PETER BAUMANN: No Stranger in the Night [1984]

Text by Julia Masi / FFanzeen, 1984

Introduction by Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2018

Images from the Internet

Looking back, I’m not sure why I published this article, to be honest. I certainly wasn’t a fan of synthesizer music, and Peter Baumann’s original band, Tangerine Dream meant nothing to me (and still doesn’t). However, that being said, he was a leader in the original of the synth sound, so there is a historical importance, I suppose.  – Robert Barry Francos, 2018

Those who believe in the myths and miracles of music marketing think that doing a cover of an old Top-40 hit song is a guaranteed formula for creating a hit single. Citing a track record that includes bands like Soft Cell, who resurrected “Tainted Love,” or David Johansen, who flowed into the mainstream with “We Gotta Get Out of this Place,” appears to make this theory sound foolproof; it isn’t.  When it works, it’s a magic charm, but when it fails, it’s like a neutron bomb. The list of casualties is too numerous and often too obscure to mention.

Nevertheless, artists still gamble in the cover song crapshoot with whole albums, and sometimes entire careers, at stake. One of the more unusual variations on a theme is Peter Baumann’s version of the old Frank Sinatra cocktail lounge classic, “Strangers in the Night.” By adding a dance beat, Baumann has turned the sensual yarn into a surrealistic allegory that works best when paired with his video [see below – RBF, 2018]. The audio alone is pleasant, but easily forgotten. Luckily, the video is able to hold its own and would be equally impressive with a soundtrack of white noise.

It’s unfortunate that Baumann feels he must re-hash someone else’s hit. Since the early ‘70s, his original material had already shoved him into the spotlight when he debuted with the improvisational synthesizer band, Tangerine Dream. Since then, his music has gone through a metamorphosis evolving into a few sparse electronic solo albums and emerging, in collaboration with Eli Holland, with a sophisticated, viable style that is exhibited on the Strangers in the Night album on Portrait/CBS Records.

Lately, he’s been billing himself simply as Baumann. He is no longer a solo artist, since Baumann’s sound relies on Eli Holland’s vocals and musical contributions. Holland co-writes most of their material. And although they work with a drummer, Rich Teeter [who would also play with Twisted Sister and the Dictators, including touring and recording their Manifest Destiny album; d. 2012 – RBF, 2018] exclusively, they are not a stereotypical band. As so much of the music is created by a cumbersome synthesizer that was specially designed for Peter, the idea of touring, or even playing clubs, is almost out of the question. Therefore, whether Baumann’s career soars or sinks without a ripple, all depends on how well that small sliver of vinyl sells and how many times an audience can sit through this video. With so much riding on a single song, it’s odd that he was inspired by the Middle-Of-the-Road melody.

“I was in a bar and I heard the song frequently, and I just fell in love with the song. By the way, it’s written by a German,” explains Peter, who is a native of Germany. Eli was also seduced by the song. “I was always a fan of Frank Sinatra,” he admits. “While we were doing the song, it took a long time to re-arrange properly; to give it the right treatment so it wouldn’t sound ridiculous.

Clip from "Strangers...." video

“If you took out the vocals, you’d never know it was ‘Strangers in the Night,’ continues Holland. “The basic synthesizer lines throw everything off. The chorus, which flows in the original… we broke it up with an extra bar of six beats and a synthesizer line, and it had the effect of stretching out the chorus. That’s what we wanted. That’s why we took so long to get it right. When I met Peter, he was working on the song for about a year. It took several months. It was a song we’d always go back to. There is that risk, but I feel it’s a good risk.”

Besides re-arranging the tune, Bauman also offers an altered interpretation of the lyrics. Ol’ Blue Eyes’ crooning never brought to mind the science fiction images in Peter’s video. “The obvious thing is the trench coat and the lady underneath the lantern [meaning streetlamp – RBF, 2018],” Peter speculates. “But that’s pretty boring. So we decided to bring it down to the essence of strangers meeting.”

The strangers in this film are very strange. Their heroine is a bag lady who turns into an obnoxiously gorgeous blonde. And sprinkled throughout the video are super-imposures of animated cubes, spheres and triangles that hurl through the sky like flying saucers competing in a Grand Prix race. “The underlying story is contact,” comments Peter, “when, for instance, the bag lady changes into the beautiful woman, just because of the contact; the touch they have. And then it goes into a dream stage. These objects (the geometric figures), they are all catalysts that happen whenever people meet. Like the little girl and boy (who eventually grow up to be the protagonists).”

