The Rock Files for October 14^th 2009

The Band, The Bomb, and The Best Beginning

The Rock Files: The Segarini Band: Phase Three,  Part 4

Delusional (d?-l??’zh?null): 1. An act or instance of being deluding. 2. The state of being deluded. 3. A false belief or opinion, i.e: delusions of grandeur. 4. Me…

I remember walking out of PJ Imports thinking that their new label would call me when I got home and tell me that they wanted to release the Romantics EP as soon as possible, and were going to pay me, (and Greg Shaw), oodles of moolah for the privilege. Now all I had to do was get one of the Major Labels to pony up the money to finish Gotta Have Pop, and put their hit making machinery behind it so I could finally get that Ferrari Mansion Pool I’ve always wanted. I mean, really…how hard could it be? After all, I had had records released on RCA, A&M, Elektra, and CBS, and glowing reviews in Rolling Stone, Creem, Phonograph Record Magazine, hell, even Hit Parader and Circus, and I was getting calls from the radio stations to come and be interviewed, play my A&M EP, and even play other records I liked.

Golly Jeepers! Show business is AWESOME!!!

Did I mention how delusional I was?

Okay, so maybe this would be a little more difficult than I had originally anticipated. I had dropped off copies of the Gotta Have Pop tapes and sat around for a week or so waiting for the phone to ring. The phone did ring quite a bit, but it wasn’t the labels calling. Mostly it was my mother calling to talk to Cheryl about the baby.

The band continued to wait patiently until we could get back into the studio, and we spent time making plans, having the odd ‘rehearsal’, and plotting world domination, a long time tradition amongst rock bands, and the leading cause of break-ups a year or so later when no one has married a movie star, won a Grammy, or topped the charts a couple of times. Most bands were lucky to get steady work, and a few individuals rose to be on a first name basis with the local cops, or the cute nurse at the nearest rehab center. I was perplexed, but not worried, surely at least one of the labels would call soon.

My optimism was always limitless. It still is…most of the time.

Enough of this…I grow weary of drawing this out any longer.

Here’s what happened:

Segarini gets a label and an album: The Cliff Notes version…

01.  The phone rings. It is Wolfgang Spegg saying Bomb wants to sign the Segarini Band, and would we please go back into the studio and finish the record.

02.  Everyone except Drew, (who hasn’t moved to Toronto yet), goes back into Phase One and we complete the vast majority of Gotta Have Pop.

03.  Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot, Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot, Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot…the album’s almost finished.

04.  There is one more song to record before I start the mix. On my birthday, August 28^th, 1978, Drew takes the train from Montreal to Toronto and officially joins the group.

05.  The complete band goes into the studio and records the last track for the record, Love Story.

06.  Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot, Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot, Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot…the album is ready to mix.

07.  Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot, Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot, Jack and Coke and Beer and Pot…the album is mixed.

08.  Wolfgang, true to his word, sets a quick release date for the album. The band is ready to go.

09.  Rodney Bowes shoots the album cover, I write the liner notes, respected comic book artist, Ken Stacey draws amazing illustrations for ‘Steady Eddie’, and ‘Don’t Believe a Word I Say’.

10. The record is pressed on pink/blue/bubblegum vinyl, and Wolf sends out an invitation. Bomb Records is doing everything right.

This time, it’s personal…

Over a year after the work on Gotta Have Pop was started, it is a reality. Another album. Wow. Let’s see, The Family Tree, one with Roxy, 4 with the Wackers, (with 3 of them released), 1 with All the Young Dudes, and now this one. That makes 8 albums and an EP in 10 years, not to mention guest appearances on other records. Not bad for a middle class kid from Stockton, California that should have been a grocer.

This album was different from all the others, though.

My name was on it.

You can always reinvent yourself if a project fails and you are part of a group, but when the group has your name, well…there is an added amount of pressure to deliver the goods musically.

Fueled by that realization, I worked my ass off writing songs I thought were of merit, and finally recorded previously written songs I had believed in that previous labels hadn’t. The song Gotta Have Pop had been written and recorded for a second Dudes album, but rejected by CBS in the States. The Segarini Band re-recorded an almost identical version, and this time, it was going to see the light of day. It was pretty exciting. For once, I was with a label that heard what I heard, liked what I liked, and trusted us enough to concentrate on the business end of breaking a record while leaving the music itself to us. It was empowering, but at times, the pressure was overpowering. By the time the record was pressed, however, we all pretty much agreed that we could not have made it any better. Even today, over 30 years later, it still sounds fresh.

