Debbie Benson, 1968.
O, how I loved her. . . . RIP. (Ernie Tallarico)
One night we were wandering around the Village and saw a group advertising itself as the Strangers outside a club—they seemed to be a pretty established band and sounded better than us, so we decided to change our name to the mildly pretentious Strangeurs.
I’d go down there Friday night, come home Sunday. I loved it; I wanted that life so bad. I’d sit on a car in the West Village outside the Tin Angel with Zal Yanovsky from the Lovin’ Spoonful and talk. He wore culottes, a Bleecker Street Keith Richards. And Josie the She Demon—a transvestite who paraded around Greenwich Village with no particular mission save her own sense of eccentric expression. It was just such a trip. Then uptown there was Ondine’s, and Steve Paul’s club, the Scene. Teddy Slatus was the doorman at the Scene, a runty little guy. You’d go down the stairs into a cellar. It was like the beatnik grottoes from old movies. Low ceiling, small, cramped, but magical. Everybody looked like Andy Warhol. Steve Paul in his turtleneck, tall, talking in a beat lingo so fast and clipped you could barely grasp what he was saying, but you knew it was hip and one day you’d be able to understand it. Late at night, Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, or Brian Jones would just show up and play—they’d be on a tiny stage about four feet away from you. I performed there early in ’68, with my second band, William Proud, with Tiny Tim singing and playing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” on his ukulele, a tall skinny Lebanese freak with long greasy hair, a high voice, and bad teeth. But that was the great thing about the Scene: he wasn’t treated like a sideshow character—it was more like . . . this is the artist in residence. He belongs—you’ve gotta get in tune with him if you want to fit in.
I would go see bands like the Doors at the Scene, and I couldn’t believe the way the lead singer was acting. I thought, “Wow! What the fuck?” But maybe that’s the reason people loved the Doors—because they really thought Jim Morrison was possessed. That club was seriously in your face. I can’t tell you how close you were to the performers. You sat at a little table, and right there was the Lizard King three feet away from you.
I was Steve Tally, copying everything I saw, reading the poetry that Dylan was reading—Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso. There were readings at the Kettle of Fish, where Dylan would show up and recite his incredible shit. I’d sit there slack-jawed and hypnotized.
In ’65 the Stones had two monster hits: “Satisfaction” and “Get Off of My Cloud.” We heard that they were staying at the Lincoln Square Motor Inn, so we got our friend Henry Smith to drive us down there in his mother’s car with the excuse that we needed to go rehearse. I already had my mock Mick look down, and we got our bass player, Alan Stohmayer, who had blond bangs like Brian Jones, to come with us. When we got there, the streets around the hotel were mobbed with kids. Very cute, very hot girls—Stones fans. Well, how could I resist trying out my Mick impersonation on this crowd?
I leaned out the window and in a very loud, crude Cockney accent said, “I say, I see some smashing crumpets out there, mates. Wot you doin’, later then, darlin’?” They went wild. “Mick! Mick!” “Brian, I love you!” Tears streaming down their faces. Lovely—except that they wrecked Henry’s mother’s car, tore off the radio antenna and the windshield wipers. It turned into a big riot and got on TV on the evening news. When we got back, Henry’s mother was standing there with her arms crossed. “Have a good rehearsal, boys?”
Because we were too young to drink at clubs in the city, I took Tuinals and Seconals. I’d crush all that shit up and snort it. I was always fucked-up when we got into Manhattan. That same night we were at the Scene, we saw Monty Rock III! We all knew about him from watching the Johnny Carson Show on TV. On would come this very grand queen with a let’s-tell-it-like-it-is name. He was high camp, a flamboyantly gay hairdresser/rocker or something—you didn’t know what he did exactly. He was this outrageous person saying outrageous stuff. Who cared what he did?
He wore pseudomod clothes, and in person he was just as over-the-top as he was on TV. “Come on back to my house, darlings,” he said. “I really got some shit goin’ on there!” We get to his place and there’s two Great Danes, a chimpanzee, and a defanged cobra—but it still bit you. Oh, and never mind the fucking freak folks that were there. Here we are, pubescent punks coming down from Yonkers. We hadn’t a clue. Debbie Benson was gorgeous, we were cute kids, and here we were among these flaming queens. Someone starts passing around handfuls of Placidyls. “Here, have some of these!” They were fucking paralytic downers, sleeping pills. Monty had a hot tub in his living room. I ended up knocking the plug out of his tub. After the water drained out, I threw some pillows in and slept there.