Peter Baumann more recently

Change and contact are important to Peter, and are reflected in his career and the growth of his music. “It’s a pretty long way from one end to the other. I’ve had some problems because I used to be known for Tangerine Dream. It’s unfortunate that people put me in a certain category , and whenever I release a record, they wait for me to do the same stuff I did 10 years ago.” Maybe that is because what he did 10 years ago was only starting to come into vogue. He’s long been revered as a pioneer of European synthesizer music.

“I feel that the worst thing that can happen to you is that you stagnate; that you get into a rut. And I feel that as soon as I do something different, that gives me the opportunity to become aware of what I do. When you do the same thing over and over you fall asleep.” With a philosophy like that, it wouldn’t’ be surprising if Peter were an insomniac.

There will soon be another single and, of course, another video released from his current album. He prefers to keep his future plans a secret, admitting that the song will be “a surprise. I like surprises.”

POLYROCK: In Search of Playful Seriousness [1981]

Text by Stacy Mantel / FFanzeen, 1981

Introduction © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2017

Images from the Internet

This interview was originally published in FFanzeen, issue #7, dated 1981. It was written and conducted by then-FFanzeen Managing Editor, Stacy Mantel.

To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of Polyrock at the time, as I found them too…esoteric. The whole synthesizer/techno-guitar thing was lost of me, but Stacy was a big fan, hence the interview. I heard the albums back then, but never saw them live. However, I do have an indirect tale about them:

In the early 1980s, after this article appeared, I applied for a job as an Editor at a technology-based magazine, and was granted an interview. When I got there, I found out that it was produced by Al Goldstein [d. 2013], and the interview was in Screw Magazine’s office. The person interviewing me was the brother of a member of Polyrock. He knew who I was because of this piece, and said he was not going to give me the job as a favor to me, because having Screw Publications on a resume was not a plus, and Al was a hard person for whom to work. He did, however, show me Goldstein’s office, which was just packed with memorabilia. He warned me not to touch anything because despite the chaos, Goldstein knew if anything was moved. I thank him for that, even now, because he was absolutely correct.

As for Polyrock proper, they released two major-label albums on RCA, produced by Philip Glass, and disbanded a year after this interview was published, in 1982. Looking back, I can appreciate some of their releases more, such as “Bucket Rider,” but even today, the snyth/modulated material is still is not where my interest lies. – RBF, 2017

Polyrock is not unique, but then again, they are. It depends upon what angle you care to listen to them from, and how contaminated your musical background is.

Everyone is talking about them. Some are nervous, some elated, some speechless – but they are reacting. Polyrock themselves are doing the least talking. They are modest experimenters, trying to be a little different. Polyrock is: Billy Robertson, guitar / vocals; Tommy Robertson, lead guitar / electronics / violin; Lenny Aaron, keyboards; Curt Cosentino, bass machine / synthesizer; Joseph Yannece, drums / percussion / vocals; and Catherine Oblansey, vocals / percussion.

I spoke with Billy Robertson at the Rock Lounge, Saturday, February 28 of this year. He is very amiable and neat, and smiles freely. When we spoke, a lot of sentences were left open where words could not express certain artistic aims; sensibilities. For coherence, I had to punctuate in my mind and on paper. Personally, they’re probably best left unclosed, because in that, there is more understanding.

FFanzeen: In The [Village] Voice, John Picarella compared your sound to geometric paintings a la Mondrian. But when I listen to your music, I don’t think of harsh, stark lines; I feel it’s more impressionistic and imageful. What do you feel?

Billy Robertson: Well, it’s really hard to make a comparison to paintings or that kind of art, but I see it more as impressionistic. It’s also an immediate type of thing too, because it isn’t painting. Although when you go into the studio, you make a record and it’s a piece, but when it’s written, it’s sort of an act of aggression. The thing is to capture a live moment; an experience.

FFanzeen: What do you mean by “act of aggression”?

Billy: It’s a weird word – it’s a performance. I don’t mean aggressive as a negative or positive act of aggression or anything like that, but putting out something immediate – something with a certain amount of intensity. And it’s a performance. To answer your question more specifically, it’s more impressionistic than mechanical.

