Moving back to NYC I had a series of very strange jobs. All an adventure.

 () The first time we played at the Moravian Lounge ( or the “The Mo” as we called it) was in the fall of 1976. The gig was 5 sets a night, 5 days a week and we ended up staying there (the first time) for about 50 weeks. The Mo was in a suburb called Clinton Township in the outer ring of the Detroit Metropolitan area, not far from lake Sinclair in Macomb county. I had turned 18 the previous May and was already pretty indoctrinated to the bar band life.Most of the area was farms until the 1960s but there were still plenty of farms and farmers around. The patrons of the bar were mostly people who worked in a nearby auto plant or family farms close by.When you’re at the same place for too long you get to know more than you want to about the people you see every day, especially when the booze is free-flowing and you’re at a age when you’re thinking about sex 24 hours a day.The bar was owned by the Kallikak family, and at this time was run by the middle brother named Teddy.Teddy was a big guy who apparently didn’t have dental insurance, with a glass eye and a hot temper. When fights broke out, which they often did, he was the one that went into action. I never had a problem with him, but I heard him yelling “ready to go” many a time. There were lots of fights at the Mo.His girlfriend was named Annie. She was a part-time waitress at the bar, but like many of the women who worked at “The Mo,” she also danced at a nearby “gentlemen’s” club a few nights a week, where the “real money” was. She and Teddy used to get into it pretty good sometimes and he would knock her around and slap her. One night it got really bad. I had gone out to parking lot on a break and walked back in the kitchen entrance, past by his office door. They were screaming at one another. I could hear there was some kind of physical altercation happening, like pushing and shoving, then someone being slammed into a wall. She was crying and telling him to stop. It made me feel sick to my stomach. The next day when I walked in she was tending bar, he wasn’t there yet. She had a big black eye that was covered in make-up, but it wasn’t hard not to notice even in the dark bar, especially for the people who heard the scuffle and knew Eddie. She looked like a scared ghost waiting for her attacker to walk through the door. He was a real fucking prince and I got the feeling she wished both he and she were dead. She must have been in a tough spot.The first time we played at the Moravian Lounge the bar was owned by a guy named Louie. Louie was probably the more sane of the three brothers in the family. It was cleaner and smaller than Charlie Brown’s, a blue-collar place for sure, but not a biker bar. Initially, it was a one-week stint and seemed pretty normal. By the time the week was up, Dennis had made arrangements for us to come back for several months.The SpidersAt the back of the bar, near the exit, were the regulars that the guys in the band referred to as “the spiders.” You didn’t want to get caught by the spiders in the spider’s web, because they were pretty much all nuts, and they could hold you there for a while talking crazy shit. They might even try to pick a fight or something. They were the five or six guys sitting on stools, the first people you would see if you went in the rear entrance, the guys who gave you the first impression of the bar, where you would decide if you were going to stay or not.“The Spiders” were Eddie and his brother Tom, whom I referred to as “The Baby;” a guy they called “Adameyer” (real name Adam Meyer); a big younger guy named Ralph; and a couple of others who radiated the aura of evil; a must to avoid,

In the Fall of 1977, I moved from Berkley MI, to Washington Heights, on the upper west side of Manhattan NY. Moving from a segregated Detroit suburb to a multicultural urban area offered a quick education in the ways of the larger world.The reason for the move was to go to school at the Institute of Audio Research, which offered a one-year program in audio recording and record making. In the end, I worked at a studio on 72nd and Broadway owned by Herb Abramson, one of the founders of Atlantic Records.Ultimately, I ended up living in NY for 7 years and having a pretty fabulous adventure.

