One Time Only If Ever There Were to Be a Deﬁ Nitive the Eighth Grade, His Fame As a Dave Had Fallen in Love with Reading Discoteques for Playing Too Loud

one time only If ever there were to be a defi nitive the eighth grade, his fame as a Dave had fallen in love with reading discoteques for playing too loud. textbook on how to become a successful rock and roll manager, it schoolboy virtuoso had spread so and writing at fi rst sight. “Man,” I said at another time, “we’ve would have had to be written by got to try to continue living in the Ché Guevera. I’m not bitter, mind far that the leader of a country and manner to which we’re accustomed.” you, about having lost my life This was when I was feeding my savings, my suburban ranch-type western band asked him to join. Actually I wanted to be a writer,” wife, my three children, the entire house, my American Express card, Myddle Class and their rotating my wife’s equanimity, my English “Then the rest of the band found out “he says, “and I thought the way 10-man road crew on the dollar or sports car, a portion of my sanity and so a day that poured in through the such odds and ends as my charge how young I was and they to become one was to become an mail from kids wanting to join our account at the local Dairy Queen---all fan club. in a gamble on fi ve 18-year –old kids vetoed me.” English teacher. But now people like from New Jersey’s white suburbs At one point, we even started fi lming who dared to have me name them Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan have a 16 millimeter movie to document The Myddle Class. Rick Philp our rise to success, at a personal cost Guitarist, Composer taught us that’s not the way to do it.” to me of several thousand dollars. It doesn’t even bother me any more We fi lmed it in New Jersey’s Passaic that one of those 18-year-olds stole Valley swampland, with everybody into my offi ce and fi led the dollar Rick Philp started playing the guitar wearing battle dress. sign off my typewriter keyboard in ...To me,” he says, “singing was like a gesture as meaningless, perhaps, when he was nine. “I wanted to play I have been accused of going into as my bank account. Of course, I “that perfect woman who always stays the rock and roll business for no don’t use a typewriter any more, trumpet,” he says, “but my mother better reasons than a desire for but what did bother me was the beyond reality.” fame, fortune, glory and the chance need to report that even when you said, ‘Try guitar and see if you like to get my picture published in 16, a succeed in signing a contract with a teenage fan magazine to which my record company, very often it turns that fi rst.’ She wanted me to learn nine-year-old daughter subscribes out to be not a contract at all, but a with more loyalty than she has ever declaration of war. something I could play by myself. A displayed for me. Frankly, I could David Palmer think of no better reasons. At the time “Man,” I once had to tell the trumpet doesn’t sound good alone.” Lead singer, Lyricist I was, as New York’s Village Voice teenage members of The described me, “a fairly well-known Myddle Class,“they’ve cut our As Rick remembers it, his mother magazine writer,” with a large communications.” enough backlog of assignments to hired “a big fat lady” to come keep me as busy as a Beatle, if at This was after I had run up a somewhat less a price.One of the $960 bill with the New Jersey Bell around and give him guitar lessons. fi rst things I discovered after I started Telephone Company. managing The Myddle Class was a “I used to really hate it,” he says. “She cobweb placed over my typewriter “Man,” I once had to say to them, by the drummer of the group.The “we’ve got to regroup our forces.” told me I’d never be a good guitar cobweb was still there when, two This was after The Myddle Class had years later, I announced that I was been fi red from three New York player.” By the time he reached returning to the writing business. With the same consummate skill that a bass player, so I got a bass guitar ferocity that he’s constantly breaking where I could fi nd this group and he used to drive through puddles when I learned that they were to splash old ladies waiting at bus and started teaching myself to play it.” drumsticks, drum heads and his bass playing at a dance that very next stops, the drummer had lifted the week, I disguised my beard and cobweb, fi led off the dollar sign, and The fi rst time Charlie ever played with pedal. When that happens he keeps balding forehead in a pair of levis then replaced the cobweb so that it and a sweater and went down appeared undisturbed. I guess he Myke and Rick he only knewone chord on playing by merely kicking the bass to take a look at them. Later on I thought I’d no longer have any need learned that they at fi rst thought I was for the dollar sign. progression. “My initiative must have drum with his foot. just some dirty old man.

