Sometime in New Haven - Part III
SOMETIME IN NEW HAVEN
The Story of the New Haven
Berlin Survivors
Part III
"Where’s Ronnie? I thought he was coming with you?” I asked.
“He’s at my place,” Aragon said. “You boys good for a shot?”
Aragon called to Leo the bartender and ordered three shots of Jack Daniels and a soda to wash his down.
“Jack, did you meet Rory at Fitzwilly’s?” Aragon asked.
“Yeah, and we got to see Mike give the business to some asshole there,” Jack said.
“No, I don’t care about that,” Aragon said. “Michael is the master when it comes to fucking with people. What I need to know is if Rory stuck to his same routine.”
“Of course,” Jack said.
“Hey, fuck you,” I said to Aragon.
“I mean, he didn’t actually talk to Sara or anything, did he?” Aragon asked Jack. “He just sat and waved, right?”
“Leo,” I called. “Can you give my friends here a couple more shots?”
“That won’t save you tonight,” Aragon said.
“Yeah, but I figured it was worth a shot,” I said.
“So, why isn’t Ronnie here?” Jack asked.
“I gave him a key to my place this afternoon and told him to meet me there,” Aragon said. “Besides, he has to get in there tomorrow and grab his drum set and your amps and leave the key for the landlord.”
Aragon, who hated all alcohol except Jack Daniels, signaled for Leo to give him another soda.
“When he got to my place today, though, he was greeted by a note telling him to grab a beer from the cooler, put on the stereo headphones and hit the play button on my cassette deck,” Aragon said with a grin. “It’s time to see if Ronnie is a Berlin Survivor.”
“You are ruthless,” Jack said. “But I’m not sure it is necessary. You’re almost gone.”
Jack was a Berlin Survivor, of course, but he often complained of being “haunted” by the cries of “The Kids.” He wouldn’t talk about it much. But every once in a while, when he was really fucked up, he would ask me if I thought “The Kids” survived. I never knew how to answer that question.
But it was during one of those conversations that we came up with the “Berlin Survival Test.”
Sometimes, if I didn’t want to get into a heavy conversation, I would try to tell him that “The Kids” is only a song. Jack would just laugh and shake his head and say “The Kids” are out there, believe me. I just need to know how the kids survived.”
Jack’s mother died when he was small and I think he related to the kids having to go through life without a mother. He never talked about his mother and “Berlin” in the same breath. I just assumed it had an effect on him.
“Well, Ronnie’s been playing with us for quite some time,” Aragon said. “It’s time he took the test.”
“I can’t believe we never got around to giving him the test before this,” I said. “He almost escaped unscratched.”
I thought the idea of Ronnie, who regularly listens to stuff like the Grateful Dead and Little Feat, sitting down to Lou Reed’s “Berlin” was almost funny. I played plenty of Lou Reed for Ronnie every time he was at the house, and he seemed to really like the “Growing Up in Public” album, and he agreed - as anyone who entered our house really had to - that the Velvet Underground was pure genius - but we never went through “Berlin” from start to finish.
“Oh shit,” I said, leaning towards Aragon, who was standing between the two bar stools. “Is Ronnie doing acid? He had some acid earlier and said he wanted to drop some. Do you know if he did?”
“I don’t know,” Aragon said.
“Well, I don’t know if 'Berlin' on acid is such a good idea,” I said.
“I’m not sure either,” Jack said. “Maybe we should call him. I’m not sure 'Berlin' is such a good idea with Ronnie anyway.”
“Phone’s disconnected,” Aragon said. “But the electricity will hopefully be on until morning.”
“Maybe we should head over there,” Jack said.
“You guys really know how to kill a party,” Aragon said.
We hopped into Aragon’s Volkswagen Beetle and headed to his apartment on Sherman Avenue listening to a Television cassette.
“Are we listening to this because your television goes tonight?” Jack asked.
“No, we’re listening to this because they are one of the five best fucken' bands that ever played,” Aragon answered. “But the television goes tonight.”
We weren’t sure what Aragon had planned for his television, but we knew it would be good.
“Geez, I wonder if Ronnie is still alive,” Aragon said, parking the car.
“I wonder if he is and wishes he wasn’t,” Jack said.
“I wonder if he’s dead, if can we be nailed for inflicting a cruel and unusual punishment on someone?,” I offered.
We ran up the three flights of stairs to Aragon’s apartment and burst through the door to find Ronnie sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of his drum set. I was struck by how empty Aragon’s apartment was. The place where we would sit for hours and talk about music while surrounded by the largest record collection I had ever seen - a product of his days in college radio. Now it is almost empty. Just some musical equipment, a mattress roll in the corner, a television on a small, folding table and an echo that filled the apartment was all that was left.