“Jim’ll be here soon,” Monty said. Jim fucking Morrison was coming over? We all awaited his arrival like that of a god. He came late, and by the time he got there, we were so wasted we thought it was Van Morrison. We were in some place where words melted into sounds, and Jim was out there . . . even further! It scared the shit out of us. We were so terrified, we hid in the bedroom, then wound up getting under the sheets with a candle, just shaking because we were so fucking stoned. It was all so freaky; we were scared what the chimpanzee might do to the Great Danes, let alone what Monty had in mind for Morrison.
We were in no shape to walk or talk. We took more Placidyls and fell out around two in the morning . . . totally zonked. Around 5:00 A.M. we woke up. Debbie was crying. “These aren’t my clothes,” she said. “What do you mean,” I said. “You’re wearing the same dress you had on last night.” Her eyes were glassy. “But these aren’t my panties!” Omigod! I looked down and thought, what the fuck? “You know what? These aren’t my pants, either.” We were running down the stairs, Debbie crying, “I’ve been violated! I’ve been violated!” Shit, we’d all wanted to take a walk on the wild side, but this was a little bit more than we bargained for.
The thing about the British Invasion bands is that they were like gangs—especially the Rolling Stones and the Who. Unlike the Beatles, they looked defiant and menacing, guys you wouldn’t mess with. I’d like to attribute this insight about groups and gangs to the Stones with their collective leathery eyeball, but I’d already figured this out long before the Beatles arrived, when the gang I was in turned into my first band.
How do you get into a gang? You act tough—and I’ve always been good at the acting part, anyway. I wasn’t tough. I was skinny and scrawny and into my own weird world. Acting tough is easy: you just try and be as obnoxious as you can and get the shit beaten out of you for it. Throw in a few stupid and illegal things—like running across Central Avenue naked, stealing stuff for the clubhouse—and if they’re feeling kindly they’ll let you in.
At Roosevelt there was this guy Ray Tabano who was to become my lifelong friend. We first became friends from my telling him to get the fuck out of my tree (the one he was climbing). “Stay off my vines,” I yelled. I paid for that a couple of days later when he beat the shit out of me—but it was worth it because I eventually became a member of a gang, really more of a club, called the Green Mountain Boys. With membership in a gang you got protection from the more thuggish elements in high school. It also attracted girls, who are always into that kind of asshole.
When I was about fourteen, I hung out with Ray at his dad’s bar on Morris Park Avenue in the Bronx. Not bad for a hangout. He would let us drink beer. A local Bronx R & B group, the Bell Notes, used to perform there, and between their sets Ray and I would sing their 1959 hit “I’ve Had It.” We’d also do the old Leadbelly song “Cotton Fields,” but in the collegiate folk song style of the Highwaymen, who had a hit with it in 1962. Later I would be in a band called the Dantes with Ray that evolved out of the Green Mountain Boys (while still playing with the Strangeurs). The Strangeurs were more Beatlish and pop; the Dantes darker and Stonesier. I played one gig with the Dantes.
Me and Ray Tabano, aka Rayzan the Apeman, around the time we played “I�
��ve Had It” at his father’s bar, 1960. (Ernie Tallarico)
How the Strangeurs got their first manager and how I became the lead singer of the group also came out of the gang in a way—through Ray and stolen merchandise. I’d been ripping off stuff from the little Jewish corner candy store where I worked as a soda jerk in Yonkers. I’d go down in the basement where I did inventory and grab candy bars and packets of cigarettes and give them to Ray to sell. I then progressed to the Shopwell supermarket on Central Avenue—bigger items, boxes and crates. Peter Agosta was the store manager, and to prevent me from moving stuff out of the back of the store and handing it to Ray, he had me collect the shopping carts, so he could have me where he could keep an eye on me. Why he didn’t just fire me I’ll never know. I told him I was in a band, and he said he’d like to see us play, so I said I’d invite him to the next gig we played, which turned out to be a Sweet Sixteen party for Art Carney’s daughter. It was a gig my dad had gotten us (he taught piano to Carney’s son). Peter Agosta liked the group, but he thought I should be the lead singer—oh yeah! We got Barry Shapiro to play drums.
This was the era of spacey rock. The Byrds’ truly cosmic single “Eight Miles High” came out in March 1966. It vibrated in your brain like you were tripping. It was blacklisted by radio stations because it was thought to be a drug song—duh!—despite Jim McGuinn’s unconvincing explanations that it wasn’t. I’ll tell you what “Eight Miles High” was . . . a stratospheric Rickenbacker symphony!
