Culture- Gig recollections

The Culture at Christ Church, Short Hills, NJ - Winter 1967

Christ Church was THE dance in our area. Every Saturday night, everybody went to it. Unless your parents weren't home, in which case you'd steal some beer and have a party. If you were a girl, you might be babysitting, so you'd have you're boyfriend sneak over for a tumble. But, if you were free, Christ Church was where you should be. To dance, to check out the girls, to be judged by other girls, to check out the guys, to be judged by other guys, to check out the bands, to be judged by other bands, to fight, whatever. If you were in Jr. high you had to be there, whether you went to public or private school.

At this point Culture was playing Yardbirds, Kinks, Stones, garageband stuff and Who. Lots of Who. We were really into The Who. Others have written eloquently about the place of The Who in the American rock scene in pre-Tommy days. If you were a Who fan in '67, you were by definition a fanatic. Their records barely charted, so you had to be very aware of new releases or they'd disappear before you could get the singles. You talked them up to others, trying to coax them up the charts so that you could hear them on the radio in the car more often. When they did come on the radio it was like an air raid siren going off: you had to pay attention, there might be something you missed the last time. You didn't really know why they were the best, except that there was nothing else like them, nothing so loud and violent, at the same time funny and fun. You were part of a secret society that somehow "got it," but what it was you got, you really weren't sure, just like the guy singing in "My Generation:" "d-d-don't try and dig what we all say…"

As a band covering The Who, each new song was a joyous puzzle, another opportunity to make THE GREAT NOISE. We listened to those singles over and over, "figuring out" every detail. Who was going to play what? How could we nail the harmonies? Could we use the 12 string to play that harpsichord part? At one time or other I think we played, live, every song the Who released in the US between 1965 and 1970. We played all the songs on "My Generation." We played all the songs on "Happy Jack," including the stupid ones. We played all of "Sell Out" We played or at least attempted every b-side, from "Waltz For A Pig" to "Dogs Part Two." We did all the minioperas, and later did all of Tommy. We even did "Bucket T" and all the commercials on "Sell Out."

We were fanatics. We never got that nuts about The Kinks or even The Beatles. The Beatles were every '60s rock kid's real starting point, unless you were a few years older, when you might have gotten a little taste of rockabilly and country from Elvis, Ricky Nelson, Gene Vincent or even Little Richard… But The Who, they were worth being fanatical about. I wonder what our various girlfriends of the time thought about this? They probably wished that we had spent more time working out those nice Motown songs, or more time with them! (Hey, we still know some of them, maybe we can ask 'em!)

The apotheosis of being a Who cover band was doing the guitar destruction act. Even though you were emulating Pete Townsend, copying his rage, wrecking a guitar on stage was really saying something in 1966. Especially in the suburbs, for some reason. We were swimming in money, when we weren't swimming in somebody's parents' pool. We didn't really know it, and it didn't really hit home until The War started to creep up on us. But we knew there was something wrong with it. The Newark riots were right down the road, fer Chrissake. But they really didn't touch us much. The maid still came every Wednesday… Smashing a guitar really did say, "look how disposable this all is, it's all just stuff, and we can get some more." So, being the punks we were, we had to do it. And Christ Church was the place to make a big splash doing it.

Despite what I just said about money, we always seemed to be sort of broke. Some kids had lots of cash, and their parents bought them really excellent instruments. We usually had to save up for a new amp or guitar. We built our own PA speakers, and I built a guitar amp from a kit. We wouldn't have destroyed our best instruments.

When we got a high profile gig like Christ Church, it called for a decision: what to break? For a while we still had our early, cheap guitars. We had outgrown them, finally understanding what was good and bad, easy to play (good "action" was paramount…) After we'd wrecked all the of these, an excursion into Manhattan to find a suitable guitar in the pawnshops was in order. It had to be playable for at least the last few songs, to make it all look realistic. This gig was the swansong of my second electric, a double pickup Kent.

I think I paid about $80 for this guitar. There's a posed photo of my entire family, on the front porch, all dressed up for the Christmas card. I am fingering a "bar-chord" on my trusty Kent in the back row, so it must have meant a lot to me for a while. I recall it as being pretty hard to play, and rather metallic sounding. After I got my Silvertone, which was a pretty good guitar for the money, I rarely played the Kent, except maybe for a bit of slide now and then. And after I got a Fender Telecaster (a "real" guitar), the Kent was bound to be history sooner or later…

As I said before, Christ Church was the gig to get. The money was good (a couple hundred bucks: pretty good in '67) and if you played there and went over, you were theoretically on the map as far as getting other gigs. All the local greats had started there: The Banned, The Sorts. Some of them even came back to play one of the big holiday dances at Christmas or Thanksgiving. So it was a great coup for us to actually get a gig at Christ Church. You had to get kids to talk you up to the minister who did the booking, and I guess Myke and Bob somehow accomplished that.

We really put it together to do this gig. We had our regular set list of Beatles, Stones, Kinks, etc. of course. But since it was a very popular dance we worked up our "token" soul/Motown medley that strung together current favorites including: Midnight Hour, Heat Wave, Dancing In The Street, Hold On I'm Comin', Knock on Wood, etc. If we'd known more about The Who's Mod beginnings we wouldn't have been so resistant to this!

