I watched with deep-green envy as those lucky girls stroked their soft, pink rabbit-hair rings with delicate fingers that had never touched dishwater. Once, during a particularly mind numbing film strip on the formation of Western Pennsylvania’s rich coal beds, Miss E.C. performed a sacred ritual rarely witnessed by those of us outside the secret society of pom-pom-and-baton sisters: she removed the worn, water-damaged fur from her ring – exposing its naked copper-plated body for all to see – and lovingly rewrapped it to full-fluff perfection! The process was done with such care and precision. Why, it was almost like watching a gifted surgeon graft skin.
Alas, I was to spend my middle school days with naked fingers, dreaming of the day my crush objects would know I existed. Dreaming of the day I’d be able to proudly scrawl D.S. + J.V. = Forever on the cover of my David Bowie notebook, instead of on the inside pages. I longed for the day when I, like the dating girls, would need to conceal my sucker-bites with Maybelline makeup.
Well, by my sophomore year, I decided that Dusty Springfield was right: You won’t get him, thinkin’ and a-prayin’, wishin’ and a-hopin. So, I decided to just give up. I vowed to heed the advice of the feminists – Eleanor Roosevelt, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan – and live my life as an independent lady. “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” the Australian writer/activist Irina Dunn once said. And, by golly, that would be my new slogan. But, no sooner had I decided to live a life of total self-reliance, then something very unusual happened: I met a boy who liked me. And my new I Am Woman lifestyle would be put on hold – at least for a few months.
In January of 1975, I went with some friends to a basketball game at a rival high school. As I sat in the bleachers, wearing my widest-leg jeans and my cherished white leather jacket with blue stitching, a tall, handsome boy with ebony eyes, sleek dark hair and perfect posture began to talk to me. Dave knew absolutely nothing about my low popularity rating, my average socio-economic background, my shaky scholastic standing, my klutziness in gym class, or my non-involvement in extra-curricular activities like drinking and getting high. All of the make-or-break factors that mattered so much in my high school didn’t mean diddly to Dave. He liked me just as I was.
Now, at the age of 15 – for the first time in my life – a boy was asking me for my phone number. And he put it to good use, calling me every night around 7 pm from the privacy of the phone booth on main street of his tiny one-traffic-light town. Each time the operator said, “please deposit another quarter,” I held my breath, wondering if Dave would be able to squeeze out another coin. And he always did. This was his cigarette money, mind you, but he managed to hold on to just enough chump change to make his nightly calls to me. Now, instead of quoting Dusty Springfield, I was quoting the Shangri-Las: When I say I’m in love, you best believe I’m in love, L.U.V.
My grandmother lived in the same town as my new beau, which made for one sweet deal. On Fridays after school I would board the blue and white bus (which I called The Magic Bus) for a 30 minute ride – across the steel-decked “singing” bridge that spanned the sulfur creek, past the identical gray shingled company houses of old coal towns with names like Josephine – arriving eventually in a quiet village named for a Greek poet. Dave and I would spend as much time together as we could, and at 9 pm he would escort me to my grandmother’s house.
We walked the wintry streets hand-in-hand, necked in the icy bleachers of the deserted “Home of the Wildcats” football field, and hung out in the big drugstore, where he showed me magazines with pictures of body builders he hoped to emulate. When I blanched at the vein-popping muscles of his heroes, he assured me that “they look just like normal guys when they’re wearing shirts.”
We had so much in common, Dave and I. When I told him I was taking French in school, he excitedly told me that he, too, was a French student. He said he was inspired to learn the language after seeing a nudie magazine titled Oui. Wow, brawn and brains!
In 1975, Valentine’s Day fell a Friday, which was, of course, Magic Bus day. As I stepped off the ‘ol blue-and-white, Dave quickly approached and handed me a flat brown paper bag. “I think you’ll like this,” he said with a smile. I peered inside the bag and pulled out a record album by a group I had never heard of: Jo Jo Gunne. “My buddy turned me on to this group,” he said. “They’re really different – not like Kiss and Grand Funk Railroad.” What an endorsement! I studied the monochromatic front cover – four long-haired guys sitting cross-legged and contemplative (or stoned) under a stylized neon-tube looking logo.
Just why did Dave buy me a record album as a Valentine’s Day gift? I never discussed my rock-n-roll mania with him; somehow it just didn’t seem feminine. Little did he know that records were my favorite gifts. So, the fact that he had taken the time to choose this rather obscure record just for me meant more than receiving any chintzy, soon-to-tarnish ring or pendant. He wanted to turn me on to a new sound! Now that’s what I call romantic.