I’m not bitter, mind you. I can’t say impressed them,” he says. According They had been playing together for that I didn’t enjoy the rock and roll Myke Rosa about a year with the exception of business any more then Joseph Heller to Rick, Charlie has turned into the best Drums “Yeah,” says Myke, “I’m all heart.” the bass guitarist, one Charlie Larkey, can’t say that he didn’t enjoy the Air the scion of a men’s clothing store Force. Of course, I wasn’t drafted bass player in New York. chain, whose only qualifi cation for into it. I was, rather, tempted into it. Myke bought his fi rst drum set two membership in the band had been For years I had been writing success “As far back as I can remember, I his conviction that he was destined stories about other people, mostly in years after his rheumatic fever attack, to become a pop star. Charlie the music business, and I was curious always saw myself as a had been one of the higher-ups in to fi nd out how it would sound if with money he earned as a landscaper Mountainside, New Jersey’s only someone had to write a success story rock and roll star…” teenage mob, an organization called about me. When my baby-sitter told Charlie Larkey working with his father in Berkeley The Organisation, but when he me that a group, known at that time Bassist learned the King Bees needed a bass as the King Bees, had caused a riot Heights, N.J. guitar player, he promptly went out during a variety show at Governor and bought a bass guitar. Livingston Regional High School near “My mother used to tell me, ‘You have my house in Berkeley Heights, New “If you want to learn how to play Jersey, I thought to myself, “Well, this good timing,’And I used to imagine “We called ourselves the Myddle Class bad enough,” the drummer, Myke sounds like a natural beginning.” Rosa, told him, “then you can teach myself singing on the records.” because we can’t spell.” yourself how to play bad enough.” I had no idea my success story would turn out to be a humor column. My Despite his boy hood illness Myke Charlie would lock himself in his wife says it’s as humorous as All room and play the bass along with Quiet on the Western Front. Charlie met Myke Rosa at Governor onstage seems to take on the hands a pile of records, sometimes with Myke Rosa singing the bass line into “Are you sure you know what you’re Livingston Regional High School. and legs of four men. One fan has his ear. Myke, of course, was the doing?” she asked me at the time. only one of the group who couldn’t described him as “an energized sing. On the fi rst night that I saw “A wife is supposed to be an the King Bees, he was pounding the inspiration to her husband,” “I had a guitar but I was terrible” he octopus.” He plays with such drums so hard that he kept breaking I answered. his drumsticks, throwing the pieces says. “Then Myke told me they needed out into the audience. He also “I would hate to think I ever inspired had a habit of throwing up during you to do this,” she said. the course of each performance. I immediately asked my baby-sitter there one day and he amazed me. He Myke had nearly died of rheumatic “Yes,” she said, “I think so, but why fever when he was 12, and he said he wanted to start a group with do you want it?” had the further habit of passing out after every show. As for the other an organ.” “Well,” said Rick, “because the house members of the group, there was next door is on fi re.” DannyMansolino, the organist, who used to read physics textbooks for Rick never lost his cool. On the night leisure when he wasn’t playing Danny also reads physics and that I met him, he laughed at me Hell’s Angel on a motorcycle. When when I told him I was going to turn I asked him how he became an chemistry text books for his leisure, him into a star. I soon learned that organist, he answered: “The guys the King Bees had taken their name said they were forming a group and builds light machines and hi-fi sets, from a song by the Rolling Stones. they needed an organ player, so I They also had takeneverything else said, ‘OK, I’ll get an organ.’” Danny Mansolino fl ies model airplanes and is working a from the Rolling Stones that they Organist could possibly get away with. The lead singer was Dave Palmer, design for an organ. whom I found kneeling on the “What showmanship!” I said bandstand with the microphone in to myself. “With my genius at his hand, shouting into it with all promotion, I’ll turn the delta bottomland soul of a New “I started playing the accordion when I When he also decided that the group them into a sensation.” Jersey choirboy. was eight years old,” he says,”A friend needed more harmony, he spent six I also liked their musical equipment. “Dave,” his mother later told me, “has But in the music business, as I found always had an of mine did it so I wanted to do it months teaching himself to sing. out, you have to be equipped for extraordinary voice.” mechanical warfare. better than him. I did all classical stuff, What she meant was that Dave In the beginning, they didn’t even used to scream louder than all the because --- I just didn’t want to do the bother to learn my name. They called other kids. me Redbeard. Then I talked Gerry easy stuff.” Goffi n and Carole King, a husband- “Save his baby pictures,” I told her. and-wife songwriting team, into “He’s going to be famous.” producing their records.

