yamaha C6 grand piano & a very credible sound system - by Woodstock standards, anyway! The place is festooned with Diana Bryant's beautiful lazer cut sheet metal sculptures & a vintage Wurlitzer jukebox that, magically, seems to play only modern music by local musicians.
I knew two things the first time I saw the place:
1) We probably wouldn't make any money 2) This would be a great place to record the live Curmudgeon show!
In addition to playing with the Curmudgeons & RetroRockets, I had been covering the bass in the Bobby Ray Bishop/ Rich Milite Blues Syndicate. In the course of recording two CD's with this august assemblege, I made a good friend, musical & engineering partner in the person of Mel "Lester" Paskell - owner, engineer, chief cook & bottle washer at Lost River Studio in Wingdale, NY- the BEST $25/hr studio that has ever been! Man, do I miss that place...but I digress... Suffice to say that Mel was the logical choice to record our first Colony gig. Realising that a live musical performance is the most temporary of all art forms - it only lives in the memories of those who are there, & they're usually inebriated, we decided that we had to find a way to give the gig more longevity. A recording was one way but we decided that a program with lyrics, bios & pictures would be a good compliment to it. Knuckleheads that we are, we're all fans of the supermarket tabloid known as the 'Weekly World News' so we decided to create a program booklet in that style.
Spider's 'better half', Anita F. Barbour is a terrific artist specializing in photography, watercolor painting & mind bending oragami. They had worked together on the staff of the local newspaper, the 'Woodstock Times' for years, so they were the logical choice to design the program which became the 'Woodstockly World News'.