PANTHER BURNS Stalk New York [1983]

Text by Julia Masi / FFanzeen, 1983

Introduction and photos by Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2017

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The music of the Panther Burns was interesting in that it deviated from a formula. In fact, it was the same rockabilly-blues paradigm that the Cramps built on, but the Burns went in another – albeit equally minimalist – way. They used dissonance, changed the rhythm, and included a bunch of “tricks” that would warp the sounds without veering that much away in order to keep it “electric” without it being “electronic.” To give you some idea, past members of the group included Alex Chilton (d. 2010) and Jim Dickinson (d. 2009)  

I saw the Burns play once (though for the life of me I can’t remember where) around the time of this interview (The Ritz perhaps?), and saw Tav Falco once more in 1996 in a solo gig at Mercury Lounge after an interview there for the Videowave cable access show (see at bottom) The rest of the band here also went on to other bands that achieved cult status.

Meanwhile, Falco moved to Europe towards the end of the last century, and continues to front a version of the Burns.

This article / interview was originally published in FFanzeen, issue #10, dated 1983. It was written by the Managing Editor of the magazine, Julia Masi. – RBF, 2017

The Panther Burns saunter out of a small rehearsal studio on East 8th Street and Avenue A, ready to make their way across town. Just as they begin to pile themselves and their instruments into a friend’s car, lead guitarist Jim Duckworth [who would join the Gun Club - RBF, 2017], the most loquacious and animated Southern gentleman imaginable, announces that he’d rather walk and “get some of that good Greenwich Village, Manhattan air.” A flimsy excuse to pursue his favorite New York pastime, looking for copies of the Panther Burns’ latest, their first big budget 12” EP, Blow Your Top (Animal Records), on the city’s street corners. “I love the adoration,” he calls from afar as he and drummer Jim “Voon” Sclavunos slip off in the direction of St. Mark’s Place.

About a half hour later, Jim and Voon arrive at bassist Ron Miller’s apartment for the interview. Of course, Jim is anxious to relay his experiences: “It was pretty exciting, seeing the record in the street. But the thing to do now is to go to street corners and ask for the Panther Burns’ record.” His voice becomes deeper and he slightly squints one blue eye. “You have the Panther Burns’ EP?” You see, it’s not cool to go into the records store. That is the first thing you do. You wanna see it in the stores. But when you get really hip, you wanna see it on street corners.

“We didn’t really acknowledge that it was us. We just asked him how much he wanted for it. He wanted two dollars for it. But the interesting part of the story is that when we walked back over there, every street corner was sold out of our record! So that’s a really good sign. We’re impressed with that. It’s on the streets. It’s in the stores. It’s even in Memphis. But it’s not on street corners in Memphis. Nobody sells stuff on the street in Memphis. Well, actually, they do, I take that back. They sell those ceramic Elvis busts. And those velveteen tapestries with the ship, always with the ship. And jeans. Jeans all the time. And inflatable frogs. It’s not like it is here (where) they have shoes and things you can use, like Panther Burns’ records.”

 Aside from an infatuation with street hawkers, Jim is slightly less than enchanted with New York City’s Northern hospitality. “I’ve been thrown out of everywhere I’ve ever stayed (in NY). I slept in a Volkswagen seat least night, and I’m not in a very good mood from it. I get to sleep in the Volkswagen again tonight, but then I’m thrown out of there, too,” he laments.

Fortunately, he’s not taking such petty annoyances to heart. Especially not in light of the fates that befell his musical heroes when they relocated to the Big Apple. “All those guys – Jimmy Rogers, Buddy Rogers – died almost on the train goin’ out to Coney Island. They brought him up here to make some last records. They carried him up on a cot. And then he says,” Jim lowers his eyelids, stretches out his arms in a crucifixion pose, his voice a crackling whisper, “’Oh, no-o-o-o-o-o.’ And that was it! He was a goner, Jack!

“Buddy Holly comes up here, and on February 3rd [1959] he dies in an airplane crash.” So why do Southern boys like Duckworth care to flirt with fate and not only play, but record their EP on jinxed turf? One of the lures of the big city was that the band was able to work at Plaza Sound Studio in Radio City Music Hall, which left them only feet away from the space where the legendary Rockettes rehearsed. “I’ve only heard about them all my life,” recalls Jim. In fact, he was so anxious to meet a real live Rockette that he hung up signs around the building saying, “Singers Wanted,” hoping that a hoofer or two would be willing to sing back-up on the EP. His scheme didn’t work out as planned, but he frequently got to see some of the dancers in and around the building.

