2. Holy Shit- A Band

2.  Holy Shit- A Band (updated 7-14-14, 7-16-14, 7-23-14, 7-18-15)

2.Holy Shit- A Band

Johnny knew every Cream and Doors song by heart; he could sing the words to every one. Jimmy Binaca loved Jethro Tull, Procol Harum, and copied Gary Brooker to a “T” until his friend Carl Stein introduced him to a chick from Jersey named Debby Harry and they formed Blondie. Jimmy later changed his last name to Doody; ethnicity was not cool. Jimmy’s friend, guitarist Teddy McCracken, loved Clapton and Beck and memorized all their lead breaks; he was introduced to Johnny one night at The Square. Frankie Palermo played drums like his brother, Carmine, who just found stardom in Vanilla Fudge. Tony Bochco, who stopped playing rock after he OD’ed, was a local favorite from a band called Pecker Frost; he played on a bill with a landsman from Queens named Leslie Weintraub (later to become Leslie West) in a band called the Vagrants, later to form the internationally famous Mountain. When his band broke up, Frankie was available.

All the musicians could play their instruments well. Johnny sang and played the tambourine, cow bell, and harmonica. None of the musicians who played instruments could sing or write lyrics. Johnny Livewire put his poems to the blues music he loved and covered blues standards like “Born under a Bad Sign.” He started a band with Canola, McCracken, and Palermo. They named their band “Holy Shit” because that is what they wanted people to say when they heard them play. Everyone he played with, every musician he knew went on to fame, all except Johnny Livewire.

They started a band, Johnny Livewire on vocals, raw screaming vocals derived from Jim Morrison, astute lyrics lain between Jim and Patti Smith like it was he with them in the beyond of perception. Johnny called the tunes. Holy Shit became the best band in Brooklyn, so he thought, so he felt, but they didn’t say so.

 Johnny Livewire knew what he wanted to sing: The Blues. He wrote songs about the blues of the day; not old blues about no food or hard work, but new blues about young men who had nothing in the world these days. “Brand New Ray” was a song about being ostracized and wanting revenge. “Free Fall” was about disillusionment. “Hitch-Hiker Blues” was about the freedom of getting away without the means to do so. “Garlic Gargoyle” was about liberation through mind altering drugs.

The radio station played FM only. The music was stereo. The records were twelve inches, not seven. The revolutions were thirty-three and a third, not forty-five. Johnny Livewire was non-commercial, no interruptions except for station breaks. The smoke was smoke you couldn’t buy in candy stores or newspaper kiosks, smoke without a label. Johnny Livewire and Holy Shit were the hottest band in Brooklyn, Everyone in high school was talking about them, but you can’t have smoke with no fire; Johnny was smoldering; not hot enough for any label to handle. Instead, he was torched, not touched. Tony Gork was Jimmy Binaca’s bodyguard. He helped Jimmy burn Johnny, eventually.

The glue-sniffers played nothing but cruel jokes on each other. Tony Gork was the worst of the schmucks.

“Hey fuck-face, Jimmy tells me that you called him an asshole,” called out Gork one evening

      “I did not,” Johnny replied. He sensed trouble coming from this worthless junkie.

      “But he says you did, didn’t you tell me that Jimmy?” Jimmy kept a straight face as Tony Gork guarded, in the vestibule of the store front.” Jimmy didn’t mind Gork picking on anyone. He was proud of being protected.

      “This is fuckin’ crazy.”

      “Are you calling me crazy?” Gork raised his wooden cane to hit Johnny. As Tony Gork and Johnny sparred with words, Jimmy Binaca was sneaking up behind them and squeezing lighter fluid into the back of Johnny’s long brown hair. The next thing Johnny knew, his smelled the smell of burning hair, His hair was on fire. Johnny frantically hopped about as he and his friends patted down his head as the flames singed before his scalp would burn.

      “Get out of my fucking way,”

      “What do you think you’re doing?” Tony Gork stood in front of Jimmy who cowered in the store vestibule. “You lay a hand on my friend and I’ll kill you.”

      “Get out of my way, Tony.” Tony laughed and dodged Johnny left and right in front of Jimmy laughing.

      “Okay for now,” Johnny was heaving and panting with anger, “but you’re gonna get it, Jimmy. I’m gonna fuck you up one day.”

