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The Long Wind-Down
In 1983, the band continued to play and be successful as it had before,
a no-nonsense tour-de-force of energy and showmanship. Only now, the lack
of management was taking a serious toll in that we were still playing basically
the same places, to the same people (or their younger brothers and sisters).
The band's momentum had stalled but at the time, we were so close to it
we couldn't see it. We were just so busy maintaining a living for the seven
people in the band and crew that we didn't properly
grow the business.
X-Raves v.5
Billy Harrell saw it first. All along, he had held a day job that had
fortunately been very generous timewize, but now he needed to tend it more
closely because he was positioned to take over the business, much like Alan
and Chuck had been before him. So one Spring night after a gig at The Wave,
Billy announced "It's time for me to hang up my rock 'n' roll spikes."
We were all very sad to see him go. Very sad.
We auditioned a couple of drummers and settled-in with another old bandmate
from Portsmouth, Bill Bradshaw. He had extensive experience playing live
and in the studio, plus he had some good origninal ideas. Since high school,
Bill always had very English tastes in music, leaning mostly toward art-rock.
Well, we did a lot of English music and Kelly and I had known him for ages,
so it seemed like a good fit.
It really wasn't. After a couple of months, the "harder and faster"
X-Raves wore Bill Bradshaw out. The poor guy couldn't keep up the grueling
pace we wanted. We tried to be accommodating by playing a few more moderate
tempo songs (there were no slow songs), but that just made it possible for
him to get through the night and no more. We probably should have replaced
him with someone else but:
- Bill was actually a good drummer, just not the right drummer
for the situation
- he was an old friend
- we were too busy to find and then work-in a new one
- we were too weary. He was our 5th drummer, for Heaven's sake... enough
is enough!
I can't say for sure if everybody else felt that way, but that's my take
on it.
Anyway, the worst of it was the effect it had on Kelly. He began losing
interest in the band. Kelly wanted to make a party happen and he felt we
were losing the ability to fire up a crowd. I mean really fire 'em up, not
just entertain them. For my part, I suppose I had adopted
Bill's attitude of "a professional musician". Mac, tended to side
with Kelly.
X-Raves v.6
After about 6 months, Kelly left the band. Mac, who freely re-thought
everything, took over the bass line on the synthesizer. With Bill's electronic
drums, the band's sound was never cleaner. We were covering some Ultravox
tunes at the time and it seemed we were moving even more in that direction.
Synthesizers, intricate arrangements and crunchy guitar. Humm... right down
Bill's alley!
I found that I liked the trio concept. It had a certain freedom to it
and most of all, a great sound! Although the gigs were basically the same
gigs as always, I could see us developing new creative opportunities. Bill
and I had settled in, I think, to see if we could keep on making a living
long enough to build something new. Mac didn't see it that way and shortly
after the first of the year (1984), decided to leave.
This news hit me like a ton of bricks. I found I was totally out of gas
to find new people and go through all that you have to go through to make
a band ready to play again. I decided to call it a day.
One matter was left outstanding, we still owed Ron for the album loan.
We had been paying him off all along (he was GREAT about it) but now it
had to be paid off. I did some calculations and figured that if we played
another 6 weeks, I could sell off the PA, lights and the truck and pay him
back. Everyone agreed to this so we each made our plans.
We already had a gig booked at Hard Times in Richmond for March 10. This
was to be our final performance...
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