We met at the Newark Valley Railroad Station at 3 o’clock. Ours were the only cars parked on the open grass field across the tracks. The trains have not traveled along these worn and rusty rails for many years. The building that once housed a ticket office and passenger waiting area is now a threadbare museum, with a long glass case holding wooden tools and other artifacts, along with old maps and several black and white photographs of people wearing stern expressions and outdated clothes. We introduced ourselves to a man in coveralls who was setting up folding chairs. Otherwise, we were alone.
Bob had arranged this job for us, and we did not know what to expect. Newark Valley (pronounced Nerk Valley, as we would learn before the night was over) is a rural community that is located nearly 20 miles from the closest mall, movie theater, or McDonald’s. To date, we had played only clubs and bars. This place served popcorn, hotdogs and soda, no alcohol. There was also no dance floor, just row after row of chairs facing the front of the room where we were setting up our gear. These people would not be here just to listen to music. They would be expecting a show. If they came out at all.
We learned that the local Historical Society sponsors an entertainment event at the station every Friday night from late June till September, that we were the first performers of the 2009 season, and that they could not anticipate whether or not anyone would actually show up to hear us. Performing musicians feed off of audience energy – the stronger that energy, the easier it is to perform at a high level. After three jobs in a row playing to no more than a handful of listeners, I was working hard to keep my enthusiasm from waning.
Once our soundcheck was completed, we went to the only restaurant in town, a pizza and pasta place just a couple of blocks away. At about 15 minutes before our start time, we gulped down the last few bites of food, paid our checks, and hustled back to the station, When we pulled into the grass lot, there were only a couple of spaces left. Inside the open doors of the building, we could see people, lots of people. A few more were milling around outside. This is just what had always wanted – a full house. Then our sound man, Kevin, pulled me aside and said, “We might be in trouble. These people will probably be expecting country music.” And suddenly I visualized the scene from The Blues Brothers movie, where the band rocks in front of a hostile crowd in a country and western bar.
Unlike Jake and Elwood, we did not have to duck any flying beer bottles as we played. Once we were into our first number, we realized that this was going to be a good night. They tapped and clapped and sang along. When we took a short break, they hung around and ordered (soft)drinks and dogs, and when we started up again they were all back in their seats. When we thanked them and said goodnight at the end of the show, the applause rose higher, and the woman in charge of the event spoke up from the refreshment counter and said, “That means they want an encore, you know.” Yes, I knew. But I was in no rush to start up again. I wanted to savor this moment for as long as possible.
The afternoon before a performance is spent relaxing, watching a couple of concert DVDs, drinking lots of water, and warming up the singing voice. Sometime around 3 o’clock, I’ll pack my gear into my car, including the clothes I will wear on stage – three or four white cotton shirts, black dress pants, black vest and shoes. The band members and sound man arrive at the venue around three hours early, so we’ll meet at 6 for a 9 o'clock start. We haul speakers, string cables, tune our guitars, and complete a sound check, usually playing one or two warm up songs to make sure our levels and our mix are set properly for the room acoustics. Then, I find a quiet place to sit and calm my nerves.
Set up and tear down take nearly three hours, sometimes longer. We generally play from three to four hours per night. Add in travel time and expense, plus countless rehearsal hours, and it becomes obvious that we’re not in this for the few dollars we might take home at the end of the night.
We are doing this for the shear pleasure of making music we love and sharing that music with an appreciative audience. When we’re not attracting patrons and filling chairs or barstools, club owners are unhappy because they’re not making money, and we’re unhappy because we are denied the one thing that drives us as performers.
The lounge in the Number 5 Restaurant is the place to be on Friday and Saturday nights for young professionals. I have never been in there as a customer when the bar and the dance floor were not packed with people. As many as four bartenders are usually kept hustling all night. Yet for our first appearance there, we played for our wives and a handful of strangers scattered around a few tables and along the bar. Thankfully, I did not see the owner all night. We were scheduled to play until 1:30 a.m., but the manager stopped us a half hour early because the bar was deserted and the lights had been turned up. As my band mates were packing up, I approached one of the bartenders and apologized for the slow business. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “You guys are good. It’s the weather. It’s always slow on the first nice Saturday of the year.”
