Memoirs

Masters of Mardi Gras

~ Joe Accardi ~ Leave a comment

To most folks, New Orleans naturally comes to mind as Mardi Gras approaches.  To be immersed in a carnival of such profound excess must be something undoubtedly special.  However, I confess to having only experienced that celebration vicariously as a viewer of the nightly news whenever Fat Tuesday rolls around each year.  The New Year’s Eve that Sylvia and I celebrated in New Orleans with some friends years ago was great fun, but probably nothing like my imagined Mardi Gras parade where drunken revelers tear at their clothes and flail around in a Bacchanalian snake dance, strings of brightly colored beads flying everywhere.

For a while in the early sixties, my hometown Catholic high school would sponsor a “Mardi Gras” annual fundraiser.  Beloit Catholic High bore little resemblance to New Orleans.  The school gym, decorated in festive ribbons of crepe paper, featured an array of booths, each containing a cheesy carnival game like one you might have played at a country fair in the previous century.  Food and baked goods were both sold and offered up as prizes.  I remember parading around in a “cakewalk,” dutifully attempting to win some homemade sweets, confident my quarter entrance fee would positively impact the bottom line of the high school I’d be entering one day.

Mardi Gras wouldn’t be worth a hill of baked goods without music.  But it wasn’t the saints marching in for this event.  (Actual saints marching into a Catholic school would have been very cool, though.)  Instead, I heard a band playing rock ‘n’ roll as I wandered down the hallway toward a large classroom that served as the school’s sole study hall.  I wanted to be in that number.  The room was packed, not with wild Bacchanalian revelers, but with mostly tame high school kids doing the twist.  I paused for a second in the doorway, nodded to a couple of classmates from my grade school, then strode briskly to the front of a makeshift bandstand on which stood four guys in matching ties and vests, totally rocking out on two guitars, a bass, and drums.

MicsMasters0008

They were Mic’s Masters and they were deep into an instrumental number I didn’t recognize.  Three of them were swinging their guitar necks back and forth in time to the music.  All at once, they broke into synchronized footwork that got them moving left to right and back again, wailing guitars swinging along with them.  It was an impressive display of showmanship and one to which I immediately aspired.

I stood there mesmerized, listening to their set that included a spot-on cover of the Rivingtons’ Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow and some instrumentals that showed off their guitar chops.  Mic’s Masters were the first rock ‘n’ roll band from Beloit to record in a small, private studio north of town and release a 45-rpm record containing two instrumentals.  The A-side was a cover of Sandstorm by Johnny & the Hurricanes.  The B-side, though, was their own composition, Rock-n-Round.  Either would conjure up images of surfing in California over carousing in Louisiana.

I won’t be parading through the French Quarter, carousing to the music of Professor Longhair or C.J. Chenier on Fat Tuesday this year either.  Even if I was, the image of twisting to Mic’s Masters at that small-town fundraiser would remain indelibly etched in my mind.  Beads or no beads, Bourbon Street or Beloit, you can bet I’ll let the good times (rock and) roll on Mardi Gras.  Laissez les bons temps rouler!

(Special thanks to Jean Voss for graciously providing the Mic’s Masters memorabilia.  Click on “Rock-n-Round” above for the full effect.)

Fly Jefferson Airplane…

~ Joe Accardi ~ 3 Comments

A founding member of Jefferson Airplane made his final departure today.  I was a high school junior when Somebody to Love and White Rabbit hit the airwaves.  My band, the No Left Turns, never learned either song, probably because we harbored some deep-seated machismo over whether a guy could/should sing a tune sung by a girl.  This, in spite of the fact we once tried learning Stop! In the Name of Love by the Supremes.  We gave up on that one and likely swore off any further attempt to learn “girl group” songs.  That was mistake number one.  In the meantime, our rivals, the Jaywalkers, did a fine job on White Rabbit which made me quite envious.  Their drummer sang it, a guy whose voice could reach notes several steps higher than mine.