Soon Ray Tabano and I moved on to other quasi-criminal activities. To support our pot-smoking habit, we began selling nickel bags: buy an ounce for twenty dollars, sell four, keep two for ourselves. This was a cool deal and a cheap way of getting high until . . .
They put an undercover narc (who will remain nameless) in our high school ceramics class. The fucking ceramics class! He popped us eventually, but first he was selling us nickel bags of good shit he got off some other poor fuck he’d popped.
On June 11, 1966, Henry Smith booked us to play at an ice-skating rink in Westport, Connecticut. We rehearsed that afternoon, did a sound check. I hoped some people in town would come, because we had a little following in Connecticut. I’d met Henry Smith, “the Living Myth,” up in Sunapee in the summer of 1965—he became a close friend and a key person in my life. He was impressed with our sound when we played the Barn, where we did stuff by the Stones like “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love,” the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me,” the Byrds’ version of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and all the current hits. Slam-dunk rockers like “Louie, Louie” and “Money.” Henry and his brother, Chris, the band’s first photographer, started getting us gigs in Connecticut.
Outside the rink, on the other side of the fence, was a trampoline center. I had been on the junior Olympic team in high school for trampoline; I could do twenty-six backflips in a row. Not such great form, but I could get height from hell.
For three dollars, you could jump in this trampoline park for half an hour. There was nobody there, and I looked around and snuck over the fence. I jumped from one trampoline to another, and on to the next one. Backflip. I’d probably got through the first six trampolines and on to the next row when I heard, “Hey! Get the fuck off my trampolines!” “Listen, man,” I said, “we’re playing next door—you want tickets?” His name was Scotty. “Oh, you’re in the band that’s playing here tonight?” He loved that. “Why don’t you come up to my house?”
I went over to Scotty’s house. Nice pool and a fridge full of St. Pauli Girl. We’re swimming and throwing back a few beers when these two guys come ripping into the driveway on the two sickest go-carts from hell. It’s Paul Newman and Our Man Flint, James Coburn. Holy shit! “Scotty, what’s goin’ on?” I asked. “Oh, that’s my dad,” he said. “Which one?” “Paul Newman,” he said. “I’m Scotty Newman, pleased to meet you.” “You fucker! When were you gonna tell me?”
Paul Newman was very laid back and as cool as Cool Hand Luke. It was like being in a movie with him. I went into the sauna with Paul and Scotty. We’re all sitting in there getting sweaty and Paul Newman whips out this bottle of fifty-year-old brandy he’d got from the Queen of England, which I downed immediately. I toweled off, put my clothes back on, and wandered into the house. There on the mantelpiece was Joanne Woodward’s Oscar with its arms folded as all Oscars are. “Where’s yours?” I asked Mr. Newman. “Well, I never got one, but my friend made that one up for me.” It was a mock Oscar, only with its arms open wide instead of folded and with the guy going, “Vat?” Like, how could you have passed me up after all my great performances?
Twenty minutes later, I got a phone call from my mom, completely hysterical. “They found it!” she’s yelling. “Mom, calm down,” I said. “What’s goin’ on?” She starts explaining . . . and it ain’t good. “The cops are here and they found your marijuana! It was in one of your books.” Uh-oh, they found my stash so cunningly concealed in a copy of The Hardy Boys and the Disappearing Floor. “Get home right now!” I jumped in the car and drove back. I pulled into the driveway and saw a black unmarked car approaching from around the corner. My heart fell out of my ass. The cops handcuffed me and walked me to the car while I protested my innocence. “What are you doing? Why are you arresting me?”
Ah, it never rains but it pours. My dad had come home early that day because it was his birthday. “Gee, Dad, Happy Birthday! I just wanted to make sure we’re all here to . . .” You couldn’t put that in a movie. Action! Have the dad drive up while you’re being carted off to jail. It got in the paper. The shame! The Italian guilt! “Dad, is there a file in your birthday cake I can borrow?”
We were taken down to the police station. They’d popped a bunch of us, most of the kids in my class. We were giving them the finger through the two-way mirror. I’m sitting handcuffed to a bar when this fucking guy who had been smoking pot with us walks in flashing his badge: DEPUTY SHERIFF. The narc was very fucking pleased with himself. I was still playing the injured party. “How could you have betrayed us like that, you ceramic fuck?” I shouted at him. “You set us up!” “They’re gonna throw the book at you, kid,” he said as he walked away. Well, not the book, but maybe a couple of chapters. The narc who busted us was on a vendetta—his brother had died of an OD, and we were the unfortunate victims of his moral crusade.