There might have been some truth to what she was saying, but I had a feeling that the weather would not be blamed when liquor sales were tallied the next morning.
Our next job was to have taken place the following week, but it was postponed due to a communication breakdown. I had stopped into the Wine Cellar Tavern a few weeks earlier to see the owner, a long-time friend. “There’s someone here who wants to meet you,” she said as soon as I walked in the door. She led me to one of the men sitting at the bar and introduced him as the manager of a local American Legion Post. He told me that he was interested in hiring my band, so I referred him to Bob, our lead guitarist who also acts as our booking agent, and within days we were confirmed for a Friday night gig.
Three weeks later – just four days before we were scheduled to appear – Bob called the American Legion and asked for the manager. A woman’s voice said, “I’m the manager.” She was surprised to learn that our band was planning to perform there that weekend. She explained that the man who had hired us had stepped down as manager, and that she knew nothing about our arrangement with him. It was too late to stock up on food and liquor to cover the extra business our band would generate, she said. We agreed to postpone our appearance for two weeks.
As it turned out, the extra food and alcohol were not necessary.
Now that we had two gigs to our credit, I was certain that the time had come to begin a full-out assault on the local club circuit. Surely the word had spread about this fabulous new band that could perfectly recreate the sounds of the sixties groups from England, but just to be safe, I decided to provide the spark that would get us some attention. I contacted a friend of mine who owns a small neighborhood tavern. We’ll come in and put on a free show for your customers, I offered, if you will allow us to use the place for an audition. She agreed (she had actually allowed us to set up and play there once before, as a tune-up for our first job, so she was a little less reluctant this time around since we were no longer an unknown). Next, I composed a letter and mailed it out to several club owners and radio station reps:
Reprise 60s The band that brings back the fabulous sounds of a fab era
Feb. 18, 2009
Xxxx Main Street Binghamton, NY
This performance is for you …
Dear Xxxx,
Please come by the Wine Cellar, 100 Rano Blvd., Vestal, on Saturday, February 28, between 8 and 10 pm, to see and hear one of the hottest new musical groups in the area and enjoy a drink of your choice on the members of the band. We are four established musicians who have been performing in various local bands for several decades. We got together in 2007 and began rehearsing weekly, perfecting our sound for over 18 months before making our first public appearance as Reprise 60s in November 2008.
You are receiving this notice because we believe that our show — a tribute to the music of The Beatles and other 1960’s groups — would be a perfect fit for your establishment, and we’re staging this event because we think you’ll agree.
If you cannot make it on the 28th, please visit our Web site at: www.Reprise60s.com. Click on the word “media” and check out song samples and photos from our recent gigs. We will be contacting you to follow up within the next few weeks. In the meantime, call Bob Greaves (xxx-xxx-xxxx) or Gary Ingraham (xxx-xxx-xxxx) to arrange a booking.
Thank you and we’ll look forward to seeing you soon. (end of letter)
We had lots of fun that night, and the regular patrons were clearly enjoying the music. Just one letter recipient accepted our invitation. We were well into our second, and final, set when I recognized the tall man in the dark dress coat standing at the bar. Jim owns one of the finest restaurants in the area, a former firehouse on the south side of the city. Number 5 Restaurant is the first place I’ll take out-of-town guests when my aim is to impress. I got nervous when I saw him, and I felt my voice shaking as I sang. I thought playing at his place would be a major coup for the band, and a guarantee of our future success.
As we ended our set, I noticed he was getting ready to leave. I rushed over to catch up with him. “Hi Jim,” I said. “Thanks for coming. Whadja’ think?”
“Pretty good,” he said. “You nailed some of the songs. Others were okay.”
Well, fair enough, I thought. Better than a knee to the groin.
“The band I had last night pissed me off, and they pissed off my waitress, too. So they’re out,” he said, pointing a thick, imposing finger at my chest, “And you’re in!”
He turned and started toward the door.
“I guess we’ll get in touch?” I said to his backside.
“I’m out of town next week, but back the following week,” he said over his shoulder. “Call me.”
