Thirteen, Boston Compilation, 1995

The Wicked Smile of Mister Jinx Welcomes The Listener to "Thirteen". I drew The Devil on a napkin originally. I wanted the CD jacket to look like the label on a bottle of hot sauce.

I just signed on to a gig playing lead guitar for The Dave Sammarco Band, a hard-working country rock outfit. I'm not the main guy, by any means. Nope. Dave has a "roster" of players at every position, and I'm the second or third string Telecaster Twanger. His main guy is the incredible Jimmy Scoppa, Boston's Master of the Telecaster, and I'm not worthy of shining his shoes as a country guitar player. The "DSB" plays all the time, all over New England. Between now and the end of the year, I'm playing four gigs, including The Church of Boston on November 29th. The Kilmarnock Street club and restaurant in The Fenway was once The Linwood Grill, a place I knew well. Played there, hung out there, and many a night got shitfaced there. In the mid '90's The Linwood was a happening joint, which brings me to this new blog.... I remember it like it was yesterday...(Sounds of harps and screen gets all swirly)...

It's 1995, and we're having the two night record release party for "Thirteen: Boston Compilation". I had produced the alternative rock tome at Newbury Sound, bringing in one group after the next in sort of a cattle-call style. We left all the mics up and the drum-kit and the bands would come in and I’d press the big red button. The band line-up included Digger, Ten Star General, Serum, Delta Clutch, Cobalt 60, The Derangers and others. We had high hopes for the CD, released by Rick Schettino's Young American Records. Rick was the publisher and founder of New England Performer, now known as Northeast Performer, or maybe it's simply Performer now. At the time, I thought the CD sounded ahead of its time, and I was right. Even now, when I listen to the album, and I have been listening to it lately for the first time in years, it still sounds pretty fresh, if not a bit "grungy". It got good reviews, but the bands were a little new and outside the main core of the Boston alternative scene. The only group still in existence is Delta Clutch, now called The Blizzard of '78. Cobalt 60, who changed their name to C60 in the late '90s continued on Jeff Marshall's Monolyth Records through the mid 2Ks, touring and recording. I was once a Monolyth recording artist myself, back in '86 through '88, but that's a different story.

So we had the CD release party at The Linwood, a two-night Friday and Saturday affair. The Linwood was just getting started as a rock venue. It had been a blues and pizza joint earlier, known more for drawing a baseball crowd due to its proximity to Fenway Park, but now, it was a full-blown black leather-jacket Boston rock club. The Linwood was capturing the spill-off from The Rat, and by '95, the writing was on the greasy, graffitti'd wall of the old Rathskeller. Barry Hite, Landsdowne Street stage-manager and sound guru, had created a new rock outpost on the Fens side of the Ball Park, in the old Linwood Irish pub. He and a few fellow Kenmore ex-patriots (Bob Daley, I think?) were behind making the Linwood the hot new venue.

The first night of the release, the place was packed. It was insane. The crowd was a who's-who of '95 and a big "where-are-they-now?" of 2008. There was Ken Kanavos from Newbury Sound, Deb Catalano, Schettino, of course, Kevin of The Linwood, Jeff Marshall, Radio people like Bill Abbate and Laurie Gale and Janet Egan (Juanita) were there, along with all the band members and their people. I was high on adrenaline (and some other stuff) and to this day I still remember it as being one of the best times, one of the absolute best nights I've ever had in this Boston Music Scene. It was magical and full of energy. The room was electric, with high-voltage performances by the bands, who rocked with total abandon. Even my own surf instrumental trio the Derangers put on a blazing set. It was all black leather, hair and attitudes, and you couldn't fall down in there.
The second night was very mellow by comparison; modestly attended but a good night just the same. It was as if everybody got their groove on the night before and were all nursing giant rock and roll hangovers 24 hours later.
Some bands I know what happened to, others I don’t. Almost all that were part of “13” I’m long out of touch with. I know Delta Clutch is still slugging away as The Blizzard of ’78, and I still talk to Chris Cugini, a producer now in his own right, regularly. Tristram Lozaw, famous Boston Rock Journalist and then member of Serum is still writing about the music. Siobhan McAuley, also ex Serum, is creating beautiful atmospheric music under the name Embrionic with her long-time partner and fellow musician James Bryan McCaffrey. “Jay” as I call him, was in the band Resinsect on “13”. I have been in touch with him over the years, though not lately. Barry Edwards of Ten Star General just moved back to the Buffalo area after decades of being a great guitarist in the Boston Scene, most recently with Cash Monies & The Jetsetter, as well as The Dave Sammarco Band. The only guys I’ve been in-touch with consistently over the years are the Brothers Frazier, Daryl and Mark, both long out of Boston, who were my buddies and bandmates in Digger. But where’s Bow Thayer (of Still Home)? What happened to the guys from Underball or Jehova Starbelly or Scratch? I think Doug MacDonald of Tidal Wave might still be drinking and strumming somewhere. Cobalt 60, or “C60” seems to be done, as far as I can Google.