“So, what do you think of the tape?” Aragon asked. “You look like you survived just fine.”
Ronnie looked up and, after a lengthy pause, asked, “Aragon, do you know why Lou Reed made this record?”
Ronnie looked like he was deep in a troubled thought.
“I don’t know, Ronnie, I guess because it had to be made,” Aragon said, pacing the near-empty apartment.
“It is sad, though, don’t you think? Don’t you think it’s sad?” Ronnie asked.
“So, did you drop some acid?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I think it helped because I don’t think I could have listened to this any other way,” Ronnie said, sounding almost dismissive that mixing acid and "Berlin" should prompt concern. “Maybe I could hear ‘Ripple’ by the Dead once, just to mellow me out.”
“All my Dead is already in Boston,” Aragon said, opening three Schlitz beers and pouring four shots of Jack Daniels. “How about some Modern Lovers? Or Miles Davis?”
“How about ‘Mind Games’ by John Lennon,” Ronnie asked.
“How about ‘Metal Machine Music’,” I jokingly said of the Lou Reed double album masterpiece that featured nothing but feedback and drone.
“Ronnie may jump out the window on that one,” Aragon said.
“Do you have ‘Hunky Dory’ by Bowie?” I asked. “That would be a perfect follow-up.”
“How about some Sire?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, let’s play,” Ronnie said. “But wait… Why did they have to take the kids from that woman? How could someone write a song that justifies and crucifies all in one four-minute period? How is the listener supposed to react?”
“The same way you did,” Aragon said.
“But why would he convince us that this woman was bad, from his perspective and from the perspective of society,” Ronnie said, his soft, high-pitched voice rising. “And then, when we push aside the tragedy long enough to think that maybe it was the right thing to do, that it was maybe right that this woman doesn’t raise the children, he brings in the children’s perspective?”
“Because Lou Reed is not a songwriter; he’s an artist,” Aragon said.
“But, when he recorded that album, he had to know he was telling a tragic story,” Ronnie said. “There is death and destruction! Putting the crying children in was tough. It didn’t really make it a better song. But it wasn’t just a song anymore. I don’t know what it was, though.”
“Look, I don’t think that’s Lou Reed’s best album, but it is a masterpiece for what it is,” I said, a little frustrated that "Berlin" was being over-analyzed, although I was about to jump in with both feet. “He brings a story to life. That’s what his music does; it shows you life. ‘Berlin’ is like the anti-‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ At the end, instead of George Bailey getting the money, getting back his family and having that little Clarence mother-fucker get his wings, Lou Reed leaves you with broken people, broken families and broken lives. Of course the children are crying. It’s painful, but it’s real. He probably could have left that out and he probably could have written all the songs so they could be played on the fucken' radio. But that’s not what a real artist does. Besides, look out the window. There are no fucken George Baileys out there. It’s Berlin.”
“Are we going to fucken' play?” Jack asked, looking very uneasy. “Come on!”
“Aragon, could I have that tape?” Ronnie asked, although I think we all raised our eyebrows at the request.
“You want to listen to it again, don’t you?” Aragon said, almost triumphant.
“Either that or I’m going to burn it,” Ronnie said. “I don’t know which.”
“Let’s play,” I said, turning my amp up.
As was the usual ritual whenever we played at Aragon’s apartment, he grabbed a large tumbler and filled half of it with Jack Daniels. Aragon then turned on the television with the sound off. Looking down at his guitar, Aragon strummed a few chords and looked over at me.
“It’s the Sire farewell jam, let’s start with ‘Sniper’,” he said of a poem I wrote about an overseas G.I. sitting on a rooftop getting ready to jump because he was homesick, although he really wished he had a rifle so he could shoot everyone else.
Aragon and I usually traded off using the single microphone since we only recited our own stuff. Jack wasn’t comfortable sharing his stuff in a musical setting yet.
Between songs, we would drink more shots and beers while Aragon would talk about how we all ought to go to Boston.
“Come on, it’s the place to be. Boston is where the culture is. Boston has a happening music scene. Boston has Fenway Park,” Aragon said.
“You almost convinced me until you got to Fenway,” I said. “Besides, I’m a Yankees' fan. They probably wouldn’t even let me into the city. And you know New York has a better music scene. I’m just going to say one word: Television. And Patty Smith and Richard Hell and the Voidoids.”
“Yeah, well: One; you did a shitty job counting, and two; you are still going to wake up in New Haven tomorrow morning,” Aragon said.