There is a Catch-22 that exists for performers on the local music scene. You can’t draw a crowd to your shows unless you have built a reputation by playing in lots of clubs, and you can’t get hired to play in the clubs unless you can draw a crowd. I’m willing to face facts: club owners are in business to make money, and a slow night at the bar means profits will suffer. I believe the situation is worse for our band, Reprise 60s, because we don’t have the built-in following that younger performers have. Our friends and close acquaintances – the people who should be counted on to show up at every gig – are discriminating against us by going to bed early. Most 50-somethings have outgrown the compulsion to raise hell till the wee hours on a regular basis and any who do are probably not there to hear the band.
So I was not surprised at the meager turnout for our second appearance. Our wives were there, of course, but the other relatives and comrades had either returned to their homes in faraway lands, or they were still recovering from our premiere show only six days previously. At the time, I did not realize how long those recoveries would last, and that it was already time to start relying on the kindness of strangers.
Overall, we felt good about our sound that night. Our small audience seemed to be enjoying themselves, and we received positive feedback when it was over. One guy approached me at the bar as I ordered my traditional after-show beer. “You have to come back here again,” he said. Well, he slurred it, actually, but I think that's what he said. Kathy, the girl – now a woman with grandchildren – who I took to my senior prom happened to be there for our first set. When the band took a break, I passed by her table on the way to the bar. She said, “Nice job, Gary.” High praise indeed, coming from someone who had frequently witnessed the effects of my maniacal teenage mood swings and who couldn't be blamed if she were still carrying a few resentments.
* Note: I saw Paul McCartney on TV last night. Man, he’s old, but he can still draw a helluva crowd.
Our first official performance took place on the third of January. McGirk’s Irish Pub was packed, nearly every seat taken by the time we took the stage. As I looked out into a roomful of familiar faces, I already knew that we were going to have a problem filling rooms like this for future gigs. Every close friend and relative within 500 miles had turned up for our premiere. My sister had made a seven-hour drive from Richmond, Virginia. Her daughter, the niece I hadn’t seen in at least a half-dozen years and who lived in across state in Charlottesville, Virginia, had come along with my sister. My nephew, who I also hadn’t seen in many years, drove in from Connecticut. Phil’s brother, Jim, came from North Carolina to see us, and his Sister, Shauna, had made the trip from Boston. Long-lost cousins, aunts and uncles greeted each other, ordered a beer or wine, and settled in for the show. Out-of-town friends had driven as long as two hours to be there for our big night.
We had them from the opening chords to our opening song, “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party.” They clapped and whooped and cheered throughout the night. Feet were tapping. Lips were moving as they mouthed the words to songs that many of them remembered from childhood. At the end of the night, our throats were raw and our energy spent, but we were riding a high that would last for the next couple of days.
As we packed our gear and accepted congratulations from our “fans”, word of another opportunity was already spreading. Someone had showed up with the news that Jonathon’s needed a fill-in band for Friday night, and the job was ours if we wanted it. Here was as chance to get another booking and to redeem ourselves for last year’s debacle. Of course we’d do it.
I’m on the stage in my grade school auditorium/gymnasium, the place where I attended my first record hop nearly four decades earlier. The audience has been gathering, like bees to the hive just before dusk. The buzz subsides. There are sometimes hundreds of them, standing shoulder-to-shoulder and looking up at me and the other members of the band, but mostly at me. The silence goes on too long, and yet they don’t stir or turn away or make a sound. It’s as if everyone in the room has stopped breathing and, if we don’t start making music soon, they could all drop from asphyxia. So I grip the neck of my Stratocaster and step to the mic. That’s when I realize that we have nothing to perform — we've never rehearsed or performed together as a group, and, worse yet, I don't remember how to play the guitar.
Since I finally formed a rock band in my mid-fifties, I've stopped having the recurring nightmare about facing an audience unprepared. I play bass and sing in a group called Reprise 60s (briefly known as BackTracks). Nowadays, the humiliations are real. I can no longer wake up after a bad on-stage performance and thank God it was only a dream.
Our first public performance was eerily similar to the one I have experienced so many times in my dreams. It was also nearly our last. A few days after it happened, I went home and started a “band journal.” The following is my initial entry:
Almost With The Band
A Rock and Roll Journal
by Gary Ingraham
30 November 2007 — All day long I could not shake the feeling that my premiere performance was going to be disastrous. I had made the switch from rhythm guitar to bass just a few months earlier. During rehearsals, I was becoming comfortable with the new instrument, but I wasn’t certain how my muscle memory would respond in front of a roomful of critical listeners. At 58 years old, I knew that my reflexes and my stamina had declined considerably since the last time I’d been part of a rock group, way back in 1967.