Jefferson Airplane’s songs stuck with me through college.  Some of their music, particularly their Volunteers album, was an inspiration to those of us who openly opposed the Vietnam War and the wholesale conscription of friends my age to fight it.  Guess I was just one of those “effete college snobs” referred to by Spiro Agnew.

I had two chances to hear Jefferson Airplane perform in concert.  The first was practically in my backyard at Beloit College in July 1967.  My excuse for missing it?   I have none that I can recall.  It was a Sunday night show.  What could I possibly have been doing otherwise on a Sunday night in Beloit?  That was mistake number two.

670624 RkfdRegRep AirplaneThe next time I had an opportunity to hear the Airplane live was sometime in the fog of my senior year in college when I thought better of joining a carload of friends planning a roadtrip to another state to see them.  I use the term “planning” quite loosely here.  I’d already experienced one of those loosely planned roadtrips to a rock festival in Wisconsin prior to that.  So I had firsthand knowledge coupled with some practical experience concerning such roadtrips.  I declined this invitation.  Mistake number three?  Perhaps.

It ends up that I never saw one of my favorite bands in concert.  Just a couple of years ago I discovered my Jefferson Airplane vinyl albums were no longer playable.  I replaced them with iTunes downloads and still listen to them to this day.  In fact, I’m listening to Crown of Creation right now.  Bon voyage, Paul Kantner.  I hope you reached your final destination peacefully.

The Trailer

~ Joe Accardi ~ Leave a comment

The No Left Turns traveled in style.  Well, perhaps not at first.  As the amount of equipment we lugged around continued to grow, it became harder and harder to get all of it to gigs in fewer than three cars.  Unlike today’s SUVs, pickup trucks and crossovers, the typical family car back then was a sedan.  And while station wagons were popular, Dad traded in our family’s DeSoto wagon, a purple and white two-tone beast, for a shiny blue Pontiac Catalina sedan.  Not inclined to entrust the new family car to me and my bandmates, I was offered the use of his work car, a Studebaker Lark.  It was a cream white, two-door model with a standard shift on the column.  Cool!  I could just about fit all my stuff and half of my cousin’s stuff into it.  The other half of Mike’s gear and everything else were left to fate.

Sometime around the fall of ’66, Mike’s dad acquired a trailer frame.  It started out as just a plain old steel frame with two wheels and a tongue, but Uncle Bob transformed that hunk of metal and rubber into one magnificent hauling vehicle.  First, he constructed a plywood enclosure to mount on it, three solid sides and a roof.  He included a set of hinged double doors on the back end that opened out for loading, and closed with a hasp and padlock to keep them shut while hauling gear around.  Then he painted the entire thing jet black.

But he didn’t stop there.  To personalize it for us, Uncle Bob stenciled the band’s name on both sides, surrounded by our individual names.  He spiffed it up even more by painting a baby blue guitar under the band’s name.  We proudly hauled our gear in that trailer, pulling it behind my Dad’s Studebaker.  No photos of the trailer were ever taken and even if pictures did exist, they’ve long been lost.  That unfortunate circumstance in mind, I’m left to reconstruct a semblance of the trailer’s stenciling from memory:NLT Trailer compCarrying around our band equipment for miles on weekends, that trailer allowed all of us to travel in one car, with me at the wheel.  It wasn’t unusual to see it parked at the Hollywood Drive-In late at night after returning from a gig.  There we’d order fish and chips dinners and pay with cash from the night’s receipts.  The car would get a little crowded after Jim joined the band, but there was plenty of room in the trailer for his Farfisa organ.  Uncle Bob made him feel welcomed by stenciling his name between mine and Mike’s.

