Johnny Rollerfeet's Echo Chamber

My first very vague memory is being pushed down a snowy driveway on a sled by my mother. This had to be in Springfield Mass. where I was born. My next memory, I must have been around 4, is arriving at the house in Syracuse where I spent the next 25 years of my life. Snow, as anyone who lives in Upstate New York knows plays a major part of your life. It snows from pretty much October until May. If you don’t enjoy winter sports, which I abhorred, then you hang around and read and find comfort in books, radio and records. If you’re an only child which to a large extent I was in light of the fact that my sister was 15 years older than I was, than music and literature become your best friends. And so it was with me.

My father was consumed with his job as an engineer at Carrier Air Conditioning. Those were different times. The mother raised the child; the father put food on the table and acted as the primary disciplinarian. Because my mother had me so late in life we were pretty close. She was no fool despite the fact that she hadn’t graduated from high school, a fact that bred a deep insecurity in her and caused her to constantly upgrade her vocabulary, but she went to her grave thinking I never smoked a cigarette which either speaks to my great ability to cover up all my drug usage or her desperate desire to believe she was raising a “good kid”. My joke about our relationship can pretty much be summed up as follows: I would arrive home and say, “I got in a little fight with Mother Teresa.” And my mother would say, “What did that slut do to provoke you?” My father and I got along pretty well, he didn’t seem like he wanted to hang around with me much but that was okay because I wasn’t killing myself to hang around with him either. He had busted his ass, not finishing high school himself, but working constantly during the depression, including tons of night school, to get a position as head of Tool and Design at Carrier. A white collar position just above blue collar, and although I think he was proud of it and hung onto it for dear life, I think his real love would to have been a doctor. He was brilliant but this inability to become a doctor, as I said before one of the few professions he admired, bred in him a frustration that manifested itself in cynicism. He could be a cruelly impatient sarcastic son of a bitch. But most of the time when he was drinking he was a happy drunk. And while at home both he and my mother were pretty drunk. My mother on the other hand was a pain in the ass when she was drunk. Almost a completely different person. Not mean, just dumb as hell and it frustrated the shit out of me and led to a lot of resentment on her part because she thought I thought I was smarter than her. Her alcoholism and her insecurity led to some pretty cruel statements on her part. C’est la vie.

Despite the fact that neither one of my parents went to college it was drilled into me from as far back as I can remember that I would be attending. I despised school starting in kindergarten and it never got any better. Sunday evenings were the scenes of massive depression. Once I discovered the exciting world of radio, an exotic land here magical moments were conjured at a drop of a hat I found solace and refuge. My father seemed so incredibly miserable when he arrived home for dinner that I felt I had to avoid his lot in life at any cost. In my father’s capacity as head of Tool and Dye he dealt with salesman constantly. This was during a time when Carrier was supplying the air conditioning for the war effort. All the ships and planes needed air and anything that wasn’t cost effective to be manufactured in the confines of the Carrier factory were purchased in large quantities from small manufacturing firms typically on the East Coast. These were big accounts. They say that most business deals take place on the golf course, over drinks and it was all lubricated through jokes. Both my father and I, I guess a trait I inherited from him, had a great ability to retain these jokes. I think I inherited my sense of humor, dark and irreverent from him. And probably my alcoholism. My father told me a specific joke when I was 10 and when I understood it and laughed; he was incredibly proud and considered it a rite of passage. The entire joke goes as follows: A cannibal passed his brother in the jungle. End of joke. I guess he thought I had “passed” into manhood then.

Despite his sarcasm, my father was not a bitter man. I can truly say he was a “people person.” He could talk with great ease to the garbage man and the president both; he seemed intimidated by no one. He learned to converse, ever so slightly in several different languages. And although he loved music, particularly Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller and would occasionally dabble at stride piano he was dead set against me becoming a musician. He thought until the day he died that it was a phase that I would grow out of. My mother was even more adamantly opposed. I realize now in retrospect that having both of them gone through the depression they felt that being a musician was at best an undependable career, stock full of liars and gypsies, (and I do have gypsy blood in me, my grandparents being from Budapest), they were only looking out for my best interest. But it was a constant source of aggravation from the first grade on.

