Enter Frank Russell!
I'm talking into the world! Happy Birthday, Maestro!
At least I think it's today! It's been a while, but I know we are in the ballpark.....I'm almost positive it's the 20th. No?
As I've said before, Frank's joining the band was the spark that started the fire; prior to his joining, there was a sort of ambivalence, sometimes even embarrassment, regarding LOOB! I can't speak for the others, but most people who knew me didn't even know I played in a band, or if they did, I didn't play them any of our tapes, not even my girlfriends. Not to mention the fact that we had virtually zero gigs. We were together....but we weren't very together! Other than Ted! Two things kept us together: the fact we kept finding these unreal, free rehearsal spaces - and Ted wrangling us into rehearsals once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. And, like many things involving LOOB (like, say, equipment!), Ted was the one who brought in Rasta Frank.
But Frank's roots with the band go way back.....I'm talking so far back, it was pre-Ward! Back in early 1985 (or maybe even earlier!) Rich and Ted, along with Frank and his brother John, had gotten together at least once to play. As Ted tells the story (on a 1987 tape), Rich had organized the session and they attempted to play some Smiths or something similar. It's hard for me to imagine my old buddy John playing The Smiths, but apparently that's what happened! That really wasn't the Russell brothers' bag at that time, and soon after, Life Out Of Bingbong was formed and....you know the rest.
At the same time LOOB was starting out, Ted was simultaneously playing with Frank & John. I was also still in the mix with Ted, but I spent part of 1985 living with my grandparents in Nassau county, and anyways, Ted had gone to the Stony Brook School, while I stayed in the public system. The first guy I really heard about was John and his big giant double-bass kit! John and Ted were buddies and in the same year at Stony Brook (Frank is a little older). I believe John had them all playing Rush songs. It's almost as hard to for me to envision Ted (and Frank!) playing Rush songs as it is for me to envision John playing Smiths songs! Almost, but not quite! (I also had to play Rush in the band I was in before I joined LOOB). Anyways, as time went on, I kept hearing about John's brother Frank, of whom Ted seemed to have an enormous amount of respect for, both as a dude, and especially as a guitarist.
Frank had been playing guitar since he was a little kid. By the time Ted met him, and definitely by the time he joined our band, he had one helluva touch, something you either have or you don't. On top of that, he had an open mind and appreciation for a wide variety of music. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The first time I met Frank was in the parking lot of Jerry's Place, in August of 1986, as we were getting ready to play (and get heckled relentlessly). After that I met him a handful of times over the years, including playing with him when Jerry's Place closed, and we had a big noisy jam that included Ted, Frank & John Russell, Ken Kamen (who helped finish off our 1986 demo), me, Paul Goodman (my Pop!), and a bunch of other folk that I didn't know, or don't remember. That night, Frank was playing Hammond organ, I didn't even get to hear him play guitar. I thought to myself: this guy is such a great guitar player....he doesn't even play! He's such a great guitar player....he's playing organ!
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| Frank playing Hammond at the closing of Jerry's Place. That's my Dad's arm! |
I won't mince words here - I'm not sure Frank thought much of LOOB for those first few years! I'm sure seeing the collision of the young new wavers, posing and playing for a mob of drunks calling out for CCR - and then watching us pathetically fumble our way through "Cheap Sunglasses" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want"as concessions - didn't help! Frank could have taken "The Paul" away from Hubie, gone "dweedley dweedley draaaaaang!" and had the whole bar in the palm of his hand at that point, while we were amateurish, and simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A couple of years later, LOOB - when we were a trio - had at least one rehearsal at Frank & John's amazing studio they had in their back yard. This must have been when we lost the office space. So there was that generous gesture. By that point, we were a much tighter band, with lots of songs, and maybe (maybe not), that might have been the first time Frank (and John) thought, hmm, maybe they're not so bad. I remember them hanging out, and I think Frank might have liked "Is It Safe".
To make a short story that turned into a long story middle sized, by the time we needed a new guitarist - Frank was waiting in the wings, Strat in hand. I believe he joined near the end of January of 1990. In early February - probably after a rehearsal - Frank cut a few demos at the Rocky Point house, with Ted engineering, including an early version of "Spotlight Shining". And then....
On March 20, 1990 - 25 years ago today - we felt ready to record rehearsals of this new lineup. We had only recorded a couple of times in the previous year - actually we hadn't really been in the habit of recording rehearsals since early 1988. After this, we tended to record a bit more!!!! Gee, I wonder why!
And so......that's what I'm posting today! Enter Frank!!!! Appropriately the tape opens with a sort of Frank 'n Hubie collaboration that unfortunately fell by the wayside - Frank's chords, Hubie improvising over it. Just to call it something, me or Ted called it "That's Jazz" (even though it's anything but), until the lyrics had solidified and a proper title emerged, but instead, it faded out of the repertoire.