On the first day of summer recess, Mike, Tony and I drove the empty trailer away to check the tire pressure and add some air.  On the way back to my house we heard a strange rattling sound.  Pulling over to investigate, we found a few loosened bolts that secured the box to its frame.  Not having a wrench on us and fearing the trailer would shake apart, we unhitched it.  Tony and Mike would stay behind while I’d go home to retrieve a couple of wrenches.  It remains unclear exactly who did the unhitching, but driving off, I heard both Mike and Tony yelling “Stop! Stop!” while I watched them frantically waving their arms in the rear view mirror.  I braked, but it was too late.  Someone had forgotten to disconnect the electrical harness to the trailer’s rear lights.  About twenty feet of wire now lay on the pavement between the car’s hitch and the trailer’s tongue.  The ensuing argument lasted only seconds as Tony picked up the wires.  Radio volume turned up to drown out further rattling, we returned the trailer to Mike’s house where, sometime after Tony and I escaped, Mike was left to explain the day’s events to his dad.

The trailer was back in service by our next gig and we never spoke another word about the incident.  The No Left Turns even gave up trying to learn the song, Stop! In the Name of Love, three of us cracking up at every attempt, leaving Jim and Bruce to wonder just what was so damned funny.

 

 

The Fourth of July

~ Joe Accardi ~ 4 Comments

It’s the middle of January and it’s miserably cold.  The dog shakes himself head-to-tail, then runs under the table when I approach with his leash.  Finally, I coax him into going outside with me because I know, and he knows, there is some business to which he must attend before calling it a night.  It’s miserably cold.

Business accomplished and back inside, I’m in full “inspiration mode,” trying desperately to come up with something, anything, to write about.  I scroll through pages of half-written paragraphs comprising stories I’ve started, but abandoned for lack of anything resembling a point, a direction, a potential audience.  All I can think about is summer and warmer weather.  Lounging in the sun, cool drink in hand, warm breeze lifting the sweet sound of guitars and drums through the humid air…

It’s July 4, 2015 and I’d been invited to a backyard party in a neighboring community.  “Bring your guitar,” said Kris.  “The stage will be set up with even more gear than we had last year.”  I arrived as a couple of millennials holding acoustic guitar and electric bass were attacking the microphones. They sang of joy and anger, love awakened and love lost.  Only some songs I recognized. One, an Elvis Costello tune.  “What am I doing here?” I thought to myself.  “I can’t contribute that brand of new wave angst.”

The duo left the stage and were replaced by some guys closer to my age.  Kris asked me to join them so I uncased my guitar and set about plugging in, placing my binder of songs on an unused music stand.  Making our introductions, we tuned our instruments and decided to warm up with a little rock and roll.  These guys all knew each other and played together often as a garage band.  I felt like an interloper until they asked if I could sing a Tom Petty song from their repertoire, Running Down a Dream.  One of them handed me the lyrics.  “Let’s rock,” I said.  And with that, we kicked off a forty-five minute set.

The four of us, lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, and me on vocals, did two more numbers from their song list, Spirit’s I Got a Line On You and ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man.  I would have been lost without their lyric sheets.  One of them pointed to my guitar, which I’d surreptitiously placed on its stand just before we started.  He suggested I pick it up and we play some selections together from my binder.  Paging through it, he was happy to see chord symbols accompanying the lyrics.  By the time I’d strapped on my guitar, the guys had already selected some tunes, beginning with the Beatles’ Eight Days a Week.  This was followed by Roy Orbison’s Oh Pretty Woman, and Jethro Tull’s Locomotive Breath.  We were warmed up now.

A pair of challenging tunes by Pink Floyd, Brain Damage and Eclipse, and I thought we were finished.  It was then our host, Kris, joined us on electric piano.  “Let’s do Moondance,” he shouted.  Kris and I had played Van Morrison’s Moondance together on a couple of previous occasions and it was one of our favorites.  The band jammed on it for about ten minutes, with piano and guitar trading riffs between verses.  Finally, we closed the set with Tommy Tutone’s 867-5309/Jenny.  What a way to celebrate a Fourth of July afternoon!

