The Breakers; Big Fun b/w Sun Time

I recently purchased a USB turntable so I could archive some of my records which I cannot find either on CD or on the many blog sites that have the more obscure music that I love.

For it's maiden voyage I pulled out a very rare single from 1984 by a group called The Breakers, produced by New York independant/New Wave journalist/emprasario Alan Betrock (responsible for the early Smithereens EP Beauty and Sadness).

I don't know where they came from but they sound as if they were from early 60's West Coast, doing an innocent surf music that Brian Wilson would have been proud to have written.

I attempted to find out some more information about this group and in the process discovered that Alan Betrock died in 2000 at the age of 49 from cancer.

Recording Session

We spent last Sunday doing basic tracks for our new CD and everything went well. We had planned to do three, maybe four songs and wound up with seven basic tracks in the can! Can we help it if we're well prepared?


So now we're gonna sit on these tracks for a while, so when we do the layering it will be as smooth a process as the basic tracks were. Joey has enlisted two friends of his to assist us in rounding out the sound, David (who also played organ on our last CD) and Danny, sax player extaordinair who plays with a veritable who's who of artists.




I'm looking forward to further work on this project.

Last night at The Vibe Lounge

We had our first Long Island show last night and I'm happy to report that it was a blast! The room was filled with fans, many who had never seen us live before and everyone (audience and band alike) had a GREAT TIME!

We did some new, never performed songs which we will begin recording this Sunday and the audience seemed to dig them even more than our tried and true (and almost 30 years old) material.



In between sets we received news from our manager that we will be opening for "The Rock Legacy Band" featuring members of Vanilla Fudge, The Rascals, Tom Petty, Steam, Cactus, Springsteen and Derringer at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ on Saturday June 13th!

That's a good gig.

RIP Freddy Frogs

 
A staple of the New York scene for over 50 years, Freddy (Toscano) Frogs has been dedicated to his vision; doo-wop via rock-a-billy rock and roll. From the late 60's, through the 70's, working with The BMT's (Tommy Byrne's early incarnation) and then beyond, Freddy kept rockin', non stop.

It's my sad to duty to inform you, gentle reader, that Freddy Frogs has died of a heart attack at his sister's home in Florida.

Rest in Peace, Freddy...

Ready to Rock!

Even after not rehearsing for over a month, the band proved at last night's practive that they can whip it out at any time. We finalized our set for this coming Thursday and readied the songs we plan to record this Sunday. I guess that's the way it gonna be with this band, feast or famine. This week we're feasting on our muse.

The Vibe is Confirmed

Taking matters into my own hands, I came to a meeting of the minds with Sheldon (no, he's not a jew) the manager of The Vibe Lounge and we are now jointly producing this appearance instead of Rick from the Unlabeled Show.

Quite frankly, Rick has turned out to be quite a flake. First he had us do that bogus audition for last year's balloon festival, which he said we passed but then never got us the gig, then he booked us into The Knitting Factory (which BTW has closed down) and we wound up in the sub basement bar where no one goes, and finally he screwed us with this showcase, which we heavily advertised.

Good thing I was able to pull it out of the fire, cause there WILL be lots of Long Island fans there.

Drama!

So if you've been following my posts, you know that many fans have been waiting for us to find a venue on Long Island to appear. We finally got the perfect place to play (and were scheduled to play next week) through a promoter who has been playing us on his local radio show. We have been advertising this appearance and getting a good response from our email blasts and were expecting a damn good turn our when, wouldn't you know it, the promoter cancels his whole deal with the club! We even had tickets presold!

I plan to talk to the club owner directly and try to make a deal with him for us to keep our scheduled gig for next week (March 12th) because I am really expecting a good turnout and would hate to dissapoint our Long Island fans who have been waiting to see us.

I'll keep you posted...

In the meantime, we're booked into Seaside Lounge Recording Studios on March 15th for pre-production on a new round of songs to be produced by me and my wife's old friend (and Billy Joel's right hand man) Tommy Byrnes.

I'll keep you posted about those sessions too.