The name of the album was “Bite Down Hard,” released in 1973 by a band that chose its name from the title of a 1958 Chuck Berry song: “Joe Joe Gun.” (Rockers are always stealing from Chuck.) Serious music fans will appreciate the fact that the two founding members of Jo Jo Gunne — singer, guitarist, keyboardist Jay Ferguson, and bassist Mark Andes — were once part of an interesting late ’60s band called Spirit. They’re best known for releasing “The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus,” a well-regarded LP that blended rock, jazz and psychedelia. The album’s single, “Mr. Skin,” is an FM radio staple.
Unfortunately, my new Jo Jo Gunne LP was not held in such high esteem by critics. One reviewer said “‘Bite Down Hard'” doesn’t.” But what did it matter? Beauty is in the ear of the listener, and to my ears it was magnificent. From the hard rock opening song, “Reddy Freddy,” to the prog-rock closer, “Rhoda,” I loved them all. And I still play them all.
In the end, of course, the vinyl outlived the relationship. Four months later, on June 4th, Dave decided he could no longer abide by my wishes to remain chaste, and wandered off to seek such services elsewhere. My heart was broken. Now, instead of singing Dusty Springfield or Shangi-La songs, I was singing Peggy Lee’s classic Leiber-Stoller tune: Is that all there is, is that all there is? If that’s all there is to love, then let’s keep dancing.
My first taste of teenage love and heartbreak taught me a valuable lesson: having a boyfriend wasn’t all it was cracked up to be (is anything, really?) I’d have to find other ways to feel a sense of self-worth. When I entered my junior year of high school – free from romantic distractions – I applied myself like never before. I was even chosen as editor of high school newspaper! And, for the first time ever, I took pride in my work. This fish didn’t need a bicycle. Sure, my heart would be broken a few more times. But I’d learned the value of self-reliance. And, as Peggy Lee advised, I kept on dancing – even when I had no partner.
Dave, if you’re out there somewhere reading this, I want you to know that I always give thanks to you on Valentine’s Day: for giving me my first kiss, for the cool album that no one else owns, and most of all, FOR DUMPING ME!!
Here’s a song from “Bite Down Hard,” titled “Take Me Down Easy.” Pretty prophetic, huh?
© Dana Spiardi, Feb 14, 2012
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To me, a record has presence, with its lovely grooves like audio fingerprints. You not only hear the sound, you feel it. With every revolution the sharp but devoted little needle skates upon its grooves so gracefully, waking it to life. Every pop and crackle reminds you that it’s real, not just a bunch of digital signals. Cherish the scratches, for they are a reflection of how much you’ve loved and played the disc.
I’m proud to say that I still own all of my vinyl gems – from the well-worn Beatles’ “She Loves You” single that came from the jukebox in my grandparents’ bar, to my parents’ sleeveless Bill Haley LP, “Rock-n-Roll Stage Show,” which was probably the first recording I ever heard. My LPs sit erect in their shelves near my desk. When I’m stumped for ideas, I glance over at their worn spines for inspiration. I can usually recall where and roughly when I bought each and every one of them — and what I was feeling at the time. Every stage of my life is reflected in those discs: my childhood with the Beatles, my tween days with Elton and Cat, my hard rocking period with Zeppelin and The Stones, my “tortured soul” writer phase with Bob Dylan.
I confess that during the CD craze of the late 1980s I was excited to buy those newfangled grooveless wonders. Sony ruled supreme back then (they made the first CD players) and convinced me the discs would deliver the finest sound ever experienced. I even bought CDs of some treasured LPs that I had owned since childhood. But I never got rid of my LPs, my 45s, or my three turntables – including my favorite, the Sanyo that I scrimped and saved for an entire semester to buy back in 1978. Once I discovered that I could digitize my collection, I spent hours converting analog signals to digital files so that I could burn CDs to play in my car. I never bothered using the noise reduction feature that came with the audio capture software. The snap, crackle, pop makes me nostalgic.
And yes, I do download music when I get that late-night craving for a new tune or an old one that I missed the first time around. But records will always rule and I’ll champion them forever. In the words of one of my favorite groups, 10cc:
Here I am a record on a jukebox
A little piece of plastic with a hole, ooh
Play me
Buy me and you play me then my plastic turns to gold.
So, take a step back in time and go out and visit a record store. Talk to the owner, chat with other music lovers, and smile as you thumb through those old LPs that you haven’t seen in 30-plus years. It will do your soul good.
If you live in the Pittsburgh area, home of yer blogger, click here to see a list of today’s Record Store Day events.
© Dana Spiardi, April 18, 2016
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The thirteen-story tower, located north of the famous Hollywood and Vine intersection, was designed by Welton Becket. He based the design on the graduate student drawings of 24-year-old Lou Naidorf, who served as the building’s principle architect. The tower – the world’s first circular office building – opened in 1956 and houses Capitol’s West Coast operations, as well as the recording studios and echo chambers of Capitol Studios. The blinking light atop the tower spells out the word Hollywood in Morse code, and has done so since the building’s opening.