“I just love tap dancers. They’re just – “he smiles and stares into space. “There are just hardly any left.” A big fan of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (he’s even seen some of Robinson’s videos in slow motion) and Fred Astaire, he and Ron wax nostalgic about the dancers they’ve worked with while touring in jazz bands. “I played a gig with a tap dancer jus last winter, as a matter of fact,” remembers Ron. “There was a tap dance concerto with Honey Coles (one of Jim’s idols), and this girl named Brenda Bufalino. It was an orchestra gig. Morton Gold wrote this thing with a rhythmic tap dance part that’s mainly improvised. And an orchestra.”

“There’s two black guys in Pittsburgh who can’t get nowhere,” sympathizes Jim. “I remember I played with them when I was in the Jazz Workshop All-Stars. I was playing one night in Tunisia, and the next thing I know – these guys were so neat! They just came out on stage, dancin’ like this – “; he gets up and does a pretty impressive shuffle step across the room. “They were just having the greatest time tappin’ and doin’ solos, cuttin’ each other, and doin’ fours! And I remember when they got off, they just tapped off! And I was watchin’ them in the wings, tappin’ and slappin’ each other on the back, and doublin’ over with laughter. I just thought it was wonderful. They’d just been doin’ this for about 40 years. Saxie Williams. And I forget the name of his partner.

“There was a period when all these guys in Pittsburgh would try to tap in the kitchen, late at night, doin’ the timestep.” He confesses that he can’t tap, as he demonstrates his own competent version of the dance. But the dancer of the group is said to be lead singer/guitarist Tav Falco. He’s known in some Southern Arthur Murray Dance Studio circles for his very classy tango.

“This is a studio record,” Jim continues on the original subject. “This thing was done in Plaza Sound. This thing meets the requirements of everybody. The last one was the garage record [the 45 produced by Alex Chilton on Frenzy Records – Ed., 1983]. And the one before that, that was done in the closet.

“We tried to keep a raw sound by recording the rhythm section first, (then) guitar, bass and drums, so, we could have that “feel.” We didn’t want to do it, like, drums, and then puttin’ stuff over it. We wanted it to sound like the group playing.

“I think rock’n’roll is continual,” he explains. “There was rockabilly, then there was another kind of music, and then there was the ‘60s, and it just keeps changing. Anything you do is going to include the whole tradition.”

And tradition, or just a desire to reinforce the roots of rock’n’roll, is one reason why the Panther Burns have chosen to resurrect some of the classics of rockabilly. They bring a fresh, timely originality to the material that they revere. “There are just so many great cover tunes,” answers Jim, when asked why the band doesn’t incorporate more original material in their repertoire. “What’s the difference if it’s a cover tune anyway? We just play the music the way we feel it anyway. Ron makes his own bass parts and we generally change the music around to fit us.”

“Why must performers do original tunes?” asks Tav. “You know, Frank Sinatra didn’t write a lot of the material he did. Yet people didn’t ask him to write songs. ‘Why aren’t you writing songs, Frank?’ It was his voice. He had the voice. And Elvis didn’t write much of his songs. I think that’s a thing from the ‘60s. Buddy Holly was a good songwriter, and there were a lot of singer-songwriters like that. I personally have never concentrated on songwriting. I look at this as a body of work that can be shared. I think rock’n’roll is a genre, and you participate in that body of work. Now, if we contribute something, write a song and something comes out, fine. But personally, I’m not trying to get down and be a songwriter.

“I like working out of a tradition like some of the blues work we’ve done so far. Especially the blues. We’re bringing into the modern world music traditions that we were exposed to, that we grew up with.”

But Jim does think it’s necessary for artists to do original work, “Because that’s what moved the American musical tradition on, the need to write new tunes. Be-bop; they could have reused the harmonic basis of the standard tunes, but they would have lost money, so they wrote these incredible melodies on top of them. So, original music is where all of this stuff comes from. It’s necessary to go in and write original tunes if you have something you want to say. If not, go and do cover tunes. The reason we do so many cover tunes is that there are so many great ones to do. And it’s not a constriction. It’s not black and white: ‘cover tunes are constrictions; originals are freedom.’ Sometimes it’s the opposite.