You might notice an inordinate amount of versions of the Beatles' song "Don't Let Me Down" on this blog. In fact, what happened was I came to rehearsal one day and Hubie & Frank had learned it. It says on the notecard that they "surprised me" with it, and that rings a bell. (both Ted and myself were Beatlefreaks to the max). It then became our "soundcheck" song, or our go-to cover if we felt like we needed a cover to "soften the blow", or just a warm-up song on a lot of these early rehearsal tapes. We played it so much that I have refused ever since to play it with anybody else. When I listen now, I wish Hubie and the other guys would have sung it, or even better, we should have all traded off lines, or verses. Because it was presented as a "surprise" to me, I guess I just assumed I was to sing lead! Whatever. One thing is for sure: some "Don't Let Me Down"s have some really great harmonies.
But what follows on this tape is truly bizarre! We then play two versions of The Who classic "I Can't Explain"! With FRANK singing!! I must have been in Mikey heaven because The Who were my 2nd favorite band! We loosely jammed on covers over the years, and it may look like we were always doing covers from these tapes I post - but really - that wasn't our focus usually. We also would jam on Aretha's "Soul Serenade" (instrumentally, just the basic riff).
The first "showcase" for Frank was "Return Britain". If my memory serves me right, we did not play "Return Britain" during the Howie years, I think we brought it back because we knew Frank would be the missing piece on the middle instrumental section. At this point in time, we were focusing on a smaller group of songs (as opposed to every song H, T & M knew!), so this tape has TWO "Return Britain"s. Um....no problem, here!
There is a quick snippet of us trying to learn Ted's song "Bum On The 4th Floor" - it says in my cards that neither Hubie, nor Frank, liked this song and so we didn't do it. I, on the other hand, DO like this song (and did), and I am going to present Ted's demo as a bonus below! Take that, guitarists!!
Like every single LOOB member that preceded him, Frank too wrote songs, and the first two we did were "Spotlight Shining" and "The Advocate". With "Spotlight Shining", I have always loved the opening lyric ("I sleep with my feet pointed towards the West" - I think that's a great opening line!), as well as the lyric for the chorus...."with the spotlight shining....it's all perfect timing!". I think the song is about a jailbreak - but to me, it was about being a musician! It was about us!
I have to give Hubie some credit here. When Frank joined the band, we became less of a so-called "alternative" band, and just a band that could play virtually any style! But, sometimes in previous years, Hube had not been particularly hot to play blues, or rock out, take a lead, or even use distortion. I think he saw himself more in the punk/new music tradition. Ted & I were just as immersed in the punk & new wave years as the rest (Ted was a college radio DJ, for pete's sake! He had "London Calling" on 8-track, when he was 11! Similiarly I had a huge collection of all the stuff that was coming over from England, and NYC, in the late 70s/early 80s), but we just as much loved older rock and roll too, and never thought it had to be one or the other. (Hubie was coy, though! He knew all that shit! I remember us jamming Pink Floyd's "Fearless", Joe Walsh's "Rocky Mountain Way" and Fleetwood Mac's "Monday Morning" in the office studio, at Hubie's instigation! I remember going to his place in Glen Cove and seeing a great record collection of all types of rock and roll, not just Style Council and The Clash! He even starts playing the riff for "Ain't Talking Bout Love" at the very end of the Jerry's Place tape! And I thought I was surprised to learn that John & Frank were playing The Smiths!)
What was I giving Hubie credit for? I don't even remember. How about we just get to the music?
Happy Birthday, Frank, and Happy Birthday, LOOB with Frank! I have gotten to do so much in music since LOOB, and I loved all of the incarnations of LOOB when I was in them - but to this day, nothing is quite like the feeling I got from this lineup. Something worth celebrating.
Rocky Point Studio rehearsal, 3/20/90
"That's Jazz"
Don't Let Me Down
I Can't Explain
I Can't Explain
We Both Wobble
Return Britain
Is It Safe?
learning "Bum On The 4th Floor"
Soul Serenade
Beating A Dead Horse
Spotlight Shining
The Advocate
I'm Crying
Return Britain
Hubert Poole - guitar, vocal
Frank Russell - guitar, vocal
Ted Schreiber - bass, vocal
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal
recorded on a Tascam Portastudio, engineered by....? (I do not recognize the voice in the control room!!! Anybody?)
BONUS!
As mentioned, here's Ted's original demo for "Bum On The 4th Floor", since there's only a snippet of LOOB learning the song (and no other known recording). Also, at the end of the 3/20 rehearsal tape is the conclusion of an interview Ted had done with James La Rocca, which - given the subsequent overdevelopment of Long Island - you may find somewhat interesting! Ted erased this interview to record our rehearsal. I believe this interview was for WBAZ.
Unknown location
Ted interviews James La Rocca
Ted demo
Bum On The 4th Floor
Recorded on 3/7/90 by Ted on his Tascam Portastudio
mp3
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ka5f42s0kseqsdq/1990-03-20+Rocky+Point+Studio.zip
flac
1: http://www68.zippyshare.com/v/6esCMN3r/file.html
2: http://www68.zippyshare.com/v/vseh6Qvi/file.html
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