FFanzeen: It’s felt mostly on “Your Dragging Feet.”

Billy: Oh, yeah.

FFanzeen: It’s very hypnotic, almost like a mantra, because it’s somewhat repetitive.

Billy: It’s packaged sort of in a form; it has levels. It’s a very pretty song to me.

FFanzeen: The systems approach and Philip Glass’ music deals with similar types of repetition and levels.

Billy: That song has a lot more of that mode or side of us than any other song, and I think it’s something we really want to do; even in short pieces, and not so much a trance-piece, but something that’s very subtle and right there with the instrumentals. Some of the new stuff would make this clearer to you. That type of writing style started, for me anyway, when I listened to Brian Eno; I heard it in the Beatles and John Lennon songs like “I Am the Walrus.” And that’s what I like about Philip. When I first heard him I appreciated the repetition. He was an influence, but he was more someone we liked and respected. We really didn’t see his music as being part of our music. I can really like jazz or other kinds of music, but I play my music, and it just has been coming more and more. I just identify with Philip so much. I think he identifies with us, but he knows that we’re making pop music and we’re in a different medium.

FFanzeen: How did that collaboration come about? Was it on your mind or –

Billy: It did enter my mind, but I didn’t see it as becoming a fact. I never thought it would become a fact because I didn’t picture Philip to be what he is, as open-minded and just as versatile because he listens to all kinds of things. He makes music that’s his music.

FFanzeen: Do you see Polyrock trying to bridge the gap between that kind of music and pop rock’n’roll?

Billy: Yeah, I think subconsciously. We’re trying to make a serious sort of musical type of music; not just an occasion. A dance band. That’s definitely on our minds and that is an aspect of our music. We really like John Cage and people like that, their aspect of music, but we also enjoy playing for people and dancing. So, we’re trying not to be that, as many writers said, “serious.”

FFanzeen: You’ve had a lot of problems with the critics about that aspect of being serious. Some have asked, “How can a pop band have that in their musical or personality makeup”?

Billy: Well, it’s in the personality. I think it’s a real special thing. That’s what keeps me going. I see it developing more and more for us. Sort of like bridging that gap. I wouldn’t say so much as the repetitious thing or the minimalistic thing because I don’t think Philip Glass is minimalist.

FFanzeen: I don’t think so either. Minimal is an Andy Warhol film.

Billy: “Grey Canvas” is minimal.

FFanzeen: When you’re putting music together, do you take concrete ideas and put one after the other, or do you use the kind of random approach that Eno takes with his systems pieces?

Billy: I think that when I write, I hear where it’s going. I can sit down with an acoustic guitar and play it. Well, it’s sort of a systems approach because I’m doing other people. I know what Lenny, as a keyboard player, will reflect into the song, and I know what Curt will. And I have an idea what my brother will do – he would definitely write his piece to it. But the others, even though I’m writing the melodies and injecting it to them, I can already see what they’re going to do. When I play with just an acoustic, I usually do the melodies with my voice, and it’s weird because you keep the melody in that part of your head and you write another melody, or you get someone to team up with you. There’s so many things we have to stay away from when we write, Tommy and I. We try not to keep Blues progressions out of it and funk feelings. We’re trying to start with these very sterile sort of holes and these melodies. Mechanically, that’s what we start with. But, we’re trying. I think we’re very emotional. I think we’re trying to inject that, so the emphasis is not on funk, because what’s soul? That isn’t soul. We can have soul in our music.

FFanzeen: Well, not having a bass is almost an anti-funk idea.

Billy: I’m not anti-funk. I mean, I love it. I find it more challenging not to work with, because it’s very easy to me. It’s because we have to stay away from these things. I think it’s inevitable that we’re going to grow into something where we wouldn’t have to sit around here and try to explain it. It’ll just be this type of music that came through a process; but it’s just a process of trying to strip down and get away from all these things that have been done; all these different modes. I mean, it’s been 25 years since rock came about and pop music still sounds the same way. You can make it different and change it into a different shape, but it’s still the same medium. And funk’s been around and African music has been around. Sometimes I think it’s a crazy thing to do [smiles] but if it can work and we can do it, good. It’s a romantic thing to do, laying yourself on the line; but it’s an experiment. We can fall flat on our faces, and we’ll just turn around and try it a different way. I don’t think that I’ll ever put together a band that’ll be accepted right away. I don’t think any of us would. We would try to do something that had space for growing.

