Some Good Advice

..month
stint bashing out covers in three states non-stop. Actually, it seems we couldn’t
resist adding a few new songs of our own to the list of covers, written by myself
and by former Ariel keyboardist Tony Slavich, because at some point we must’ve
gone into a studio and recorded a bunch of them to take with us to tout to various
well-positioned expats on our holiday.
I’ve had the quarter-inch tapes of that session sitting around here for
over three decades now with no means (or reason) to play them, but since Laneway
Music’s Vincent Donato got interested in re-issuing all my back catalogue
I dug them up to see if he could salvage anything useful before the tapes completely
disintegrated.
A couple of weeks back Vincent sent me the songs he managed to retrieve on mp3
and as I listened to them on my lo-fi PC speakers they brought back memories,
principally of playing the Instant Replay tapes at Tom Scholz’s (Boston)
home in LA and, hearing them in that context, thinking how regional or even
colonial they sounded. Our songs couldn’t have sounded less American or
less anthemic by comparison to Boston’s More than a Feeling for instance,
which inevitably got a play as we gazed down at the city from Tom’s Laurel
Canyon mansion.
Although Punk and New Wave had made little impression in the States form what
I could tell they were definitely in vogue in Oz and you can hear the influences
on both Tony and me. Having said that, Tony’s songs were infinitely cleverer
than mine, but all in all it just wasn’t a convincing phase we were going
through. Still, on the plus side it was danceable and it kept us in work even
though we later got pilloried for our masquerade in the vitriolic agency wars
that were going on in Melbourne at the time.
Bill and I went over to the States together and as well as playing the Instant
Replay tapes to whomever would listen our aim was to hit as many music bars
and clubs as we could and just get a feel for the place. Tony Slavich and the
band’s cheerful drummer Manny Paterakis also came over and we all hooked
up at various times, first in LA and then New York.
Now we were in New York. Bill had contacts in Connecticut from a previous trip
and as a result there was the occasional joint to leaven the constant drinking
we were indulging in most nights. Then Bill went back to LA leaving Tony and
me to enjoy the high life in New York, New York (‘so nice you say it twice’)
and the supply of weed promptly ran out. It was then that I actually contemplated
going down to 42nd Street, (aka The Deuce), which wasn’t far from our
crummy hotel in West 44th Street, to attempt to score some weed from the local
dealers who would openly offer dope to passers-by on the street, especially
if they had had long hair.
Remember this was the ‘70s and there was a sense of naïve optimism
about the use of marijuana and other substances, but to put yourself at the
mercy of street dealers in a foreign city without any local guidance is a dumb
thing to do – period. My only excuse is that we were dope-less dopes a long
way from home and it seemed a harmless enough adventure at the time.
Anyway, we duly made contact with a West Indian dude on 8th Street and chatted
to him for a couple of minutes before he asked us to come with him for a bit
of a walk, whereupon we were joined by his mate Winston, who materialised from
the shadows behind us.
We walked back to 42nd towards Broadway and ducked into a coffee shop where
we concluded the details of the deal. Winston (who was from Jamaica and into
1955 vintage Windies’ cricket) took my money and disappeared, promising
to return in ten minutes.
It seemed more like thirty minutes than the promised ten and by now we were
more concerned about being sprung by undercover cops, who we now imagined seeing
everywhere, than just losing our money.
Winston eventually came back with the goods in plain brown paper bags and we
fled back to the hotel with our hearts in our mouths all the way.
Safely back in our hotel room I opened my plain brown paper bag.
Inside was a plastic bag partially filled with what looked suspiciously like
pencil shavings. It didn’t smell like weed, more like aromatic hippy tea.
I rolled a joint anyway and smoked it.
I got a headache.

The moral of the story is that if you’re offered a bag of herbal tea in
a strange city, check local customs before you smoke it.