“I’m happy here,” I said. “New Haven is my city.”
“You’re hopeless, Rory,” Aragon said. “Listen, fellas, it’s like the Residents say, ‘Ignorance of Your Culture is not Considered Cool!’”
“Oh, sure, and the only way to have culture is to move to Boston?” Jack, another New Haven fan, said. “What about Paris, Edinburgh, or. . .”
“Or Berlin,” Ronnie said.
“I think you ought to forget about Berlin,’ I said to Ronnie.
“I don’t think I can, but I’ll try,” he said, finally letting out an uneasy smile.
Aragon didn’t tell a lot of people that he was leaving. There was the restaurant’s manager, because he had to give his notice, and then there were the chosen seven or eight people he told, who went with us the night before on a bar hopping farewell adventure.
“I want people to look around one day and say ‘What ever happened to Aragon?’” he reasoned.
“You will be missed,” I said.
“Here, here,” Jack said, raising his shotglass. “Besides, how many people do we know who listen to the Residents?”
“Fuck-you, let’s play,” Aragon said.
More songs and more beers and more shots. Fortunately, when you don’t really have much training in music, you can get sloppy and it sounds about the same as when you started. Somehow we were starting to sound pretty tight musically. We still lacked confidence to play out, even though a lot of people saw us at the house.
“You know, we probably could have played out if Rory wasn’t such a chicken,” Aragon said.
“Fuck you,” I said. “I don’t think we could have pulled this off just yet, and you all agreed, so it wasn’t just me.”
“What about Ron’s Place?” Aragon said.
“Especially at Ron’s Place,” I said of the “house of punk” in New Haven. “They would have torn us up. Sometimes we sound like we could pull it off and other times we sound like shit.”
“Come on Rory,” Aragon said. “You were just afraid.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But that’s only a small part of it.”
Ron’s Place on Chapel Street was a tiny bar that booked punk bands whose music was good, but the names were better. Names like The Vatican Commandos, Desperate Bellboys, Next, Saucers, October Days, Thinking Out Loud, and The Poodle Boys. It was the only place in town to hear really good original music. With black walls and an inch of water on the bathroom floors, Ron’s had an atmosphere that couldn’t be beat. It was like hanging out in someone’s basement.
Rock-n-roll was at a crossroad, it seemed, between the established rockers who lost their inspiration and the punks who had all the inspiration. I loved The Who: Pete Townshend will always be a God and John Entwhistle will always be the one who first inspired me to pick up a bass guitar, but, as a group, they were dead. Fortunately, Townshend put out a great solo album in “Empty Glass” - he was still relevant. But The Who were dead.
The Rolling Stones were already dead. Hell, even Aerosmith, who blasted onto the rock scene with a debut album that left many of the established acts face-first in the dust, were about to turn into a Vegas act now that Brad Whitford and Joe Perry were gone.
The only exceptions, in my mind, were The Kinks, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop because everyone was still trying to sound like them. And they were still releasing albums worth listening to.
The Sex Pistols, of course, made one of the best albums of all time in “Never Mind the Bollocks.” The Clash were one of the absolute best bands in the world, although a little full of themselves. Music was changing fast and we were observing; having a blast and trying to play along.
“Aragon, are you going to continue playing in Boston?” Jack asked.
“Of course,” Aragon said.
“But with a band?”
“I don’t know,” Aragon said. “I used to be content just writing music and playing all night with the television on and keeping it to myself. Then Rory came and fucked that up. I don’t know what I’ll be doing. This type of situation doesn’t come along very often.”
Aragon and I got along well at work when we first met at Fitzwilly’s. We hit it off musically right away. We got really tight when we went to New York with a few people to see Public Image Ltd and James “Blood” Ulmar at the Palladium. The other two guys we traveled with wanted to skate in Central Park’s Woolman Rink, but Aragon and I wanted no part of it. So, while they skated, we sat on a nearby rock drinking beer and talking about writing and music. By the time the other two were done skating, Aragon and I decided we would start jamming together. Besides, we were convinced we both knew the same three chords.
Over the past few months, whenever there was a party at my place – which was often – people would come downstairs to the living room to check us out. We actually got into the reactions of the people watching; reactions that ranged from looks of amused curiosity to clenched fists of approval. We loved playing for people at the house. It was always a relatively safe, supportive crowd.
“We had a pretty good time, huh?” I asked, looking over at Aragon.
“Fuck you, let’s play,” Aragon said, pouring the last of the Jack Daniels into his tumbler. “Let’s go, the television is gone on this one.”
