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Post by duckbarman on May 23, 2020 17:48:54 GMT
Buck - I'm currently typing up the events of the summer of 1967 as they pertain to the first nascent stirrings of the Underbelly and one of the difficulties I'm having is trying to slot into the time-line just when were your first visits to the Bennetts Road bandhouse... Now I realise - as a rule - that you don't really have any recall of the time-line of these things, but I've just come across something that might help provide a "prod"... A while back, I heard a story about how a Newsday reporter moved into the Bennetts Road house for a month (and also gained access to the SBU campus) by posing as a student whilst secretly - and sneakily - writing a 'smoke and tell' drugs-on-campus exposé... and all the house-members made an unwitting appearance in the final story, albeit under pseudonyms... I never thought I'd actually ever get to see it but thankfully, I've now come across a copy at last - BTW: it's at the following url if anyone's interested but it's quite long: www.hotrails.co.uk/prehistory/features/stony_brook_undercover.htmAnyway, the Newsday article was published on Sat 10 Jun 1967, and so it looks like the period the reporter was living in the house was probably throughout May 1967. Now, I'm thinking that this blatant betrayal of trust by the Newsday interloper is something you'd have heard about at the time, and so I was wondering if: (a) you might have met him when you first went round to jam with Andy & Co - in which case, we're probably talking late April/May-ish (b) when you first went round, he'd already left and the Newsday piece had only pretty recently come out and so feelings may well have been still running fairly high - in which case, we're probably talking around June-ish (c) or when you first got there, it'd happened maybe a good few weeks before, and things had cooled down a bit by then, so maybe July/August-ish...? Any thoughts on this would be gratefully seized upon and added to the mix... :-) |
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Post by markus on May 25, 2020 0:42:45 GMT
As always...fine, fine work there Dr Jones.
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Post by Buck on May 26, 2020 15:27:30 GMT
I never lived at Bennett's Road, so I wasn't around when Jerry's article was researched or written. I was still at Clarkson College in Potsdam NY until May 1967, nearly the publication date of that story. The only character that might be recognizable to me in that piece is "Eddie," who possibly could have been Andrew Winters, if indeed Parker was writing about the Bennett's Road house. The only other person living there that I knew was John Weisenthal. He may or may not have been a character in that story, but there's no way for me to tell. Allen Lanier was a friend of John's, and lived in Manhattan at the time. Sandy Pearlman lived home but visited the house occasionally which is how I met him. I don't recall any talented singer/composers, but that description could have been artistic license.
I should have remembered the reaction of the people I knew, had they realized that Jerry Parker was the guy they'd befriended. I'm vague on it. Maybe John Weisenthal remembers. I've asked Jeff Richards if he has any knowledge of it also.
EDIT
I skipped over the intro to that article! There you go. I'd never met the guy, it was before I hung out at Bennett's Road. I guess the beginnings of what became the Soft White Underbelly started the summer of 1967.
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Post by duckbarman on May 26, 2020 19:35:51 GMT
There you go. I'd never met the guy, it was before I hung out at Bennett's Road. I guess the beginnings of what became the Soft White Underbelly started the summer of 1967. Oh OK, cheers for that info - the thing was - I wasn't sure if you'd stuck it out for that full second year at Clarkson or packed it in early (Albert says you all decided to drop out of college and go to Rochester and then Albany to try and get some gigs on the lake... but that turned out to be a bust... ) So I wasn't sure of that timescale, but if you stayed at Clarkson until May, then you'd DEFFO have missed Mr Parker's stay at the house, but I was thinking you might have witnessed some of the emotional fallout, depending on how soon after that you first started to "hang out at Bennett's Road"... But from what you say, you returned home post Albany maybe the end of May/start of June, and for all intents and purposes, the band is dead and you're at a loose end. This has got to be a worrying time because dropping out of college meant you'd lose your deferment and a draft letter couldn't be far away... Anyway, I seem to have THREE things to fit into the following June-July-Aug-Sept period, and I'm not sure of which comes first - and their duration... (a) you