On the road and Out of Control [It’s the blues]

The road was generally somewhere in the Capital District of upstate New York. Think of it as a bunch of towns and small cities centered around Albany, the state capital, Troy, where I lived at the time, and Schenectady, incidentally, where my grandfather had his first job in the United States, and where the band rehearsed in the basement of a photography studio in a somewhat sketchy part of town. The studio was owned by Rick Siciliano, lead vocalist and drummer for The Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band. I played with the band from about 1985 to 1990 or so.

What a time we had, the tunes, the gigs, the stories, the women – at least for Rick, the rest of us, not so much. There’s no logical way to tell the tales, so I’ll just let ‘er rip and hope for the best.

I gather the band started as a Blues Brothers cover band, which was itself something of a cover band. “Cover band?” you ask. A band that plays, that is, covers other bands’ tunes. But you can’t play three sets a night on the Blues Brothers repertoire, so the guys had learned a bunch of other tunes by the time I joined. Even had an original, “Baby Tell the Truth.”

I signed up to be the substitute trumpet player. When the regular guy couldn’t make it, I’d get the call. I forget just how the audition process went, but it’s not like there were 30 trumpeters lined up to get the gig. Fact is, the time when trumpet was king was long gone by then so there weren’t many trumpeters, period. I forget just how I learned the tunes, but there were no charts. Perhaps Cris Cernik, keyboardist and den leader, or Ken Drumm, saxophone and business manager, got me a set of rehearsal tapes. Whatever. I just listened and learned by ear, like all real musicians play, except for classical cats and other advanced miscreants.

Anyhow I soon became the one-and-only full-time trumpeter for the band. We played the majority of our gigs in the Capital District, but we did venture out on occasion: Glens Falls (I once saw Mike Tyson fight there), a wedding in Wilton, Connecticut (quarter of a mile from Dave Brubeck’s place), Montauk (unverified rumor has it that Jann Wenner heard us; if so, he didn’t put us on the cover of his magazine), another wedding at a compound in the Adirondacks where sound man extraordinaire Jim Boa miked my trumpet so I could stroll among the revelers, Americade at Lake George, 25,000 middle-age bikers including Malcolm Forbes in full red, white, and blue leathers with his Capitalist Tool balloon, and Montreal in the dead of Winter, where it seems like half the blues guitarists in town lined up to sit in with us at a local jam, which was after our regular gig, playing in white tails for dancing at a GE Plastics marketing convention (Bo Diddly had to borrow a guitar from us because, you know, airlines).

We got around. But as I said, mostly to clubs in the aforementioned Capital District. Saratoga Springs was at the northern edge of the district. One of our favorite clubs was there, the Metro. It was owned by Peter Paquette, former art instructor at Skidmore College who dressed a bit like Don “Miami Vice” Johnson as I recall, and had three venues: the downstairs bar, where we played; a disco behind that, where Steve Rosenbaum DJed (I’ll get to him in a moment); and an upstairs room with a bar, tables with table cloths (but no food), and a jazz trio (classy). This video will introduce you to five members of the band (out of seven) and to the Metro as well:

That’s Steve Rosenbaum narrating the video. He started Our Town Television after he graduated from Skidmore and did a story about us. We returned the favor by playing his wedding, to Pam Yoder. [Somewhat later they moved to NYC and did an award-winning documentary on 9/11, among many other things.] The gig in the video, that was filmed in the downstairs bar at the Metro. We’re playing “Flip, Flop, and Fly,” originally by Big Joe Turner in 1955, covered by various other artists, including The Blues Brothers. And they conveyed it to us, and a gazillion other garage bands as well.

Why was the Metro one of our favorite clubs? The venue was nice, a bit larger than most of the bars and clubs where we played. Management – Peter Paquette – was cool, and so was the staff. The crowds were into the music. On a reasonable night they’d get up and dance, pretty important when the music is basically dancing music. On a good night, well, that’s something else indeed. Remember at the end of the video (about 3:19) Rick Rourke (saxophone and back-up vocal) says: “It’s the closest you can get to really being feeling totally happy with yourself.” That’s the truth. That’s why we liked the Metro. Often enough, though perhaps not 50% of the time, that’s how it was.