Hawking "Thirteen" at SXSW Music Convention in Austin, St. Patrick's Day 1995

“Thirteen” was not an enormously successful CD. It was overshadowed by a lot of what was happening in Boston around that time. A year later, I myself produced and released the “Tube” Surf compilation on the CherryDisc label, which made a much bigger splash. But as I listen to “13” I hear good stuff. My recording and production quality was excellent, if I say so myself (and if I don’t, who will?). I hear a lot of analog depth and musicality in the tracks. The CD sounds amazingly fresh today in 2008. Not bad for a CD called “Thirteen” that actually IS 13 years old now. I guess I was right back in ’95 when I proclaimed that “Thirteen: Boston Compilation” was ahead of its time.

Introducing ANALOG PLANET

Hello folks! Well I have some big news! I have started my own company - a web-boutique called Drew Townson's Analog Planet. Yazoo! The Planet sells high-end analog recording gear, including lots of tube stuff. I call it "The Audio Hardware Store...in space!" Great idea, starting a high-end business in this economy, right?

What am I thinking?

Well, I'm thinking I want to start a a genuine high-end thing, based on my own deication to quality, as well as creating a legacy for my family and son. Plus, I was getting sick of the guys I was working for driving in to work at 11 am in their Beemers and Benzes and coming up to me with, "Sold anything today Drew?" "What have you done for me lately Drew?"

What I had done for them is a lot. Made happy customers. Brought in a lot of money...which was not trickling enough back down to me. So I said, "screw it!" and started my own business.

The site's young and buggy and still in development, but hey, go check out Analog Planet!

Blowing Joey's Ears...

OneTwoThreeFaw! Joey and Johnny Beating On The Brat, 1979

Of course, over the years I've had my less-than-stellar moments in the studio (and elsewhere). One of the first, and worst, was before I even moved to Boston.

It was the time I fried Joey Ramone's ears.

It must have been late '84 or early '85 when the Ramones came to Dallas to play at The Twilight Room, which was a decent size club with a nice stage. I'd say there were 800, maybe 1000 people there.

My band-mate and production partner at the time, Lisa, was an old pal of Joey's, having been in cutting-edge college and commercial radio for some years.

So we had access to Joey.

My sister and I had a nice studio called "Castle Audio" in nearby Carrolton. Lisa and I were working on a studio project under the name White Noise. We had tracked this sort of ska-punk version of Led Zepplin's "D'yer Mak'er", which would have been perfect for Joey to sing on. Astonishingly, when asked if he'd add a couple layers of vocal tracks, he agreed.

So after the show at the Twilight, Joey Ramone showed up at my studio. It was about 2:am, and in comes this bigger than life geek, wearing the pink granny-glasses, leather jacket and Chuck Taylor sneaks. He was this too-tall, bent over sloth of a guy; a slow-moving gentle giant. With the play-doh face and thick lips, re really did look like a cartoon of himself. And what a sweet sweet man. In his syrupy, nasally Queens drawl, he agreed to everything we were telling him was about to happen. He was so eager to please, even though he had the sniffles.