The leader of the group was Rick Danny He heard about Rick Philp “And what are you going to try to sell Philp, who started playing the guitar us next,” Carole asked me when he was nine. Rick always wore from a friend. some $15,000 later, “the a jacket and a tie and sometimes Brooklyn Bridge?” carried an umbrella and he was hard to get to know. I didn’t really discover When the Berkeley Heights his character until much later, when, “He told me about this kid that wears Independent Press, a weekly one day, he walked into my house, newspaper, printed a picture story excused himself and politely asked glasses, plays piano and plays guitar about the group, grammar school my wife if she had a fi re extinguisher. kids started coming up to my door to and he’s real good.So I went over ask for the King Bees’ autographs. In the three New Jersey towns of Berkeley Heights, New Providence Going Back “I thought you bought that car for me,” and Summit, we had become Words and Music by Gerry Goffi n & Carole King my wife said. famous overnight. I think I’m going back “Just think like it got commandeered in “You’d better start learning how to to the things I knew so well in my youth. some military campaign,” handle it right now,” I told the boys. I think I ‘m returning to I told her. the days when I was young enough I began to bill the King Bees as the To know the truth. From one end of the Middle Atlantic loudest group in town. The next States to the other, my wife’s station thing that happened was that my Now there are no games wagon became famous, groaning neighbors served me with a zoning To only pass the time under the weight of fi ve heavy violation for allowing the group to No more electric trains amplifi ers and a big electric organ. practice in my house. In the end, it No Christmas bells to chime My wife herself began to drink three seems, my house became a hideout Thinking young and growing older is no sin cocktails before dinner instead of for all the teenage rebels of North And I can play the game of life to win. one. Then, just as our fi rst record was Central Jersey. From miles around, about to be released, our producer, whenever a boy would be kicked out I can recall a time Gerry Goffi n, Chécked into a of school and told to get a haircut, When I wasn’t ashamed to reach out to a friend hospital. A short time later, Dave, the he’d come to my house instead. And now I think I’ve got lead singer and Rick, the guitarist, Naturally, he’d be hungry. I began A lot more than a catcher’s mitt to lend were ordered into college by to lose, in addition to my money, my Now there’s more to do their parents. professional standing as an adult Then watch my sailboat glide member of the community. Once, the But everyday can be “If you try to dissuade them group was asked to play a dance My magic carpet ride otherwise,” my attorney, a New at the Berkeley Heights Community Jersey state senator,advised me, Pool. But when I showed up, I was I can play hide and seek with my fears “then you would be liable to criminal kicked off the premises and offered And live my days charges of impairing the morals of an escort home by the Berkeley instead of counting my years a minor.” Heights Police Department. Instrumental In addition, we discovered that we Another time, in Allentown, had neglected to register the King Pennsylvania, the YMCA refused to Let everyone detect the true reality Bee name. RCA Victor, obviously allow the group to fi nish a perfor- I’d rather see the world the way it used to be. capitalizing on my genius at mance because Danny Mansolino’s A lit bit of freedom is all we lack promotion, came out with a record shirttails were hanging out. I showed So catch me if you can by another group called the King them! I tore up the Chéck for fi fty I’m going back. Bees. Since the drummer’s father was dollars they paid us. It had only cost a disc jockey, it immediately went on us about seventy-fi ve dollars to make the radio. People started calling us the trip to Allentown, but we were up to congratulate us. trying to build a legend. The springs of my wife’s brand new station “We’ll sue ‘em!” I said. “Every wagon began to sag.Dents started penny that record earns belongs to appearing in its fenders. us.” When the record fl opped, we changed our name to The Myddle Class. Otherwise, under my command, Windchime Laughter the show was ending and the fi ghting the group made steady progress. Words and Music by David Palmer and Rick Philp moved out into the back yard of the With Gerry Goffi n in the hospital, auditorium, where a blizzard was I decided to smuggle copies of our Rings upon her crystal fi nger already in progress. I went to look unpublished demonstration records to Diamond spectrum fade then linger for Brian Hamill to make sure he was a Long Island radio station, a master Light is all the tenderness she knows. getting pictures of the riot, but what stratagem which, I later found