FFanzeen: Groups like Visage and Spandau Ballet are working with computers that go beyond a synthesized bass; they’re computerizing a beat. People are saying you are electronic. Isn’t that a bit off-base?

Billy: I think that when using all synthesizer and rhythm generators, I see that sound as getting too homogenized, too packaged too quickly. I think that just working with guitars is more of an inside thing. I see that kind of electronic music as getting too sterile. Like Gary Numan. I liked his first record, but he got too sterile. The overall sound is too formulated.

FFanzeen: That’s what I meant, because those people are just programming in the entire thing and they’re called inhuman.

Billy: Well, that’s supposed to sound inhuman. I look back on this record and there are reservations, because the fact that we have a serious edge doesn’t give us room to be playful.

FFanzeen: What’s your definition of “serious”? The B-52s take themselves seriously.

Billy: Yeah, I can think that, too. I could ask myself, “What is the definition of ‘serious’?” And I think it’s totally absurd to think that way, but obviously there is a whole overall thing that is looked at as serious and something that’s looked at as playful. It’s not my definition though. If I really stop to think about it, it’s just a type of seriousness where you have an attitude of just like when you make a piece, it could be a serious piece, something that you’re really thinking about and really trying to make different, but also trying to be very pretty and aesthetic in a sense; something that’s not as playful, because if something’s not playful, what else can it be?

FFanzeen: You mentioned new material. What stage is that at now?

Billy: It’s at the stage where we have five or six songs down – not all at the performing stage, though. We’ve been working. We’ve been to London, and we’re going to Baltimore. When we get back, I just want to go back up to our house [in historic Woodstock], and get these things down. We want to get back into the studio to make another album the end of March.

FFanzeen: Will Philip Glass produce the next album?

Billy: I think he will. It all depends on what the circumstances are, who we’ll be working with. I see him as another member of the band with just a smaller part. He doesn’t produce it; he’s not about that. And that’s what I was talking about – one of the reservations about going into the studio again. Because we want somebody who’s going to be more sensitive to the rock’n’roll aspects of it.

FFanzeen: Let’s get some more background. Before Polyrock, you played with the Model Citizens for a while. What was Tommy doing?

Billy: This was the first time he became visual, and marketed what he does. Before that he made tapes and has a collection of his own tapes which may be marketed someday. He’s been working mostly on his own music. This is more of something which we’re trying to create. It’s not what we’re about. Right now, we have this thing and it’s a band. We’re using our personae. We’re using the look. It’s a lot more than just making music. I think if Tommy was to write music for himself, he would explore a lot more different things; more subtle things, and not be so accessible to himself. That’s what I’m into doing.

FFanzeen: Aren’t you afraid to explore so soon?

Billy: Yeah. It definitely takes some time, and it’s good for me. I don’t think it’s a compromise. I think that we’re going to get to the point where we’ll be ready to do it, and we’ll know better how to do it, and we’ll learn what directions we really like and want to go into. But I think there’s a different attitude. A more spread-out kind of experimenting. Next album, I’m going back to bass on a couple of tunes. On the first record, for some reason, I just wanted to get away from electric bass. Maybe now I can incorporate it into our sound, because we’re starting to get a good idea of what we’re doing.

FFanzeen: How long were you in the studio recording the album?

Billy: About a month and a half.

FFanzeen: Did you have anything to do with the ad campaign RCA launched, with “Polyvinyl, Polyrock of the Future”?

Billy: No, not at all. Did it seem like any of us did? I hope it’s clear to most people that we had nothing to do with it. We really hated it, but I’m not going to turn around and say “RCA stinks.” They just got a little away from us.

FFanzeen: Polyrock is the best name you could have come up with; it’s so descriptive.

Billy: We thought it had a nice sound, also.

FFanzeen: What about this “dance-trance” business? It’s applied to other groups too, such as the Bush Tetras, and you two bands couldn’t be further apart.

Billy: It’s obviously not an adequate description of the music. Even more general is the term “New Wave,” which really freaks me out because Blondie is supposed to be New Wave and even Talking Heads, because they made it through the same packaging, the same channels. So I just have to say when people ask me what kind of music we play, it’s “Polyrock.” We’re making it that and that’s what we called it.