It’s the middle of January and it’s miserably cold.  But I can almost feel that warm breeze lifting the sweet sound of guitars and drums through the humid air…

150704 Da Band
Hopefully, the sign behind me was not indicative of our performance.

 

Light My Fire

~ Joe Accardi ~ Leave a comment

The phonograph needle glided into the last track on side one.  Up until that point, I was more engrossed in writing an essay for American History class than listening to the music, as good as it was.  The sudden snap of a snare drum, like the sharp report of a starter pistol, and my head jerked up toward the record player.  A flurry of organ notes, the product of assuredly nimble fingers on the keyboard, tumbled over each other, filling every shadowy space in my softly lit bedroom.  A brief vamp, and a baritone voice crooned, “You know that it would be untrue; you know that I would be a liar…”   Fully distracted from any meaningful progress on homework, I hung on every lyric, trying to wrap my head around musical patterns and song structure until my entire psyche was ablaze.

“We’ve got to get an organist,” I solemnly spoke aloud to myself.  “No way Tony can do that on a guitar.”

The song trailed off as I walked down the hallway to my parents bedroom, where the only semi-private telephone in the house was located.  I stretched the wall cord out into the hall as far as it would go and sat down on the floor to dial up Tony.

“Whaddya think about getting an organ player for the band?” I proposed.

Tony chuckled in that familiar way that typically preceded a crude comeback.  But instead he replied, “Yeah.  That would definitely help us.  We could learn some different stuff.”

“There’s a guy I know whose kid brother is supposed to be pretty good,” I said.  “Never been in a band before.”

At our next rehearsal, Tony and I decided, with Mike and Bruce in full agreement, to find an organist.  The No Left Turns had recently won the Beloit Jaycees “Battle of the Bands” and would have no problem recruiting more talent.

Jim was only a high school freshman.  The rest of us were seasoned sophomores and juniors, so we weren’t quite sure how the age gap would work out.  Nonetheless, we invited him to audition with us on Saturday afternoon.  I had to drive over to his house, just outside of town, to pick him up along with his Farfisa organ.  Jim carried it out and put it in the back of my dad’s Studebaker.

“Do you have an amp?” I asked, trying to hide my initial disappointment as he climbed into the passenger seat.

“Well, not yet, but my dad said I could get one if I got into a band,” he explained. “Can I plug into one of yours today?”

I could hardly say no, considering he’d already shut the door behind him.  All the way to my house we listened to the radio, talking with excitement about songs we liked and knew how to play — or wished we could play.  When he said he’d figured out the organ part to Light My Fire, I nearly drove up over an embankment, responding “Really?”

Arriving at my house, we unloaded the Farfisa, set it up in the basement with the rest of our gear, made our introductions and jumped right into the audition.  True to his word, once Jim had set up his Farfisa and plugged into Mike’s amp, he warmed up by playing the opening riff to Light My Fire. Mouths agape, we positioned ourselves with our instruments and worked on learning the song as Jim broke it down for us.

The sudden snap of Bruce’s snare drum, like the sharp report of a starter pistol, and our heads turned to Jim who deftly  played a flurry of organ notes, fingers tumbling over each other, reverberating off the basement walls. A brief vamp, and I crooned into the microphone, “You know that it would be untrue; you know that I would be a liar…”

nlt2
No Left Turns: Bruce, Joe, Jim, Tony and Mike (Spring 1967)

A New Lead Guitarist

~ Joe Accardi ~ Leave a comment

Another flashback of my garage band, the No Left Turns…

“I can’t be in the band any more.”

Carl dropped this bombshell on me during a telephone conversation one cold November evening.  For a split second my “What, are you crazy?” alarm was triggered.  However, I maintained composure and calmly asked him why.  The details of his response remain as hazy as the cold night mist I noticed staring out the kitchen window.  It was transforming before my eyes into a flurry of snowflakes shimmering in the moonbeams, and grew heavier as I watched.  “Great,” I thought.  “Now I’ll be shoveling snow in the morning.”  I was good neither at enjoying lovely winter imagery, nor at listening to Carl.  Instead, I obsessed about the overnight weather outlook.  Oh.  And what in hell the No Left Turns will do without a lead guitarist who can sing harmony!  Guess it was time to hit the snow covered pavement and find a replacement.

