Chapter 10 - Baltimore

I WAS GETTING frustrated with the band and felt that we needed to grow; maybe add a keyboard player and a bass player. Stephen and I were trading off on bass, piano, and guitar and, in my mind, it really wasn't making it. One night at the Rainbow parking lot, somebody mentioned there was a going to be a huge party at Jim Sinatra's that night (I think he was related to Frank in some way). This was in early December 1973.

          As I mentioned before, the parking lot, wedged between the Rainbow restaurant and the Roxy, was the meeting place where all the boys and girls would make their final plans for the evening.  When it came to closing time (around two in the morning) cars would pile up in tandem waiting to find out where the big parties were. it was a like a battlefield out there with all sorts of stoned out or star-struck folks wandering around the black-tarred territory. Anyone and everyone were fair game. It was now after two am and Tony, the esteemed maître d' declared it was hotel, motel-time to clear the premises. Everyone moseyed outside to the thirty-yard-wide driveway located between the Rainbow and the Roxy. There was the ubiquitous Jean Paul revving up in his dark Pantera, and, of course, the king of the rainbow, Paul Fegen, donning a white cloak with roses, and top hat to match. I can still see him creeping up in his white Excalibur convertible trying not to run over any glittery young gentlemen or ladies staggering by.

          Getting the directions to Sinatra’s party, BJ, Stephen, and I headed out there after midnight. I drove my Karmann Ghia to a place near Sunset Plaza, and we parked behind an odd assortment of vehicles, everything from glitzy Rollers and Ferrari's to weekend warrior wrecks (which mine was beginning to look like). We walked up the long, black driveway that sloped upwards and to the left, finally reaching the wide-open iron gates. Making our way through the throngs, we entered the party. There must have been over two hundred people stuffed inside that old Hollywood mansion.

          It was the usual rainbow crowd, everyone from Rodney Bingenheimer (dubbed the Mayor of Sunset Strip by Sal Mineo) to Dorian Lazerbeam (an androgynous looking man with a lightning bolt etched on the left side of his spiked black hair). We heard some piano music coming from the living room so while BJ was doing some schmoozing, Stephen and I followed the sound. There was this skinny, bearded dark haired kid wearing a silver snake-skin jacket with giant black G clefs on the side and four-inch rainbow colored platform shoes playing some very cool things. We found out that his name was Blair Aaronson from Baltimore, Maryland by way of Las Vegas.

He had just come to LA after spending a few months playing keyboards for Bruce Westcott on Cleopatra's barge in Caesar's Palace. He was only eighteen and just out of high school but had been playing in bands since he was twelve. Uncertain of how it happened, someone had informed security that he was underage and subsequently had to be let go. So here was this newly graduated high school kid stranded in Vegas; what else could he do but call his mom and dad to tell them he had been fired. They said, “It's ok honey you can come home now.” He said, "Forget that I'm going to LA—that's where it's all happening now.”

          Somebody told him the hippest place in town was none other than the Rainbow Bar and Grille on Sunset. So, with suitcase in hand, he approached Turk, the doorman at the entrance. He was a tall European-looking young man with a Clark Kent jaw, who recognized him immediately from Vegas. Blair stashed his suitcase in the closet behind the cashier’s station, then hopped in Turk's Bentley with the license plate that read: JPGT, which were the initials of his full name: John Paul George Turkovitch. He took this as a good sign.

          Now we were standing two feet behind this piano player, listening attentively while he obliviously rocked on. He transitioned into some Beatle sounding number, so we began singing oohs and ahs. He turned around and said, “That sounds great. Who are you guys?”

We hung out together the rest of the night. So, with less than thirty dollars in his jeans and no place to live I offered him a place to crash in the now famous Back Room. I know it must have been a bit naïve of me, only after knowing Blair for one night but that's the way I was (and still am to some degree), loyal and trusting but don’t ever cross me, I may forgive but I will never forget. Stephen is a lot like me in that way.

          It looked like we now had a new keyboard player. It wasn't like at Rosemary's where we had to sneak around trying not to get caught, here at the Haymer house my friends were always welcome. We used to get up around ten or eleven and my parents would have breakfast ready, and my friends would be engaged in interesting conversations with Helyn and Johnny. My dad always tried to convince me that I was singing in keys way too high for me. I would say, “Come on dad, The Beatles have high voices, so I have to sing like that.” He would give me a look and shake his head then do his Jerry Lewis impersonation, demonstrating how to place your voice in the mask of your higher register. It was hilarious! He would often say, “If you keep singing like you do, you're going to ruin your voice,” and he was right—I almost did. 