Shew says we did a week of warm-up dates at a dive called Duffy’s in Hamilton, and he’s probably right about that. The first real ‘show’ was our album release party the day before Halloween in October of 1978. Eleven days later, on November 10^th, 1978, we played before an invited audience of media and contest winners from Q107 for a live broadcast from Thunder Sound which Wolfgang let us record, and eventually became the band’s 3^rd album. I personally numbered and signed 2000 of them in my dining room as giveaways, which eventually became part of the overall release after Goodbye L.A. Even by today’s Indie Label standards, Bomb was Uber cool to do all the great things they did for us.

We’re gonna party like it’s 1978…

Back in ’78, one of the hippest things you could do was have an album release party. It was the providence of Major Labels until the advent of the Punk and New Wave scenes, when even the tiniest label could muster up a great party with at least free beer and some salty snacks. They were actual ‘parties’ where people dug the music, got plowed, danced, and had a great time. It wasn’t an excuse to network, be seen, or make new friends, although a lot of people did. Mostly, it was the bands friends, fans, and record company, and if you were lucky, a couple of folks from the press and maybe an already established artist or two who liked your music and showed up to be supportive, and there was no cover charge…ever. These were never ‘gigs’…they were ‘parties’ for real.

Wolfgang went all out for ours.

We decided on a ‘50’s theme because so much of the music on Gotta Have Pop was conceived as singles. Songs that stood alone, were short, hooky, and sounded like they belonged on the radio. I tried to take the best material I had written, no two songs sounding alike, and create almost a ‘compilation’ album of hit singles from an alternative universe. I embraced my influences, old and new, and ran the gamut from doo-wop and Elvis, through the British Invasion, R&B, and singer songwriters like Paul Simon and Randy Newman, and blessed with a band of absolutely wonderful musicians, make a record that sounded like the songs were already hits. I don’t know if we nailed it, but we gave it our best shot, and everybody busted their asses to make it something special. This is not to say the songs were contrived or had been constructed from some formula. They were all from the heart, and basically evolved into what you hear because we always asked ourselves what would fit the song. My theory has always been that the song is the star, so if it didn’t call for a solo, we didn’t put one in, if a harmony part would take the song up a notch, we sang one, and if it needed a texture change or something new to draw attention to the lyric, we searched for it. It was a labour of love, like all recording should be, only, for the first time, this one didn’t have a producer with an agenda, a label that wanted to mold us into something we weren’t, or a giant fucking clown on the cover or 6 guys in suits dancing on a HUGE art deco piano.

This was as good, and as honest, as we could make it. Period.

Our stage show would evolve the same way. Little things that would happen spontaneously would find themselves a part of future performances. Songs that we had recorded would take on different grooves or musical improvisation depending on the night and our mood. Nothing was written in stone except for one thing:

Play as good as you can, and have fun doing it. If we were having fun, so would the audience, a rule that still holds true.

Sometimes that attitude would lead to train wrecks, but we discovered it also made people want to come and see us again and again and again.

They wanted to see what would happen next. For almost 2 years, we never saw an empty seat at one of our shows.

So we ate burgers and hot dogs and fries and onion rings, egg creams and milkshakes as well as liquor and beer.

Wolf had Gotta Have Pop glasses made up and served all the drinks in them, and you could take one home with you. The club was packed and everybody seemed to have a great time. Bomb had rented a club for the occasion, and everyone liked it so much, he leased it and brought in an old friend of mine from Buffalo New York, Gary Sperrazza, to run the place. Sperrazza had been a big fan and supporter of The Wackers and All the Young Dudes, and had written about us in lots of magazines, and continued to help the band gain it’s footing in Toronto. We had the best support team you could ask for. Colleen Irwin, Dave “Daddy Cool” Booth, a young guy named Kim who died suddenly and tragically at a very young age, and Rodney Bowes and Dave Cousins, who did our album covers and artwork.

The release party was a big success, and so was the live broadcast 11 days later.

We were on our way…and eventually, Bomb released the Romantics EP as well.

Continued next Wednesday in The Rock Files…

That’s enough for now. Email me at segarini@fyimusic.ca with your comments, complaints, and thoughts…and remember…don’t believe a word I say.

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, The Segarini Band, and Cats and Dogs, and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now provides content for radiothatdoesntsuck.com with RadioZombie, The Iceage, and PsychShack. Along with the love of his life, Jade (Pie) Dunlop, (who hosts and writes “I’ve Heard That Song Before” on RTDS), continues to write, make music, and record.