Tony attended the public high school across the river.  Bruce and I were listening to his band at our favorite hangout, the Pop House.  Tony was their bass guitarist, but apparently he had other ambitions.  In a conversation after the gig, he agreed to help us audition guitar players for the No Left Turns.  Tony was acquainted with Bruce, our drummer, who was a grade behind him at the same school.  Word fomented in the undercurrent of high school gossip, among the swelling ranks of aspiring rock ‘n’ roll stars wandering locker-lined hallways:  “Wanted.  Lead guitarist for band.”

Someone contacted Bruce and we set up an audition with a guy for Saturday afternoon in my basement.  Our first candidate, Randy brought his electric guitar and amplifier that we helped unload from a big-finned Cadillac sporting a friendly adult behind the wheel, presumably his dad.  He set up his gear in the basement.  The guitar was a white, hollow-body style widely used by country and western players.  That should have been our first clue.  Getting down to business, we asked him to play something.  Randy picked out a few twangy notes that could have been a song, but it didn’t sound familiar.  He continued to noodle around on the fretboard until we stopped him.  “How ’bout we play something together,” I suggested.

The difference between three-chord rock and roll and three-chord country music is measured in degrees of twangyness.  Every song we tried with this guy contained flaming twang, an astoundingly bad noise when you’re playing Louie, Louie and he’s doing Ernest Tubb.  He couldn’t sing either, let alone harmonize.  Deeply disappointed, we mustered up an apologetic “Thanks, but no thanks.”  He was sent packing back up the stairs, and into his chauffeured Caddy, doubtlessly headed back toward Nashville.

“Well…” I started.
“I didn’t like him,” Mike interrupted.
“Neither did I,” Bruce added.
“Did you see his cowboy boots?” Tony smirked.  “Pointy toes.”
The tension broke and we shared a chuckle.
“Now what?” I continued.
An awkward silence filled the basement until Tony spoke.  “I’ll tell you what,” he said.  “I don’t like the band I’m in now and really wanna switch from bass to lead guitar.”
Our faces screwed up and while we began to ponder this statement, Tony picked up Mike’s Squire and ripped off a few cool riffs.
“Do you have a six-string?” I asked.
“Not yet.  But I’ve got my eye on a used Telecaster and a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp.”
An audible sigh of relief and we enthusiastically agreed to let Tony join.  He traded in his bass and amp for the new gear after school one day and was ready to rehearse the following Saturday.

The four of us — Mike, Bruce, Tony and I — learned more new songs that Saturday afternoon than any of us thought possible.  Beatles, Monkees, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Rolling Stones.  Nothing seemed out of reach.  We were ready to round the first corner.  In one flash of brilliance we pledged never to make another left turn, walking or driving, but dismissed it in almost the same instant.  Really.  We weren’t stupid.  There was music to be played and cash to be made.  And Beatle boots to buy.

To be continued…

nlt3
The No Left Turns: Tony, Bruce, Mike and Joe

 

Grateful for Thanksgiving

~ Joe Accardi ~ Leave a comment

Every Thanksgiving we gather together, family and friends, to enjoy each other’s company, give thanks and share a traditional meal of roasted turkey with all the trimmings, maybe a green bean casserole, pumpkin pie and the Grateful Dead.  Er, what?

Home from college for the 1970 Thanksgiving break, a friend (and former band mate) and I were discussing the benefits of various aids to digesting the previous day’s meal.  Pondering our options, we concluded that drinking beer would be good, but a Grateful Dead concert would be a more entertaining alternative.  More adventurous too, as the Dead were scheduled that night in the old Chicago Coliseum, renamed the Syndrome and now home to weekly rock concerts.