The last of the Jack Daniels meant the last song. And it would last as long as the Jack Daniels, which in the case of half a tumbler usually meant about 45 minutes.
I played a few notes, a jumpy riff, which sounded like an unintentional rip-off of The Who’s “My Generation.” (yes, yes, I know… The Who were dead, but their music was still a major inspiration to me). Ronnie jumped in, although he looked like he was still deep in thought over “Berlin.” Jack quickly jumped in as well, playing what sounded like a backwards – or sideways – minor scale. Aragon switched between picking notes to striking chords and violently shaking the whammy bar.
I sang a poem about rebellion, which I wrote in high school, where every other line ended in “Fuck You,” then we went off on a musical tangent for the next half hour or so. Then Aragon stepped to the microphone, and, as usual, tossed a little humor in:
“The Killer awoke before dawn,” Aragon said in his best Jim Morrison voice. “He put ‘The Three Stooges’ on.” After a chuckle, and a few minutes of jamming, Aragon threw in a verse he had stored in his head about a subject he saved his most bitter writing for: his family.
With each line about unacceptance, denial and banishment, Aragon would strike the guitar with his fist to start a drone or feedback to sing over. By this time, Jack and I were playing the same “My Generation”-type notes over Ronnie’s steady beat to keep the groove going.
Finally, as he started chanting the last lines, something about telling his sister to fuck off, over and over, he laid the guitar on the floor in front of the amp, where it still hummed loudly, and grabbed another mouthful of Jack Daniels. Then he started screaming the last lines into the microphone: “Wasn’t that you who walked right past by me. Existing…. Judging in your own little world. You didn’t even look up to say hello. No acknowledgment. No nothing. No. No. But it couldn’t have been you. Because you never smiled. God knows I tried; Mom watched and cried; and cried. You wouldn’t talk you wouldn’t tell us. You shut us out. You wouldn’t smile.” Aragon was kicking the guitar, which at this point was screaming with feedback. Then, as promised, Aragon grabbed the television, which was still on, and dropped it on the floor next to the guitar so the vibrations would allow the guitar to make all new sounds.
I was impressed with the move and wondered what we could have done if Aragon had access to even more household appliances. This would make Frank Zappa proud, I thought. And the television was still on; a rerun of the Bob Newhart show played - the characters, like us, oblivious to what may come next.
Then, with another scream of the last lines of his poem, Aragon lifted the television over his 6-foot 2-inch frame. He was a little wobbly from the booze. Not the guitar, I thought, don’t drop it on the guitar! Even Ronnie and Jack looked a little nervous.
Aragon then kicked the guitar to make sure the feedback would sustain and took two steps to an unopened kitchen window and threw the television through it. He quickly crouched down, avoiding the shattering glass and the whip of the cord as it pulled from the wall plug. He grabbed his guitar, viciously strumming the strings to add to the noise.
Ronnie had an “Oh, shit, we’re all going to jail” look on his face. I walked over to the window, still playing, trying to get a peek outside.
Aragon, meanwhile, started a new chant, “Yeah, yeah, no television tonight/ yeah, yeah, it’s time to live/ it’s time to take control.” Jack looked pissed.
This is the third fucken' floor, I thought. I prayed no one was under the television, although there never seemed to be anyone in the few-foot-wide fenced-in yard circling the house on the corner of Sherman and Elm streets. No one was under the television when I finally caught a glimpse of it three floors below and smashed on the front lawn. A few people on the sidewalk were looking up at the broken window, but they continued walking as they looked.
Aragon dropped his guitar on the floor, creating yet more feedback, and ran through the curtain which doubled as a bedroom door into the next room. The rest of us played until the feedback stopped, slowing the tempo with the fading sound. Finally there was no drone of feedback. No bass. No drums. No guitar.
Ronnie went to the window, quickly followed by Jack and then me. We were amazed at how people just walked by like nothing happened. Apparently, if anyone saw the television fly, they didn’t bother to call the police.
“Shit,” Ronnie said, breaking the silence.
“That was music!,” I said. That’s what we fucken' do fellas.”
“I want to thank everyone on behalf of the group and I hope we passed the audition,” Aragon said in his best Liverpool accent as he came back into the room. “Well, we ended on a high note. Let’s get the fuck out of here and grab one for the road.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Let’s leave the scene of the crime.”
Jack and I took our guitars with us, although Ronnie said he wasn’t eager to return the next day for the drums and amps. As we left the apartment, walking past the television wreckage, Ronnie said, “I don’t think I want to be around when you get rid of your refrigerator.”