out, the Brooklyn Hamills are famous for could have cost us our copyrights. Midnight sons her would be lover is never standing idly by when there’s She turns them one against the other a good fi ght to be won. “Let them steal from us,” I said. “It’ll Takes the empty hand of night and goes along. “Here, Al,” Brian said, handing me only show everybody how his camera, “hold this for me a rich we are.” Wind chime laughter coming after she has gone minute,” and he ran out into the back Wind chime laughter, haunting laughter yard and started punching the fi rst When we agreed to play free at a is the song she sings. guy he could fi nd who was twice benefi t at the Smithtown, Long Island, his size. We had big riots, small Tercentenary celebration, the Kings in all their regal splendor riots, loud riots and quiet riots. I was authorities expected a crowd of 400. Bribe her, tempt her, then condemn her amazed at our success. I began With our demonstration records on Blaming her for everything they fear to day dream about buying a new the radio, the crowd of 400 turned fortress for my troops, a Scottish out to be a screaming mob of 4,000. And I the royal prince of paupers castle that had been transplanted When the mob advanced on us in ? the only dream, my only offer? stone by stone to the hills a shopping center parking lot, the I listen for my windsong name and hear her song. of Watchung, New Jersey, and six cops on duty calmly walked that was then occupied by a out of the mob’s path, leaving us Wind chime laughter coming after I’m alone . . . German scientist rumored to have a unprotected on the bandstand, our Wind chime laughter, haunting laughter laboratory in his cellar. clothes torn, our hair pulled, our is the song she sings. instruments wrecked. In the ensuing Meanwhile, the washing machine riot, fi ve teenyboppers were arrested Wind chime laughter coming after she has gone and dryer broke down in my cellar and four were injured, two of them Wind chime laughter coming after she has gone and we didn’t have enough money badly enough to be taken to a to hire a repairman. I had to start hospital. Those were the days when Wind chime laughter coming after she has gone accompanying my wife to the local riots were like applause meters in the Wind chime laughter, haunting laughter Laundromat. When she complained rock and roll business, and we went is the song she sings. that we were making a spectacle of home happy, even though the bill for our poverty using the independent the trip was going to run into Laundromat, I borrowed Gerry the hundreds. Goffi n’s Cadillac to take her there. Then I decided to boost our fi nances When the next riot started I was by promoting our own concert in the ready for it. We were booked into nearby town of Summit. All 1,000 Kingston, N.Y., a town where they seats were sold out three weeks in shot pennies at you with slingshots, advance mostly by volunteer high and I brought along a photographer school ticket salesmen,but their days to document the event. Unfortunately, off from school had affected their he was Brian Hamill of the famous arithmetic. When it came time Brooklyn Hamills. The riot started as for them to turn in the money, nothing I Shall Be Released Don’t Look Back in the upperclassman’s face. In the added up. After the concert, I found Words and Music by Bob Dylan Words and Music by William “Smokey Robinson” & Ronald White meantime, Carole King and Gerry that somebody also had stolen my Goffi n had signed a distribution deal $300 tape recorder. Someone else They say everything can be replaced If it’s love that you’re running from, there’s no hiding place. with Atlantic, then one of the most told me the opening act had stolen it. They say every distance is not near (You can’t run, you can’t hide, you can’t run, you can’t hide) successful of the large independent The opening act was So I remember every face Love has problems I know but they’re problems, we’re gonna have to face. record companies and now the No. The Velvet Underground. Of every man who put me here Well If you just put your hand in mine, 2 largest in the business. I don’t We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind. know how they made it without us. We had to turn away about 500 I see my light come shining Keep on walkin’, don’t look back. (Don’t look back) fans at the door of the auditorium From the west down to the east And don’t look back. Oh yeah, yeah. When our fi rst single, Free as the and later that night they all seemed Any day now, any day now And don’t look back, baby. (Don’t look back) Wind, was fi nally released, it started to show up at my house to raid I shall be released (The past is behind you, let nothing remind you.) skyrocketing up toward No. 1 on the refrigerator. It had become a the local pop charts in Albany, New tradition that, after any Myddle They say every man needs protection Oh, If your fi rst lover broke your heart, York, an