The more I learned about the Beatles history the sadder the
story is
It is one of those tales of caution that Shakespeare might
have written or others about getting what you really want
This is partly a tale of my friends and our band, which came
dangerously close to fame and it would have ruined our lives if we’d gotten it
All of it started in the basement of a friend, who's rich
parents gave him everything he wanted in instruments and everybody gravitated
towards that place
Out of this emerge the band that played Passaic valley area
and for a time looked like it was going to have its own version of Beatlemania
Two venues had to be closed down because of overcrowding of
teens
This occurred after I first saw the band in Paterson playing
the St John's community center where Paulie got up on stage
Later, while I was on the run from the police out west, the
band made even more headway and by the time I came back was already playing
most of the clubs in the area and making a name for itself
The most notable of these performances was at Melody lake
where we played for a bikers’ picnic thousands of motorcyclists, scaring the
hell out of Passaic county – our version of the 1969 Rolling Stones concert.
In a battle of the band that was supposed to be won by a
band largely made up of a horn section, our band prevailed. It was at an exclusive
community, where only relations to the association could compete. But since our
drummer was dating one of the daughters, we were allowed to compete. Everybody
thought the house group with its big horn sound would prevail. It did not.
The prize was a recording contract as well as the services
of a prominent booking agency.
The band was very tight by that time and one of the
prominent agents came to see us at the Red Baron in cedar Grove.
He offered to represent us but at a price we had to give him
a percentage of all the revenues we had made already and then upgrade all of
our equipment to Marshalls and other stuff we couldn't afford
What are the two Johns who played guitar for our band told
him to screw off and we got blacklisted
We tried to disguise John, doing a Davis Bowie disguise, but
he was just too good a guitarists and nobody got fooled – much like the scene
from Backbeat in which Stu was playing Elvis, and the agent walked out.
We never reached that high point again although we continue
to play in various factions at one point splitting it to two entirely different
bands one new age and one more traditional Rock
One version of the band cut a single thanks to the
assistance of Joey Ramone. But it went nowhere.
The other band put out several albums of original material
no record company picked up on.
Perhaps a blessing, since none of us were ready for success.
One John went on to work as a prominent computer specialist
and succeeded in that fashion.
The other John was more tragic, never giving up the rock and
roll live and died eventually from liver failure.
Paulie became something for hermit after working as a
library director for 20 years
Some of this sounds like the scene from yesterday in which
John Lennon held up as a hermit and that's what I think of often when I see
that film, Paul living in in his trailer where he eventually passed away as
well
And the more I learn about the Beatles the more I realize
that had the band really succeeded it would have had the same issues and
perhaps not the same positive result no Linda or Yoko to settle down the most
too provocative characters
Sometimes I think it's better off not getting what you want
especially when it comes to fame because there's no way to shed the mantle of
it and perhaps as with the Beatles you sort of become a puppet show for other
media to make money
In many ways the Beatles lucked out later when each of them
settled into a real life but the story is still sad very tragic a regular
Shakespearean tragedy
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