New York

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What a wild time in my life working and playing at the Mudd Club! My partner Bill and I through our sound system company Centour Sound became the production managers of the club after John Kessler was done doing his stint as the production manager. Just before John left we had the extreme pleasure of John, Bill and I working together to work with Frank Zappa who played the Mudd Club! We brought in extra equipment and a bigger mixing console to accommodate his band. Terry Bozzio was on the drums at that time. That was a thrill to work with a master in such a small venue. There is a sketchy bootleg, sounds to me like someone had a cassette tape recorder and taped it in the midst of the crowd. The recording is on you tube, I included the link – I remember that Frank had his own sound person do a recording right from the board, so that must be available somewhere in some Zappa archive.

We worked with a lot of different bands & artists from Samba to Punk, experimental to down right BAD–fashion shows and you name it everything in between. DJ’s Anita Sarko (who has passed away in 2015) and DJ David Azarch made the club hum, jump and jive into the wee hours of the morning. In which we usually ended up going to an after hours club and came out squinting as the sun was fully out and blaring while we were going home and watching the rest of the world just going to work.  I will add more Mudd Club memories in my blog as time goes by – Keith Herring, Johnny Thunders, Question Mark and the Mysterians, Sam and Dave, John Belushi, wow and so many – so stay tuned in! –

 

 

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The lampshades went through many band mates until it’s final 5 was established. The first true band set up was myself, John Donnelly, Pete Fagiola, Gary Citro and Robbie Nichole’s. We wrote a few original songs but the majority of the music was cover music. The covers that we played were very eclectic, from Pink Floyd to the B52’s, Devo and the Doors.

Robbie Nichole’s
At 17 was starting to live and breath the moment

John left the band and new member Kenny Kern joined us. Kenny was an extremely versatile musician and is a really great guitar player among the other instruments he could play he also sang very well. We continued to dabble in some original music but embarked on doing 3 sets of cover music so we could play the Long Island Bar circuit and earn some cash. Not too long into playing at some Long Island hot spots like Wooden Ships, Uncle Bob’s Rocking Fun House, Camelot Inn and some place in Massapequa in which right now the name eludes me. Soon after we started playing the circuit we had to part ways with Robbie, as he was tough to get along with and really was not a good musician or should we say his musical taste’s didn’t taste very good. Now to find another guitar player in comes Jim Tucker. Jim was a good solid rhythm man and could also sing. This group of 5, Ken, Jim, Gary, Pete and me started writing a bunch of original tunes. Still playing covers in bars and a few colleges to get cash, we began to integrated some of the original pieces into the sets. Andy Blinx a good friend, fellow musician and artist had an in at Radio City Music hall with the engineer Don Hunnerburg. So we took some of the bar cash equity to record 4 songs at the Radio City studio’s shooting to do a 45 record on our own. We invited John Kessler along to help with the production on the mix.

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Don and John at the console

Being that Andy got us the inside track to record at Radio City, the only caveat was that we had the studio from 12 midnight to 4am. Needless to say what we did to keep up – was something called sex, drugs and rock & roll!                                                                                Thank-you Mr. Blinx!

Don Hunnerburg
Pete at the Vibes -Gary watches

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Forty five plus years ago, sitting at the dinner table with my parents I boldly exclaimed, ” I’m going to pursue a career in music”. So began the start of a journey that brought me to many people and places that few others get a chance to experience in a life.

I always liked music, although through the Kessler brothers it sparked me into diving in head first into new and exciting genres that I never knew existed. John played keyboards and Wow Bob played drums, so naturally John talked me into getting a bass guitar, a fender precision candy apple red ( very road worn) with a tree trunk “C” neck.

The fun begins as I got pulled into the New York City music scene. John taught me the engineering part of music and at 17, I was mixing bands at the famous Max’s Kansas City on park Ave. The Ramones, John Collins Band, Mink Deville, the Dead boys to name a few. In between I was playing and started my first band, we sucked. Although the influences of all the different music I heard made a profound impression on my music and the direction I would take. Finally I put together a better band, but we did not have a name. At the time there was a person Wayne County that would be hanging out and playing at Max’s. Wayne soon became Jayne County and in one of his/her songs one of the lyric lines was wearing everything but a lampshade, well it went something like that. And to tie the story together Jayne would always come over and make it a point to say hello to me. Thus the ribbing started, well Al what’s the name of your band?, Al B and the Lampshades? Not to be too pretentious, the band settled on The Lampshades.

More to come                            20160213_032849275_iOSWayne County concert poster from the late 70's20160213_032849275_iOS