          I had to go on several vocal rests for two-week periods with nothing but a notepad and a pencil in my hand. In fact, it was Carol Burnett who had recommended her voice doctor to me one Dr. Henry Jacobs. One of his clients was James Taylor so I knew he must have been the top guy. He gave me a prescription for this expensive voice tonic that would soothe the vocal cords. It tasted amazing, like mint, eucalyptus, and sweet licorice. Wish I had some now. Ah, if I close my eyes, I can still smell it.

          It looked like Blair was going to stay in LA for a while, so he called home, and his parents, well-to-do in the higher education field, sprang for an apartment in West Hollywood on Larrabee called Mediterranean Village. It was a studio apartment with yellow carpets, a small kitchenette, and a rented piano from Hollywood Piano Rentals. This is the place where the new and improved Silverspoon would be hatched. We’d spend hours at that piano coming up with ideas which later developed into songs such as Angelique and the infamous Space Tape, that Stephen and Blair had recorded on one of their(drug-induced) stream-of-consciousness sessions. 

          After a few months, Stephen had moved into that apartment and I would stay over some nights and sleep on the floor especially when we were in the middle of some song or adventure, which were numerous. Most of these adventures started out at our local haunt - The Rainbow Bar and Grille. At this time and place we had two motivating factors. First, was to get our music out there; second, unfortunately, was to get high. I’m not sure it was in that order. It comes as no surprise there were many outlets for both. At Village a few doors down, lived this maniac known as Bernie, who had some strange drugs that would, like in Ringo's song, make it hard to find the door. I had written a joke song about him with lyrics –Bernie was a friend of mine but didn't have much money. And all the jokes that Bernie told weren't very funny. Little did I know the joke would be on us.

Then there was Lee, a little Hispanic gay dude who knocked on the door while we were in the middle of some tune. He almost floated into the apartment and proclaimed that “Yous are the ones.” He had told us we held the key to the fate of the world with our music. Now remember, you had to take all this stuff with a grain of salt, but these were magical times, and we were starting to buy into the story of our own importance. In my opinion this led to our greatest downfall of all, but it was the road we were on now, and it seemed we would be on forever. Not so.
          Blair and I were listening to a lot of Cat Stevens and almost felt that we were receiving messages from the lyrics. Fortunately, these messages were of a positive nature (not like Charles Manson who claimed he was receiving messages from the Beatles Helter Skelter telling him he should hurry the process of the black man rising over the white man). I was now catapulted into a more spiritual realm. it is fascinating how once you open that door you become susceptible to all sorts of strange phenomena. So now the music and the words were coming together; we had our own personal guru and were getting ready for our own magical (or tragical) mystery tour.

It is true that I like to party, but I was a tea toddler compared to Blair and Stephen. I guess that's why I always kept one foot on the edge and the other dangling over the cliff, while they had both legs dangling over the edge just holding on by a fraying piece of rope. If there's one thing Blair knew how to do amazingly well was how-to-pick-up-women. I was a little jealous and I think Stephen was as well. It's not that he was the best-looking guy in the world, far from it, but he possessed a certain charm that women found irresistible. His secret was that he would make them laugh. He would say the most outlandish things to them, things that would make me want to puke and somehow, they went for it. If Blair walked into a crowded room, he had the ability to suss out everyone there in a matter of seconds. Ok, there's a guy who has money and can help me, there's a girl I can go to bed with, there's a girl I can go to bed with that has money and drugs. I'll take door number three please. Whenever I tried to copy his tactics, it always backfired on me. I think I might have had my face slapped at least five times over the next couple of years. 

          My charm lay in my intensity and that I had a touch of the psychic. If I met a girl I liked, I would entice her by offering to interpret her astrological chart or read her tarot cards and then numerology. Hey, this was California in the early seventies where anything goes. I always ended up with the more natural looking women who were into things like yoga and running and sometimes sex.

          Blair and Stephen were relentless when it came to advertising their talents. They would talk to anyone and everyone about music or the prospect of getting discovered. it could be a cab driver or a waitress or any of the patrons of the Rainbow. They would say things like: “Do you know anybody in the music business?” or, “we are the next Beatles and you've got to help us get connected.” Somehow, they were walking through The Crossroads of the World on Sunset Blvd. right across the street from Sunset Sounds when they wandered into the offices of Larry Gordon.