It didn’t take much to break up a band. All it took was the leader leaving saying he didn’t want to do it anymore. New bands were not groups of musicians with equal power and input to what music was going to be played. Johnny Livewire found himself the leader of most of the bands he played in. The general consensus was that although the musicians made the music, the singer either wrote the music or chose the songs he wanted to sing; he was the leader of the band.

Sometimes Johnny would throw his hands up and give up because the other band members didn’t like the music he had chosen or written. “Alright then, you tell me what you want to play and I’ll try to sing it.” Sometimes democracy prevailed; each band member got to choose his own contribution That rarely worked though because band members preferences were so divergent that one member couldn’t see doing another band member’s selection.

The band that stayed together the longest all liked the same kind of music and agreed on a panache with the leader, usually Johnny’s, the singer who didn’t play a guitar, piano, or drum; a musician is the music was more important than the lyrics.

One could tell if the band members were right for each other if they liked the same rock groups. Johnny Livewire’s bands in the 70’s were like that. Everybody liked Cream, Bloodwyn Pig, and Jeff Beck, usually The Doors. Johnny’s band mates liked that his role model was Jim Morrison. The next indicator of whether a band would stay together was the competency; not so much what you liked but could you play their music on your chosen instrument. If competency wasn’t an issue, longevity hinged on ego-tripping members. The musician could play well and made fewer errors than the others in the band, he would get a chip on his shoulder, become a prima donna and not want to play something until he was good and ready. It was then that the arguments began, members took sides, someone quit, and the band fell apart. Sometimes all it took was a girlfriend switching partners.

“Go stick a hair in it!” said Pat over the phone. “No, I wasn’t talking to you.” She was screaming at her brother. “What did you say?” She asked Johnny; she wasn’t listening.

Patricia Falcón put Johnny behind her in manage-et-trios, Billy Budd in front. Johnny didn’t know the music was not enough to make it to the top; it was who you knew, too. He found out that Jimmy Bianca and other Italians at the Square had assistance from the mafia. If Johnny did a favor for them, he was in the music business, too.

Johnny met Patricia at The Square. She was known as a slut but Johnny thought he would make a girlfriend out of her. It didn’t work. She was a dirty blond, with the emphasis on the dirty. Pure Brooklyn Italian with big brothers with tattoos and one pound crucifies to prove it. Her mother and father both talked dirty. Patricia begged to get out of the house. “Johnny, take me away from these stugots, marone! She heard the church bells on Sunday but didn’t listen. She was busy banging the heck out of Johnny. Johnny loved that part the best, but she used sex to get what she wanted form Johnny. The slight chunk of her body with eyes that matched her hair flew full throttle when she pouted and heaven knows, she pouted so often. “Johnny you couldn’t get dressed and get me a Seven-Up float could you.” Johnny jumped. “Oh that’s so sweet of you. Here, let me give you a kiss,” but the kiss was between his legs and Johnny would have taken a long walk off a short pier if she asked him to do it. 

When he got back to his bedroom, she would be sitting on Mousey’s drum stool, naked, thrashing at his cymbals.

He just threw off his clothes, grabbed Guido’s bass, and started making music with her. That’s the kind of girl that loves the rock stars, Johnny thought, but Patricia was just having fun. “Let’s go to the Saint Catherine’s Bazaar tonight!” If Johnny said no, there was a blow job waiting for him, but he was too sincere to say ‘no’ and not mean it. Patricia wasn’t.

      Billy Budd was so close on the floor to Pat that Johnny couldn’t pry them apart, so Johnny went behind one of them, the female one.”Johnny, is that you?”

      “No, it’s the dog. I wanna be your dog.”

      “Oh Johnny, stop fooling around. Ouch, Billy, go easy there, okay!? That’s better.”

      They rolled around on the floor in Johnny’s mom’s apartment, naked, dangerous with mom due home from work in an hour or so. The downers made it all so dreamy but Johnny was on the outside. A high on grass wasn’t the same as falling out on reds and yellows. Johnny felt like a fifth wheel with his own girlfriend. After a few awkward moments of the two men hugging Pat, Johnny sat up and went over to the chair to watch them consume each other. He thought that if he was a rock star, he had better get used to whatever goes.

