LOOB Prehistory #1 : Ted & Mike

Earliest known photograph of two (non-related) LOOB members together. I'm the one on the left, standing with the bat.

Believe it or not, all this Life Out Of Balance stuff is only part of what I've been digitizing. There's a whole blog just in the hijinx Ted and I got into pre-LOOB. (I'll spare the world that blog) Having said that, here's a few ancient nuggets that I'm sure everyone who knows me or/and Ted will get a big kick out of.  Recordings too historic to lose forever.  What you say, LOOBans? Ready for some early Ted & Mike.....and, at the end, Steve, too?!   Who's with me?!

Ted & Mike win Battle of the Bands by unusual means......February 1984

Dear friends and gentlehearts.....prepare to have a good laugh.... and to pump your fist in the air! Let our triumph....be your triumph!!!

I thought after all these years I might get blase about this infamous and glorious incident. Instead I was on the edge of my seat, my jaw agape, my hand clapped over my mouth. Sometimes I had to stand up, walk around a bit.  In all the performances I've done since that day 31 years ago, not even the mighty LOOB ever left such a buzz in a room.  Talk about an auspicious first time on stage!  This is less a recording of a performance, and more of a recording of something that happened!

But I must really set this up for you.

The scene: a ballroom at the Meadowlands Hilton.  Ted's estimate was a couple thousand people.  I think it was a little lower than that, but it was big....I mean, believe me, by the end of the tape,  you will have a sense of the size of the crowd!  Before the end of the tape!  I mean, it probably was a couple thousand!

The occasion: a Battle of the Bands at a Beatles fan convention.

Yes, Ted & I used to go to these things...

What happened:  Ted, even then, was always a hustler.  "You see, Mike....Ted's a hustler", my parents would tell me, and they didn't mean like Joe Buck. This is the guy who, as an 8th grader, talked himself on to the college radio station.  Because of his size and his erudite demeanor, they thought he was in college!  Because I looked like I was about six when I was 16, he would always introduce me as his " young friend, Michael", even though I was less than a year younger than him.  It was Ted who had organized our first trip to a Beatles' fan convention months earlier.    He saw there was a stage, and that there was a Battle of the Bands contest...instant gig.

Getting me on board was no problem.  But we didn't have a guitarist at the time.  Guitarists came and went.  Ted roped in somebody he knew, a guy named Dave.  We had a rehearsal with this Dave, and it went so-so.  This guy (understandably) wasn't into going all the way to New Jersey to play a Battle of the Bands, when we were all but sure to humiliate ourselves.  To make matters worse, at the rehearsal he consciously sabotaged each and every song we attempted, including a basic three-chord jam.  Thanks, "Dave".  There's a tape I won't be posting.

Ted illustrating how our chances have gone to shit.

The day before we went, Ted got the call.  So-called "Dave" wasn't going to come, he was leaving us high and dry.  We got on the bus to Jersey and we figured - the place is full of musicians,  they're always having these all-night singalong jams.....we'll find a guitarist there.

And that's what we did!  A guy named Jim Morris, who was playing in one of the other bands, said he'd be glad to help but under one condition: he would not play a guitar solo for us, he would only play rhythm.  He wanted to save his solos for his own band.   Fair enough.  So it was decided that - where a guitar solo would normally be - I would do a drum solo and wail out.  As any person related to LOOB could most certainly attest: if the solution to a particular problem was for the drummer to "wail out", well hey....I was your man!

The ballroom was packed as band after band came and went, playing two songs apiece, and speaking to the audience in phony British accents.  Some were wearing uniforms. Some were wearing Sgt. Pepper uniforms. We, on the other hand, were Applesauce, that was our name (The Beatles' record label was Apple, get it?)  I was 14 and I looked like I was 10.  Ted was dressed in a sweater.  I don't know, man......

We were to go on in the middle of the contest...

We called ourselves "Applesauce" because we took Beatle songs and made mush out of them.  We went on eighth in a thirteen-band contest.

WPLJ DJ Jimmy Fink introduced us....and we walked onstage...I don't know how Ted felt....but I can tell you that I had an excruciating, twisting knot in my stomach.  This was our first time on stage, for the both of us.  It was a big, daunting crowd.....we were winging it.......there was a lot to be nervous about!

Applesauce takes the stage.  I literally felt like "dead man walking". Little did I know....

The first song Ted picked for us to play was an odd choice for a "band" to do: the mellow Dylan-esque "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away".  My role for this was simply to play the tambourine and at the end, play the flute melody on the electric piano, an instrument I had never played before.

We start the song.....and we get some polite applause.....Ted warbles the first verse and the audience joins in for the chorus.  So far, so good.  But we're not winning any beauty contests here....they're just being nice.  It's a Beatlefan convention, not the Gong Show!

As Ted starts the second verse, the pressure of the moment gets to him and he immediately blanks.....so instead, he just sings out, loud and clear, with perfect ennunciation:  "Oh god, I forgot the words".  The audience, which had just watched fourteen numbers from seven Beatle imitation bands and was probably ready for a little comic relief, roars and immediately starts screaming out "You won! You won!".  As you can hear, the audience goes nuts.  You'd have thought Ted had just sneezed through his fists or something. Maybe they were just tired, and our amateurism was a relief.  Maybe we were just too cute for words.  I don't know.  But the tape doesn't lie. Continuing with the theme, Ted goes on to change the song from  "you've got to hide your love away" to "I've got to sing this song today" and, to drive the point home, improvises a quick, unmistakable Ted bass line for a second.  Backstage, you can hear the other bands practically throwing up their hands in anguish, "they forget the words and they just won the contest." 