event which prompted me to Class performance, the group and its They say that every man must fall There’s something that can be done. apply in several places for a loan. At entourage would end up at 2:30a.m. Yet I swear I see my refl ection (You don’t run, you don’t hide, you don’t run, you don’t hide) Atlantic,however, the sales force was in my front living room, playing Bob Somewhere so high above this wall Don’t lose your faith in love babe, because of what he’s done. singularly unimpressed. Dylan,the Beatles, John Coltrane So if you just put your hand in mine, or Stravinsky on my hi-fi , reputed I see my light come shining We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind. “We just want to make sure you don’t to be the best in Berkeley Heights, From the west down to the east Keep on walking, don’t look back. (don’t look back) happen to have a lot of maiden and certainly the loudest. Invariably, Any day now, any day now Forget about the past now. aunts in Albany,” one vice president the cops would arrive with a noise I shall be released Don’t look back, baby. (don’t look back) told us. When it became apparent complaint. In that fi rst summer of our Keep on walking and don’t look back. Hmmm (don’t look back) that nobody was going to spend any campaign, I booked The Myddle Now yonder stands a man in this lonely crowd (The past is behind you, let nothing remind you) money promoting the record if we Class into Greenwich Village’s Café A man who swears he's not to blame didn’t do it ourselves, I started calling Bizarre on West Third Street.By the All day long I hear him shouting so loud [Instrumental] disc jockeys and distributors all next summer, they were playing at Just crying out that he was framed. over the country. All I succeeded in the Night Owl, also on West Third Love can be such a beautiful thing. achieving was that $960 telephone Street. In one year, I had advanced I see my light come shining Though your fi rst love let you down. bill. In the end, the New Jersey Bell The Myddle Class exactly one-half From the west down to the east Oh yeah, yeah Telephone Company shut off city block. Any day now, any day now ‘Cause I know we can make love bloom, baby. my service. I shall be released The second time around. At college, Dave and Rick began Oh yeah, yeah “At least now you don’t have to worry growing their hair long and, by So if you just put your hand in mine, about getting phone calls from angry the end of the fi rst semester, both We’re gonna leave all our troubles behind. creditors,” my wife said. of them had quit. As for Danny Keep on pushing and don’t look back. (don’t look back) Mansolino, who had started out as Now, till I say, we won’t look back, girl. (don’t look back) They came instead to knock on my a pre-med student at Seton Hall, his Keep on walking and won’t look back. (don’t look back) door. You have to understand that confrontation with formal education Forget about the past now, baby. record companies often sign up was ended by an upperclassman And don’t look back. artists for no particular reason other who came up to him on campus Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, don’t look back. than the fact that they need what and asked why he wasn’t wearing they call “product.” The theory is that his freshman beanie. Danny’s if you put out enough records, one of answer was an immediate punch them is bound to be a hit. They call this the shotgun method. Otherwise, no record is going to be a hit unless I Can’t Make It Alone It’s the Season offend Frank Sinatra.) I also started you get it distributed into the stores, Words and Music by Gerry Goffi n and Carole King Words and Music by David Palmer and Rick Philp distributing, free copies of The and when fan club members started Myddle Class Newsletter, my own writing in to complain that they Now you know me Hey you with the brand new, high powered elephant gun attempt at psychological warfare. It couldn’t fi nd our record anywhere, You know how proud I am Yeah you with the hip boots on, child you’re the one had headlines like, “LONG ISLAND I decided to go into the distribution But what I’m going to tell you girl Well I can see you’re the outdoor kind DISC JOCKEY BREAKS RECORD--- business. From Atlantic, I ordered Won’t be easy to say And if your searching for some game to fi nd ONCE OVER THE RADIO, TWICE 4,000 copies of Free as the Wind Before I left you Don’t need no reason OVER HIS KNEE.” Or, “MANAGER to be charged against our future I was a happy man Cause it’s the season INSISTS RECORD WILL BE TWO- royalties. In keeping with the title of But I’ve been so lonely For loving. Oh for loving. SIDED HIT.” Some 70,000 copies of the song, I ended up simply giving Since I’ve been away The Myddle Class Newsletter went the 4,000 records away. All you need is soul and you know that’s not a lot out to fans, including one special Well I tried and I know I can’t make it alone You