I was going thru a stack of old Scene Magazines from the early seventies yesterday that I picked up for reference material for clevelandrockandroll.com and man that started my trip down memory lane.
It got harder and harder to do the job I had in front of me as I kept reminiscing with each page I turned. The concerts, the stories, the old photos, the old bars, basically the old times and they were all sitting in front of me in the withered, yellowed pages.
Thinking about it, Scene Magazine has really been a part of my life for most of it. Weekly for the past 40 years the paper has been around, I have picked it up in bars, record stores, clothing stores, head shops (okay that was in the 70’s, not now……….well……..) to see what was happening around town and looking back, it really has been a great snapshot of the times.
Looking back, do you remember trying to
figure out where to go out too? Let’s take a Thursday night when at the Harbor Inn down in the Flats (before it really was the Flats), Eli Radish (with David Allen Coe and Danny Sheridan) ruled the stage or Fully Assembled did the same at the Longhorn in Maple Hts or Sweetleaf was playing at The Utopia, Circus at The Agora or you asked your buddy, where was Tiny Alice playing tonight, how about Glass Harp? Grab a Scene and find out. Remember buying albums? Do you remember buying them at Clarkens? Or Woolworths? Or Disc Records? Or Recordland? Or Music Grotto? Do you remember paying $2.49 for the new releases?
Going thru the ads themselves. Do you need a waterbed, then go to The Water Works on Noble Rd and get one for only $24.50. There’s a bikini contest at the Eastown Motor Hotel on Euclid Ave Saturday night. (Eastown Motor Hotel! Where in the hell was the Eastown?) How about the sale at Fox’s Audio Center in Kamms Corner, 8-tracks are on sale for only $2.95 including The Carpenters and Led Zeppelin III. It’s like a matched set! Want to go to a movie? “Dagmar’s Hot Pants Inc.” is playing at The LaSalle, Mapletown, Canal Road Drive-In and at the Mentor Drive-In. Ohhh, Budweiser just came out with a Malt Liquor as they say in the ad “finally a Malt Liquor good enough to be called Budweiser”. (boy that lasted a long time) The TV cops of Adam 12 will be at the Auto-Rama along with James Brolin. Don’t want to miss that! Over at Audio Hall you can get a complete Pioneer AM/FM receiver with turntable and speakers for $399 and you get a free Blood Sweat and Tears poster. Go to Bob’s Sohio on Detroit Rd and get your gas pumped by Bob’s Girls in hot pants! This one I really don’t get but love. At Air Con in Willowick buy a tape get a free turtle! Don’t buy a tape get 2 free turtles!!!! and of course the full page ad’s that ran each week for Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill wine. Wow now that brings back memories, no what that probably did for me was kill more brain cells than anything I could have drank at the time but at least we were all a little preserved with the formaldehyde in each bottle. Ahhhh the good times…….
Then there are the concerts. The Scene was the best source of information on who was coming to the Cleveland area and everyone came to Cleveland. Until going thru these old papers, I didn’t really know there were other promoters in the area other than Belkin Productions at the time. A Friend Productions, American Concerts and Stone Head Productions were all here in the early 70’s and the music fans of Cleveland were the benefactors. Can you imagine now in 2009 seeing bands such as Pink Floyd at Case Western Reserve University, Jethro Tull at Admiral King High School, or Edgar Winter at Normandy High School? How about all of the concerts at the gymnasiums of Kent State, the College of Wooster, John Carroll University? I’m not talking about teen dances at these gyms but bands such as Emerson, Lake And Palmer, Frank Zappa, Uriah Heep, Yes, The James Gang, The Beach Boys, Deep Purple, The Eagles, The Kinks to name just a few. Pick up The Scene back then to figure out where you were going to spend your hard earned $5.00. Do I go see Dave Mason and Jo Jo Gunne at the Allen Theatre on Sunday or wait until Tuesday to see Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac at the Akron Civic Theatre. Hold on, Humble Pie and J. Geils Band are at Public Hall on Friday and on Saturday Deep Purple and Buddy Miles are playing in Akron and Pink Floyd is there next Wednesday. What do I do? I only have $5.00….. It is a been a real trip to go thru these old Scenes. I have sent
Danny some of the old Eli Radish photos I found and my good friend Alex Bevan write-ups I found of him, they are great to read and reminisce. Seeing Peanuts in 
the old issues and still seeing him around town now when I go to shows, some things haven’t changed. (Okay Peanuts maybe we are both a little older!). Reading about Jim Bonfanti and David Smalley leaving the Raspberries back in 1973 and here in 2009 they are re-united and performing again. It’s like we have come full circle.Well it’s time to get back to work and stop looking thru the time machine. Wait what’s in that box in the corner? 1974-1976 Scene’s! Oh boy, another day lost to the seventies and my memories………..