      “Pat, you have to lay off those Quaaludes; they’re no good for you.”

      “What?” Pat was coming. Billy was pounding her.

      “What did you say?”
      “Look at you; you don’t know what you’re doing.”

      “Yes I do.” Coming up for air and seeing Johnny on the chair was surrealistic, dreamy. Finally, Billy stopped kneeled, and pulled up his zipper.

Pat was better lying down when she was on downers, but Johnny didn’t matter to her. She was hurting herself, Johnny thought. He was going to help her, but Pat wanted no such help. 

Weeks later, after only hearing Pat’s calls for him to get downers for her, Johnny called Maimonides Mental Health Center; When Holy Shit was playing in the parking lot of the center, he saw a sign on the door about drug addiction, an encounter group, no pressure, where you could go and discuss your issues. 

      “Johnny, why are you here tonight?”

      “I wanted to be with Patricia.”

      “You can’t; this is a group for abusers.”

      “I’m an abuser.”

      “And what do you abuse?”

      “My mama.”

      “Johnny, please wait outside,” the counselor said.

      “Yeah, Johnny, I’ll be alright,” whispered Pat as she let his hand go. Johnny was proud of her. She was becoming a good girlfriend, he thought. She’ll stop her drugged-out behavior once she gets straight,” but Johnny was wrong and not acting like a sex-crazed rock star at all.

      The next week was The Doors concert at Singer Stadium at the World’s Fair Grounds in Flushing, Queens. Johnny had two tickets, one for him and the other for Patricia.

      “I’m going out with Billy now, could you stop calling and bothering me?”

      “But I love you, Pat. You shouldn’t be like that.”

      “I’m not like anything, Mama Mia. Just go away, okay? Please?”

      “Patricia, please. Slow down and reconsider, will you?”

      “Okay, but give me some time, okay?

      “We’ll have fun at the concert, you’ll see.”

      “About that concert, could I have your ticket?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “I’m not going with you, don’t you understand?” She hung up on Johnny Livewire.

      “Pat, please.”

      “It’s you again?” She hung up again. Pat took the phone off the receiver after that. Did Johnny reconsider his feelings for her? Nah; she didn’t know what she was doing.”

      Patricia called Johnny the next day. Johnny was right; she was coming back to him.”

      “I’m sorry about yesterday, scrumptious yummy you are. I wish you were here.”

      “So do I.”

      “Johnny, could you do me a favor?”

      “Sure sugar. What’s my baby want?”

      “Can I have your Doors ticket?”

      “The concert’s tomorrow night.”

      “I want to go with Billy.”

      “You what?”

      “Please, I will love you two times for it. Make me happy, okay?”

      “And who’s gonna make me happy?”

      Johnny gave Patricia his Doors concert ticket.

     

“Why did the hippie put LSD on his matzos?” asked the borscht-belt stand-up comedian to the audience of perhaps seventy-five present. “So, he could take a trip to Israel, why else?”

The miniscule crowd of conservative Jews in the front of the orchestra seating laughed as hard as they could but the sound would never reach the walls of the 46^th Street Lowe Movie Theater. The comedian did his shtick, took his bows, and exited, stage left, Johnny stayed hidden, slumped down in the old crushed velvet seat along with some other of the boys from The Square. They laughed, too.

The loud silence followed the applause before the host, a hefty well-dressed bilingual maser, rolled in from stage right to introduce the next act. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome The Klezmer Kings. Let’s hear it for the Klezmer Kings, please.” A group of three men walked quickly, almost running to show their youthful vitality, and immediately went into an oompah rendition of “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.”

 The boys in the balcony clapped the loudest. They enjoyed themselves not because of the entertainment but that it was funny to hear jokes about LSD while you’re under the influence. They had to be careful though not to be spotted lurking in the unused, unlit balcony. They hadn’t paid their admission at the door. There was another way in.

One of the locals knew of a route into the theater which he used as a kid to see free movie shows a few years back when they still had double features there. The Loew’s 46^th Street Theater was famous for its Saturday matinees. As a child, Johnny and a thousand screaming kids had seen Batman and Robin there, in person, along with the Bat-mobile. The theater suffered from disuse, duct taped fabric seats, paint chips and plaster fallen from the heavens into the aisles like a plague from a time before Ben-Hur. The neighborhood of Irish, Italian, and secular Jews had been giving way ever faster to religious black robed Hassidim. This show was a one-off last hurrah of the Catskill crowd; not very snazzy. Posters had been stapled to every timber telephone pole in Borough Park including the two on The Square.