can leave home the rifl e 16-page issue that was printed up in My promotion techniques were It’s such a hard way to go, I just can’t make it alone you fi lled up with buckshot fi ve different editions for various parts honest enough, too honest according Something in my soul that will always Well I’m as willing as I can get of the country. to my armchair general friends Lead me back to you So undo those traps you set who felt that their magnanimity in “I always wanted to own my own sending me food packages entitled What can I say now Oh I ain’t leavin newspaper,” I explained to my them to give me free advice as Sorry’s not good enough Cause it’s the season journalist colleagues. well. Whenever anybody asked the I couldn’t blame you if you hurt me girl group why they called themselves The way I hurt you then Then the printshop asked me The Myddle Classs, the group would But who can I turn to to be paid. answer, “Because we can’t spell.” Baby I’m begging you To my friends in the music business, Won’t you reach out to a dyin’ man One of my tactical problems was I explained that if there had been a And make him live again to get Free as the Wind played Surfi ng Sound, a Nashville Sound, a on New York’s two Top 40 radio Liverpool Sound and a Detroit Sound, Well I tried and I know I can’t make it alone stations, WABC and WMCA, which then The Myddle Class would go It’s such a hard way to go, I just can’t make it alone normally don’t play a record until it down in history as the originators Something in my soul that will always has become a hit almost everywhere of the Suburban Sound. Whenever Lead me back to you else in the country or unless they owe the group played, I made them turn you a pretty big favor. Lacking either their amplifi ers all the way up until I see the faces alternative, I merely called up WABC people complained that the volume Those painted eyes and phony smiles and asked how to request that a was painful to the ears. “When They’re only jive, they’re only half alive record be played on the air. The Myddle Class plays,” I would They just don’t care they just don’t care answer,“nobody talks, Nothing for me there “Just send us a post card,” the everybody listens.” Or anywhere without you baby telephone operator at WABC replied. Without you. Meanwhile, I kept grinding out Your best hunting dog couldn’t see the game I’ll fi nd In all innocence, I put this information press releases in which I confi dently Well I tried and I know I can’t make it alone And we don’t need a license for the things I got in mind. into my Myddle Class Newsletter and predicted that The Myddle Class It’s such a hard way to go I just cant make it alone Well I’ll be your forest guide offered a free post card to any fan would be “the biggest thing to Something in my soul that will always Babe you know I’m bonafi de who wanted to send it to a radio come out of New Jersey since Lead me back to you I aim to please um station. From Long Island and New Woodrow Wilson.” (I didn’t want to And I ain’t leavin’ Jersey, some 40,000 post cards Cause its the season zipped into the mailrooms at WABC Gates of Eden Relationships of ownership for more money and started back and WMCA, which chéerfully sorted Words and Music by Bob Dylan They whisper in the wings East. The car he had bought lasted them out and threw them To those condemned to act accordingly just 50 miles short of the trip home into wastebaskets. Of war and peace the truth just twists And wait for succeeding kings to Berkeley Heights. When it broke Its curfew gull just glides And I will try to harmonize with songs down at last, he merely left it “That only makes the radio stations Upon four-legged forest clouds The lonesome sparrow sings on the shoulder of the highway and mad at you,” a disc jockey friend The cowboy angel rides There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden. hitchhiked the rest of the way home. later explained to me.“They don’t With his candle lit into the sun It took only several months more want to have to bother with all that Though its glow is waxed in black The motorcycle black madonna and a second Myddle Class record junk mail.” All except when ‘neath the trees of Eden. Two-wheeled gypsy queen for me to run out of not only cash, And her silver-studded phantom cause but credit. By this time, the gloom in my house The lamppost stands with folded arms The gray fl annel dwarf to scream had reaChéd a point where I couldn’t Its iron claws attached As he weeps to wicked birds of prey “Easy come, easy go,” I told afford to replace the light bulbs that To curbs ‘neath holes where babies wail Who pick up on his bread crumb sins my friends. burned out. Then, when I learned the Though it shadows metal badge And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden. Free as the Wind had been named All and all can only fall Eventually, The Myddle Class did get as a pick hit on a Milwaukee radio With a crashing