In the late 1980s I had a reading done by Yolana Bard, an internationally renowned psychic who, among other things, told me that I would soon meet someone very influential in my music career. She even gave me his first and last name.  So a couple of months later when responding to an ad in The Village Voice to join a folk rock duo, I said yes to a young man with the same name. 

 

My new bandmate, David, found us a studio so we could record the songs we’d written.  Tom, who engineered and recorded us, would become my lifelong friend and a great partner in music. 

 

David wanted to send our songs to his friend, producer Ben Wisch.  Ben had just won a Grammy Award and in retrospect our songs weren’t quite ready to be recorded, we just didn’t know it.  But at the same time David was reaching out to Ben, I was inspired to reach out to several record companies. One in particular, Daemon Records, was top on my list and was owned by Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, whom I had met twice that same year.

 

Back then it was customary to send a letter to request permission to submit your material to a record company or radio station. In with the letter one would place a self-addressed stamped postcard allowing the company to easily reply yes or no to your submission request.

 

From what I could gather from her work, Amy seemed to be very proud of where she came from – something we shared. So, it made perfect sense for me to choose a postcard that would depict something interesting from where I grew up.  Having been raised in the Hudson Valley, I chose a card with the image of Rip van Winkle coming home after 20 years of sleep… from the story by Washington Irving.

 

A few weeks later I received the Rip van Winkle postcard back with Amy’s gracious reply, “I’m overextended”.  She had just won a Grammy herself.  The card bore her signature and being a fan, I kept it.

 

Over time David and I went our separate ways but Tom and I continued to work together to record my songs.

 

Then in 1994 a life-changing event.  My brother and greatest supporter, Angelo, died of leukemia.  But while he was being treated, we would have long conversations about all kinds of things.  He would ask about the music and what I was recording with Tom.  But I was beginning to become discouraged with the music business.  I remember him saying, “Don’t feel bad, everybody goes through that.”  Then he said, “You know, whatever happens, don’t stop playing.”  I agreed and made the promise. 

 

After Ang died, my cousin Richie came up to see me at my mom‘s house – we had been playing music together since we were boys.  We sat around the kitchen table, smoked cigarettes and played guitar while he tried to cheer me up. I asked him if he wanted to come and record with me and Tom in the studio and he agreed.  Richie had been playing in a different band with a bass player he really liked and that’s how Mark joined the band.  That was the beginning of our first recording, ‘Angel’. 

  

And there you have it… the origin story of a band few have ever heard of.

 

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The material on “Angel” was soft and sweet and when we performed the songs live in the nightclubs we were drowned out by the boisterous crowds.  We were getting decent bookings but the crowd was not coalescing. Some nights we played to only a few people and I would be disheartened. But one night at the Mercury Lounge a large crowd of people swelled into the club just before our set. That was the night Tommy said to me, “Don’t worry.  We’re behind you.  We’ll catch you”.  That night we soared.

 

We decided we should make a second recording so we wrote a louder rock record whose songs would do better in the clubs where we performed.  We went into the studio and made our second record titled, ‘Tricycle’ then headed back to the clubs.  We again got decent bookings and we were even scheduled to release the record and a video on September 12, 2001 at a club in lower Manhattan.  The world changed on the day before our show and we wouldn’t perform again until 2003.

 

I guess it was my caveman brain that figured the third time would be the charm.  We went back into the studio and we wrote even more provocative, louder, thumping rock songs so that we could get attention when we played in the loud clubs.  This third attempt, then titled ‘Elephant Shoes’, was a lot more fun. I think it was Rich who said, “it has to be more fun“, denoting the difficulty of the second record.  By then we were a tighter band so it was easier to get good takes and the recording went very easily.

 

It was about this time that Mark, who is probably the best critique giver that I’ve ever met, spoke up.  He had an issue with the chorus and title of one song in particular, “Pubfish”.  After some explanation and back and forth he simply said, “It doesn’t make sense.”  He was right but I just didn’t know it yet.

 

When it came time to do the vocals, I had decided I was going to do them at home.  Big mistake.  I took the tapes home and got them loaded up on my PC.  It took months of work to sing these songs and the end result was crap. I was demoralized, partly because I knew the lyrics weren’t finished.

 

At this point the recording project and band languished in my head and heart.  Every once in a while one of our poorly sung songs would hit my iTunes playlist and make me sad because I knew I’d have to try again.

 

However, before I could get back to it I had a heart attack and died.  I was revived and flown by helicopter in a snowstorm for emergency surgery.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but as I recovered, one-by-one I was fulfilling many of my life’s ambitions.  So cliche.  Rebuild a cabin on a lake…check.  Rescue a horse…did it.  Restore a vintage motorcycle…yup.

 

But when my father died two years ago mortality hit me in the face again.  Maybe it was losing my Dad, COVID, my own death and resurrection but the only thing I wanted to do now was complete the unfinished recording.

 

By this time I’d lost all of the computer files I’d worked with, so if I was going to finish the vocals I’d need the old studio tapes.  Originally neither Tom nor I could find them and, again, this project looked doomed.  By happenstance, Tom found a backup copy of the tapes and I was ready to start singing again.

 

Step one was to fully finish the lyrics before setting up a mic and though it took some time, they were finished.  The aforementioned, ‘Pubfish’ was rewritten into the song ‘Little Fish’ by the way.  

 

Step two was to sing and, though I was very excited to do so, my voice still sounded like crap.  For a year I tried to record the songs in my closet, motel rooms, my friend’s guest house, rehearsal studios…all to no avail.  And like so many times before, it looked like these songs wouldn’t be completed.

 

Then I read something Charlie Mackesy wrote about asking for help, so I did.  I withdrew a small amount of money that my Dad left me and looked to book a professional studio.  I emailed or called a dozen recording studios in New York.  Not one replied.  Now I was ready to give up completely.  But if this was the end, and all signs pointed to it, I had one more Hail Mary to try…  Ben Wisch.

 

Could Yolana have been right all those years ago and predict that someone she named would eventually lead me to Ben?  It had been more than 30 years since I had heard his name and, though I had absolutely no hope he’d reply to my email, he did.  The very same day.

 

We decided to meet and, on his front porch, I told Ben the story you just read.  He listened to the tracks and agreed to help me finish the record.  I think at that point he thought I was a well-meaning-albeit-insane songwriter and he took pity on me.  But after the first day I knew Ben would take us home.

 

Sing, mix, master, release.  It was a breeze.  The project is now titled, ‘If The Stars Align’.  Thank you Ben.  It seems  fitting that the cover of this recording is the image of Rip van Winkle that was on the card I sent to Amy Ray 32 years ago.  It is being released today, August 29th, 2024 – Rich’s birthday.

 

Thanks for listening to our music, everyone.