I took a few shots at this station. Years later, I would cause the piano bar at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Hollywood to be locked due to a night of drunken sing-along with the Program Director of this station. Good guy!

Small Alternative station in Western Mass. I don’t think it’s there anymore.

Nice touch. Handwritten letter. Classy. No job. But I felt OK that I at least got a respectful note.

When I started this page, I promised that I’d upload the good, the bad…and the ugly. I’m not sure where this material falls. It was the late 80’s & I was doing college radio. I had auditioned for a band…Not exactly a unique scenario. But, we went through a bunch of lineup changes, and this was what it became. We played all over New England, and made some demos.

Then…1991 happened.

Oh yeah. You know exactly what I’m talking about… Grunge. Almost overnight, my musical ambitions came to a grinding halt. The band slowly dissipated, and became just another footnote in local music history. However…in full disclosure, I won’t hide from my sordid past. It was a good time. I had a blast. We made some fun music. Some say it was pretty good.

Either way…I’ve always said on the air, everyone in radio is a failed musician. This is my proof.

The demos are 16-track basic songs. We recorded all three songs, including mixdown in 12 hours.  There’s also one extremely basic 4-track demo that I did with a friend. Plus…a collection of “live” tracks. Which are basically audience recordings of songs we never got to record properly. I’m thankful these audience recordings exist.  Otherwise, we’d have lost most of our musical catalog.

As you listen to this stuff. Always try to keep in mind that it was recorded 20+ years ago. Times were much more ridiculous then. They were also more fun.

Enjoy!

This was one of the songs we demoed on March 16, 1991 @ our friend Hank Decken’s Dizzyland Studios. Hank sang for the band Nevada Beach. They put out a couple of CDs on Metal Blade, and we became friends early on.

Anyway, we got to the point where we were going to start shopping our music in hopes of snagging a deal of some sort. Plus, a lot of clubs were starting to ask for demos because they were booking a lot of bands. And some of them were just not ready to be on stage in clubs yet. Made sense to us.  So, we scraped up a couple hundred bucks, and went north to New Hampshire to cut a few songs. These were simple 16-track demos. I have better production facilities on the computer I’m typing on right now, than what we used to do these songs.

The track?…basically a nonsense collection of lyrics. We were in the process of inventing a drinking game one night at the house I lived in with our drummer. We came up with all these silly ideas, and never followed through with any of them. But, we did end up with some random goofiness that we put to music. And that’s what this is. We knew we could just throw stuff in, and people wouldn’t question it. So…we did it. We wrote the silliest song we could at the time. It came out funny, and went over great live.

I happen to LOVE the guitar solos on this track. I was proud to have worked with a group of very talented players.

Oh..and the line about “don’t covet thy neighbor’s wife” was totally about the guy who lived underneath us, Peter’s wife. She was beautiful, hot, and every other adjective you could imagine. We thought she deserved to be immortalized in song 🙂

Well I guess you could say “every dog has its day.”
Stay away from a cat o’ nine tails!
There’s no turn on red
And you’re better off dead
That item’s not for sale
Come on in, the women are fine
The sugar, is sweet
Which is stronger? Whiskey, or wine?
It all depends on your seat

It’s the right time, and the night is young
Time to fill the cup
First time…now starts the fun
Knock ’em down!
Knocker up!

Now every boy needs to play with a toy
But, don’t covet thy neighbor’s wife
First on the scene, and a King takes a Queen
You only go around twice
Step right up, let’s see what’cha got?
Two n’ two don’t make four
Take it slow? No! Double the shot!
Leave ’em beggin’ for more

It’s the right time, and the night is young
Time to pass the cup
Two times…continue the run
Knock ’em down!
Knocker up!
Can’t fight, the feelings of love
But to score, is just a matter of luck
Ball four, down on the floor
Knock ’em down!
Knocker up!

This house is rockin’…I hear ya knockin’!

(solo)

It’s the right time and the night is young
Time to spill the cup
Three times n’ the game is won
Knock ’em down!
Knocker Up!
Can’t fight, the feelings of love
But to score, is just a matter of luck
Ball four, get down on the floor
Knock ’em down..No!
Knocker Up!

I wanna fill the cup.
You got to give it up.
Knock…Knocker up!