“Take the first song,” he points to the cover of his EP on the table, “I’m a Rocket. “ “The original was acoustic guitar and voice. This one has all sorts of things happening to it. We gave it an ensemble. The whole group is playing. We have drum parts, bass, guitar parts. It has the same words at the original. It has the same rhythmic feel, but Voon has opened it up a lot. It has feedback and all sorts of stuff.”

“I just think that the music we’re doing is a product of the atomic consciousness of the ‘60s,” offers Tav. “You know, like after 1945 and the atomic bombs that were dropped. Like this song,” he pauses to listen to part of Arthur Pruitt’s “Gonna Dig Myself a Hole,” coming from the stereo in the next room. “When he comes out (of the hole), there won’t be any more wars around. So, in a way, music has a sort of political strata. People think that this music is very primitive. Blues and early rock’n’roll are very primitive. However, there is a subversive quality about it that comes out of the absence of any really strong labor movement in this country. It’s kind of a product of that, because it’s not about joining in. It’s not about filling the American Dream. It’s not about that at all. So, people think this kind of music is very Rightist and a celebration of all the American values, but it’s not. It’s carried on in spite of that.”

Alex Chilton: Remembrances Plus a 1977 Interview

Opening text, and photos © Robert Barry Francos, 2010
Interview from Big Star Magazine, by Bernie Kugel, 1977

I was introduced to Alex Chilton through Bernie Kugel, who was a big enough fan to name his own fanzine Big Star. Bernie wrangled an interview in June 1977 with Chilton and Stamey in Chris’ apartment on corner of Bleecker St. and Mercer St. I’m sure it was because of the name of his mag. This was right after Chilton had split with Big Star. Bernie came down from Buffalo for this, and I remember taking a lot of photos with my month-old 35mm. I picked the best shots, all of which Chilton later said he hated. These photos have not been scanned as of yet. The interview follows my comments.

The first time I saw Chilton play was later in ’77, at one of his infamous Village Gate appearances, with the underrated Chris Stamey backing him. I was sort of fascinated by the way he took his cigarette and put it into the neck of the guitar while he was playing, to keep his fingers free (later I would see Johnny Thunders do the same). The show felt more like a rehearsal than an actual show, with Chilton stopping songs, changing key or tempo, and starting it from the beginning once again. It felt like being a fly on the wall, and somehow magical. Their drummer was new, and I distinctly remember Chilton often yelling at him to either slow down, speed up, or keep tempo; I doubt he lasted past the show. This was also the night I met the then-Marbles (“Red Lights”) manager and New York Rocker founder, the late Alan Betrock. I went with Bernie that night.

Another time I saw him was at Max’s Kansas City, during the late ‘70s. I don’t have any photos of that, but it was a great show, that I attended with Bernie’s college roommate (and then-bassist for the Good), Steve Lum, and their friend, Janet. Chilton seemed comfortable on stage, but I don’t remember who backed him up. What I do recall, and I am digressing here, is tormenting this poor kid who sat across from us at the communal table. The teen was obviously waiting for someone and even more obviously bored. He sat down as the show began, and so had no idea we all knew each other. By the denim jacket he wore, I made some taste assumptions. When Chilton left, I said to the kid, “So, what did you think?” He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Meh.” I said, “Well, it coulda been worse…it coulda been Led Zeppelin.” He grew pale, eyes wide and jaw slack, and said, “You don’t like Zeppelin?” like his whole world was being questioned. I said, “Naw.” He looked at Steve, again, not knowing we knew each other, and Steve made a “yuck” face. Looking at Janet next, she gave a thumb down. At this point, if he would have said he liked the Ramones, one of my personal faves, of course, I would have done a Peter and denied them, just for the reaction. Then I started mentioning any band I could think of that I presumed he would have liked, and made disparaging comments, about the likes of Kansas, America, Yes, and the like. Luckily, these are bands I’m not impressed with anyway, so it was not hard. He walked – nay, stumbled – away, and we all had a good laugh, and waited for the second set, which did not disappoint.

In 1981, I was driving through Greensboro, North Carolina, while visiting my pal Nancy Neon Foster, and saw my very first Big Star supermarket, for which the band is named.

The last time I saw him play was at Irving Plaza, in the mid-‘80s. With Human Switchboard opening, Chilton breezed through his more bluesy numbers, with Bernie Worrell jumping on stage to join him on keyboards. That was another fun night. – RBF, 2010


Alex Chilton: “A Self-Made Man…”
By Bernard Kugel, Big Star Magazine, 1977

What do ya do when ya have something like fifty handwritten pages on somebody and ya can’t possibly fit it all into one issue? Well, how about if you print some of the most interesting parts of the interview you did and save the other stuff for some later date??? That sounds O.K… so here’s a little of what the kid who sang “The Letter” and who wrote “September Gurls” and was in a little Memphis group named Big Star had to say one June 1977 night in New York.