Charlie Brown’s was on Kenneth street in Pontiac, MI. off of Telegraph Rd. by Dixie Hwy. Dennis, Marshall, Rick Boehms and I played there for 16 weeks; five nights a week, probably four sets a night, the year I graduated from high school (1976).When our friends or family would initially come up, the first thing they would say is “Oh, this isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.” I’m sure, though, after experiencing a Friday or Saturday night at Charlie Brown’s, they felt differently.I’m guessing the building was built in the mid 1960s when GM factories poured out cars and trucks in Pontiac running three shifts. It had a tall, vaulted ceiling, and I recall that the wall where the stage was had a nonworking fireplace built into it.There were two big gas grills, and the cooking and food prep area could be seen from the bar. I bet in its day, they had steaks and burgers with baked potatoes and salads covered in blue cheese or thousand island dressing. Maybe chocolate mousse or cobbler with ice cream for dessert. I bet it was 1960s nice.By the time we got to Charlie Browns we had changed the name of the band to Denny and the Robots from Fonzie and the Happy Days. After we loaded in for the first night, we thought it would be a good idea to put the name of the band up on the roadside marque they had out front advertising the drink specials. We asked the owner Kathy where we might find the letters for the signage and she pointed us to a box on a shelf in a storage room.When the box was taken down, we realized that it was a bit short on letters. There were certainly not enough letters to spell out Denny and the Robots, or Fonzie and the Happy Days. So, Dennis and Marshall began to brainstorm on what words and/or phrases could be put up with the letters in the box and settled on FLOG ME. Not the new name of the band, but somewhat fitting for the vibe of the club for sure.Eventually, I think Kathy got around to reading the sign and asked that it be changed, but for a week or so, people did respond and come in to see who or what they may have the opportunity to flog.By the time the cosmos had brought us to Charlie Brown’s, or ‘Chuck Brown’s, as we called it, the place was filthy. The kitchen was closed. At its most base, the plumbing was out in the men’s room and there was a 5 gallon bucket under one of the urinals where the drain used to be. One of the workers had to empty the bucket from time-to-time. For a couple of nights, the heat was out and the owner turned the gas grill way-up to heat the place. The joint filled up with so much smoke the fire department came. I couldn’t make it up any crazier if I tried.Like many bars of the time, they used to have two-for-one drink specials early most evenings, and one night of the week was Pitcher Night, where 64oz glass pitchers were filled with draft beer; Pabst Blue Ribbon, Miller, Stroh’s or Budweiser for a bargain price.One night, some motorcycle gentlemen were sitting at a long picnic style table that faced perpendicular to a wide/tall brick wall. Perhaps the service was particularly slow that night or they were just in a care-free dangerous mood, but someone took a glass pitcher and sailed it high into the brick wall, smashing it into a thousand pieces. The crowd went wild.This was one of those times, like in the movie Titanic, where the band just kept on playing. There were a lot of times back then when crazy stuff was happening in front of us and the best (and only) thing to do was to keep playing and hope not to get drawn into the mayhem.Pitchers just kept on flying every so often and the crowd would erupt like when an exciting play is made during a football game. I don’t remember anyone being cut, but that’s only because of random, amazing good luck that drunk people sometimes have, like miraculously not killing anyone driving home.There were a lot of dangerous scenes there.

There are people who forever change your life. This is one of those stories.

Episode 3 is called High School

"Hootenanny" was an American musical variety television show broadcast on ABC from April 1963 toSeptember 1964. I remember it because in our town there was a local talent show roughly based around the show. I remember three things about it One, Marshall and I performed together for the first time in public, he playing guitar and singing and me supplying the Jug-Head beat, tapping along on my Slingerland snare drum. Two, there was a little girl that was some kind of distraction for us, who sang and played an autoharp or something. Perhaps Marshall had a crush on her: Three, we had a Trini Lopez LP on Reprise records that we listened to with "Lemon Tree" on it I'm going to guess we played a Trini Lopez song,Not too long after that, Marshall and I performed at Berkley Elementary school, at which our neighbor Dr. Rogers, was principal. I don't remember much about it other than it was "a thing" and after the talent show, we sat crossed legged on a gym floor to watch a 3 Stooges short."This episode covers some early childhood music related to music and also ventures into the historical context of the time and how it impacted kids during that time. It also talks about the migration of rock radio from the AM to FM dial, touching briefly on adventures at WJR and the Fisher Building.

The first episode, Intro-Origin lays down the foundation for establishing a relationship with the main character (Robert Crenshaw). "An old man in an old car drive down the road. Sometimes the car because a time machine as he thinks about the past, present, and future. All of the times he turned right instead of left, all of the things that led him to this moment..."