701127 ChiTrib GratefulDead
November 27, 1970 Chicago Tribune

We took off in Mike’s VW Beetle, heading from Beloit to Chicago on the Northwest Tollway, then wound our way around some dark city streets to the decrepit, aging venue where our senses would soon be flooded by a barrage of music and lights.  Upon locating some questionable street parking, we locked the VW and meandered to the box office, paid our admission and filed into the building, grabbing seats on the dirt floor with the other Deadheads.  A few devoted fans, or perhaps they were members of the band’s road crew,  stepped lightly through rows of crossed legs and tie-dyed shirts, distributing “party favors” among the enthusiastic audience.

At concert time, the house lights dimmed and an opening band, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, kicked it off with a country-folk sound that included pedal steel guitar, masterfully played by Jerry Garcia of the Dead.  It was a mellow, easy-going noise that morphed into electric music with more Grateful Dead band members joining in.  Their finale, and highlight of the NRPS set, was a country-laced cover of Honky Tonk Woman that had everyone up and dancing.

The metamorphosis completed itself with remaining Dead members plodding out to the stage, taking up their instruments and blasting out the opening chords to Casey Jones.  For the next few hours, we were blown away with music ranging from deep rhythm and blues to soaring psychedelia.  When the final strains of Turn On Your Lovelight reverberated through the hall, a thousand or more fans were on their feet, dancing and spinning to the music and lights.  It was a psychedelic experience to be sure.

When the concert ended, I volunteered to drive home.  That return journey would have been routine save for the VW’s brake pedal unexpectedly failing as the car hurtled toward a toll booth.  Mike, sleeping soundly in the back seat, was of little help.  Coasting through an open toll gate, it dawned on me to pull up on the hand brake.  The Beetle came to rest about a hundred feet beyond the toll plaza.  Reaching into my pocket, I counted out thirty-five cents in change, stumbled out of the car and trotted back to the booth.  I handed the change to a puzzled toll collector, mumbled an apology for the brake failure and scooted back to the car.  Hand brake and I became close friends the rest of the way home.

Every Friday after Thanksgiving, I commemorate that Grateful Dead concert by queuing up the album Live Dead, relaxing in my recliner with a set of headphones over my ears, and taking solace in the knowledge, grateful you might say, that I won’t be braking for toll booths after the record ends.

He Was a Friend of Mine…

~ Joe Accardi ~ 3 Comments

Our eighth grade basketball team was looking forward to its game that night.  The entire school had gathered in the building’s main hallway during the noon hour, cheerleaders in their blue and white plaid skirts leading shouts of “Go Team, Go!”  It must have been difficult for our principal to raise his voice above all the noise.  When he finally got our attention he announced, voice faltering, that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas.  Gasping and then silence among us.  Stunned, I walked back to our classroom.  We listened to the news broadcast over the school’s PA system.  President Kennedy was dead.

Two years later I bought an album by the Byrds, Turn, Turn Turn!, on which they included a traditional folk song, lyrics altered to lament the assassination of President Kennedy, He Was a Friend of Mine.  Every year on this day I am reminded of that song and the depth of my sadness surrounding the event 52 years ago.  Where were you that day?

Byrds

Stranger in Paradise

~ Joe Accardi ~ Leave a comment

Sifting through a worn shoe box of old family photos many years ago, I spotted a black and white snapshot of five-year-old me playing with a toy drum kit in front of the Christmas tree.  Placing it back in the box, I forgot about that old picture until recently when my sister located it following a brief volley of emails between us.  She scanned and sent it to me, confirming my memory.  Drumsticks in hand, my arms are poised to pound on those skins like a ham-fisted carpenter ready to drive nails into a two-by-four.  Not an unwelcome surprise, my sister was in the photo too, sitting in her tiny rocking chair, cradling a life-size baby doll in her arms.  Why didn’t I remember that?   Rather than obsess, I cropped her out of the shot to more closely match my memory of the event.  Don’t worry.  She still has the original print.  I don’t know what ever became of the drums or the rocking chair, but my sister is fine and I never grew up to be the next Gene Krupa.