I had everything all cued up and ready, including a nice Neumann recording mic, on a stand and live. Headphones were hangin' there, too.

First, we played him the track a few times over the JBL studio monitors (a move that would later prove our undoing). After he got the hang of the part, we thought it was time to roll tape. That's when Joey made one small request.

He wanted a Shure SM57 on a straight mic-stand, so he could stand in his exact stage-pose. Y'know the one: feet wide-apart, head forward, soulders back with one hand at the mic and one way down the stand, and the mic jammed right up there, lost in the mop of black hair. The stage-mic didn't need to be plugged in, mind you. I already had a $2000 recording mic on a boom, all ready to rock. So the $100 Shure would be simply a dummy. It would be Joey's "Linus Blanket".

This was not a problem. I quickly obliged. But in doing so, I forgot to do somehing else.

I forgot to extinguish the studio speakers. Something I had never ever forgotten to do.

So Joey put the headphones on, leaned in, and in the control-room I hit the big red button on the tape recorder.

What happened next was the loudest, most shrill, most siren-like feedback the world has ever known. Ice picks. Flying knives. To poor Joey, with his headphones on, it must have felt like power-drills boring through his ear-drums, straight to the pain-receptors of his brain.

He instinctively threw the headphones to the floor and covered his ears. It took me a few seconds to figure out where the Gawd-Awful din was coming from, but I did, and in about 5 seconds, it was over.

Joey had been deafened.

I felt like shit warmed over. Full shame and embarrasment.

He stood there, rubbing the feeling back in to his ears, which were ringing like a firehouse bell, I'm sure. And to his credit, he offered to go ahead with the session. "I'm awright," he said, "I can do it."

But after that, the magic was gone; the moment was lost. We let Joey go back to his hotel to bed. I'm sure his ears were still buzzing as he tried to sleep.

Sweet wonderful Joey.

And I blew out his ears....

Nowhere Man: How Christopher Moore went from Bean-town to No-Scene-Town

While I was working at that Hellhole whose name shall not be uttered (go back 1-year on this blog), I became acquainted with one Mr. Chris Moore, a part-time helper there who was, well there's no better word for it, Chris was cool. We're talkin' wrap-around shades, the latest in hair-spikage, mod clothes, and a rave-club pallor. Young Chris had an air about him, that is for sure. Didn't take long for me to find out that the kid was funny, too, in a dry, ascerbic way. Smart kid, Chris Moore.

Because he was sort of the lone hipster among a bunch of long-toothed rockers, he caught more than his share of ribbing from the gang. But he laughed right along with everybody and returned the abuse in-kind. All the while, Chris was learning audio engineering and live sound. Turns out he was a singer and was beginning the process of getting a demo together. Chris was even planning a trip to Cali to track and mix with a very well-known veteran producer/mixologist. Yep, that Chris was on his way up in life. He had big plans. Big dreams. He was on the launchpad. He was ready to ignite. He was on the Road....

...to Nowhere.

Or, more accurately, he was on the Rotary to Nowhere. For those of you who don't live in Massachusetts, a Rotary is a traffic circle. They're all over the place up here, and they're scary as-hell. Where three or four or more roads converge/intersect, instead of a traffic light, there's a rotary. You enter the one-way mixmaster, circling until the road you want comes up and then you exit. And it's not just one lane, either. There can be two, sometimes three cars side-by-side. So all these vehicles are getting on and off and going 'round and 'round. What sometimes happens is, you might be in the outside lane, and the car on the INSIDE lane (to your left) decides to exit (to your right). This was the unlucky position Chris found himself in last summer. He was on the notorious Fresh Pond Rotary in Cambridge, one of the busiest and craziest in the area.

CCRRASSSHHH!

In an instant, Chris's life changed, and not in a good way. He didn't have health insurance and ended up with a bad doctor. The story goes down hill from there. But I'll let Chris tell it himself. Instead of Hollywood, he's out in the middle of Cow-cake Ohio, surrounded by a sea of mud, trying desperately to get back to civilization through his laptop. So, check out his site, TheQuarterProject, watch his video, and maybe flip a couple Washingtons his way...