The Story of the New Haven
Berlin Survivors
Part III
"Where’s Ronnie? I thought he was coming with you?” I asked.
“He’s at my place,” Aragon said. “You boys good for a shot?”
Aragon called to Leo the bartender and ordered three shots of Jack Daniels and a soda to wash his down.
“Jack, did you meet Rory at Fitzwilly’s?” Aragon asked.
“Yeah, and we got to see Mike give the business to some asshole there,” Jack said.
“No, I don’t care about that,” Aragon said. “Michael is the master when it comes to fucking with people. What I need to know is if Rory stuck to his same routine.”
“Of course,” Jack said.
“Hey, fuck you,” I said to Aragon.
“I mean, he didn’t actually talk to Sara or anything, did he?” Aragon asked Jack. “He just sat and waved, right?”
“Leo,” I called. “Can you give my friends here a couple more shots?”
“That won’t save you tonight,” Aragon said.
“Yeah, but I figured it was worth a shot,” I said.
“So, why isn’t Ronnie here?” Jack asked.
“I gave him a key to my place this afternoon and told him to meet me there,” Aragon said. “Besides, he has to get in there tomorrow and grab his drum set and your amps and leave the key for the landlord.”
Aragon, who hated all alcohol except Jack Daniels, signaled for Leo to give him another soda.
“When he got to my place today, though, he was greeted by a note telling him to grab a beer from the cooler, put on the stereo headphones and hit the play button on my cassette deck,” Aragon said with a grin. “It’s time to see if Ronnie is a Berlin Survivor.”
“You are ruthless,” Jack said. “But I’m not sure it is necessary. You’re almost gone.”
Jack was a Berlin Survivor, of course, but he often complained of being “haunted” by the cries of “The Kids.” He wouldn’t talk about it much. But every once in a while, when he was really fucked up, he would ask me if I thought “The Kids” survived. I never knew how to answer that question.
But it was during one of those conversations that we came up with the “Berlin Survival Test.”
Sometimes, if I didn’t want to get into a heavy conversation, I would try to tell him that “The Kids” is only a song. Jack would just laugh and shake his head and say “The Kids” are out there, believe me. I just need to know how the kids survived.”
Jack’s mother died when he was small and I think he related to the kids having to go through life without a mother. He never talked about his mother and “Berlin” in the same breath. I just assumed it had an effect on him.
“Well, Ronnie’s been playing with us for quite some time,” Aragon said. “It’s time he took the test.”
“I can’t believe we never got around to giving him the test before this,” I said. “He almost escaped unscratched.”
I thought the idea of Ronnie, who regularly listens to stuff like the Grateful Dead and Little Feat, sitting down to Lou Reed’s “Berlin” was almost funny. I played plenty of Lou Reed for Ronnie every time he was at the house, and he seemed to really like the “Growing Up in Public” album, and he agreed - as anyone who entered our house really had to - that the Velvet Underground was pure genius - but we never went through “Berlin” from start to finish.
“Oh shit,” I said, leaning towards Aragon, who was standing between the two bar stools. “Is Ronnie doing acid? He had some acid earlier and said he wanted to drop some. Do you know if he did?”
“I don’t know,” Aragon said.
“Well, I don’t know if 'Berlin' on acid is such a good idea,” I said.
“I’m not sure either,” Jack said. “Maybe we should call him. I’m not sure 'Berlin' is such a good idea with Ronnie anyway.”
“Phone’s disconnected,” Aragon said. “But the electricity will hopefully be on until morning.”
“Maybe we should head over there,” Jack said.
“You guys really know how to kill a party,” Aragon said.
We hopped into Aragon’s Volkswagen Beetle and headed to his apartment on Sherman Avenue listening to a Television cassette.
“Are we listening to this because your television goes tonight?” Jack asked.
“No, we’re listening to this because they are one of the five best fucken' bands that ever played,” Aragon answered. “But the television goes tonight.”
We weren’t sure what Aragon had planned for his television, but we knew it would be good.
“Geez, I wonder if Ronnie is still alive,” Aragon said, parking the car.
“I wonder if he is and wishes he wasn’t,” Jack said.
“I wonder if he’s dead, if can we be nailed for inflicting a cruel and unusual punishment on someone?,” I offered.
We ran up the three flights of stairs to Aragon’s apartment and burst through the door to find Ronnie sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of his drum set. I was struck by how empty Aragon’s apartment was. The place where we would sit for hours and talk about music while surrounded by the largest record collection I had ever seen - a product of his days in college radio. Now it is almost empty. Just some musical equipment, a mattress roll in the corner, a television on a small, folding table and an echo that filled the apartment was all that was left.