Sales of Nat “King” Cole’s records generated a small fortune for Capitol in the 1950s. Thus, the building is nicknamed “The House That Nat Built.”
Capitol Records, founded in 1942 and acquired by British recording company EMI in 1955, issued all of The Beatles U.S. releases up through 1968. So, as you can imagine, I own many, many 45s that feature Capitol’s distinctive orange/yellow swirl on the label!
Here are some views of the world-famous building.
© Dana Spiardi, Feb 1, 2014
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Forty-eight years ago this week, The Monkees’ single “I’m a Believer” was getting more airplay than any other song in the country. Thanks to 1,051,280 advance orders, it went gold within two days of its November 1966 release and spent seven weeks at the top of the charts, making it the biggest selling record of 1967. You couldn’t escape the sound. Free-form FM was still in its infancy, and most of the nation’s gargantuan cars came equipped with only an AM dial. So, even the most musically savvy flower children couldn’t escape the pop hits of the day – many of which they considered bubblegum music.
But I was a mere child of 7, and I absolutely loved both bubblegum and pop hits! “I’m A Believer” sat stacked in my blue plastic Disk Go case along with my other favorites from 1967: “To Sir With Love,” “Georgy Girl,” “Ode to Billie Joe,” and The Mamas and the Papa’s version of “Dedicated to the One I Love” – all songs that I would sing in front of the mirror in the privacy of my bedroom, wearing go-go boots and pajamas while holding a flashlight as a microphone; all songs that I would one day butcher in karaoke parlors all over Tokyo, even without the aid of alcohol.
By the Summer of Love I had amassed about 50 singles, all of which were subjected to heavy rotation on my little Sears Silvertone record player. I also owned nearly every Beatles’ LP released up to that point, including the most recent, “Revolver.” But while my collection included the most sophisticated Beatles album to date, it also included a lot of tame material, such as “Snoopy and His Friends, The Royal Guardsmen,” “Nancy [Sinatra] In London,” “Tom Jones Live at The Talk of The Town,” and “The Sound of Music.” I was just a kid. In fact, I was even too young to hate, on principle, the music that my parents liked. Which is why I listened to my dad’s Roger Miller album, my mom’s Louie Prima/Keely Smith LP, and my grandmother’s Engelbert Humperdinck records. Fine singers one and all. Still, it would be a few years before I discovered FM radio and the likes of The Doors, Elton John and Cream.
But back to 1967 and my favorite pop single of the year: “I’m a Believer.” The record remains in my collection, sitting upright on a shelf in what I pompously call my studio, its grooves ground down and its red and white Colgems label worn thin. I never bothered to download it or purchase a Monkees Greatest Hits CD. Like so many of my old vinyl gems, I preferred to digitize it, so that I can hear every flaw. It has the soothing, nostalgic sound of a log crackling on the fire. I would never have imagined that 45 years after its debut I’d get to see Micky Dolenz sing it live, with fellow Monkees Davy Jones and Peter Tork at Stage AE in Pittsburgh on a warm summer night in 2011. Micky and Davy shared lead vocal duties on all Monkees’ songs, but the band members were not permitted to play any instruments on their records at that time – much to their consternation. The Monkees were a made-for-TV band, and while the boys had varying degrees of musical talent, the producers of their show felt they weren’t seasoned enough musicians for prime time.
“I’m a Believer” was written by Neil Diamond, a young singer/songwriter who had recently scored a hit with “Cherry, Cherry.” The song caught the attention of producer Don Kirshner (yes, the teleprompter-reading master of late-night TV rock concert fame), who wanted his Monkees to record a tune with a similar catchy beat. He contacted Neil’s producers, Jeff Berry and Ellie Greenwich, who played Kirshner some cuts that were planned for their client’s upcoming album, “Just for You.” It’s rumored that Diamond had wanted to pitch “Believer” to country singer Eddy Arnold. But it was snatched up by the powerful Kirshner, who “allowed” Neil to record it on his own album that year. Monkee Mike Nesmith felt the song was weak and would never be a hit, but history proved him wrong.
“I’m a Believer” is one of only thirty singles in history to have sold 10 million or more copies worldwide. And the record’s B side, “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, is pretty damn good, too. Some might even say it’s better. Its menacing tune and accusatory lyrics make it the perfect antithesis to “Believer” in both sound and subject matter. No wonder it was a favorite of punk bands like the Sex Pistols, Cardboard Brains, Johnny Thunders, and Vicious White Kids.
Here are the Monkees “performing” their immortal hit. Micky Dolenz, always my favorite, sings the tune, but all are miming on their instruments. I love those double-breasted shirts they wore. It gave them “a look,” much as the collarless jackets did for The Beatles.
Here’s the B side of “Believer” – “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” performed by those dirty sods, The Sex Pistols:
By Dana Spiardi, Jan 20, 2015
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