The stage that night belonged to the Guidici Family. I grew up with Jim Guidici, one of the most musically gifted people I’ve ever known. In our 20’s, we often got together with acoustic guitars to play and sing Beatles’ songs, especially those which featured complex harmonies. Jim comes from a musical background. His father, Angelo, is a singer, and at 86 he still loves to put on a show, performing the old standards made popular by Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and others from their era. Jim’s sister Shauna is an accomplished jazz singer and keyboard player. Brother Larry plays drums and sings, and younger sister Liz sings, too. Then there’s Phil, the “middle” brother, who plays rhythm guitar and shares vocals in my band, BackTracks.
The Guidici family members assemble twice a year to perform in the Upstate New York town where they were raised and where most of them still live, and they always draw a huge crowd. Jim drives in from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Shauna travels from Boston. I sat in with them one night at a popular neighborhood bar called Jonathon’s. I played and sang three songs, and, although I didn’t exactly steal the show, I did receive some polite applause (as well as wild hoots and cheers from my sister and my wife, who are always my biggest supporters). More importantly, I had a blast and my wife snapped some great photos.
Despite my delight in getting to pretend I was a Beatle for a few minutes, I left that night reminded of something I’d learned many years ago—the music and entertainment industries will continue to survive without my contributions.
But my memory is selective when it comes to less than spectacular performances. So here I was again, 14 months later, sitting in Jonathon’s and waiting for my latest lesson in humility. Already on stage were Jim and his four siblings, Phil, Larry, Shauna and Liz. Liz’s son Jamie was on drums. Bob, lead guitarist for BackTracks, had been asked to sit in with the Guidici Family that night. He was joined by the only other non-Guidici, a bass guitar player who has been a regular on the local music scene since the 1960’s. We had arranged for BackTracks to play a few songs when the Guidicis took their first break. Just over an hour into their first set, Jim stepped up to the microphone and introduced a “new band” featuring his brother Phil, his nephew Jamie on drums, Bob on lead guitar, and, on bass, Gary Ingraham. My hand was shaking as I grabbed my instrument—an off-brand replica of Paul McCartney’s violin-shaped Hofner 500/1—and approached the front of the room. I plugged in and turned to face the audience.
Bob, Phil, Jamie, and I had known for weeks that this moment was coming. We had decided to play just four songs—our best four—and we rehearsed them every Tuesday night until our fingers cramped and our throats went hoarse. We were to start with two early Beatles’ hits: All My Loving featuring me on lead vocal, followed by This Boy with three-part harmony. Next, we planned to play the Byrds’ classic, I’llFeel a Whole Lot Better (my lead vocal, again) which would lead immediately into When You Walk in the Room (Phil singing lead this time), a song that was recorded by a British Invasion band called the Searchers. We had worked for hours on backup harmonies, timing and pacing of each song, the intros and the outros, and a seamless transition from the Byrds’ number into the Searchers’. I was still trying to master the very tricky art of playing bass lines and singing at the same time.
I was wound tighter than my guitar strings. I plucked one softly to make sure my amp was hot. I looked out into the dimly-lighted room, to the booths along the wall to my right and the line of tables to my left, starting just a couple of feet from the stage area and continuing to the other end of the room. Every chair, bench and barstool was occupied. A few people lingered near the front door, others leaned against the three-foot-high wall that divided the bar from the dining area. The room had gone quiet. Drinks were lowered. All faces were turned toward us.
There was nothing left to do but to trudge onward and hope that, through some miracle, we would play better than we had ever played before.
