The Band Hits It's Stride
With a solid new lineup in place, we were able to continue on with an
even harder edge than before. In fact, many people have since told me this
version of the band proved to be their favorite.
Our first gig together was in Raleigh, North Carolina, and while I don't
really remember too much about the show that night, I'll never
forget the festivities afterward...
Of course, there was the usual partying between the three rooms we held
on the 3rd floor of a motel at the edge of town. It was one of those places
where all the room doors opened out onto a balcony overlooking the pool.
We were feeling pretty good about the band's potential and were getting
a bit drunk and rowdy when one of our stage hands, Rick Reeder, was speculating
on his chances of diving off the balcony, clearing the concrete deck below
and making it into the pool alive. Before long, Hoppy our road manager,
started taking bets on whether Rick would actually do it or not. He started
treating the whole thing like a big sporting event and acted like Ricks
"manager" trying to get as much money in play as he could.
After about 10 or 15 minutes of this, Billy got tired of all the talk
an hoopla. He asked Rick if he was "actually gonna jump, or not?"
because Hoppy was holding out for more money. Rick said he didn't know,
so Billy said "to Hell with this" and stripped down to his shorts,
ran straight out of the room and jumped over the rail. A few seconds later
he landed in the pool. Billy Harrell didn't put up with any crap. Rick soon
followed.
Back home in Virginia Beach, nightclub owner Ron Zoby was planning an
all new-music club at the oceanfront, after seeing how well we were consistently
drawing in his current club, Michelle's. We told him to just make sure there
was a real dance floor. He took our advice and soon The Wave club opened
in the location formerly occupied by The Pequod. It was an immediate success.
We played there many, many times to a packed
house and a floor full of exuberant dancers. It was great!
X-Raves
Shortly after opening The Wave, Ron loaned us money to record an album
of our original songs. With the aid of our new road manager, Peter Ridley
(who had worked at EMI Studios in London) we booked time in a local studio
and laid down tracks for ten songs. This was the first time any of us (except
Peter) had been in a recording studio with the time and money to experiment
and develop material. We added a few sound effects and used some overdubbing
and layering to enhance a few of the basic tracks. For instance, at one
point in "Too Hip To Be Happy" we needed the sound of a gun cocking.
Lacking that particular piece of hardware, Kelly discovered a briefcase
spring latch had basically the same sound. For "Hit and Run" we
overdubbed Billy's marshall drum cadence several times so it sounded like
a whole drum corp. For Driving in the Rain, we were looking for some sort
of sonic "set-up" when a thunderstorm suddenly rolled through
downtown Norfolk. We opened the studio door and shoved a microphone into
the alleyway. A sudden thunderclap peaked the meters right off the scale
but we were able to use it in the final mix. I'll tell ya, making a record
is hard work but it's also a lot of fun. Thank you, Ron and Peter.
After mixing down the individual tracks, Kelly, Mac, Bob Hockenberry
(one of our production assistants), and I flew the tape to New York City
for mastering by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound. This was the single-best
thing we did for the recording because Greg had mastered some of the biggest,
best-known recordings in the world and really added a "finish"
to the sound. Thanks, Greg. Although the final production was not as professional
sounding as many recordings you hear, we at least got our stuff on vinyl
so we could get some airplay and have a tangible product to represent us
when we weren't performing.
Now kiddies, if you're looking for a lesson out of all this, this is
it... We spent half of our money on the recording time and the other half
on the pressing. We neglected the fact that you need that whole amount again
to promote your record! We ended up deep in red ink with unsold
albums. Say... might I interest you in a collector's item?
As noted before, the band had always been an unmanageble affair, for
us or for anyone else foolhardy enough to try. This tendency was finally
leading to internal dissention that caused the release of the album to be
delayed by many months. In those months, more changes were to occur...
page 7 |