enrol at NY Tech for a term to do a Comms Course - (I'm not sure how long's a term: four/six/eight weeks, maybe?) and then you got a job with a company with the very-specific brief of "installing television antennas in parochial schools"... you then fall off a ladder, do yourself some damage and are able to claim workman's comp, thus giving you some free time again... (b) Andy Winters hears you're back from college and invites you around for a jam with himself, his school mate Joe Dick on drums and apparently, David Roter also... John Weisenthal seems to have been an occasional participant also, and soon afterwards, he also brought his workmate Allen along, so that was another guitar... I said I was wondering which came first - but maybe these were simultaneous events? Maybe the jams at Bennetts Road were weekend things, and you attended college during weekdays? Of course, threading throughout this period are the visits to the house by Sandy P, who'd been to Monterey (16-18 June 1967) and apparently was looking for a band to mould when he found the beginnings of one right under his nose... Reportedly, this pre-SWU jam collective played a party at the Bennetts Rd house the following month after a Country Joe gig at SBU on 28 July 1967, with the party being closed down by the police, so that would seem to be one definite date at least... (c) the third event to fit into this period is your trip to Chicago with your mate Steve Sauter to hang with Roger Maltz for a few days and to bring back Albert also... dunno what happened to Joe Dick, but he seems to have faded from the picture by this point... Albert thinks this was the end of August but I think it was maybe a bit later, because he says, on his return to L.I., he stayed with you and your parents for "two weeks" and helped paint your house in return... however, he also says he was still living there when the Doors played SBU and that was also where he first met Sandy and Meltzer. Now, that Doors gig was 25 Sept 1967, so that doesn't match up with a two week stay which started in August... maybe Albert stayed longer, or the Chicago trip was in September...? Anyways, if you have any recall of roughly how long your Comms course might have been, or how long after it finished was it that you found yourself falling off a ladder, or any memory about how this training and subsequent employment scenario fitted in the timeline of your Bennetts Road adventures, I'd be very interested in knowing about it... I know I'll never get actual dates for any of this stuff, but the odd clue here and there as to the possible duration of this or the probable order of that, might help me lay it all out with a little bit more confidence than I have at the moment... :-) |
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Post by Buck on May 26, 2020 20:12:10 GMT
My post-Clarkson education was a full semester at New York Tech starting fall 1967. By that time I'd spent time at Bennett's Road, jamming with Andrew, Joe Dick, John Weisenthal and occasionally Allen Lanier. Had met Sandy Pearlman (who was coming around primarily because he was interested in John's then-girlfriend Joan Shapiro, who later became Sandy's girlfriend and partner.)
When Sandy proposed a real original music project with recording opportunities, the effort to enlist Albert happened, since he was spinning his wheels in Chicago after leaving NY state that summer. Albert stayed at my parents' house for a a while, but then he moved in to the rented house on Jefferson Avenue, St. James, which was a few blocks away from my parent's house, with John Weisenthal, and Jeff Richards. The Underbelly was happening at that point, with John, Andrew, Albert, Allen (until he got drafted) and me. We started playing weekend dance dates at Stonybrook U., which earned us sustenance level income. No one had a real job at that moment to my recollection.
My college education ended that spring, to the disappointment of my parents, and began the four year period before I could hand my folks the Columbia Records LP with my name on it, validating the journey of my early 20's. Of course in the middle of that was the debacle of the Elektra deal, recordings, and falling out. So there was promise and pitfalls at various intervals in the mean time. When the band moved to Great Neck NY I left home at 21 and never came back except to visit.
I just got an email back from Jeff Richards, who'd never lived at Bennett's Rd, but was a Stonybrook art major who knew John W and some other players in the story. He said the singer/composer was probably David Roter. I'd forgotten he was there at that time.
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Post by robreich on May 27, 2020 3:26:49 GMT
Ralph, I salute you.
Very cool.
Rob
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Post by frog on May 27, 2020 7:21:02 GMT
Ralph, good job !
and thanks Buck !