Bernard: Do you have a favorite Box Tops song?
Alex: “The Letter” I guess is my favorite Box Tops song.

Bernard: Do you have a favorite songs off Radio City?
Alex: Mmm… I don’t know… I like “She’s a Mover” a lot.

Bernard: A favorite song off #1 Record?
Alex: “In the Street.”

Bernard: Fave song offa the 3rd album?
Alex: “Kanga Roo.”

Bernard: I really like “Nighttime off that album…
Alex: Yeah, we do that now.

Bernard: What are some of the songs you’ve written recently?
Alex: I haven’t written many things lately. Like the last time I saw you (Feb. ’76) I had a lot of new songs written. I haven’t really written anything since then. Since I’ve been in N.Y., I’ve written “Fishy” and “Shakin’ the World”; I rattled them off in one day, so we’d have something to do on stage. But just living has been so distracting… I still haven’t got a place to live even.

Bernard: You think your current band’s better than previous bands you’ve been in (current band consists of Alex on vocals and guitar, of course; Ex-Sneaker Chris Stamey, bass, backup vocals; Fran Kowalski, keyboard, backup vocals; and Lloyd Fonoroff on drums)?
Alex: Yeah, it’s the best group yet.

Bernard: What do you think about being a cult figure and Big Star albums going for lots and lots of money?
Alex: It don’t pay no bills. I don’t know. People recognize me on the street all the time in New York.

Bernard: Have you seen any New York bands?
Alex: Yeah, I’ve seen I guess all of them.

Bernard: Do you like any of the ones you’ve seen?
Alex: Not really… yeah, I like the Ramones. I think they’re good and I like their records, but not really live so much. I haven’t heard Blondie’s album; I heard them live, they were really bad. I haven’t heard Television live but I don’t think their album’s that good.

Bernard: What special stuff have you been listening to lately?
Alex: Colin Blunstone.

Bernard: What did ya think of the Sneakers’ EP?
Alex: It was god.

Bernard: What do you think of Dwight Twilley?
Alex: It’s alright. It sounds kid of empty though in a funny sort of way. It’s like they’re in a big echo chamber, two or three of them, and they can’t really play that good ‘cause they’re in the echo chamber all the time. Something’s weird about that record, but no, I haven’t heard it all. Let’s see, a record I’ve liked… The Ramones. You know every time I see a record player and a Ramones album, I play “Oh, Oh, I Love Her So” and “Kill that Girl,” and California Sun,” in that order.

Bernard: Do you have any idea of the songs on an upcoming album? Would you be redoing “September Gurls” or would it be new stuff, or…
Alex: I don’t know. There’s about half an album of new stuff or maybe a little bit more right now… but I haven’t really be writing ‘cause there’s not really an outlet and I guess if I wrote some good songs some of them would do it [get them signed, I think – BK]. But I don’t write unless there’s a real tangible, commercial purpose for the song.

Bernard: What happened to the two girls you were singing with for a while in Memphis?
Alex: Yeah, well, that just kinda went down the drain. We didn’t record or anything…

Bernard: What drove you to put songs like “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” [The Seeds, Beach Boys, respectively – RBF, 2010] in your current repertoire?
Alex: Lack of really good stage material for one thing. I think those are good songs and they just fitted into the sets and they were something everyone in the audience would know about even if they hadn’t heard anything I’d ever done. And it was such an odd idea to do “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” with three pieces that it always went off in the right way. The vice was nice, and it was like a novelty and we actually did it well. Now we do it with all those harmonies... now it sounds just like the Beach Boys.

Bernard: Would you think of putting “Wouldn’t It” and “Can’t Seem” on an album?
Alex: “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine,“ I was thinking about doing for an Ork single. I probably wouldn’t do “Wouldn’t…” but I’d try it. But “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” is a good song to record ‘cause it’s not as big as it could have been and we do it really well.

Bernard: Do you know what the other guys from Big Star are doing now?
Alex: Yeah, Chris (Bell) is managing a hamburger joint that his dad owns a chain of and wants to turn into the next McDonald’s. He goes around the store with all his Jesus doctrine; it’s pretty weird [Bell died December 27, 1978 at the age of 27, in a car accident – RBF, 2010]. I don’t know what Jody’s (Stephens) doing, maybe still living with his mother, working somewhere, some incredibly miserable job [He currently works at Ardent Studios – RBF, 2010].