I witnessed The Beatles on Ed Sullivan and it was a life changing moment. To say I was consumed is an understatement. I thought of nothing else but rock and roll, the dress code, the guitars, the gear, the fashion, etc. I longed to live in London. Anywhere but here. Despite the fact that we couldn’t play, I formed my first band in the 6th grade and spent endless hours drawing pictures of the instruments and the stage plot when I should have been paying attention to academics. I still can’t remember taking any kind of geography class, something that causes me embarrassment to this day at dinner parties. I don’t remember much prior to The Beatles, it all seems grainy black and white. There were some Western Movies on Saturday morning that I lived for and I got heavily into secret agents because there was a slew of shows, I-Spy, The Man from Uncle, Honey West, Wild Wild West, Get Smart, It Takes a Thief, Mission Impossible that I bought into totally, but nothing could overwhelm the sound I was hearing over my transistor radio. Particularly The Who. They seemed to personify everything that I wanted to see and hear in a band. I lived to be some kind of amalgamation of Pete Townsend and Keith Moon. The maniacal intellectual if such a thing exists, and if it didn’t I would create it.

Despite their strong objections to my musical aspirations my parents were pretty forthcoming about letting all my bands practice in the basement. And so it began. A series of feeble attempts, my rock and roll college if you will, to get me to learn how to play. And I was desperate to learn. I wasn’t shy about asking anyone who knew more than me on the instrument to show me how to play. This led to a very pleasant and productive experience working in a mom and pop music store from the ages of 14 through 19. It was a wonderful time. I hate those corporate Guitar Center places now, all those ‘80s hair metal guys dying to show you how they can “shred” and cursing Kurt Cobain for rendering that crap obsolete for the bullshit that it is. The music stores that I love, and I’m lucky to have one right around the corner from my house here in Ossining, are the ones where passionate players of all ages, lovers of music, trade stories, anecdotes, tips and licks and spread the gospel. Like an old school trading post where the people set awhile and whittle, if you will, and you walk away feeling that your soul has just had a gas station like “fill up”. Such was the place I spent the majority of my childhood years when I wasn’t in that hideously boring waste of time: school.

Sidenote: If you’re looking for one of these places now I highly suggest Lark Street Music in Teaneck, New Jersey. The place is filled with glorious instruments; each possessing a soul of their own and you can feel the history and stories as you enter the place. I walk out of there inspired, as in an answer to that horrible existential question: Why are we here and what’s it all for? I’m briefly calmed and sedated and ready to dive headlong into the next horrible challenge, whatever it might be. Try it sometime, I wouldn’t steer you wrong, at least intentionally. Unless you’re some kind of corporate rocker, then it’s every man for himself.

The music store I worked at, although not particularly lucrative as far as a pay check went, (bear in mind I was only 14 so this was all under the table) was a mother lode of knowledge. My duties were small, answering phones, polishing guitars, sweeping up but the attributes in terms of copping licks were great. All kinds of players came in and I unabashedly hounded them for tips. I got the key to the place so I could open on Saturday morning but it gave me access to the basement and sex with young ladies that fancied up and coming guitar players. It was a cherry gig and beat the hell out of working at McDonalds. A lot of the time the owner, who was a great guy, was away, I had the run of the place and as a 14 year old kid it was heavenly. Cranking amps to 10 and doing what we in the business call comparative analysis. For you geeks out there I have to say this. The store had one of the first Peavey franchises, also Earth franchises, we had Randall amps, tons of tweed Fender gear, a couple of Dual Showman’s, Kustom amps, (one of which reportedly owned by the great John Fogerty himself), Marshalls, Vox Super Beatles and AC-30’s, even some LAB amps as proclaimed hot shit by Ronnie Montrose. You gear heads will know what I mean. The rest of you I’m sure are bored to tears but if your curiosity gets the better of you, you can check all that shit out on Ebay. However, I’ll go to my grave saying that Plush Amps were the greatest. They didn’t last worth a shit but God they sounded great. Tone like a Matchless produces now, which in my humble opinion is the best out there. Sorry that I geeked out on you but I’m still like a kid in a candy store when it comes to gear. Matter of fact I’m going to check Ebay right now and see if Plush Amps are anywhere to be found. Hold on, I’ll be right back. Nope, no go. You’ll have to take my word for it, although the mighty Jeff Beck Group used them when Rod Stewart, (the Richard Burton of Rock and Roll) was singing lead and Ronnie Wood was playing bass so if it was good enough for them it was of colossal proportions as far as I’m concerned. Sorry about the tangent there, I’m sure it holds no interest to a non-player but it should give you some indication of how the smell of an ancient guitar case or the aroma of a hot amp tube can still give me a boner.

