Posing with the shitmobile after a rehearsal with Andy Watson, Tony Scherr and Dave Pietro at Andys place in Brooklyn. A tree had fallen on the Volare during the rehearsal. I just noticed the cardboard covering a window that had been smashed which gives me more confidence in my recollection of the Bear Mountain saga and the lack of drivers side window.
321 E. 108th St., New York, NY - This is the front of the building - Brian and I lived in 2d on the back side. The windows were barred and between the bars I had a nice view to the fire escape and a brick wall about 6 feet away - the back of the neighboring building. Some sun would reach our windows on occasion but it stayed dark and depressing most of the time.
Bear Mountain Breakdown & the Mighty Volare
I’ve been thinking about some of the gigs I’ve been subjected to over the years and as a consequence experiencing flashbacks to a more adventurous and dangerous time. My memory being the leaky and unreliable ship that it is and made even less reliable by the river of alcohol upon which it sailed for the bulk of my adult life, I only retain the high points of this chilling tale (or…low points). Said alchohol seemed like a necessary evil to drown the pain of being poor and stupid in New York city although my finances being what they were unless I was trying to talk an unfriendly bartender out of some bottom shelf scotch at one of the many club dates I was enduring at the time my usual drink would be a 40 or two of Bud. Through that filter and 30+ years I do remember that just making it to this particular gig was a triumph of the human spirit, an epic battle pitting the gods of the New York gig wars against one insignificant pilgrim (that’s me).
The year was 1989 and I was living, if you can call it that, at 321 East 108th Street, Apartment 2d, NY, NY 10029, the lower east region of Spanish Harlem. The multi-instrumentalist Scott Robinson lived above me, Neils Lan Doky and Chris Ming Doky lived in a loft a couple of buildings down and I did a little playing with them, there was a Patsy’s pizza on 1st avenue 10 or 11 blocks north, it was right off of the FDR which I used daily to get down to the 55 bar or the Knitting Factory – there weren’t that many clubs I could afford. I think my roommate Brian Bair and I paid around $600 for a 2 bedroom apartment and it was a shithole. The super was named Ramon and his son Tito later did a smash and grab of our apartment (cut the lock off the bars on the window in the back) and stole some of our meager belongings. I was on a gig (I had gigs back then) and luckily he didn’t get my guitar. That’s a story that will have to wait to be told. As will the story of getting kicked in the face on the FDR after being rear ended by some pretty unfriendly motorists (again in the Volare - good times).
In those days I was driving a 1976 Volare station wagon that you see in the pic above*, a huge boat of an 8 cylinder shitmobile, that I parked on the street. Some of you may not know about alternate side parking but it’s one of the worst parts about living in New York if you drive a car - it’s got to be one of the circles of hell. One side of the street, either east or west and north or south depending on the day, would be designated for “street cleaning” from about 7am-11am depending on your neighborhood. When musicians returned from their gigs at 2am they would roam far and wide looking for a spot on the legal side in order to avoid dragging their hungover ass out of bed at 6:55am and then sitting in the car until 11am when it was safe to park on the side being cleaned. Another solution was to move your car at 7am and double park on the legal side but if your apartment was in the back of the building like ours was it would be hard to hear the angry honking of somebody double parked in. And…if you did have a spot on the legal side there was always the chance that you would be blocked by someone double parking. Lots of variations on this theme. Another hazard was that the hour spent driving around looking for a spot, searching all over the freaking place, up one street and down another, deciding whether that one semi legal spot ¾ of a mile away from your apartment was, like it seemed, too good to be true and finally ending up somewhere?…one tended to forget where they ended up finally bringing the Volare into port. Which resulted in much time spent wandering the streets the next morning hoping the brownies (ticket writing scum) had not found your car before you miraculously located it (ahh, $125 orange ticket under the wiper – they have found it).
Another common hazard of street parking in NY at the time was that you would often find one of the windows of your car had been the victim of a crackhead who thought that there were sure to be lots of valuable items in a 1976 Volare (see pic above). Luckily for me the Hunts Point junkyards were not too far away up in the south Bronx and many used windows and windshields were available for reasonable prices. Which brings me to the Bear Mountain saga…..
I can’t remember anything about the gig itself although I’m pretty sure it was a club date (wedding, etc). We were most likely playing at the Bear Mountain Inn, optimistically described in the brochure as being “45 minutes north of NY city” and that’s probably true if you are traveling in a helicopter. This gig was in the winter and I remember this because….it was a dark and stormy night…sleeting like a motherfucker. Now lets backtrack a bit to my anecdote about crackheads smashing car windows – unfortunately some unfriendly soul had taken out the drivers side window. So, I’m driving through the heavy sleet and ice, my whole left side is totally soaked through my overcoat to my extra funky and unwashed tuxedo, can’t see out of the windshield, don’t know where I’m going exactly (this was in the days when musicians carried a NY and environs road atlas), traffic is predictably hellish and even though I gave myself 3 hours to get the 30 miles to the gig I’m going to be late. This was before the days of cell phones as well so I can’t call the leader who would not care what the excuse was only that I’m not FUCKING THERE! About all I remember from that night is driving up some steep, winding roads in an ice storm, the windshield covered in a sheet of ice (shitty wiper blades on the Volare), sticking my head out of the window from time to time which was pretty easy since there was no drivers side window. I don’t remember the gig or the drive home but I guess I lived to tell the tale. Another day in the life of a musician. I don’t miss that fucking car, that’s for sure, but some other images that spring (unbidden) into my sieve of a memory are:
- RE: before Waze and GPS (i.e. using road maps) – being lost somewhere in Brooklyn on another snowing winter night after a gig, 55 gallon drums full of burning trash on either side of the road in a neighborhood that conjured images of Beirut, running very low on gas (gas stations are few and far between), dressed in the same unwashed tuxedo, no freaking idea where I am or how to find my way back to a recognizable neighborhood – Brooklyn’s a big freaking place.
- Being stuck in traffic at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel with bassist Troy Millard in the car. Summer this time and hot as a motherfucker. One thing about the Volare is that those 8 cylinders had a tendency to run pretty hot and the only way to stop the car from overheating was to run the heat on high (no AC in the car of course). Troy yelling at me “this is fucking unbearable” and jumping out of the car leaving me stuck in traffic while he took the subway home. I think I was giving him a ride to New Jersey and he totally bailed on me.
- Driving said Volare all the way to Cleveland from east Harlem to visit my roommate Brian Bair’s mom and do some fishing for Walleye – very tasty fish.
*Eventually the city of New York towed this hated shitbeast of a gas guzzling fucked up car and wanted $750 for me to get it back (some upaid parking tickets courtesy of alternate side parking, the tow, the impound lot, etc). It had Vermont plates on it and I figured the city deserved that car and I moved on to another in a long line of shitmobiles.
* Footnote about Volare pic - this was taken in Brooklyn at a rehearsal for a band I had with Andy Watson, Dave Pietro and Tony Scherr. The car was parked outside Andy’s apartment near the A train stop on 4th avenue in Brooklyn and when we came out of the rehearsal my car had been parked next to a tree that had fallen on it. The band got a big kick out of that.