In fact, the contest was far from won, and our performance not over.

I get on the drums.  The audience is hooting and cheering.  The crowd is murmuring, "murmur murmur murmur".  Ted announces "We're not doing any fake English accents, sorry".  (someone backstage, close to the tape recorder asks "what did he say?" and the person answers "I wouldn't do it if it were Michael Jackson", but that's erroneous). We explain how we are the worst Beatles cover band, and someone starts shouting out "Honesty! Honesty!".

For our second song, I am to sing "Boys".  Because our replacement guitar player had given us this proviso that he would not play a solo, I am now to sing lead, and then play a big drum solo where the guitar solo would normally be.  "Boys" is now to be a full-blown Mike feature.

We start the song - and just like Ted before me - the first verse and chorus go fine, no problem.  The audience is into it, and we're rocking.  A girl even squeals.  But - just like Ted before me - I run into trouble during the second verse.

When I come out of the second verse into the chorus....instead of hitting the cymbal, I miss and my drumstick goes flying out of my hands, landing somewhere in front of the drumset.  Undeterred - and knowing I have a drum solo I have to now perform with only one drumstick within moments - I push on, and sing the chorus, wacking the snare drum as hard as I can with my one remaining drumstick.  The audience sees this, and now they're on their feet.  Now it's all about "go Johnny go!"

At the last possible second - an audience member scurries up onstage and hands me back my drumstick - literally with half a measure to spare.  So now I start doing the drum solo, going bananas.....and the audience is just eating it up. Forgetting words-dropping drumstick-doing the one-handed drum thing-recovery of drumstick-hey ma, the kid can drum! It couldn't have been scripted better.

Think I'm exaggerating? Listen to the tape.  Listen to that audience!  Now that you know the story, you will be able to follow along with the recording.  You tell me if I'm exaggerating.

We won the contest.  As soon as we got off....literally moments after we had walked offstage and were in the outer lobby.... two beautiful girls approached me and gave me their number.....ha! Take that, "Dave"!

14-year old Mike, with Jimmy Fink ( back facing camera), onstage after winning the Battle of the Bands. 

Ted & Mike on Howard Stern Show, March 1984

A few weeks later.  I don't remember the reason, but I had the house from Friday night to Sunday, my mom went away or something.  Ted came over and we made stereo demos by bouncing between two tape-decks, an entire weekend of playing and recording in my mother's living room.  Pure heaven for me & Ted, let me tell you.   We recorded a million songs, and one was a song parody that Ted wanted to send to the Howard Stern Show. It was a parody of John Lennon's "Nobody Told Me" entitled "Your Breath Smells Like A Dead Fish". I have thought for years that this was an early "Bababooey" song parody....but listening to this tape now, it's Boy Lee producing, not Boy Gary!  So it's just your ordinary "bad breath" song.

Anyways, we duly recorded said song and Ted mailed it to WNBC.  And wouldn't you know it.....Howard played it ALL WEEK! At one point, he sang along with the entire song, reading from the lyric sheet Ted had handily enclosed.  He even called Ted!  Fresh from our Battle of the Bands win, we were feeling all full of beans, let me tell you.  Finally, the future King of All Media kicked off a song-parody contest, and our song was entered in.  I didn't get to record any of the other times he played the song - but I did get this one.  They laugh at us, they punk on us mercilessly....and I wouldn't say our song is particularly funny, by the way.....but it gives you a sense of Ted's scheme of the week, and there always was one!  This attitude would later serve LOOB well.

And of course, if you're going to have someone punk on you, it might as well be either Don Rickles....or Howard & Robin!!!!  And a Bababooey to y'all!!!!

Also from this "overdub weekend", we cut a punk version of "The Mickey Mouse Club Theme".  (at the end of this, I start singing a bit of an early Ted song, "My Baby And Me").

Ted, Steve & Mike session, early 1985

Mike & Ted, September 7, 1984, in "The Library" at Ted's house, where we recorded "Tonight". No, those are not band uniforms.

There are many recordings of Ted, Steve and myself making a racket, and some of it is really good!  Case in point: the three of us set up in what we called "The Library" at Ted's folks' place, and cut a million takes of this early Ted original, "Tonight".  Aside from it being a really catchy song in a sort of R.E.M.-ish, New Wavey style, the performances from all three kids are A plus!  No wonder why Ted & I walked into LOOB all full of ourselves!  I love my brother's playing on this, he had an old 70's Univox synth, a Moog-type affair.  I know this recording is actually two takes edited together....for part of the rehearsal Steve was singing harmony; then I took over.  I believe Steve sings harmony on the first part, I definitely am singing harmony at the end.

Ted with his first decent bass, the Epiphone.

Around this time, Ted played with some school friends in a talent show at school.  After it was over, they thought they might continue the group. The story continues here.


LOOB Pre-history #1: Ted & Mike

Applesauce win Battle of the Bands at Beatlefest, February 19, 1984
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
Boys

Ted Schreiber - bass, vocal
Michael Goodman - tambourine, electric piano, drums, vocal
Jim Morris- guitar

Ted & Mike song parody on Howard Stern Show, mid-March 1984
You're Breath Smells Like A Dead Fish

Ted Schreiber - guitar, bass, vocal
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal

Ted & Mike, early March 1984
The Mickey Mouse Club Theme

Ted Schreiber - guitar
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal

Ted, Mike & Steve, September 1984
Tonight

Ted Schreiber - guitar, vocal
Steve Goodman - synth, vocal
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal


download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/7n1qra8ytd1siug/LOOB+prehistory+1+-+Ted+and+Mike+%28and+Steve!%29.zip