Working at the music store was pretty uneventful. The owner was extremely anti-drug so there were never any indiscretions there. He was however, very pro-sex so there was a lot of that flying around. Nothing of any great consequence although there was a major fall out with the folk mass group that I was involved in. Turns out one of the young ladies had written some descriptive depictions of some oral sex we were having in her diary and this fell into the hands of her mother. Her mom was head of the church group folk mass so this didn’t go over too well. I got a frantic call from one of the young ladies girlfriends telling me all the things we had supposedly “done” and “hadn’t done”. She hung up panicky and quick and I immediately called my old man because he would have killed me if it was trouble that was drug related but as far as sex and alcohol he was “proud of his boy”. Anyway, once he was assured that this was highly consensual he told me not to worry, he’d cover my ass. Sure enough, within minutes I was visited by a priest, also heavily involved with our little folk mass who grabbed me aside, forcibly I might add, and pulled me into one of the guitar lesson rooms and told me that it was all he could do to keep from jamming his fist so far down my throat that I’d never be able to get it out. According to him the things that I partook in married people don’t even do. From what I understand now, Catholic married people don’t have oral sex. Scratch that off the Sacrament list. What a pity. The owner of the music store, no fan of Catholicism and a huge fan of oral sex was overhearing the heated, albeit one sided conversation and yelled, “You my priestly friend are in no position to comment on what married people do and I think it’s time for you to leave my store.” And threw the fucker out. Hallelujah. Unfortunately there’s more to the story. Luckily I was only 15 because a bunch of church related parents were up in arms and wanted to have me sent away. They arrived, unannounced, at my parent’s house to see “what could be done about the problem.” I wasn’t there, thankfully, I was at the Everson Museum being pushed into John Lennon and having him tell me to fuck off. All in all not my best week. So my old man, an atheist if there ever was one, grabs the priest by the collar as he’s at the threshold of our door and says, “Did you threaten my son by saying that you’d stick your fist down his throat?” Now my old man has got the priest by the balls and he knows it. My father continues, “Doesn’t it say in the bible ‘He who is without sin cast the first stone?’” Now the priest is stammering and sheepish as my father says, “Are you to tell me you’re sinless father?” The priest who is now confronted with an intellect that is WAY beyond his element grunts in front of this hillbilly production of the Music Man like Ladies Auxiliary Club, “No”, and my father says “Well c’mon in and welcome to our home.” Despite the fact that the old man can be tanked to the gills his verbal skills and psychological chess finesse is top notch and he reduced this little meeting to a failed lynching within minutes. Nary a tar and feathering to be had. At one point when one of the mothers alluded to the fact that I may have been overly aggressive or even forceful in my sexual approach my father actually said, “You can’t get a hard dick through clenched teeth.” Okay, so it’s not the “I have a dream” speech, but I still get a huge kick out of it. My father then produced a large stack of love notes from each of their daughters letting the mom’s know that not only was his son not the seducer but if anything they ought to keep an eye on their 14 year old girls, it appears there’s been some negligent parenting going on here. As I was not even 16 at the time my father was not having any entertaining thoughts of me being sent away to any wayward home for boys, these people might want to refigure their parenting skills, and thanks very much for dropping by. I’d appreciate it if you’d let me get back to my drinking, I work hard for a living. End of story. Oh, except for one thing, eventually the priest left the church and married the girl’s mom. Go figure.