Bernard: What about John Lightman (who became bass player after Andy Hummel left)
Alex: I don’t’ know what he’s doing – I think he’s working in a bowling alley and going to school, and waiting for his trust fund to come in
[We somehow forgot about Andy Hummel, but I remember Alex telling me what he was doing in ’76, and while I can’t recall what Alex said Chris was doin’, I don’t think it was really very different than what the other guys are doing now. – BK]

Bernard: Would you like to see the Big Star albums reissued someday?
Alex: Yeah… or maybe a Greatest Hits. You know, I think it would be a neat compilation… I don’t expect I’ll ever make any money from them whatever happens, but I would feel honored if they’d be re-released someday by some record company catering to the collectors of this world.

Bernard: Do you think if “September Gurls” was put out again it might possibly be a hit single someday?
Alex: Yeah. But there might be better singles, like I have a recording in the can of “Oh, My Soul” that’s a lot better than the one that’s on the album with different musicians that I did when I quite the band after the first album came out. It’s real hot; that’s probably a hit song, too. It’s got a twelve-string on it.

Bernard: If someone gave you a million dollars and said you could do what you want with it, would you not make music ‘cause financially you wouldn’t have to, or do you think you would?
Alex: I’d make a lot of music. Make a lot more music; make films, interview people…

Bernard: Is there anything you like about New York?
Alex: Yeah, you know, it’s like real easy to run though New York, skim it, get all the glimpses you want. Everybody loves me here, it’s incredible. In Memphis, everybody thinks I’m a jerk. Come up there, get respect, girls wanna sleep with me.

Bernard: What did you think of the Dudes when you met them last year?
Alex: Not much, really.

Bernard: You wouldn’t think of doing anything with them?
Alex: Oh, yeah, but I would let him [Bob Segarini, of the Dudes, I believe – B.K.] control me… I just think I know more than he does.

Bernard: Did you hear about the big super-session plans for you and Segarini, Wally Bryson, and (Nils) Lofgren?
Alex: Yeah, I was prepared to do that because I just figured once we get into a recording studio you do what you could do and everybody does what they can do, and what I can do is… it all [laughs]… but I was prepared to do that.

Bernard: Why did the deal with DJM / Amherst [the record co. who last year brought Alex to Buffalo, introduced him to the Dues in Toronto, and had these super-session plans for Chilton] fall through?
Alex: They never called me back. I went home and never heard from them again, which was OK. You know, I don’t know what was in their heads. I don’t’ know what they thought after they met me [laughs]…

Bernard: Were there a lot of fights within Big Star?
Alex: Chris Bell had a lot of them, but I couldn’t ever tell who he was having them with…

Bernard: When you stared out playing in Overton Square in Memphis with Big Star, were you playing songs that weren’t on the album?
Alex: We were doing a few things like Todd Rundgren’s “Slut” and the Kinks’ “Come On New,” and some more covers.

Bernard: What do you think of the whole “new-wave” thing and people releasing their own records?
Alex: It’s a step in the right direction…

Bernard: What would you like written on your grave?
Alex: “A Self Made Man” sounds best to me.

Coincidence in a Rock and Roll World

Text and photos © Robert Barry Francos

When my decades long good friend Joe Viglione isn’t successfully touting with corporate windmills or promoting deserving artists like Marty Balin, he is also fascinated by coincidences. In conversations with him on this very topic, I recalled a couple that were in my life, one directly, and one to someone else.

[Human Switchboard at Irving Plaza, 1980s]
In the early 1980s, I was working in a corporate in-house print shop. It was loud and noisy, and there was a radio always on playing Top 10 music. In other words, I heard “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Rhythm Is Going to Get You” by Gloria Estoban every hour, and since Michael Jackson’s Thriller had recently been released, there was one of his songs playing every 15 minutes, like “Billy Jean” and the title cut, which was driving me insane. It was the period of garage punk revival in my world, and naturally I hated mainstream radio (still do). So I bought myself a Walkman to play tapes to help drown out the dreadful noise.

Around that time, the corporation for which I worked decided to do a big project, and they hired two or three temps for a few days. There I was, working away listening to my Walkman, and I caught the eye of one of the temps. Now at the time, most people who listened to a Walkman usually were playing the same type of industrial noise that was on the radio. This man gave me an eyes-rolled back look, like, “Oh, he’s another one.” This pissed me off.