Bob was to my far left. Phil was between us and Jamie was behind me on the drums. The rest of the Guidicis had left the stage. I began the count into the first song, All My Loving, when I noticed something large and dark moving fast between Phil and me. Someone else was on the stage with us. The other bass player was dressed in black so I hadn’t noticed him standing behind us in the shadows. He had grabbed an acoustic guitar and was actually lunging forward toward a vacant mic. “No, no,” I heard him shout at Bob. “We’re doing Feel a Whole Lot Better.” Phil had shared our mini-set list with his brother, Jim, who in turn must have shared it with his bass player. I heard Bob protest mildly, saying something about the arrangements we planned and the way we had rehearsed our transition between songs. “No, no,” the intruder repeated, “We’re doing this one.” And he began madly strumming the guitar intro to the Byrds song that was to have been the third of our four numbers. Phil scowled in my direction, as if to say, What the hell is going on here? Damned if I knew. Bob shrugged and began playing along. I started singing and trying to keep up with the bass line. We had been taken completely by surprise, and it came across in our sound. I was having difficulty finding the rhythm that had been established during the opening chords. Half way into the second verse, I realized that the man in black was singing the lead part along with me. During the guitar solo, he turned to me and said, “Don’t sing the next verse.” Fine with me. I was having enough trouble keeping up on the bass.
As the song ended and the last note rung through the room, he set down his guitar and left us standing there, stunned by the three-minute ambush we’d just endured. Later, my wife, Patricia, told me that she expected me to drop my own guitar and storm off. Instead, I nodded to the others and began my count … Two, three …
And we made it through the rest of our songs with only a few glaring mistakes. I blew part of the bass line on All My Loving, but later Jim congratulated me on that song, commenting that I hit every note “dead on,” so I guess my flubs weren’t as noticeable as I’d feared. Patricia said she loved This Boy because she thought I was singing directly to her (I was). And Phil claimed he had received positive feedback on our last song, When You Walk in the Room. I have to agree that we nailed that one as a group, probably because by then we’d had time to recover from our initial shock and awe.
My experience on that night left my mind’s door open to that familiar prowler, self doubt. The questions dogged me. Am I too old for this? Do I suck at it? Does anyone really want to listen to a grandfather singing rock and roll music?
But then comes the most important question of all: Who am I doing this for?
Is it for the Guidicis?
No.
Is it for the people out there who may just be too polite to get up and walk out in the middle of our performance?
No again.
Is it for my wife who never fails to encourage me, for my band mates who consistently praise my on-going progress on the bass, or for the member of The Family who reportedly told Phil that we never should have gotten up on stage that night at Jonathon’s because we just aren’t good enough?
No, no, and hell no!
I’m doing this for me.
And I’m not ready to give up just yet.
Just a few days after our introductory performance, we learned from Phil that his nephew, Jamie was quitting the band. Although we didn’t know it at the time, that night at Jonathon’s Restaurant we had lost our drummer along with a significant but redeemable measure of dignity.
Bob, Phil and I continued to rehearse Tuesday nights at the church where Bob is a member and the former musical director. Sometimes, on Saturday mornings, we would meet at my house to work specifically on our two and three-part vocal harmonies, trying our best to duplicate the sounds of the sixties’ British Invasion groups that included the Beatles, the Searchers, Herman’s Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas. We changed our name, becoming Reprise 60s, to better reflect the musical niche we were creating for our band.
We considered billing ourselves as a three-piece vocal group, but we always knew that the right drummer would be crucial to the mix we were seeking. One night, as we were setting up for rehearsal, Bob mentioned a friend, Mike, who might be interested in joining us on the drums. We agreed to give Mike a try. A few minutes into his audition, we knew that he was a perfect fit for our band. He had just the skills we were looking for in our percussionist. And Mike continued to sound better with every rehearsal. As we got to know him, we realized that he takes the time to listen to each song as it was originally recorded, picking up on nuances that a lesser drummer would surely miss. A few weeks after Mike joined the band, we added an equally important element – our sound engineer, Kevin. (Although he doesn’t play an instrument or sing, Kevin is as much a member of Reprise 60s as any of the four musicians.)
At Mike’s request, we began rehearsing at his father’s house. Here I was, a fifty-something-year-old grandfather, playing rock and roll every Tuesday in my friend’s parents’ garage. Give me an old Mercury station wagon to drive, a 10 o’clock curfew, plus a thicker head of hair and it would be 1967 all over again.
As October arrived and the temperatures began to drop, the unheated garage was no longer an option, so we moved back to the church. Another dozen Tuesday nights would go by before we would make our first public appearance as Reprise 60s.
