My Real Memoir
I did it all. Or tried to. My guidance counselor urged me to go into “the arts,” which I naturally took to mean all of the arts. My hero Gene Kelly had done it all—acted, sung, danced—and always ended up with the girl! So why not me? Heck, I was one step ahead: I already had the girl! Still, there was no time to waste!
I needed money for guitars and dates. My brief fry-slinging gig at McDonald’s ended when it clashed with play rehearsals and band practice. So my newspaper dealer dad hired buddy Rory and me to “stuff” (assemble) Sunday editions of the Herald Examiner. Bless that man–he didn’t even like my band’s “jungle music.”
Bandmates Jeph and Marc were actors too (only drummer Joey, who attended a different high school, was not). So we scheduled our Daily Planet practices around play rehearsals. We’d just finished doing The Miracle Worker when something else miraculous happened. Mom—who loved our jungle music—talked us up to her old high school friend Eleanor. Eleanor had recently gotten remarried to a man named Chuck. Chuck Britz was soft-spoken and unassuming, but he was also a recording engineer, and he agreed to give us a listen.
We did a mini-concert for Chuck in my dining room, and he agreed we “might just have something.” So he scheduled a free demo session for us at a boring box of vanilla cinderblock on Sunset Boulevard called United Western Recorders. Which was…
Kind of a big deal. United Western was one of the most legendary recording studios west of Abbey Road. Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Elvis, Sam Cooke, The Mamas & the Papas, and later Elton John, Green Day, Motley Crue, and many more had recorded huge hits there.
Also, the last band of unknowns Chuck had thought “might just have something” and granted a free demo session to were called The Beach Boys (he went on to engineer nearly all of their 60s recordings, and received a Grammy for it in 1970.) So, yeah, we were, as the Beach Boys might have said, “kinda stoked.” Even Dad was impressed.
We recorded four songs with Chuck that January, and then immediately went into rehearsals for the play Mister Roberts; Ensign Pulver (played by Jack Lemmon in the movie) remains one of my favorite roles. After which, our Drama mentor Mr. Baker put together a revue called The World of Carl Sandburg with music by member of The Daily Planet. He then sent a copy of our demo to his old friend, Academy Award nominee Alan Arkin (RIP). Arkin praised the music, but wasn’t able to do much for us.
Good old Rory, however, whose garage was our rehearsal studio, picked up an application for a national talent search. We didn’t expect anything to come of it, but we submitted our Chuck Britz-engineered demo “Thursday Song,” and half a year later it turned out to be…
Kind of a big deal.
My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.
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It is amazing what happens when you are faithful in your gifts and passions. It always grows!
Yes! A very big deal!👏👏
Oh no! Another cliffhanger? I am eagerly waiting for the exciting conclusion to this very cool story. But here is a random question in the meantime… was your friend Jeph’s name short for something else? Or were his parents just groovy like that?
No, it was just ordinary old “Jeff” on his birth certificate, only Jeph was anything but ordinary, so he changed the spelling. He also frequently used the nickname Squanto (he was Native American on his mother’s side).
Another cliffhanger. You’re so cruel.:-)
And the rest of the story??? Making records back then, was a big deal. The next installment is coming soon, I hope. “Adventures in Teenage Rock N Roll.”
;>)
The acting experience of most of your band members served you well when you performed as a music group. Just working hard enough to b e able to make a demo is an achievement all by itself.
You have a point, Nancy. We even dragged Joey into acting later that year–all four of us were in a summer musical production together.
Kind of a big deal for sure! I just watched the video again, and I still love it. You guys had a Herman’s Hermits vibe going on. I would’ve bought the single back then if I had known about it.
Aww, thanks, Kellye.
You sure squeezed a lot of living into four years of high school, Mitch! More impressive yet: you remember it all so well!
Oh, it’s not all from memory, Nancy! The letters my pen pal Judy sent back to me function like a diary from that time. Also, all four Daily Planet members Zoomed a month ago, and each of us remembered bits the others had forgotten, as well as when certain events happened.
What fun to Zoom with the Daily Planet guys, and how wonderful you’ve stayed in touch!
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