"When will the skies break out with thunder and the people all around us yell"
The Pinkney Park Concerts1971-1979 |
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Pinkney ParkPinkney Park lies along the Five Mile River in Rowayton (177 Rowayton Avenue). Rowayton bought the property and its circa 1800 house in 1971. The Rowayton Civic Center started having summer events there in 1971 on Sundays throughout the summer, including a “Youth Rock Festival”.
1971The first Pinkney Park “Youth Rock Festival” was in July of 1971. I played harmonica with a scratch group of musicians that included Greg Pfeifer on drums and Dana Good on guitar and someone with the last name “MacDonald” on bass. We played with two other bands including Head Cleaner which featured John Pettus on guitar and Roger Keller on drums. We set up and played on the center island of grass at Pinkney.
1972By summer, 1972, I was playing regularly with Dave Procter. We added Ed Flinn (who Dave and I had met around Rowayton separately). He played a set of bongos first, but then bought a single conga to add to Dave’s 12 string and my acoustic 6 string and harmonica. On July 23, we debuted as Airfix (or “Eirefix” as spelled by the Norwalk Hour) along with Dana Good and his Trio, Ria Brothers and St Elm Street. (For years after, Dave would repeat this band’s opening, “Hi, my name is Reno and we’re SAINT ELM STREET!”) We played on the center island again. I remember two of the songs we played, “After Midnight” (it sounded so good in the rehearsal, less so that day), and “Happy” by the group, Hog Heaven. This had been a minor FM hit at the time. Dave sang the lead and played rhythm. Amazingly, here are the lyrics:
I woke up this mornin’ with a good feelin’
1973We returned with a new lineup in this year. According to notes, we seemed to have extended the lineup to include:
1974This concert was better documented. The Summer Arts Festival featured Malnutrition (Miguel and Pablo Frasconi), Vocal Color (Gary Bellus, Randy Adams, Rip Sizensky and Zamie (sic) Simpson) and The Kraemer Brothers with brothers,Steve Kraemer and his actual brother, Pete. We played as D.D. Bean (taken from a matchbook manufacturer) and featured Patti Buckley on flute for two songs, Mike Hector on flute for four songs and a young Tom May on acoustic guitar.
1975The concert this year was rained out and therefore held indoors in the auditorium of the United Church in Rowayton. I don’t know what we called ourselves, but we played as a large group on the stage. This included the Blue Monday lineup: Musicians included Dave Procter, Ed Flinn, myself, Patti Buckley, Harry Hussey, Mark Lebow, Mike Hector, Mike Burns and possibly John McElwee. Tom May is not listed because he had a family event to attend (if I recall correctly). Songs included a four-part “suite” of songs I wrote and a version of MarshalI Tucker’s Toy Caldwell song, Can’t You See. I don’t know of any photos or tapes. I do recall that some of us stayed up all night in Dave’s room (instigated by Mark Lebow) and went down to Captain Henry’s diner for breakfast. By the way, in what order the acts performed was always an important issue. Which slot was best? To lead off the concert? Fresh audience, but not the biggest crowd. In the middle? Biggest crowd, but time pressure. Last act? What if the other bands lose the audience before we get on? What if they play over their allotted time? We never resolved this and it became more difficult to resolve when some of us were playing in two bands on the same bill. (I was not too surprised to find that presentation order is still an important tactical issue in the business world.)1976We organized this as two bands. I believe a third act was at this concert, but by this time we were collectively dominating the line-up for these concerts. (Even the audience contained many of our friends.) Also by this time, Blue Monday was a going concern with the following cast:
1977The annual “Youth Concert” took place at Pinkney Park on Sunday, July 24th. Another beautiful day in a remarkable setting on the river. Kevin Tisdall managed the sound system for all the bands. We were represented as two distinct bands; Blue Monday with Harry Hussey, Dave Procter, Bill Galey and Mark Lebow and the “other” band, Alan Freedman, myself, Tom May, Ed Flinn, Dave Hopkins (guitar and vocals) and Steve Kraemer on bass and Josh Kramer on guitar and vocals. (I don’t recall the name we played under, but I’m sure it was clever.) Blue Monday had their regular lineup, but some photos show another guitarist, dressed in white, playing some songs in the set with them (with Dave sitting out). Neither Mark nor Harry can recall who this was. In addition, Tom May also played with his other band, a group formed at Fairfield University in late 1976, the Buzzereds. The all-electric lineup included Tom on lead guitar, Warren McGuire on lead vocals and guitar, Randy Stone on bass and Phil Hogan on drums. They were the opening act. Alan and I had been out to improve our performance from the previous year and the extant recording (engineered by Dave Procter) shows we did. It helped that we had ample rehearsal time and the superb performances of Josh and Steve. Josh’s vocal on Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower set a new standard for that song. You can also hear him playing the vibraslap. We had practiced at Martina Laetsch’s house which had home cooking and a pool and we regarded it as our “battle of the bands” against Blue Monday. The set included:
1978This was another indoor concert because of bad weather. It took place on August 9, 1978. By this time, we were fully in charge of organizing things given Dave’s involvement with the Rowayton Arts Festival. I recall four bands at this session, but believe there may have been a fifth one unrelated to our consortium (and more “disco” than any of the rest of us). There is a recording from this gig that includes the Nachtgruppe acoustic set that includes Josh Kramer, Harry Hussey, Tom May, Alan Freedman (shortly before a motorcycle accident that would put him in the hospital for months), Ed Flinn, Dave Hopkins (on acoustic guitar) and myself. The recording includes:
1979This concert took place on July 22 at Pinkney Park (scheduled to run from 3:30 to 5:30 and “produced by Harry Hussey”). Three bands played under the trees to the right of the Pinkney House. Kevin Tisdall provided the sound system A band fronted by one of Harry’s brothers, Chris Hussey, Shadowfax opened. It included Dave Sweeny and Mark Fletcher. Harry believes this was Blue Monday’s last performance and it was the first real public performance for Noyes and the Boyes. Scott Wyland replaced Bill Galey who had moved to the Midwest in early Fall, 1978. There was a lot of overlap between the two groups; three members of Blue Monday would be part of the Noyes & the Boyes album October Palace, recorded on August 19th.Blue Monday
Noyes & the Boyes
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