“So, what do you think of the tape?” Aragon asked. “You look like you survived just fine.”
Ronnie looked up and, after a lengthy pause, asked, “Aragon, do you know why Lou Reed made this record?”
Ronnie looked like he was deep in a troubled thought.
“I don’t know, Ronnie, I guess because it had to be made,” Aragon said, pacing the near-empty apartment.
“It is sad, though, don’t you think? Don’t you think it’s sad?” Ronnie asked.
“So, did you drop some acid?” I asked.
“Yeah, but I think it helped because I don’t think I could have listened to this any other way,” Ronnie said, sounding almost dismissive that mixing acid and "Berlin" should prompt concern. “Maybe I could hear ‘Ripple’ by the Dead once, just to mellow me out.”
“All my Dead is already in Boston,” Aragon said, opening three Schlitz beers and pouring four shots of Jack Daniels. “How about some Modern Lovers? Or Miles Davis?”
“How about ‘Mind Games’ by John Lennon,” Ronnie asked.
“How about ‘Metal Machine Music’,” I jokingly said of the Lou Reed double album masterpiece that featured nothing but feedback and drone.
“Ronnie may jump out the window on that one,” Aragon said.
“Do you have ‘Hunky Dory’ by Bowie?” I asked. “That would be a perfect follow-up.”
“How about some Sire?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, let’s play,” Ronnie said. “But wait… Why did they have to take the kids from that woman? How could someone write a song that justifies and crucifies all in one four-minute period? How is the listener supposed to react?”
“The same way you did,” Aragon said.
“But why would he convince us that this woman was bad, from his perspective and from the perspective of society,” Ronnie said, his soft, high-pitched voice rising. “And then, when we push aside the tragedy long enough to think that maybe it was the right thing to do, that it was maybe right that this woman doesn’t raise the children, he brings in the children’s perspective?”
“Because Lou Reed is not a songwriter; he’s an artist,” Aragon said.
“But, when he recorded that album, he had to know he was telling a tragic story,” Ronnie said. “There is death and destruction! Putting the crying children in was tough. It didn’t really make it a better song. But it wasn’t just a song anymore. I don’t know what it was, though.”
“Look, I don’t think that’s Lou Reed’s best album, but it is a masterpiece for what it is,” I said, a little frustrated that "Berlin" was being over-analyzed, although I was about to jump in with both feet. “He brings a story to life. That’s what his music does; it shows you life. ‘Berlin’ is like the anti-‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ At the end, instead of George Bailey getting the money, getting back his family and having that little Clarence mother-fucker get his wings, Lou Reed leaves you with broken people, broken families and broken lives. Of course the children are crying. It’s painful, but it’s real. He probably could have left that out and he probably could have written all the songs so they could be played on the fucken' radio. But that’s not what a real artist does. Besides, look out the window. There are no fucken George Baileys out there. It’s Berlin.”
“Are we going to fucken' play?” Jack asked, looking very uneasy. “Come on!”
“Aragon, could I have that tape?” Ronnie asked, although I think we all raised our eyebrows at the request.
“You want to listen to it again, don’t you?” Aragon said, almost triumphant.
“Either that or I’m going to burn it,” Ronnie said. “I don’t know which.”
“Let’s play,” I said, turning my amp up.
As was the usual ritual whenever we played at Aragon’s apartment, he grabbed a large tumbler and filled half of it with Jack Daniels. Aragon then turned on the television with the sound off. Looking down at his guitar, Aragon strummed a few chords and looked over at me.
“It’s the Sire farewell jam, let’s start with ‘Sniper’,” he said of a poem I wrote about an overseas G.I. sitting on a rooftop getting ready to jump because he was homesick, although he really wished he had a rifle so he could shoot everyone else.
Aragon and I usually traded off using the single microphone since we only recited our own stuff. Jack wasn’t comfortable sharing his stuff in a musical setting yet.
Between songs, we would drink more shots and beers while Aragon would talk about how we all ought to go to Boston.
“Come on, it’s the place to be. Boston is where the culture is. Boston has a happening music scene. Boston has Fenway Park,” Aragon said.
“You almost convinced me until you got to Fenway,” I said. “Besides, I’m a Yankees' fan. They probably wouldn’t even let me into the city. And you know New York has a better music scene. I’m just going to say one word: Television. And Patty Smith and Richard Hell and the Voidoids.”
“Yeah, well: One; you did a shitty job counting, and two; you are still going to wake up in New Haven tomorrow morning,” Aragon said.