The dealer stopped by to sell his nickel bags. If you walked down the street with him, and looked nonchalant, he even had Secanols and Tuinals if you behaved. The glue-sniffers drifted off to visit their pusher and were gone for the night. Pop’s Candy Store was closing for the night; the Waffle House was open 24 hours. The night was chilly and overcast with a threat of rain. Everyone’s parents were home. What better place to spend as Thursday evening but at the theater. The guides knew the way in.

“Walk down 46^th Street from New Utrecht along the long theater wall. In the back, after the closed stage door, there is a four-floor walk-up apartment building. Go passed the entrance and you’ll see a stairway down under the first floor into the basement. Pass through the tunnel and up the steps into a little air well. Cross the air well and go back down the stairs under the back of the building. When you come back up, you’ll be in the backyard. Turn left at the rusty chain-link fence that divides the property on 46^th and 45^th Streets. Never go through the hole to the driveway back there; too risky.”

Getting into the theater for free was an old secret that had to be preserved for future generations. Like an underground railway, it was the only escape from a mundane life into the world of fantasy. Johnny followed with other sojourners quietly around the back of the apartment building to the fence of the theater.

“Go under the rotting fence and you’ll be in the loading dock area; large steel doors to the stage itself!” Right of the vermillion doors, and left around the back of the theater, you’ll see a sturdy steel staircase.” Those were the emergency exit stairs in case someone shouted “Fire” in a crowded theater. “Go up two landings to the mezzanine level. You’ll see a ladder. Climb the ladder, cross the short roof, and climb down the ladder on the other side. On the other side, you’ll see a window with bent bars. That’s where you want to enter. That’s the boiler room of the theater. Go in there, out the door to the upper balcony, and you’re in.”

One by one, the dozen boys, some staggering from the mind expanding drugs in their system, entered the theater through the lobby and found their seats for the show. This was just a trial run though. Soon ABC TV’s Midnight Special and Bananafish Park would light up the stage with the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands in the world! Johnny and The Square gang would see every show they wanted to see, free of charge. Management never found out. Holy Shit would glow in the lime light! Johnny Livewire would become a star.

He was in pleasured amazement when he learned, upon reading an article in the Spectator, that rock ‘n’ roll was coming to Brooklyn at the Lowe’s 46^th Street theater. The Borscht Belt review wasn’t to last; thank God, but the theater remained unboarded with the last scheduled shoe on the marquee for months. The building wasn’t going anywhere because it was too massive to move and too expensive to tear down, though it rightfully should have become a protected historical spot.

Johnny read, and he was probably the only person at the square that did read besides the paisans in the morning with their Coeeierre della Sera, that a group of investors who had opened a bar and disco on Third Avenue in Bay Ridge called Bananafish Garden were going to rent out the 46^th Street Theater for rock ‘n’ roll shows and rename it Bananafish Park. The news was the luckiest happenstance of his young life to hit him and Brooklyn especially since he knew of a way to get into the theater for any show that they put up op on stage for free. Manhattan only had The Academy of Music since Bill Graham shut down the Fillmore East in June ’71 but now Brooklyn had its own venue within a few blocks of Johnny’s apartment building.

 Johnny Livewire attended every show that could make him pull out and pull up his pants zipper for. The denizens of the psychedelic benches on The Square were usually in attendance while New Utrecht bench junkies just wandered off to score or burglarize house and some cross-roaders scored Quaaludes and smoke for the sojourn into the Rock Palace. Shows were regularly scheduled by no means and many were on Wednesdays at 2:30pm for some reason, a good reason to cut out of school. Great rock acts like The Byrds, Iron Butterfly, Country Joe McDonald, The Youngbloods, and the Jefferson Airplane in the 2500 seat movie hall built in 1927, The Grateful Dead show was the weirdest in an empty theater. Johnny sat in the fifth row with the other heads. A few songs into the set, it looked like the Borscht Belt crowd had returned from a local senior citizen home and they were on an outing.

