Friday, January 11, 2013

Chapter 11 - Ride Captain Ride

 


LARRY GORDON SHARED an office with Jim Nash and had Doctor Dimento as a client, among others. After a few weeks of negotiations (and after slipping him a dose of LSD) he decided to manage us. He said in his hallucinatory state that he was the captain of our ship and was going to steer our careers in the right direction. It's not that the drug made the decision for him, but he was leaning our way and it had pushed him over the edge.

Around February of 1974 we had hired two brothers that Larry had known from previous dealings: Chas and Richard Sandford. Chas played guitar and bass and Richard played the drums. Their mother, Regina, a very well-groomed woman with Georgia roots, owned a house on McCadden St. in Hancock Park, was in between marriages but dating her soon-to-be- third husband Tom Cherry. Chas was about a year older than Richard and had his mother's side of the family's hair color of crimson red, long and thick with a Fu Manchu mustache to boot. Richard's hair was thick and straight hanging all the way down to the middle of his back. They both shared a common trait - those dark penetrating eyes.      

 Regina's second husband was Peter Sandford (hence the last name) and according to Chas was a strict disciplinarian implying there was some violence in his nature. He did adopt the two boys as his own, but there was a must have been a rift in the marriage and Regina left Atlanta with her two sons and headed for the land of opportunity where anything goes, Los Angeles, California. Chas didn't really talk much about his past and he still doesn't. He says his memory is failing and depends on people like me to fill in the cracks. There's only so much Spackle you can lay on the wall. 

          Chas and his brother went to a rock concert in Atlanta and stayed away for three days. They were starving to death, Chas remembered, so they kept food in the back of the Colonel Sanders for late night chicken lovers. They broke in because Chas knew they kept the back door unlocked and they then scarfed up all the chicken. They were in the parking lot and Chas noticed a cop with high leather boots and all, talking to John, one of the trio of acid trippers from the concert. Chas told Richard who, at the news of this, fell down an aluminum staircase which attracted the cop’s attention. Chas went running through the parking lot toward the woods where there was a golf course up ahead. The cop, barreling down on him, hit Chas with his Georgia State Trooper vehicle. He skidded over a hundred feet, bleeding from his elbows to his knees and was disoriented. He struggled to his feet and ran back toward the cop who yelled out, “Don't move or I'll blow your head off”, and after being run over he believed him. They duo went home waiting for the beating of their lives from their father, Peter, who is the only father they had ever known. Just like Stephen, at the age of fifteen, Chas found out that Peter Sandford was not his real father. A man named Carlos Navia, a native Colombian with a heavy build and jet-black hair was.           

          I have never known anyone who will “take it to the limit” more than my friend Chas Sandford. His triumphs and disasters are monumental. If there is anyone I know who would put it all on red or black (or maybe 00) at the roulette wheel of life it would be him.

          We started rehearsing in his mom's converted garage - another sweat box but it was spring now and the weather was cooperating. Larry Gordon and the band decided that we should do a showcase and try to find a producer, then a record company to sign us. We would consider all options.

          So now it was now the three of us plus Joey, Chas and Richard making up Silverspoon. Unfortunately, Blair had a problem with Richard's drumming, saying it was not heavy enough, or he couldn't keep a beat. Stephen and I had no problem with him, but Blair was always hard to satisfy, especially when it came to drummers. After gentle persuasion on our part trying to reason with Blair saying, “He's fine,” or “we're running out of time and unless you know someone else, someone better.” Every time he would slow down at rehearsals, Blair would give Stephen and me a look; Richard was soon let go, which was very awkward because his brother was still in the band. 

          We had worked up five or six songs for the showcase set for the middle May which would take place in one of the larger sound stages at Studio Instrument Rentals (SIR). So, Richard was out, and Miguel was back in. Things were getting tight, and we were starting to sound like a real band now. The only thing was, Joey kept disappearing and would come back hours later, usually coked out of his brain. It was the seventies and most every young musician on the planet (at least in LA) was doing some sort of drug. 