I had never spoken to this person, so I walked over to him. I said, “I’ll have you know, I am not listening to the same crap that’s playing on that radio over there.”

This Asian man said, in a deep southern accent, “Oh, yeah? Then whut are you listenin’ to?” with a challenge.

“On this tape, I have the Standells’ “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White,” the Shangri-Las’ “Shout” (best cover of the song after Lulu’s), Chocolate Watchband’s “Don’t Want Your Lovin’,” the Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much to Dream”….

His attitude totally changed, and he said, “Oh, wow, that’s some great stuff! Yeah, I was in a band in North Carolina up to a couple-a weeks ago that played more punk, but I shore like that kinda stuff.”

Bob Pfiefer of Human Switchboard during interview described in blog]
I had recently come back from Greensboro, staying a week with another good pal, Nancy Neon (and her family), going to amazing clubs like Fridays, seeing my first Big Star food market, going to my first drive-in, and hanging out with a bunch of cool people, including Lynn, who would eventually end up in Love Tractor.

“I know some bands down that way. What was the name of yours?”

“Aw, you never heard of us, trust me.”

“Try me.”

Bernie Worrell backstage at Irving Plaza]
“We were Gang Green. Not the same ones in Boston, we were outta Boone (NC).”

I looked at him, mouth hinged open, and I asked, “Are you Jim Downs?”

The look on his face was probably as priceless and in shock as mine was. “Yeah, who the hell are you?”

“I’m Robert Francos.”

“Robert Barry Francos?”

Seems that while he was in the early stages of the band, he was promoting them, and because of my fanzine, FFanzeen, we had been writing back and forth for a while. As the band dwindled, so had our letters, and I hadn’t heard from him in a while. Jim was preparing to come to New York, and this was his first job to tide him over until he found a real job (now he’s a well respected local New York photographer).

We became fast friends after that for quite the while, until we eventually lost touch. In fact, that meeting in some ways probably led to my getting married. In a nutshell:

[Alex Chilton at Irving Plaza]
Jim started writing a very humorous column in my magazine called “Half Japanese” and did some interviews. One was with Bob Pfeifer, of the band Human Switchboard, done backstage at Irving Plaza (I was there, too; it was a great show with the Switchboard opening for Alex Chilton, with whom Bernie Worrell was guesting). That night, Jim also brought his then girlfriend, Aurora Jones. When they broke up, I remained friends with both. Aurora is an actress, and at some point she told me that she wanted to make a stab at going to LA to try her hand at the craft, but as she was paying such small rent in Little Italy, she needed someone she trusted to take over the apartment for a couple of years, but be willing to leave it if she needed to come back. I volunteered, which gave me a welcoming space to get married and bring my partner. We stayed there for two-and-a-half years, until Aurora came back.

Jim married Denise Nadvornik, and the last I heard they had a son and live in Queens.

Bernie Kugel, Under Acme, NYC, 1998]
The indirect story concerns my pal Bernie Kugel, of The Good, and then Mystic Eyes, both Buffalo core cult bands. When Bernie finished high school in the late ‘70s, he decided to go to Buffalo State College SUNY. Much of his choice was based on two elements: the first is that is was far enough way from his parents to get away, but close enough to come back and visit record stores and clubs like CBGBs. The other was the magazine Shakin’ Street Gazette, which was an extremely hip music magazine that was published by the school. Not only did he attend the school, but he also began writing for SSG, including an interview with the Ramones at Max’s Kansas City the night before they took their infamous first tour of England (yes, I was there for that, too).

The next year, out in West Babylon on Long Island, Judi Sadinsky (her moniker was the lower case judi) was graduating high school. She wanted to get far enough away from her parents but close enough to come back. She picked up a copy of Shakin’ Street Gazette and there was a huge story about David Bowie. She thought that any school that publishes this kind of in-depth story about Bowie must be okay. She went to Buff State.

While attending the school, she met Bernie and they started off a relationship. She’s the one for whom he wrote his classic tune “Judy” (a talented artist and graphic designer, she also help me with my first issues of FFanzeen). It was well into their relationship that she found out that he’s the one that wrote the Bowie article that brought her there in the first place.

The relationship didn’t last, but…spooky.

Of course, Bernie is now married for over 25 years to the wonderful Tink and they have a son, Ben (a talented guitarist in his own right), who is about to graduate college (yep, Buff State).