Nuff said, least till next week
Peace Out
Bear
Look I would love to see and hear Pink Floyd together live but you’re not going to see David Gilmour and Roger Waters on a stage again. The five song reunion they did for Live 8 in 2005 was the last time anyone is going to see them together. (A little side note: If you have not seen this show, go out, buy it, rent it, see if it’s on youtube, but don’t miss it. It was amazing. Not only for us Pink Floyd fans, but every band that played that day stuck around all day just to watch perform again live. That tells you what a special event it really was. Also watch Disk 4 with the behind the scenes rehearsal, amazing stuff) 
For listening to The Beatles, there is no better band than the Fab Faux. This band is comprised of Will Lee, Rich Pagano, Jimmy Vivino, Frank Agnello and Jack Petruzzelli. You might recognize Will Lee from David Letterman’s band and Jimmy Vivino from Conan’s but these are some of the top session musicians in NY and all are touring musicians playing with artists like Ian Hunter, Levon Helm, Robbie Robinson, Ray Charles, Joan Osborne, Rufus Wainwright, Donovan, Marshall Crenshaw, Al Kooper, Bette Midler, Steely Dan, BB King, Billy Joel, Carly Simon, and Ronnie Spector to just name a few. If that is not enough talent on stage, the backing horns section includes Tom “Bones” Malone who played with Woody Herman, Frank Zappa and the greatest “cover” band ever, The Blues Brothers as well as Tom Timko from Blood Sweat and Tears and Toto. There is so much talent on one stage. In a Rolling Stones article that first brought the Fab Faux to my attention, Jimmy Vivino tells of a conversation with Will Lee about joining the Beatles band that Lee and Pagano were putting together. Lee explained to Vivino “I'm talking about the way classical musicians start a chamber orchestra to play Mozart. I'm talking about playing the Beatles' songs and records live, as perfectly as we can.” and they do. They reproduce the Beatles in a way the Beatles themselves knew they could not back when they were together. From the same Rolling Stones article Rich Pagano says “"When we play the early stuff, it's fun," but when we play the later stuff, it becomes an enigma, this dream state -- how it would have been." I can attest to this. I have seen them twice in the past year and was blown away. I knew because of the talent of the musicians that the music would be great but what really blew me away is how the five of them can reproduce the vocals to a point that is right on but not fake. They are not trying to be John or Paul but their natural voices just make the music jump at you. It is very cool when they do their special shows also where they’ll play the White Album in its entirety or the Solo Works shows. This is a not miss band! Look how many “tribute bands” can sell out Radio City Music Hall? 
We are blessed in the Cleveland area to have one of the best Pink Floyd tribute bands in the country right here so when I need my Floyd fix, I find where Wish You Were Here is playing. Wish You Were Here has been a local staple of the Cleveland music scene since 1987 when Eric "Eroc" Sosinski and Jim Tigue formed the band Harvest and during their shows played sets in tribute to Pink Floyd. In 1995 the band changed to exclusively play Pink Floyd and Wish You Were Here was born. The nine piece band reproduces the sound and music of Pink Floyd but their shows offer a visual experience you are not soon to forget. As Eroc told me “some musicians think all they have to do is basically learn a band's songs and dress up like them or have a light show like them, and that makes them great. But it takes much more than that to really get to the "essence" of a particular band you are tributing.” I agree 100% with Eroc. I have seen many, many bands think they jump on a stage, put some makeup on or flash a couple of lasers across the audience and they are doing the music justice and most just don’t cut it. Look I know when I go to see Wish You Were Here I am not going to hear David Gilmour’s voice or guitar work but I want to hear quality music and that is what I get when I go to a WYWH show. I am not the only one thinking this. They sell out the House of Blues and Tower City Amphitheatre whenever they play there. Listen to them play Run Like Hell, Brain Damage, Sheep or Dogs (I think two of WYWH best songs they do, it actually brought me back to listening to Animals after seeing them do it live) or Comfortably Numb and tell me you didn’t have a great time at the show. Isn’t that what a concert is supposed to be, fun! 
This last band is kind of an enigma to me of how it came to be a so called “cover band”, but seriously this is not your average cover band. Before I tell you who it is I have to tell you about seeing them last year in concert. I first heard them on Howard Stern playing in studio and I sat in my car would not go in the house as I had to hear the whole part of the show they were on. I had not heard songs being sung like they were doing on the show. I immediately went into the house and googled them to see if they were coming to Cleveland anytime soon and they were coming the next month to Tangiers. I called Tangiers and got tickets and couldn’t wait for the show. When they came, I have to honestly say it was one of the best shows I have EVER heard and I have been to over 1000 shows in my lifetime. After two hours of fantastic music I actually wanted more, I didn’t want the show to end. Who am I talking about? The band is called Shaw-Blades. You are probably saying who? Shaw-Blades is Tommy Shaw from Styx and Jack Blades from Night Ranger and of course when they teamed up in the 90’s with Ted Nugent they formed Damn Yankees. Now you get the name Shaw-Blades don’t you. They got together and made a very good album together of originals called Hallucination but the next album they recorded they wanted to do the songs that influenced them and so the album “Influence” was recorded and a phenomenon was born. In their concert it is just them along with LA guitarist Will Evankovich playing acoustic guitars and harmonizing on classics like Summer Wind (I hate the original, love their version), Your Move by Yes, Simon and Garfunkel’s I Am A Rock and Sounds Of Silence, The Hollies On A Carousel (you read in one of my earlier stories that I think this version blows the Hollies version away) and one of my all time favorite songs Dirty Work by Steely Dan. It has to figure when you put together two of the best rock vocalists on a stage, the end product has to be great, and it is. Look I liked Styx, Night Ranger and Damn Yankees in their own right but to sit back and hear Tommy and Jack do some of my favorite songs from other artists in such an intimate setting with their harmonies can’t be described by words. It is just music at its best. You know the best part? They are in the studio recording Influence II. Can’t wait for the tour! 