The dance was packed. We were on a high stage in the church hall. I was using an odd guitar rig. It had to be loud, and my Vox Berkeley wasn't going to cut it. Instead I used our old Bogen PA amp sitting on a chair as my guitar amp, through two Vox Grenadier speaker columns with 4 X 10in. speakers each. I was wearing my faux-Pete Townsend costume: white bell bottoms with white spray-painted suede Beatle boots, a t-shirt and a sort of silver embroidered Japanese silk jacket.

A couple songs before the end of the set I switched guitars from my Telecaster to the Kent. The band kicks into My Generation - only a few of our friends, actually mostly just our girlfriends, have any idea what we are about to do. Not everyone knows the song, but they've all heard about what The Who do. As we are getting into the song, some kids start to realize what's going to happen… They crowded up to front of the stage to watch the action unfold.

We reach the last key change and I start to smash the guitar into my amp… After a few swings I discover the cheap Kent's pickups are not grounded to the strings! A huge blue spark arcs from the guitar to the amp. Pretty scary! It's a wonder I wasn't electrocuted. Screaming feedback! I'm trying to break the neck off the body, but it's bolted on strong, so it just cracks at the body - I'm then able to grab the headstock and the bridge end of the body and bend the whole instrument like a bow and get massive feedback chords! The crowd is stunned, if not a little scared.

Meanwhile the drummer is going berserk, and one of our offstage henchmen (Pat Passerelli, the bully son of one of the local cops - he and Frankie Swantic, a capo in the Pasarelli organization took a few Seton Hall boys - harassing us as hippies - for a one-way walk to the parking lot.) has set off a couple of the smoke bombs we've smuggled in. I'm finally able to break the neck off the guitar by pounding it on the floor.

In a scene not unlike that with David Hemming's and The Yardbirds in Antonioni's 1966 film "Blowup", I tossed the pieces into the incredulous crowd of kids on the dance floor below. Just as in the movie, little brawls break out as kids fight for the fragments. Kev blasts a last bit of feedback from his bass and there's (comparative) silence. The kids that haven't fled in terror start to cheer. We did it!

Then we see the church minister to our right, in the wings of the stage. It's Rev. David George the tweed-jacketed, Up-With-People pastor. He's irate! What do we think we're doing? We've ruined his dance! Kids are fighting, the room is filled with smoke. We could have started a fire. He's got Passerelli, threatening to call his Dad, to call all our parents. He vows we'll never play there again. I can't remember if we got paid...

We went home spent but satisfied, perhaps legends, at least in our own minds. We smashed a few more guitars later, but this first one was the best, as with so many things in life. I wonder if any of those "kids" remember this today and what they thought of it then? Such is the power of rock and roll.

(story by Dave)

In fact we never did play there again. We tried auditioning again a few years later (when we heard there was a new minister) but, maybe they remembered us. Dennis recalls the audition:

"This was my first appearance with The Sky! I remember being told to "look INTO IT", so I guess I did a Mick Fleetwood or something, 'cause I remember Bob saying afterwards "It was good, but Dennis looked like he was about to throw up on his drums"!!! And I do remember The Bruce - we were all impressed, if not a little jealous - but mostly, we knew we were watching kindred spirits!"

The Bruce, hmm. They were our previously unknown rivals, as if anybody cared about a rivalry between local Who cover bands.

Don't recall much about most of the gig, except that it was packed. We were on stage in the church hall.

Bob recalls:

Here's my take on Christ Church. I do not recall an audition. But I vividly recall a gig, after I had been relegated to "manager" status. (No, I'm not bitter.) Not sure about smoke bombs, but Dave definitely dispatched a Kent or Zim-Gar ... much to the chagrin of the Rev. David George (Joe, I'm not making this up,) the tweed-jacketed, Up-With-People pastor. And yes, Pat P. and Frankie Swantic (a capo in the Pasarelli organization) did take a few Seton Hall boys - harrassing us as hippies - for a one-way walk to the parking lot. Our Altamont?

Morris Knolls High School - Fall, 1966 (?)

This was a battle of the bands. A big one: at least four bands. Probably arranged through Scott Butler, our pal and legendary NJ vandal who went to Morris Knolls (the statute of limitations is past, right? More about Scott later...)

Each band had to set up on a different side of the huge gym. The kids would crowd up to whichever band was playing. It was really packed and sort of scary. At the time we were playing a mix of early Cream, Hendrix and, of course, The Who. Dave wore his "Pete" outfit, consisting of white jeans, white spray-painted Beatle boots t-shirt and silk brocade Japanese jacket! Yikes! The few "hippies" who were in attendance cheered us on as we powered through "Sunshine of Your Love," "Fire," "Pictures of Lily," etc. The rest of the crowd pelted us with pennies... ouch!

Maybe we were a little out of our league...we lost. As I recall the band that won was an all-black soul review from Morristown that did killer James Brown covers.