For my money, though, the best gig we ever played was at a scrappy sports bar in North Troy. What I remember is that, more than at any other gig we played, the crowd generated energy – whatever you want to call it – more than enough to answer ours and then some. All we did was surf the energy flow, direct it here and there. Front and center was Lenny, a fan, long hair, leather jacket, wallet on a chain, blue jeans, scruffy boots, and, you know, what I see in my mind’s eye is Lenny dancing on top of his Harley while spinning it around the dance floor shooting laser beams from his eyes and lighting up the crowd. I don’t think that actually happened, doesn’t seem physically possible, does it? Metaphysically, yes. Actually physically, no. But one can never tell about these things.

Then there was that New Year’s Eve wedding in the Berkshires. Rick and I drove together. There was just enough snow to touch off the Winter Wonderland vibe, but not so much as to make the driving treacherous. I loved wedding gigs, though many of the guys in the band seemed to be skeptical, perhaps because they didn’t like the idea of being a wedding band. But we weren’t a wedding band, and Ken made that clear when he booked the gig. We play our regular repertoire, no chicken dance, but we’ll learn a tune for the bride’s first dance. We do jazz-lite for the reception. That’s it, and you pay us an arm and a leg for the privilege. So the people were serious about dancing, and you always had three, maybe four, who knows, generations out on the dance floor.

Anyhow, this gig was at one of those places known as cottages by the people who built them, but to you and me they’re mansions. Most of them are no longer private residences, too costly to maintain. This one was an event venue. I don’t remember much about the place, but there was a lot of dark wood paneling.

As part of the deal we agreed to let the groom’s good buddy sit in on harp – that’s blues talk for harmonica, why, I don’t know. We were a bit iffy about this, because who the hell knew whether or not good buddy could actually play, but they’re paying the bill, so what choice did we have? It’s not like we’re Buddy Guy or the Rolling Stones. We’re just a bunch of kick-ass local guys. Anyhow, buddy shows up with a case full of harps in every damn key, which could be a good sign or it could mean he just had some spare change and no sense. But when he took out his bullet mike, we began breathing again. A bullet mike is a small mike you can cup in your hand right against the harp. He knew what he was doing.

A good time was had by all – though they did stiff us a bit on the meal. Oh well.

Finally, I guess I should tell you about opening for B. B. King at the Palace Theater in Albany, New York. Obviously, it’s a special gig. Perhaps some might even say it’s an honor. But that’s not quite right the connotation. Honor? It’s a gig. The thing is, it’s not as though being local guys opening for one of the all-time greats somehow exempted us from actually having to show up and play our assess off. No, whatever else it is, it’s a gig like every other gig. You have to play the music, no matter what the venue or how big the crowd, you have to PLAY, otherwise what’s the point?

And that’s what we did. We opened with The Running Blues, which has a horn line that’s high wide and screaming. Since I play the trumpet – about which Garrison Keillor has said, “Now there’s an instrument you can really embarrass yourself with” – it was up to me to put it over. Things were going great until the very last note, a high one. Nothing came out of the horn. Not a damn thing. Did I panic? Hell, no, couldn’t afford to. Besides, Chris over there was cranking it out on the Hammond B3 with the whirling Leslies, he covered the note. No one (in the audience) new that the trumpeter choked. Looked like I was wailing away. The gig went fine.

Afterward we got to meet the Beale Street Blues Boy Himself. Us and about 50 middle aged matrons in flower print dresses and wide going-to-church hats. B.B. had a good word for every one of them. Us too.

There are other stories I could tell you, lots of other stories. That’s enough for the moment. But I want to say something about the band itself, who and what we were. Above all else, and here I’m dead serious, we were musicians, making music together. Nothing else counted. Outside of the band, we were very different. Some of us were college-educated, some not. Blue collar, white collar, irrelevant. Every one of us had some clothes that were band clothes. We didn’t wear uniforms – except for that time when GE Plastics bought us white tails because someone had the silly idea that all those salesmen would actually dance without any women to dance with – but we did dress for gigs, each according to our own style. There was no formal leader. We all got paid the same. Sometimes we paid the roadies more than we paid ourselves. Why? Because they had to work longer hours, that’s why.

Now, I say “we,” but it was Ken who did it. He was the business manager. We didn’t hold a band meeting about it. Ken just did it, we all knew he did it, and we were fine with it – at least I think we were.

There were lots of tacit understandings going on. Had to be. No other way to make things work. Were there tensions and troubles? Of course, we’re human. But we worked it out. Why? For the music, that’s why.

“It’s the closest you can get to really being feeling totally happy with yourself.”

E pluribus unum.

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For more news of the blues – it's tacky, I know, so sue me – check out these posts.