And then we came up with this! "Gone Strong"!
Why this song never "took off", I don't quite remember! We loved playing it, it's uptempo, it's got hooks, it's a typically-positive message (if I had written it , it would have been "Went Weak"!), it was in a different style than our other stuff...........oh wait.....I DO remember!!!! My gosh, it just came to me why this one fell away!
Hubie left the country! He went to Barcelona! Oh my gosh, so funny. We were LIVID. (not Frank). You'd think Hubie had just stabbed us in the face! He got the chance to go to Europe for... whatever... a couple of months? Not long. And now? Man, am I happy he got the chance to do that! Band aside, he certainly deserved the break from school and work!
At the time? We were just getting momentum, and then it was like....whaaaaaat?!!! You're leaving? Oh my gosh, I carried around this grudge for years! What a dick! (my middle name is Richard, after all!)
Ok, so back to "Gone Strong"! We came up with this song....all of Hubie's vocals, that's all improvised...immediately the guy comes up with lyrics, and a hook. "I've gone strong", that's something you can hang your hat on!
This is the moment of conception. Or right after, we must have just come up with it and - Steve Antos tape still in the machine - added this to the end of the cassette. And boy, do we jam the hell out of it for 11 minutes! (the very end, Hubie leads us into my truly horrible "I've Got An Onion", though the "Brown Sugar"-like "yeah, woooo"s were fun to do). Not much to say other than listen to us all fall in: harmony parts, hooks, chord changes, guitar solos, beats, the whole kittenkaboodle. It's a complete, gift-wrapped package from the music gods! This is how we worked. If I started singing a backup line, Ted would fall right in and sing a harmony part, ditto if he came up with something. Frank falls right in with a great part, I fall right in with a cool beat, Ted is bopping like a motherfricker, as usual, and Hubie is literally just making the song up as he goes, as he was a master at doing!
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| The great Jim Giargiana. Always went strong. |
Jim went to the Stony Brook School with Ted, Ward, Rich & Frank and was a lifelong friend of Ted's particularly. A sweeter guy you could never hope to meet. He fought for his life, his whole life. Never once saw him without a big smile on his face, always living life to the fullest, and completely confounded all doctors' expectations, decade after decade. The guy was a walking life-lesson. He was cool, funny, smart and he loved music. Specifically Prince! Along with his baseball collection, he apparently kept a LOOB archive that Ted tells me is in (typically) impeccable condition.
So Jim....I can't think of a better song to honor you with than this one: "Gone Strong". Because that was always the choice you made in life. Thanks for helping us get it on tape, in fact thanks for all the help and support you gave LOOB over the years, but most of all, thanks for not letting anything stop you from coming out, hanging, having fun-fun with us and for living life to the fullest. You may be gone....but you'll always be "strong like lion" to us. Miss you....and here's to you, brother....
Rocky Point Studio 8/28/90
Gone Strong ->
I've Got An Onion/
Hubert Poole - guitar, vocal
Frank Russell - lead guitar
Ted Schreiber - bass, vocal
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal
engineered by Jim Giargiana
download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/lccqccdwh8didly/1990-08-28+Rocky+Point+House.zip
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| Jim going strong at the WUSB broadcast, a few weeks before today's recording |