Banana fish Garden was also used for a few tapings of the ABC Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert show. Jerry Lee Lewis was there sniffing a pair of panties on his face. Hot Tuna was there, too as ABC delayed their show to remove a make-believe marijuana plant on the stage. But the best show was yet to come; members of Hot Tuna, Jack, and Jorma came by to jam with the Dead one of the four nights. From November 11 through November 14, 1970, Hot Tuna with the Grateful Dead as an opening act, I went to the Grateful Dead shows at the "Rock Palace" on the 13th and 14th of November 1970. I do not recall Hot Tuna opening, but the New Riders of the Purple Sage did. I do know that Papa John jammed with the Dead on the first night only, second set, as the Airplane were in town playing there later that week, on the 15th.

The theater was wild. The fruit punch and orange-aide were spiked with acid. Two thousand paying customers and hippies from The Square underground railroad made it in to trip the night away. Johnny and The Square gang knew the routine: wait until the paying crowd had moved into the theater from the line that stretched around the corner down to the apartment building next door to the theater, the building with the secret passageway. Everyone was prepped with blotters of sunshine and Purple Haze, sugar cubes of LSD-25. Some long-hairs waited with Johnny down 45^th Street at the house of their dealer to get some weed and watch their dealers sister, the cutie that she was, rock and hump the wood railing leading up to their porch. They took a chance when the time was right and entered the theater through the driveway across the street and under a fence between the cinderblock garages passed the backyard of the apartment building and through another fence to the theater’s backstage loading dock.

You had to be careful in the dark going up the ladder. One guy was rumored to have fallen off the ladder. Another two guys weren’t careful opening the door to the promenade through the boiler room and were busted by ushers with flashlights luckily after Johnny and his friends had gotten in. They tried to board up the window after that but all it took was a crow bar someone left outside the window on the little roof to get the wood off. That was in the days before they taped a band around your wrist to show that you had paid to get in.

The pigs from the 66^th precinct were coming around The Square putting pressure on everyone, especially the dudes who had jobs they couldn’t afford to lose. Johnny was busted one night with one joint that a pig saw him toss under the car they were in. They arrested him when he refused to tell where he had gotten it from. “It fell from heaven; God gave it to me.” The Hassidic Jews moving up from Borough Park were complaining about the derogatory actions of the goyum. They had to stopped, those messugah kids. Unbeknownst to the Elders of the community, one of their well-respected assemblymen had three wild boys, two selling weed, and one wild daughter who liked to tantalize her brother’s customers.

Johnny sat together with the other Square musicians in the upper balcony, The Holy Shit, Jimmy Bianca, Mark Riviera, Vinny Appice and his brother Carmine from Vanilla Fudge. When it was peaking time, all bets were off. Tuna, on stage, played as part of the audience, Papa John fiddled the strings that led to red Maurice, if the devil dared to dance. It was a blitz of unlimited proportion

“I’m going down to say hello,” said Johnny loudly.

“You’re what?” The music and crowd were so loud Johnny had to move his mouth to his bass player’s ear to be heard.

“I said I’m going on stage to sing with Jorma!”

“”No you’re not!”

“Why not?!?”

“Because you’re not in the band, asshole!”

“It’s okay. It’s okay!!!”

“Good luck.” Johnny stood up and hopped down the aisle. He emerged on the orchestra level dodging out-of-their-mind dancers in the aisles, totally out of control of security, to the stairs on the side of the stage.

“Where do you think you’re going!!???”

“I’m a friend of Gracie. Hey, Gracie!!!” Johnny shouted to Grace Slick. “Gracie, it’s me, Johnny!!” Johnny had spoken to her briefly at a concert Jefferson Airplane gave at the band shell near the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park the summer before.

“Yeah, I know him. Said Grace to the stage drew member. “Let him up!”

“Come on up you!!”

“Gracie, I just have one question for you,” said Johnny as he stood near Grace. “Can I sing?”

“No, Johnny, you can’t. Jorma is singing. Let him finish,”

“Okay. Hey, why aren’t you singing?” said Johnny trying to focus on Ms. Slick in front of him. Grace pointed to her protruding stomach.”

“I don’t want to hurt the baby!”’

