A month ago, I went into my storage space to search out the remaining LOOB/old Mike tapes....and found what I was looking for. I made a big mess, and took a long time organizing and stacking boxes, stacking five mountains of boxes. When I was finished with my labors, I turned around to breathe a sigh of relief......and suddenly all five mountains collapsed on top of me. To be honest, I could have been killed, or hurt, no joke. And the boxes didn't just fall, they overturned, or ripped open, books, videotapes, pots and pans, cds.....raining down over me, on to my head, practically burying me. Oh my gosh, was I pissed. After all that work. I fought my way out of the rubble, looked back on the giant mess in disgust, locked the door and got the hell out of there.
Last week, I went back. I knew I had my work cut out for me. I had specifically remembered seeing one of my most cherished books, Kevin Brownlow's "Rediscovering Mary Pickford" tumble before my eyes before it was buried, and knew I had to fish it/her out. The thought of Mary lying beneath a hulking pile of who-knows-what.....well, it was just too much for me to bear, the final insult to this truly great, forgotten, hugely-influential artist. So, after a month, I went back to begin the cleanup. The last thing I was thinking about, honestly, was Life Out Of Balance.
The book was fine, she landed safe and sound. So then it was all about starting the massive cleanup. I didn't know where to start, and I just kind of listlessly, half-heartedly picked a few things up and put them here and there.
HOWEVER......just as I was about to leave.....a box overturned.....and out tumbled a tape, right on to the floor...THIS tape....."Life Out Of Balance Progress Report 1991". As if to say, "hey wait! Take me with you"! I had scoured my storage unit for all things LOOB, how could I have missed this tape? I swear, dear readers, my stomach almost dropped. Because I knew exactly what was on it. Or.....should I say....what was supposed to be on it.
As you can see above, there's crud all over the tape. Ok, that I can deal with. But woe upon an earlier version of Michael Goodman...or should I say Badman......upon putting the tape on, I heard....Tony Williams' Lifetime! Now I believe Tony to be the greatest drummer of all time....but did I really have to erase LOOB's 1991 progress report for him?!!! I mean....I had no other tape in my possession? I know it was years later, and I was out of the band....but I was not in the habit of erasing old LOOB tapes just for shits and giggles. It must have been that I knew that Ted had the DATs and could get it any time I wanted. Well...now is the time I want.....and the DATs are, understandably, somewhere we can't find them. So much for that dopey notion.
Now on this tape, I knew that on one side was an electric rehearsal at Mystery Fez. So I was willing to forgo that, as long as I could get what was on the other side! For it was there that a dub of us rehearsing on Frank's porch one summer night resided. But.....appallingly, I had erased part of that porch rehearsal to get the remainder of this Tony Williams album that seemed to have no end, and which I probably listened to about zero times. So...until the DATs are found (and then, if they can ever be digitized and shared), this is all we got.
But what we got is great!!!!!
Ok, so......we lost the Rocky Point Studio, and at some point over the summer, we had a one-off rehearsal at Frank's place in......Port Jeff? I don't even remember. It was right on the water. Frank was living there with his girlfriend Yoko, in a house that eventually got overrun with giant, brazen rats. But when they exterminated the rats by way of poison, the rodents all went into the walls to croak. A couple of weeks later, the stench of rotting rats drove Frank & Yoko out of the house. I felt bad for Frank.
But this was before the rats! One beautiful summer's eve, the Fab Four of Suffolk County got together and had this exquisite, absolutely gorgeous acoustic rehearsal, recorded for posterity on Ted's DAT machine. As you can hear, we were joined by an orchestra of crickets, and boy oh man, did they sound good! We almost considered asking them to join the band!
The tape picks up mid-"Smile", with Frank playing some great slide. The harmonies...well....more on that in a minute. I can tell you what's definitely missing from this tape that I was heartbroken not to hear: two improvised "songs", including one that Hubie subseqently worked on (or perhaps he was debuting a new song and we just thought we were improvising it!) "Rides On Me". So I'm really sorry that's not here.....but don't give up hope! Somewhere in this world are those DATs! I'm just hoping they're not in a landfill!
But let's not dwell on what's not here. Let's dwell on what IS here.....and what is here is an unbelievable, indescribably beautiful rendition of an obscure Hubie tune called "The Islands". This was a song I had completely forgotten about before I began this project. As usual, you can't get this song out of your head once you've heard it. At the time, we had so many of these "tropical" songs that it fell by the wayside a bit. But my gosh.....listen to these harmonies which - as you can hear - we milk for everything they're worth.....when the music stops and the harmonies just linger and float and hang in that room.....you could practically evaporate into never-never land listening to that, much less singing it.....Steve Antos was crashing with Frank at the time, so he got to hear it....I think it might have been his lullaby for the evening, actually! Anyways.....this is a TEN MINUTE version of "The Islands". My excellent friends....you are really in for a treat when you hear this, let me tell you!
This rehearsal also finds us in a particularly good mood. I know sometimes it might seem like all I write about is friction, but we also really enjoyed each other's company. (at least I did) In fact, we would hang as much as we could and prolong actually rehearsing as long as we could, every rehearsal. We actually enjoyed hanging out with each other more than rehearsing! Rehearsal was work! Listening to Hubie and Ted fire off quips was where the real action was! The other two guys were no wallflowers either. Pure joy to be around these dudes. Especially at this point, where we felt like we had something really special going on. And if this tape doesn't convince you of that, nothing will. I'll take this over anything that was going on in 1991. We couldn't be further away from what was "going on" in 1991, and that's a-ok with me. How could ANY band get higher, and feel better within themselves, than singing these harmonies on "The Islands", with Frank playing gorgeous, tasty slide? "The Islands" wasn't even one of our best songs! I'll bet you guys don't even know what the hell song I'm talking about! But if you don't think this is great, call me a peppercorn.
So that's that, at least I found some of this really special evening.....or it found me, it literally just dropped from the skies to my feet -kaboom - behold! The tape with the crickets! Rescued from the black hole that is my storage unit.
And Mary? She's in my stu-stu-studio now, listening to LOOB every day with me! I'd ask her how she likes LOOB....but she's from the silent era!
Seriously..... go back in time and enjoy this most special of special tapes. It will do your soul good.
Frank's porch, summer '91
/Smile
The Islands
No Excuses
It's Warm Outside /
Hubert Poole - guitar, vocal
Frank Russell - guitar, vocal
Ted Schreiber - guitar, vocal, percussion
Michael Goodman - percussion, cuartro, vocal
I believe Steve Antos may play some percussion on this
...and let's not forget our friends the crickets.....
this is a dub from the original DAT
download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/nf4fbf8uj2ckgu8/1991-07-circa+Frank%27s+porch+%28incomplete%29.zip
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| 100-minute tape and all we get is a half hour of LOOB. What a gyp. |