That wasn’t the only run in my father had with a priest. My sister, as I said 15 years older than me, came home crying one day because she had gone to confession and told the priest that after three children she and her husband were going to start using birth control. The priest, I guess, starting yelling at her and told her he was going to throw her out of the church. When she arrived home and my father saw the tears and heard the story, he got in his ’58 T-Bird, headed down to Blessed Sacrament, grabbed the priest out of the confessional booth and threw him up against the wall. He asked him, “What about all those people that ate meat on Friday? Did they let them out of hell?” He actually got the priest to apologize to my sister. I think the appropriate word here would be, “Jesus!”

The only other eventful thing that happened at the music store was a guy came in early one Saturday morning. I was alone, hung over having had a gig myself the night before. He pulled out a shotgun from behind his back and demanded this beautiful blond Johnny Smith Gibson from behind the counter. You had to admire his taste. It was a great guitar. I told him, with all the stupidity that youth and a hangover can muster, “Go fuck yourself.” This was not the response he was anticipating. Despite the fact that he shakily raised the gun higher and demanded it once again I groggily told him to get the fuck out before I called the cops. Amazingly, he did. I went about my day, not thinking a whole lot about it until the owner came in, I related the story and the cops picked him up. Another day at the coal mines.

Another source of income was playing for the Parks and Recreation High School Band. It was a big band in the tradition of Tommy Dorsey or Glenn Miller, did all the old standards, in the winter you would rehearse once a week, pick up a check of maybe 40 bucks and then in the summer you would do two concerts a day at different parks around the city on a flat bed truck. Pick up a nice check of about $200. Between the music store gig and the Parks gig I was bringing in some good cheese for a 17 year old.

Of course there was always a series of bands I was playing in. Usually “cover” bands. Just really trying to learn the ropes. Nothing of any great consequence. Some guys had real talent, could learn things note for note off of records and play like their heroes. It didn’t come easy to me. But what I lacked in inherent skill I more than made up for in passion much to my parents chagrin. I worked hard at it. It’s funny because now, one of the most comfortable places I am anywhere in the world is on stage. It’s my own little world that I’ve created and nobody can bother me but initially I used to get horrible stage fright. I knew, however, that it was going to have to be something that I was going to have to work myself through. Through a great series of trial and error and many many mistakes I developed a style I find great comfort in. One would think in light of the two music related jobs I was working, at the music store and in the Parks band, not to mention the various rock bands I had on the side that my scholastics would have taken a nose dive but the reality was that with very little effort I could pull a “B” average which was enough to placate the old man, and so I put in very little effort indeed. As a matter of fact I got a call at the music store one day from my father. As he might have called me a total of three times in my entire life I figured this was serious. He must have heard a rumor that they were administering SAT tests at school, something I neglected to take. He said, “Have you applied to college?” I said, “No”. He said, “Are you going to apply to college?” I said, “Where do you suggest?” He said, “LeMoyne”. It was cheap, and it was close. I could live home, helping with the reduced budget. I said “Fine. What would you like me to be?” He said, “The kid next door went to LeMoyne, became an accountant and makes 100 grand a year.” “Fine” I said. I hung up, applied to LeMoyne, got accepted, four years later got my Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, handed it to my father and said, “Are we done with this now?” He stuck it in a drawer where it remained ever since and I went back to pursuing my music career. I realize now that he didn’t want me cursing him as I waited tables or delivering pizzas at the age of 35, but I knew I had made my own bed and I was going to have to lie in it.

This showed up in my feed reader, but I don’t see it on Hamell’s official site. Sometimes RSS feeds go wonky and Google’s Reader can’t tell where a post came from. This may be one of those, or it could have been pulled from his site for other reasons. I’m (probably illegally) copying it here so that I have it at hand. Hamell’s a great story teller, and his stories are always worth being told.