“Oh, I understand. Okay.” Johnny gave her a kiss on her cheek. “Bye-bye.” He hopped off the stage to the sound of fans cheering his balls and struggled to get back up the aisle to return to his band mates in the balcony.Hot Tuna played on and on.

“Hey, she was beautiful, man,” said Johnny screaming.

“What?!?”

“I said she was beau…” suddenly Johnny felt a click in his throat. He gulped, he coughed and tried to clear his throat but it wouldn’t help. His face took on a tone of purple terror.

“Johnny Johnny, are you alright?!?” asked David, the bass player.

“I can’t talk!” Johnny was terrified. In his mind, his tongue, because he had screamed so loudly, had fallen off the socket attaching it to the back of his mouth. He was in jeopardy of losing his tongue unless he got it back in it’s place. With terror in his eyes, he bolted from his seat and ran to the bathroom on the mezzanine. He entered the stall and wretched, wretched to see if that would make his tongue fall out, but he kept his hand under his mouth over the toilet bowl so, if his tongue did fall out, he wouldn’t lose it falling into the toilet water. He coughed until it dawned on him; he was having a bad trip. His tongue was not falling out of his mouth; he was imagining it. “It was impossible for his tongue to fall out of his mouth, wasn’t it?” He told himself and emerged from the bathroom stall to splash water on his face and see the rest of the show.

When he was drying his face, he saw a strange sight; Jimmy Bianca was standing on the ledge of the large bathroom window, one floor up. “Jimmy, what are you doing?”

“I’m getting ready to fly?”

“Getting ready to fly? You can’t fly.”

“I can’t. Why not?”

“Because you can’t. You’re not a bird.” Jimmy Binaca was having a pleasant trip about flying over Alban’s Square and perhaps around Borough Park. “If you try to fly, do you know what will happen? You will fall and splatter on the sidewalk. Splat! The sanitation department will have to come with brooms and sweep you up.”

“They will? I can’t fly?”

“No, Jimmy you can’t. They will clean you up.” Jimmy Binaca just winked hard with his heavy eyelids over dilated eyes, took Johnny’s hand and stepped off the ledge over the radiator and back to the bathroom floor. “Thanks, Johnny.” Johnny didn’t realize until the next day that it would have been a perfect opportunity to get revenge on Jimmy for setting his hair on fire, but you don’t think of revenge when you are tripping on acid, do you?

On his way back to his seat, the music still loud and rocking, he passed by the emergency room. He opened the door and went inside to see a dozen frightened and loony heads floating round the room, some crying, some staring at their hands and screaming. A few volunteers were trying desperately to calm them down one at a time but one calmed down and another flipped out. Everyone had done downed the acid in the fruit punch and orange-aide. Johnny say on the floor perplexed at the scene. Just then, his bass player came in. He had been looking for Johnny all over the theater. Jimmy said he saw him in the bathroom and his tongue was falling out of his mouth before he helped him fly back to the bathroom floor and he went out to the emergency room. His bass player sat on the floor next to Johnny concerned about his friend and band mate. He stroked Johnny’s knee. “Are you okay, man?”

“Why are you touching me?”

“I just want to see if you’re okay,” said David Canola earnestly.

“So why are you stroking me?” Johnny had the apparition that his bass player was gay and coming on to him. He was totally stoned and misunderstanding everything he saw. “Listen,” his bass player said, “I’m leaving. I came in here to see if you were okay. I’m out of here.”

Johnny went back to his seat. The Grateful Dead jammed with Hot Tuna until past three o’clock. Nobody had left the theater. It was wild. The music played on. Somehow, somehow, Johnny ended up in his bedroom that morning with tight jaw and hot sandy scrotum, the amplifiers still buzzing in his head. 

  “Jay and the Americans we’re there. I remember the crowd was unruly. Jay walked up the steps holding a gun out of his pants pocket. The J. Geils band made an appearance; Focus, Deep Purple, The Bee Gees, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Steve Stills… Johnny saw them all. Allison Steele, an FM radio announcer was there; someone sneaked in her dressing room and was thrown out. Peter Boyle was backstage for one of the shows, Country Joe McDonald, too. Extensive renovations were scheduled in 1973 but the Rock Palace closed. Johnny hoped he could play there one day but now no one would. The theater became a furniture store.