“I’m happy here,” I said. “New Haven is my city.”
“You’re hopeless, Rory,” Aragon said. “Listen, fellas, it’s like the Residents say, ‘Ignorance of Your Culture is not Considered Cool!’”
“Oh, sure, and the only way to have culture is to move to Boston?” Jack, another New Haven fan, said. “What about Paris, Edinburgh, or. . .”
“Or Berlin,” Ronnie said.
“I think you ought to forget about Berlin,’ I said to Ronnie.
“I don’t think I can, but I’ll try,” he said, finally letting out an uneasy smile.
Aragon didn’t tell a lot of people that he was leaving. There was the restaurant’s manager, because he had to give his notice, and then there were the chosen seven or eight people he told, who went with us the night before on a bar hopping farewell adventure.
“I want people to look around one day and say ‘What ever happened to Aragon?’” he reasoned.
“You will be missed,” I said.
“Here, here,” Jack said, raising his shotglass. “Besides, how many people do we know who listen to the Residents?”
“Fuck-you, let’s play,” Aragon said.
More songs and more beers and more shots. Fortunately, when you don’t really have much training in music, you can get sloppy and it sounds about the same as when you started. Somehow we were starting to sound pretty tight musically. We still lacked confidence to play out, even though a lot of people saw us at the house.
“You know, we probably could have played out if Rory wasn’t such a chicken,” Aragon said.
“Fuck you,” I said. “I don’t think we could have pulled this off just yet, and you all agreed, so it wasn’t just me.”
“What about Ron’s Place?” Aragon said.
“Especially at Ron’s Place,” I said of the “house of punk” in New Haven. “They would have torn us up. Sometimes we sound like we could pull it off and other times we sound like shit.”
“Come on Rory,” Aragon said. “You were just afraid.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But that’s only a small part of it.”
Ron’s Place on Chapel Street was a tiny bar that booked punk bands whose music was good, but the names were better. Names like The Vatican Commandos, Desperate Bellboys, Next, Saucers, October Days, Thinking Out Loud, and The Poodle Boys. It was the only place in town to hear really good original music. With black walls and an inch of water on the bathroom floors, Ron’s had an atmosphere that couldn’t be beat. It was like hanging out in someone’s basement.
Rock-n-roll was at a crossroad, it seemed, between the established rockers who lost their inspiration and the punks who had all the inspiration. I loved The Who: Pete Townshend will always be a God and John Entwhistle will always be the one who first inspired me to pick up a bass guitar, but, as a group, they were dead. Fortunately, Townshend put out a great solo album in “Empty Glass” - he was still relevant. But The Who were dead.
The Rolling Stones were already dead. Hell, even Aerosmith, who blasted onto the rock scene with a debut album that left many of the established acts face-first in the dust, were about to turn into a Vegas act now that Brad Whitford and Joe Perry were gone.
The only exceptions, in my mind, were The Kinks, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop because everyone was still trying to sound like them. And they were still releasing albums worth listening to.
The Sex Pistols, of course, made one of the best albums of all time in “Never Mind the Bollocks.” The Clash were one of the absolute best bands in the world, although a little full of themselves. Music was changing fast and we were observing; having a blast and trying to play along.
“Aragon, are you going to continue playing in Boston?” Jack asked.
“Of course,” Aragon said.
“But with a band?”
“I don’t know,” Aragon said. “I used to be content just writing music and playing all night with the television on and keeping it to myself. Then Rory came and fucked that up. I don’t know what I’ll be doing. This type of situation doesn’t come along very often.”
Aragon and I got along well at work when we first met at Fitzwilly’s. We hit it off musically right away. We got really tight when we went to New York with a few people to see Public Image Ltd and James “Blood” Ulmar at the Palladium. The other two guys we traveled with wanted to skate in Central Park’s Woolman Rink, but Aragon and I wanted no part of it. So, while they skated, we sat on a nearby rock drinking beer and talking about writing and music. By the time the other two were done skating, Aragon and I decided we would start jamming together. Besides, we were convinced we both knew the same three chords.
Over the past few months, whenever there was a party at my place – which was often – people would come downstairs to the living room to check us out. We actually got into the reactions of the people watching; reactions that ranged from looks of amused curiosity to clenched fists of approval. We loved playing for people at the house. It was always a relatively safe, supportive crowd.
“We had a pretty good time, huh?” I asked, looking over at Aragon.
“Fuck you, let’s play,” Aragon said, pouring the last of the Jack Daniels into his tumbler. “Let’s go, the television is gone on this one.”