LOTHAR AND THE HAND PEOPLE: Signals Received! [1986]

By Bruce “Mole” Mowat / FFanzeen, 1986

Introduction by Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2017

Images from the Internet

http://lotharandthehandpeople.com

This interview was originally published in FFanzeen, issue #14, dated 1986. It was conducted by then-radio DJ at CFMU-FM, Bruce “Mole” Mowat.  This was transcribed from an audio tape by Marilyn Saffer. – RBF, 2017

L-R: John Emelin, Rusty Ford, Kim King, Tom Flye (top), Paul Conly

Hello Mole. This is John Emelin, formerly of Lothar and the Hand People, speaking to you at CFMU-FM, at Hamilton, Canada. First, let me apologize to you for taking so long to get back to you, but you know how unreliable these ex-psychedelic musicians can be.

You asked for a musical background, pre-Lothar. I will give you a little background on the whole group. The group went through some early personnel changes. It was basically started by me, John Emelin, and my roommate, Richard Willis, at the University of Denver, in 1965. We had a jug band at the time, and it became increasingly clear to us that the way to get girls and make more money was to play the type of music that groups like the Rolling Stones and the Kinks, who were emerging from England at the time, were playing. We were taking a lot of drugs in those days. Naturally, the usual megalomaniacal mindset that goes with that took possession of us and we decided to start a rock’n’roll band.

So we got a hold of another guitarist by the name of William Wright, and a drummer by the name of Tom Flye who came to the University of Denver from Chicago, where he had been in a rock’n’roll band in high school; and a bass player by the name of Rusty Ford, who also came to D.U. in 1965. He had been a bass player in a rock’n’roll group called the Accidentals when he was in prep school at Choate. So we got that group together and started working around Denver, and let our hair grow and took the usual ‘60s flack for that. We started writing our own material.

Then we had sort of a fateful job in ‘65/’66 New Year’s Eve, a gen-u-ine professional gig at a bar in Aspen. New Year’s Day, the three of us who were still in college called home and dropped the bad news that we were going to be quitting and, at that time, two of the members of the group dropped out and were replaced by our final lead guitarist Kim King, who we had picked up at the Denver Folklore Center. He had had some experience in New York, in rock’n’roll. He was also a folk guitarist; excellent guitarist all the way around. And through an ad in the paper, we got a hold of Paul Conly, our keyboard player.

I got a Theremin. How I got it, I can’t remember. The name Lothar and the Hand People came to my roommate, Richard Willis who, since is long gone and I’m told a holy man high in the Himalayas – where’s he’s high in them or the Himalayas are high, you’ll have to figure out for yourself – had a dream in which the name Lothar and the Hand People appeared, which is where the name came from.

We just sort of naturally applied it to the Theremin, which is, as I imagine some of your listeners know, the earliest of the electronic instruments. It was invented in 1928 by a Dr. Leon Theremin in the Soviet Union. It’s a single oscillator, the type of which synthesizers are made of many, and has an aerial coming off it which creates a field, which in turn is broken by the capacitance stored in your body, so by moving your hand closer to the aerial, or further away from it, you change the pitch, and create the ooOOoo sound that everyone is familiar with from old horror films. Actually, I think the Theremin has dropped out of style and has been replaced by linear-controllers and more accurate types of electronic equipment.

We were very interested in electronic music from the beginning. We moved to New York in ’65. There, at that time, we went up to Corning, New York, to see the guy that built our Theremin, which we had gotten through the mail from a guy named Robert Moog. He was working on designing a synthesizer, which could be used outside of the laboratories that he was selling them to, the music laboratories and universities. So we helped him develop the necessary adaptations to be the first group to use the synthesizer live. And we were also the first group to record rock’n’roll music with a Moog Synthesizer. And in the course of using it in New York, we turned on a lot of musicians, like Jimi Hendrix, who was a friend of ours, Keith Emerson, who used to come to see us at The Scene; people who have since become identified with synthetic music had become introduced to it through Lothar’s influence, which at that time in New York, in ’66 and ‘7 especially, was somewhat powerful.

