Speaking Frankly

By Frank Hannan

Sometimes I just need to face the music
I mean literally. Music has been such a big part of my life. In this column, I often quote the titles or lines from some of my favorite songs. I am happiest when I am playing music with all my old friends. Yes, to all my detractors out there, music can sooth the souls of savage beasts, including Republicans like me.

The first live rock band I ever heard was Steve “Gig” Garrison’s band called The Stokers. They played at the Saint Mary’s picnic held at the Pompton Elks. They opened with the Tornado’s instrumental called “Telstar”. “Wipeout” was also a big hit. Our parents hated it but we loved it and made them play the only five songs they knew over and over again
In the mid 1960’s,on hot summer nights we use to go down to the Pompton Bridge and just listen to the rock concerts held at Pleasureland Pool in Oakland. You would hear a delayed and highly echoed version of what the bands were playing. (The pool was many miles away but directly up stream so the sound traveled.) Rumor has it that one of the bands we actually heard from that bridge in the summer of 1965 or 66 was a band out of LA Pre- “ Light my Fire” called The Doors. I have never gotten confirmation on the validity of that rumor.
The Pompton band with their Beatle Boots and long hair called The Splinters was a big hit. The leader’s name was Tom Collins and after that band broke up he became of course, Tom Collins and the Electric Mixers. As the Splinters they actually got to warm up once for the group, the Left Banke.

At age 14, I joined the Saint Mary’s Folk Mass Choir. We started the Golden Aardvark Coffeehouse and I sang in a band called FEZO. The name of the band originated from much disputed but victorious word used in a Scrabble Board Game. Obviously, the referee was a math major and had no grasp of the English language.
The best rock band in North Jersey came out of that folk mass group, The 3M Band.

The original trio, Larry and Mike Morris and Bill Moen are still rockin and play locally a few times a year. The six- piece band packs the house whenever and wherever they play.

At age 15, I was a member of Yale Universities Indian Neck Folk Club where I learned to love, folk, bluegrass and country music. (A FEZO member went to Yale.) I went up to Yale a couple of times a year to volunteer at the concerts.
At their 1969 festival, I became an instant hero. I was the only one out of the 100 people in attendance who knew how to tap a piton type keg. It may have been that I was the only one stupid enough to volunteer to do it. You shoved a long tube with the tap on it into the cork while at the same time you screwed the flange into place. One slip and the tube from the beer under pressure would shoot 20 foot into the air or into your chin. There were many toothless piton keg tappers back then.
My friends went to see The Rolling Stones at Symphony Hall in Newark in 1965 and I still regret that my parents won’t let me go to that historic concert. I finally got to see them at The Garden in 1969.

In August of 1968, I saw The Who as a warm up band for The Doors at the Singer Bowl in Queens. They opened up with “Magic Bus” and then the rotating stage broke down. Jim Morrison and The Doors literally brought down the house when the concert ended in a riot.
I got to see The Who again at the Capital Theater and later on saw many other bands there including, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, David Byrne and the Talking Heads and The Grateful Dead. I became a friend of the official chef of the Capital Theater, who got me front row tickets for Bruce and the E- Street Band at the opening of the then Brendan Byrne Arena/ Continental Arena/Izod Center.

The chef once asked me to drive to Maine and buy lobsters at one specific wharf. It was a request from Gerry Garcia. He said that Gerry wanted to see the receipt as proof they were bought only at that wharf and fresh that day. The chef then said if they came back expired that Gerry would not be grateful and then I would be dead. I respectfully declined the job.I caught the Boss many times down at the Stone Pony and Fast Lane jamming with Southside and the Jukes and with John Cafferty and Beaver Brown of “ On the Dark Side” song / “Eddie and the Cruisers” movie fame.

Where did the time go?

When I was young I thought I would stay young and live forever. With the passing of the rock, folk, country, bluegrass stars of my youth like Danny Federici of the E- Street Band, I get closer to the realization that it is the simple things in life like music that give me the most joy.
A picken guitar party with my friends, singing songs with the 3M band and The Acoustic Eels. Hearing a song on the radio that brings back fond memories. “Give me that old time rock and roll that kind of music really sooths the soul I reminisce about the days of old with that old time rock and roll”. Sometimes to be happy, I just need to face the music.

Reprinted With Permission (c)Aim West Milford