The last of the Jack Daniels meant the last song. And it would last as long as the Jack Daniels, which in the case of half a tumbler usually meant about 45 minutes.
I played a few notes, a jumpy riff, which sounded like an unintentional rip-off of The Who’s “My Generation.” (yes, yes, I know… The Who were dead, but their music was still a major inspiration to me). Ronnie jumped in, although he looked like he was still deep in thought over “Berlin.” Jack quickly jumped in as well, playing what sounded like a backwards – or sideways – minor scale. Aragon switched between picking notes to striking chords and violently shaking the whammy bar.
I sang a poem about rebellion, which I wrote in high school, where every other line ended in “Fuck You,” then we went off on a musical tangent for the next half hour or so. Then Aragon stepped to the microphone, and, as usual, tossed a little humor in:
“The Killer awoke before dawn,” Aragon said in his best Jim Morrison voice. “He put ‘The Three Stooges’ on.” After a chuckle, and a few minutes of jamming, Aragon threw in a verse he had stored in his head about a subject he saved his most bitter writing for: his family.
With each line about unacceptance, denial and banishment, Aragon would strike the guitar with his fist to start a drone or feedback to sing over. By this time, Jack and I were playing the same “My Generation”-type notes over Ronnie’s steady beat to keep the groove going.
Finally, as he started chanting the last lines, something about telling his sister to fuck off, over and over, he laid the guitar on the floor in front of the amp, where it still hummed loudly, and grabbed another mouthful of Jack Daniels. Then he started screaming the last lines into the microphone: “Wasn’t that you who walked right past by me. Existing…. Judging in your own little world. You didn’t even look up to say hello. No acknowledgment. No nothing. No. No. But it couldn’t have been you. Because you never smiled. God knows I tried; Mom watched and cried; and cried. You wouldn’t talk you wouldn’t tell us. You shut us out. You wouldn’t smile.” Aragon was kicking the guitar, which at this point was screaming with feedback. Then, as promised, Aragon grabbed the television, which was still on, and dropped it on the floor next to the guitar so the vibrations would allow the guitar to make all new sounds.
I was impressed with the move and wondered what we could have done if Aragon had access to even more household appliances. This would make Frank Zappa proud, I thought. And the television was still on; a rerun of the Bob Newhart show played - the characters, like us, oblivious to what may come next.
Then, with another scream of the last lines of his poem, Aragon lifted the television over his 6-foot 2-inch frame. He was a little wobbly from the booze. Not the guitar, I thought, don’t drop it on the guitar! Even Ronnie and Jack looked a little nervous.
Aragon then kicked the guitar to make sure the feedback would sustain and took two steps to an unopened kitchen window and threw the television through it. He quickly crouched down, avoiding the shattering glass and the whip of the cord as it pulled from the wall plug. He grabbed his guitar, viciously strumming the strings to add to the noise.
Ronnie had an “Oh, shit, we’re all going to jail” look on his face. I walked over to the window, still playing, trying to get a peek outside.
Aragon, meanwhile, started a new chant, “Yeah, yeah, no television tonight/ yeah, yeah, it’s time to live/ it’s time to take control.” Jack looked pissed.
This is the third fucken' floor, I thought. I prayed no one was under the television, although there never seemed to be anyone in the few-foot-wide fenced-in yard circling the house on the corner of Sherman and Elm streets. No one was under the television when I finally caught a glimpse of it three floors below and smashed on the front lawn. A few people on the sidewalk were looking up at the broken window, but they continued walking as they looked.
Aragon dropped his guitar on the floor, creating yet more feedback, and ran through the curtain which doubled as a bedroom door into the next room. The rest of us played until the feedback stopped, slowing the tempo with the fading sound. Finally there was no drone of feedback. No bass. No drums. No guitar.
Ronnie went to the window, quickly followed by Jack and then me. We were amazed at how people just walked by like nothing happened. Apparently, if anyone saw the television fly, they didn’t bother to call the police.
“Shit,” Ronnie said, breaking the silence.
“That was music!,” I said. That’s what we fucken' do fellas.”
“I want to thank everyone on behalf of the group and I hope we passed the audition,” Aragon said in his best Liverpool accent as he came back into the room. “Well, we ended on a high note. Let’s get the fuck out of here and grab one for the road.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Let’s leave the scene of the crime.”
Jack and I took our guitars with us, although Ronnie said he wasn’t eager to return the next day for the drums and amps. As we left the apartment, walking past the television wreckage, Ronnie said, “I don’t think I want to be around when you get rid of your refrigerator.”
posted by Kane | 12:30 PM
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