Joe - Christmas 1955
Author with drums. No sister.

As a kid born of first generation American-Italians, it was only a matter of time before picking up a real musical instrument would become reality.  A search for just the right one began in grade school.  It might have been a  Harold Hill-type salesman from the local music store, dropping high-pressure buzzwords like “woodwind” and “embouchure” and “Stan Getz.”  Or perhaps it was the sweeping shape of the instrument itself, brass keys gleaming in the sunlit storefront window, beckoning like a siren singing to Odysseus.  Whatever the circumstances, a slightly tarnished, used alto saxophone was selected and brought home.  A small tag which carried a handwritten rental number was secured by white string to the handle of its carrying case.

Accompanying the instrument were private lessons at the music store and group lessons at my grade school.  Group lessons evolved into the formation of a small combo which, for all intents and purposes, was called a band.  It was comprised of one or two clarinets, a cornet, a flute and my saxophone.  The instrument also was accompanied by the requirement of regular practice to make its rental worth the monthly cost.  Apparently, I did well enough over time to earn a saxophone of my own, compliments of Mom and Dad.  To show my appreciation I practiced faithfully and learned a handful of songs.

Know it or not, you’re probably familiar with Alexander Borodin’s musical composition, Gliding Dance of the Maidens.  Specifically, it’s the second piece from a long set of eight Polovtsian Dances in Borodin’s even longer but never finished opera, Prince Igor.  Few people recognize it by any of those names.  The sheet music I rehearsed was indeed titled Gliding Dance of the Maidens.  But underneath that bold print, a small parenthesized subtitle indicated it not only was the Theme from Prince Igor, but a popular song, Stranger in Paradise, from the 1953 Broadway musical, Kismet.  Like much of the music in Kismet, its melody was borrowed from Borodin.

The first band recital for our classmates was presented via the magic of technology.  Our ensemble was huddled in the rear part of an all-purpose room, surrounded by painted concrete block walls.  It’s my educated guess the nuns weren’t thrilled about herding three hundred or so crumb grabbers through the hallway and into such a cramped space, so a microphone connected to the school’s PA system stood in front of us.  At the appointed time we played America the Beautiful, perhaps a Sousa march, and then a couple of solo pieces.  Emanating from wall-mounted classroom speakers, my Borodin/Kismet solo caused at least one girl from my eighth grade class to swoon.  That was the rumor, verified the following day by the girl herself, blushing cheeks and all.

In theater, a wonderful dress rehearsal can sometimes lead to a disastrous opening night.  The same might be true for eighth grade recitals. That in-house broadcast led to a citywide, evening recital in the Lincoln Junior High School auditorium.  In attendance were my family, my aunt and several hundred strangers.  Though I’d rehearsed a couple of times with piano accompaniment from my teacher, the accompanist tonight would be someone whom I’d never met.  Her rhythm and timing  resulted in us both rushing through Borodin’s composition at a tempo more suited for circus calliope than for alto sax.   Worse, a new mouthpiece reed stiffening against my tongue made some previously sweet notes sound like a goose honking overhead.  Polite applause greeted the song’s coda.  Now the only blushing cheeks were mine.

With summer approaching, beyond which freshman year of high school awaited, I quietly gave up practicing the alto sax.  Turning my musical attention to a recently gifted electric guitar, I chose the Beatles over Borodin.  The saxophone and I soon became strangers and the paradise of rock ‘n’ roll glowed brightly on the horizon, inviting me to enter its glittering gates.

Making a (No) Left Turn

~ Joe Accardi ~ Leave a comment

The deal to work as a private groundskeeper that summer was struck between Dad and one of his well-to-do customers.  Starting on the first sunny day of summer vacation, I quickly learned to appreciate working outside for the prevailing minimum wage, a buck twenty-five an hour.