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Post by duckbarman on May 28, 2020 4:18:43 GMT
My post-Clarkson education was a full semester at New York Tech starting fall 1967. Blimey - I never realised that - I think I just assumed it was some sort of summer school thing you did so you could get a certificate or something. What you've described sounds more like a recommitment to full-time education again, and interestingly, at the very moment the band was starting to get serious... So if you dropped out of that course in "spring", I'll take that to mean maybe March/April 1968 ish... There's a slight temporal anomaly raised by this, though - the story, as it has been relayed in the past, is that you did your course, and then you the got the aerial installation job... however, Albert says that when you came to Chicago, that was after your injury, meaning the job came first...... So if he's right, and with me now realising you started college in the fall, the order would seem to go thusly: Aerial job -> injury -> Chicago trip -> and then college... if that's the wrong way round, please let me know... Obviously, of course, I don't actually know how long the job lasted - but my impression is it can't have been too long... So OK, - here's my revised notable events schedule : May 1967 - Travesty breaks up and all parties return home Jun 1967 - Sandy goes to Monterey and that's when we think he might got the impetus to find a band to Pearlmanise... Jun/Jul 1967 - you start going round to the B.R. house (hard to be precise as to exactly when) Jul (?) 1967 - Again, hard to say exactly when, but Allen starts turning up also thanks to John W Jul/Aug 1967 - Albert is invited to go to Chicago to join Boffo with Jeff Latham, whilst the Bennetts Road Ensemble continue to rehearse over the summer Aug 1967 - I'm guessing that this is when they started to sound pretty good and Sandy starts thinking he might have something here and starts planning to take the project beyond the confines of Bennetts Road... Also - if that's right about the job and accident preceding you starting your course, that would probably have to slip in around this time... Sep 1967 - the house lease is up, Dave Roter goes off to UCLA and Andy Winters says he was thinking of accompanying him but suddenly is hospitalised (appendicitis)... Joe Dick also seems to have left or gone onto do something else, and the "project" is hanging in the balance... two things happen to kickstart it: John W organises a new bandhouse and you go to Chicago to rescue Albert... Obviously, September also saw you start your college course... Sep/Oct 1967 - would seem to mark your first gigs - the 20 Oct 1967 SBU one with Steve Noonan is the famous one, but Albert reckons there were some gigs prior to that: a - a non-gig at a jazz restaurant where they thought they were booking your dad but got you, Albert and a stand-in bass player instead so they paid you not to play... b - a three piece performance at G/H quad c - he also thinks you played a Port Jefferson night club, The In Crowd, aka "the psychedelic dungeon" before the Steve Noonan thing... So that's how I've got May-Oct currently laid out - if anything seems wrong or out of order, please let me know... |
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Post by duckbarman on May 28, 2020 4:24:19 GMT
He said the singer/composer was probably David Roter. I'd forgotten he was there at that time. Yes, that's the conclusion I came to - Meltzer has said this in the past of Roter: And so the Cows were born. Andrew Winters on bass from Pearlman's daddy's drugstore (finger-pickin geetar was his speciality, but somebody hadda play bass), Donald Roeser on 6-string electric, Albert Bouchard on skins, Dutch Lanier on keyboards* (he was makin' it with Hope Nigro at the time, she of David Roter bedtime fame - David was Stony Brook's original R&R hero and he once got to play opposite Nico at the Dom and those boys were, for all intents and purposes, a Stony Brook band). They didn't like being called the Cows so Sandy changed the name after a period of deep thought to the Soft White Underbelly.So David Roter seems to have achieved some level of local hero status on campus at that time - though I haven't been able to nail down a date for that Dom/Nico gig... yet... Incidentally, I noticed you didn't mention Dave Roter in your list of participants at your Bennetts Road practice sessions but he was at the house until Sept and my impression has always been that when you first went round there, he was present doing some singing - Andy reckons they were playing his songs to start off with... but maybe by the time you turned up they'd broadened the repertoire somewhat... * Meltzer mentioned "Dutch Lanier on keyboards" in that quote, but John W has said that Allen started off on guitar at those sessions, consigning Andy to playing bass... BTW: In the Newsday piece, the following would appear to refer to Sandy P: Before a rock 'n roll concert at the school gymnasium one Saturday, seven of us, including three girls and a visiting Stony Brook alumnus who had been a very big man on campus the year before, gathered at the house to "turn on."
and The alumnus who came to visit his ex-housemates is presently enrolled in graduate school at an Ivy League college. He came on like a druggard of long standing, but he said he had taken LSD only once.
:-) |
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Post by Buck on May 28, 2020 18:09:16 GMT
Ha, I don't believe I'd ever seen Sandy Pearlman take drugs of any kind, although he must have experimented at some point. He just didn't like being high, unlike most everybody else.
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