I believe I came out of the womb singing. As long as I can remember I have always made up silly lyrics or sang popular songs of the day. I even played saxophone for about a year when I was eight years old.
Funny thing about this story is as a young man as much as I loved music, I loved sports even more. I was an outstanding athlete. I could play any sport. But baseball was my passion. It took more than being an athlete. Certain skills that are very difficult are rewarding when you do it successfully.
I turned down a Division 1 baseball scholarship and excepted an invitation to attend a developmental camp for double A baseball. It made sense at the time. I did well until I tore my ankle. I have had problems with it ever since. That basically ruined any further chances, however remote, at professional baseball.
I was 19 years old then. It was then that the desire to play music became my new first love. As I mentioned at the outset I already enjoyed singing. So at 20 years old I began teaching myself how to play guitar.
I became pretty good reasonably fast. Part of my learning method was writing original songs to become proficient at changing chords. I also began spending a lot of time going to see live acts.
One of the live bands I liked to see perform was a Philadelphia band called The Hooters. Yes the same band who did "And We Danced" and "All You Zombies". This was before they were famous though. I was invited to a party one time where a couple of the guys from The Hooters were party guests like me. They were playing some tunes and somehow I was volunteered to play a couple tunes.
First their passion for their music stuck out to me. It also was at that point where they were about to break through to the national scene. So that made me think "that would be a cool gig". Also the fact that they took me seriously and genuinely liked my material really got me focused.
A couple years later I started a band called "Batteries Not Included". We had a nice following. We played in places and at weddings from Boston to Virginia Beach. We opened up for a few national bands. The more known ones were "the Outlaws", "Frehly's Comet" with Ace Frehly from Kiss, and "The Marshall Tucker Band".
On one of those occasions we had a great experience. Usually the opening band is ignored by most. So it wasn't a surprise to begin playing an auditorium that seats 1500 and only see about 50 people listening. The rest were out smoking and enjoying pre-concert beverages and/or snacks.
The cool thing was only about three songs in and the room was filling up with a crowd of people happy we were actually good. It was almost packed. The beauty of it was we were playing all original music I had written and I was the front man. At one point hundreds of people were clapping and by the end of some of the songs they were singing some of the lyrics that they had just heard for the first time. It was some of the best 45 minutes of my life. And it got better.
When we were finished our set we came of the stage as high on life as you can be. Then the promoter for the band we were opening for and the club manager took me aside and asked if we had another 30 minutes in us. It turned out that one of the stars of the headline band showed up drunk out of his mind. We of course were more than happy to keep this moment going. In fact when they announced that due to a vehicle problem the opening act was going to continue, the people applauded. That was awesome. We weren't just a side show or a complimentary warm-up band.
We picked up like we never stopped and hit it like an encore! As usual we stayed to see the "big" show. Especially knowing how drunk the guitar player was. Amazingly he was playing very good. But part way into his solo in the third song he wondered a little too close to the front of the stage and fell off! Pulled his amp down and bam right to the floor from about 6 ft high.
Then the club management and the promoter realized sending us out a third time wasn't going to work. So they made an announcement that the audience would get a refund or tickets to a make up show. The also said the reason the guitar player fell was because an electrical surge shocked him and made him lose his balance. Probably sobered him up too. We got to open up for them again when the returned. And a lot of people remembered us.