Well, we played around New York from ’65 to ’70. We played at The Night Owl, right after the Lovin’ Spoonful hosted out of there. Then we played at a variety of light show clubs on the East Coast: The Boston Tea Party in Boston – “Say, this guy’s real bright” – a club in Philly called The Trauma, which was a smaller light show club, and we sort of shuttled back and forth around the East Coast. We did a lot of playing at The Scene in the ‘60s.

As far as an annotated discography, I cannot help you. I can tell you we had an album called Presenting Lothar and the Hand People on Capitol in 1968. And that was rereleased a couple of years ago. There was also one called Space Hymn by Capitol in ’69. And there was a mixture of both of them called Spores, which was a bootleg record released in England in the ‘70s. We had a number of singles which were not on albums, some of which have become collector’s items for reasons that are hard to understand.

During the course of our career, we played a lot in New York. That’s where we signed our first record deal and our first management deal, which was, of course, a bad management deal, which most groups get into the first time out of the box.

Then we ended up spending a lot of time hassling – ahem – working in the studio. Our first producer was a guy named Bob Margouleff, who went on to be the synthesizer programmer for Stevie Wonder on the Talking Book album, and on the Capitol stable. He discovered the Beach Boys, Glen Campbell, and Lou Rawls, and engineered the original Dale Hawkins recording of “Suzie Q,” and so on. He was a great guy to work with, but never really provided the group with a whole lot of direction. Lothar always had a problem creating the same excitement in the studio as we did on the stage. We never really met the right producer to get the performances out of us in the studio that would come across the way we did live. That was a problem with a lot of the psychedelic groups.

Let’s see. You asked other questions here. Why, what, and when did the group spit up? We split up in 1970 because we got out of all our contracts at once: our personal management contract, our booking agent’s contract, and our record deal. And rather than get involved in any more bad deals, we figured we’d all go our separate ways. We are one of the few groups I know of that had the same five members for five years and did not split up with any animosity at all, or at least if there was any, it was certainly well hidden.

As far as what we’re doing nowadays: our drummer, Tom Flye, is an engineer at The Plan, in Sausalito (California). And he also has engineered just about everybody you can think of, and has done a lot of work in recent years with Rick James; Kim King [d. 2016], our guitarist, does road sound for top-notch acts; Rusty Ford, our bass player, produces television commercials; and our keyboardist, Paul Conly, is writing film music; and I’m in the process of writing a novel [Note: I have not been able to find any information about this book, if it was published – RBF, 2017]. Since the group broke up, I went back to the country and built log cabins, and I’ve had a small video production company and imported clothing from South America.

As far as any chance of a reunion, we tried a reunion – three of us did: Paul, Rusty and I tried a reunion about five years ago, but it just didn’t work out. I’m afraid we’re – we’re too old is what I think it is. I’m not sure though. It’s hard to say exactly what it is that would keep us from a reunion. I think probably it’s the prospect of being on the road again. It’s enough to keep anybody who can avoid it from doing it. As far as musical projects, as a matter of fact, I’m in the process of writing some songs now and getting a demo together, and I think I’m gonna be back in there slugging, looking for a record deal within the next 18 months or so.

There is a book called The Acid Trip: A complete guide to Psychedelic Music [1984], which has a fairly good feature on us, written and compiled by Vernon Joynson, published by Babylon Books (England). It’s a pretty interesting book about psychedelic music, I must say, and I know that I am proud to have been associated with the psychedelic movement in any way, shape, or form. And, as a matter of fact, I just got back from Mexico and, while swathing cable television in a bar, there was a feature on the rise of the use of psychedelics in Canada. All I can say is keep up the good work, guys, because you can’t go wrong as far as I’m concerned.

It’s always amusing to me to see books about – there’s a book out about rock’n’roll hardware that discusses the history of electric guitars and so forth and they ascribe the first use of the synthesizer to Keith Emerson, which is extremely amusing to me because I remember the night that he walked into The Scene and had never seen one before, and we had been using it for eight months. But that’s the way it is when you’re ahead of your time, you know. As they used to say in New York, that and 25 cents will get you a ride on the subway [fare’s up to a buck nowadays – RBF, 1986]; [fare’s up to $2.75 nowadays – RBF, 2017].