That summer job enabled me to buy a new bass guitar.  The band needed a bassist and I thought four strings were way cooler than six anyway.  It was a Kalamazoo KB, manufactured by the respected Gibson guitar company but it sported a Fender Mustang body style.  Years later it was rumored the material comprising its body was manufactured from the same wood product used in making toilet seats.  The joke was that it sounded like crap.  In spite of that, it was Gibson’s best-selling bass guitar at the time and it sounded pretty good to me.

I really had two jobs that summer.  The other one was auditioning drummers.  It was light work compared to mowing and reseeding lawns.  Bruce was the first guy who lugged a complete drum set down the basement steps, assembled it, and immediately demonstrated the solo to Wipe Out.  The rest of us joined in, adding yet another three-chord opus to our growing repertoire.  The adolescent bathroom humor would eventually find its way into our public performances as we’d introduce the number as “our favorite toilet paper song.”

Whether it was the audition itself or the fact that Bruce owned a complete drum kit with cymbals, kick bass, and high hat that tipped the scale in his favor, I’m not sure.  Regardless, we now had a real drummer and could learn more songs.  We wasted no time practicing at decibel levels approaching the stratosphere.  To this day, my mother claims to have enjoyed every minute of it.  Mom is a saint.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll just leave my drums here,” Bruce said when we’d finished the audition and it was time for everyone to go home.  “I have practice pads at home.” That inspired my cousin to leave his amp and so my parents’ basement was instantly transformed into our permanent rehearsal hall.  After a couple more practice sessions, Bruce phoned me one evening to suggest getting business cards printed up.  “My brother is a photographer,” he explained.  “We could pose for some pictures and use them for publicity with the cards. By the way, what’s the name of our band?”
When I responded “O-Geez,” I thought he’d never stop laughing.
“OK, we need a new name,” I confessed.  “Let’s think about it.”

Saturday rolled around and I met Carl at a local coffee shop.  Sitting across from each other in a booth next to the front window, I ordered a Coke and Carl ordered coffee.  “We need a new name for the band,” I said.  He looked at me, looked down at the menu, and then stared out the window for a minute before he spoke.
“How about the No Left Turns?” he asked, still staring out the window.
“Huh?”
“No Left Turns”
“For the band?”
“Yeah”
I thought a while, stirring the ice in my Coke with a straw. “Where did that come from?”
“Take a look outside,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of the window.
I craned my neck to look through the glass over my shoulder.  There it was.  Posted under the red stop sign at the parking lot exit was another sign that read “No Left Turn.”
“Cool. I like it!”  From that point on, our band would be the No Left Turns.

We continued to practice in the basement.  One day Bruce hitched a ride over with his older brother, Gordy, an amateur photographer with a 35mm SLR camera and darkroom.  “Gordy thinks we should have some publicity pictures to go along with our new business cards,” Bruce exclaimed, bounding down the stairs.  Then he pulled out a box with freshly printed business cards.  Centered on each was “Music by the No Left Turns” and the tagline “(We Gotta Be Right).” At the bottom was Bruce’s home phone number.  Our names were printed individually in each corner of the card.  It was a masterpiece.

nltcard

The day was overcast and Gordy thought it would be perfect for taking some pictures.  The five of us piled into his Chevrolet Bel Air and headed downtown.  “I already scoped out the perfect location,” he announced as we parked just around the corner from the Beloit State Bank.  We climbed out and ambled over to a spot where the bank’s drive-through exited to Grand Avenue.  And there it was.  The most beautiful “No Left Turn” sign we’d ever seen, mounted under a stop sign on a post behind a flowering shrub.  Across the street, the Corinthian columns of the post office formed a perfect backdrop.  Gordy shot an entire roll of black and white film as we posed in various ways.  A week later we saw the 8×10 prints and understood.  The No Left Turns were driving straight up the road to stardom.  No turning back… or left.

65_NLT_Carl
The No Left Turns: Bruce, Joe, Mike, Carl