At the hearing I asked if I could speak to the judge privately. I’d seen enough Perry Mason episodes to know about consultations in the judge’s chambers . . . and once you’re in there you can tell him whatever the fuck you like. I told the judge that this guy, this narc—not me—was the criminal. He’d infiltrated our ceramics class and turned us on to grass and then busted us for doing it. I said I’d never heard of grass before this, never once tried it. “He was handing out joints, I swear, telling us this was the latest turn-on. I’m Italian, your honor (conveniently, so was the judge), and I’ve always lived by my parents’ moral code, by the sacred beliefs of the Catholic Church. . . .” Ferris Bueller had nothing on me.
I got a reprimand and was put on probation. You pay, that’s how the system works. The good news is that the four misdemeanors I received put a YO, Youthful Offender, on my draft card—so no fucking Vietnam for me. The bad news is . . . we’ll get to that in an upcoming chapter. I wouldn’t have gone to ’Nam anyway. I was against it.
Busted for smoking pot—
imagine that. I’d be nineteen in eleven days.
My whole life’s been like that. Of course, I also got kicked out of Roosevelt High, but they let me be the guitar player in The Music Man at the end of the year. Yeah, there was trouble in River City—the trouble was me. Right before the performance, “somebody” set off an M-80 in the bathroom. It was at the end of the year, everyone was about to graduate, and had all these unfortunate things not befallen me, I would have graduated, too. I was devastated. As a memento I went off with the bass drum that I played in the marching band. That drum came back to life with a haunting vengeance at the end of �
�Livin’ on the Edge.”
I got sent to Jose Quintano’s School for Young Professionals, 156 West Fifty-sixth Street. It was a school for a bunch of professional brats and movie stars’ kids. There were actors, dancers, the girl who played Annie on Broadway, that kind of thing, but it was way more fun than Roosevelt High. Everyone there had this crazy spark to them of fake-it-till-you-make-it-ness. Steve Martin (same name as the comedian) was in my senior class. His full name was Steve Martin Caro. One day I asked him, “What’re you doin’ tonight?” “We’re recording,” he said. “You’re recording? What? Where?!” “Apostolic,” he replied. “Can I come?” I asked breathlessly. “Well, yeah, sure,” he said. “What’s the name of your group?” “The Left Banke,” he said. “You mean the Left Banke as in ‘Walk Away Renee’?” “Yeah,” he smiled. That’s when I just freaked. He was the lead singer of the Left Banke.
The Left Banke were huge. Along with the Rascals and the Lovin’ Spoonful, they were the other big New York City band that had hits on the radio at that time. “What’s the song you’re going to record?” I asked. “Dunno. They give us the lead sheets when we get to the studio.” “Wait, you’re in the Left Banke, and you don’t know what song you’re recording?” “No, our producer tells us,” he said. I couldn’t believe it. “How the fuck can you do it?” I asked. “You don’t even know what you’re recording when you get there?”
One of the guys in the group had some Acapulco Gold. I had a thing for blondes, as all boys did, and this Acapulco chick was soon to be my new girlfriend. I got me a dime bag, which in those days came in a paper bag. A dime bag and I was on my way. We get to Apostolic Studios and it’s huge. Eighteen-foot walls, and right up at the top were the windows of the control room. I went up there to watch. I remember listening to the string section and waiting for Steve to sing. The producer and the engineers looked down at the musicians in the studio and then hit a button and over the PA they’d say, “Hey, um, will you re-sing that?” There was sheet music on a stand. I was stunned. This wasn’t like the Stones or the Yardbirds who wrote their own material, played their own stuff. They didn’t even know how to tune their instruments. The only guy in the band who had a clue about music was the keyboard player, Michael Brown. His father, Harry Lookofsky, was a session musician and he controlled everything. He was the producer and arranger, and he hired the musicians. Michael McKean, who later played David St. Hubbins—the blond dude with the meddling girlfriend in This Is Spinal Tap—was one of the studio musicians. Hell, I still have a problem with that movie. That woman is too close to the truth I lived (look for elaborations on that point later). I sang backup on a couple of Left Banke songs, “Dark Is the Bark” and the flip side, “My Friend Today.”
Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? Page 6