A couple of things occurred to me that might be of interest to your listeners. We played only one gig in Canada and that was the opening of Expo 67 (in Montreal). We were on the bill with the Blues Project and Tiny Tim, of all people. It was at the Exposition Hall, and it was sort of a party that was given for the people who had worked on Expo 67, which was a very heavy working-class, French-Canadian group, who obviously were not compatible with the type of music that any of us were playing at the time – and it was your basic disaster of a job. I remember we were saved – literally our skins were saved – by the sexy dancing of a young lady by the name of Suzanne Verdal, about whom Leonard Cohen is supposed to have written the song “Suzanne.” Those of you who are better versed in Canadian music lore can probably chuckle up your well-insulated sleeves at my lack of knowledge about who the real “Suzanne” is.

But what I remember about that job was when we got to the border we didn’t have the right working papers and we had to sleep in our car between that small space in the borders overnight, until the promoter got there with the right papers. And when we got to Montreal, there was no place to stay, so we went out and found a place. It turned out to be some sort of mental home which had been emptied out. I don’t know where the patients went, but a swimming pool on the roof that was two feet deep throughout was the dead giveaway. There were also signs on the doors that said things like Physiotherapy and so forth.

Most of our playing was done on the East Coast for that five-year period. We did some work down the Jersey Shore at a place called Spray Beach, New Jersey. We worked there quite a bit. We worked San Francisco twice: once at the Fillmore with the Grateful Dead and the James Cotton Band in 1966.

Working in San Francisco was always difficult because it was real easy to be home-teamed there, although I must say that the Grateful Dead were very gracious to us. When we arrived, there was a note in the dressing room that said, “Come over to our house.” They had that big house in the Haight at that time, and we went over there and spent the night sampling whatever substances there were available in Haight-Ashbury in 1966. We met the lead singer for the great Big Brother, Janis Joplin, who was unknown to New York musicians at that time. We stayed up most of the night drinking wine and doing whatever else with her and the guys from the Grateful Dead.

We also worked a number of jobs in odd little places, like Casper, Wyoming, and on the downside we worked up in the Catskills (New York) at a singles weekend at one of the hotels they have up there. Kutchers’ Country Club, they called it. That was a lot of laughs.

We worked with the Byrds in New York at the Village Gate. It was the first time rock’n’roll had ever been played at the Village Gate. That was interesting. There was a groupie there with a camera chasing after David Crosby by the name of Linda Eastman. Actually, I think she was after Chis Hillman. I have to ask my pal Rusty about which one she was after, but she was certainly working her way up in those days, and as we all know she made it, groupie-wise.

I’ll tell ya, I hope you have some of our records. Play “Machines,” that’s one of my favorites. I really like that. That was written by a guy named Mort Schuman, the guy who wrote the wonderful song “Save the Last Dance for Me.” I’ve always been fond of our version of “Bye Bye Love,” with the Theremin/pedal steel part. I always thought that it was ahead of its time. And “It Comes on Anyhow,” which is the last song on the first album I believe, which is also worth a giggle. Our version of “The Woody Woodpecker Song” certainly stands on its own. Nothing more need be said about that. I hope you have a chance to listen to it. Everyone should hear Lothar’s version at least once.

We released a single called “Midnight Ranger.” In fact, I think “Midnight Ranger” is on the second album. The out of tune high voice on that is the first major recording by a then-new to New York  musician by the name of Johnny Winter, who had been brought into town by the owner of the club, The Scene, at which we were working. He came up and offered his vocal talents on the song, and we thought it was a great idea, and everyone afterwards said, “That’s a pretty good song except who is that high part? That guy can’t sing at all!” That’s the way these things work out. “Midnight Ranger” is the third song on the first side of Space Hymn.

“Today is Only Yesterday’s Tomorrow” is a pretty nasty little song as well, and “Hours Like Backwards,” too. Of course, this album came out shortly after the first moon shot, and we were under the mistaken impression that the men walking around on the moon were going to make a major impression on people all over the planet. And that anyone who had any tie-in with that would be rolling in gravy. As it turned out, nobody really cared, and our tie-in with standing on the moon, which is that song “Space Hymn,” got us absolutely nowhere, which goes to show what you get trying to predict public taste.

I would be very interested to know if any of you ever had the opportunity to see Lothar live. We could reminisce about the old days. You can tell me what you were on and I can tell you how silly you looked about what you thought was dancing.

Anyway, until next time, I really gotta go and pull out a TV dinner. See you all later. Bye.