          The showcase was creeping up on us and we were all trying to get ready. I was getting nervous having that sinking feeling that everything was going to implode. Nonetheless, invitations were sent out to all the major and minor labels in the area and some of the top producers. Larry Gordon arranged to have the party afterwards at The Continental Hyatt House on Sunset aka “The Riot House”. The night of the showcase was at hand, but Joey was out of hand. He had brought so much coke that we all had a few lines before the gig. As I was inhaling, I immediately thought it was a big mistake, but I let my weaker voice take over saying it was better for all of us to be on the same level of conscience. What a load! This probably accounted for the tempos being twice as fast as they should have been. The curtain was up and Doctor Dimento waddled up to the microphone to give us our introduction. 

          A minute later, out came a motley crew, not to be confused with the local LA rockers Motley Crue, to the stage. I was dressed in a white suit looking very much John Travolta before Saturday Night Fever ever was released.  A thickly bearded Blair was wearing a blue button-down shirt with an unbuttoned red velvet vest hanging down to his famous red jeans. I'm not sure what Stephen was wearing, it didn't matter, his long, blonde, stringy pre-Kurt Cobain hair was enough to hide behind. Miguel had some kind of cool looking suit that was in the style of the day and Chas, with his firebrand hair leaping and swirling around his cherry red Gibson guitar. We tuned out instruments briefly. I looked at Miguel who counted off. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4.

          We opened with She Is The Woman, the same song I dedicate to Kathy Gibbany by the fireglow at the Rainbow. I was playing a Rickenbacker 12-string, Stephen played Hofner bass, Blair was on Hammond B-3 organ, Chas played his SG and Miguel was on the skins. Blair was sitting out on the first verse but when he placed his hands on the B3, there was no sound. He had forgotten that the organ motor needed to be switched on with a toggle switch and needed at least thirty seconds to warm up. He smiled nervously and pretended it was working until he boomed in on the second chorus.

Everything was super-fast, but it also had a lot of raw energy or drug induced energy, maybe a bit of both. All That You Feel was next and it had the same instrumentation. It was a song penned by Stephen, singing in his best croony little voice reminding me of a cross between Gerry Beckley and Emmit Rhodes. Unfortunately, it was speeding along like a NASCAR race. I remember when we had this song transcribed, we gave a cassette tape to this guy in downtown LA who did this kind of thing as a sideline. The line, “You might find love through a tragedy” was interpreted as “you might find out you're imagining.” I’m not sure which one I prefer.

          On the third song, Be My Baby In Between, Chas switched with Stephen and picked up the Fender bass. I had done the ultimate faux pas, rhyming moon with June, but I think I got away with it. “Well, I'll be flying to the moon, then I'll be harvesting in June so won't you be my baby in between.” What kind of crop would you harvest in June, anyway? I used to laugh when Raffi and Miguel would sing their version of it, “tacos, enchiladas and re-fried beans, won't you be my baby in between.”

Floating on a Cloud our cerebral tune with lyrics was fourth “Floating on a cloud she comes in view. Slowly from a cloud she comes to you. And when she says she's right you're wrong. Cause when it's time to go we're gone, we're gone”. Very psychedelic with Stephen and I droning along; me on my Rickenbacker 12 string and him on the Hofner. Chas was playing some kind of Duane Allman slide on his Gibson and Miguel was doing his best Ringo. The last song was our ultra-Beatles-like You Hurt Me So which I personally think sounded the best. The song, if I say so myself, was a definite contender. A mid-tempo ballad with Bach-like changes written after I had broken up my with first love. You hurt me so I cry myself to sleep each night, I am alone. It hurts so bad I cannot talk to anyone, so I stay home. So, why'd you turn me down? Why'd you make me cry? I try to tune you out, but you stay on my mind. How can I go on without you? Without you.

         Blair was quoted in Ken Womack’s book, “We had never done anything, Literally. And by this point we had developed a reputation as a bunch of slackers." Rodney Bingenheimer was quoted as saying that Silverspoon talks the best show in town. * Joey looked like a frightened rabbit in the headlights and kept staring at himself in the wall-to-wall mirror at the back of the room. Stephen was still hiding behind his long blonde hair and picking out solos from somewhere in the great beyond. Blair remembers that instead of an eight-bar solo, Stephen played for over a minute and there was no way any of us could get his attention. If we were good, I wasn't sure because there are no tapes of the gig. It only exists in the minds and hearts of the people involved. Did we change the course of history with our musings? I don't think so, but one never can be sure of such things. There is one thing I can say for sure - we were f-ing loud!


*Living the Beatles Legend by Kenneth Womack

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