but meaningless blow The kingdoms of Experience to record some anonymous music station, I borrowed $100 to fi nance No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden. In the precious wind they rot tracks for a Monkee album that sold a promotion trip there by my 19-year- While paupers change possessions almost 4,000 copies. And later, the old assistant, Bruce DeForeest. The savage soldiers sticks his head in sand Each one wishing for what the other has got face, if not the name, of Charlie And then complains And the princess and the prince Larkey, The Myddle Class’ bass “The least you can do,” I told him, “is Unto the shoeless hunter who’s gone deaf Discuss what’s real and what is not guitar player, appeared in color on to get The Myddle Class’ name on But still remains It doesn’t matter inside the Gates of Eden. the cover of Esquire. Appropriately every men’s room wall between New Upon the beach where hound dogs bay enough, he was wearing a Jersey and Wisconsin.” At ships with tatooed sails The foreign sun, it squints upon battle helmet. Heading for the Gates of Eden. A bed that is never mine With two of his own volunteer As friends and other strangers When the time fi nally came for me to teenage assistants, DeForeest spent With a time-rusted compass blade From their fates try to resign surrender, I couldn’t fi nd anybody to half the money to buy a car. By Alladin and his lamp Leaving men wholly totally free accept my sword. Instead, a young the time he arrived in Milwaukee, Sits with Utopian hermit monks To do anything they wish to do but die entrepreneur named Neil Bogart however, it had been three weeks Side saddle on the Golden Calf And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden. heard the group and signed them since Free as the Wind had last been And on their promises of paradise to Cameo-Parkway Records with played over the radio there. The local You will not hear a laugh At dawn my lower comes to me a contract calling for a $10,000 Atlantic distributor had never even All except inside the Gates of Eden. And tells me of her dreams advance. We only got $2,500 of it. heard of the record and not a single With no attempts to shovel the glimpse A day later, $1,500 worth of Rick copy had been sold. DeForeest not Into the ditch of what each one means Philp’s guitars were stolen. By now, only had to suffer through a chilly At times I think there are no words the mortgage company was about reception, but Milwaukee was under But these to tell what’s true to foreclose on my house and The siege by its worst snowstorms in And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden. Myddle Class road crew had to years. All but trapped in an eight- move me out in a rented van in the dollar-a-day motel room for more dead of night. We packed as if the than a week, he wrote The Myddle enemy was at the gates. Class’ name on a couple of men’s room walls, wired me a few times Looking back, I realize that’s exactly Man On A Bridge Free As the Wind The record was left sitting on top where the enemy was. But still The Words and Music by David Palmer and Rick Philp Words and Music by David Palmer and Rick Philp of empty desks, with no one to Myddle Class struggled on, capturing promote it. a foothold in Boston, claiming a Spent most of my natural youth You never miss the water in the well victory in Montreal and occupying Taking things in my stride ‘Til the well runs dry When I tried to telephone Allen New York’s Night Owl with such A seeker of the right and the natural truth And I never missed my baby Klein for further information, all effectiveness that the owner closed And then I stepped inside Until my baby said goodbye I could learn was that he had an down and turned the place into English secretary. When the time a poster shop when The Myddle Woke up one morning Now she’s free, free as the wind came for Cameo-Parkway to pay Class fi nally moved out. Even today, Knew something was wrong Running wild and riding high us the second installment of our people come up to me and tell me And I decided to take a good look Free, free as the wind $10,000 advance, I discovered that how they’ve heard that The Mydddle There in the mirror the future was clearer And me all trading of Cameo-Parkway stock Class was the best New York group The image was doubly took I just stay here and I cry had been ordered suspended. Myke never to make it. Hear me cry Rosa went to California to become But there’s a man on a bridge a dishwasher in a Hollywood “We couldn’t afford to make it,” I Standing on the edge You never miss the summer sun lunChéonette. Danny Mansolino tell them. Telling his trouble to the water below Until you feel the winter’s cold went back to his mother’s house in Man on a bridge hanging on to the edge And I never missed her loving arms New Jersey to write cowboy songs. They say that success is as much to Making up his mind about whether to go Until she wasn’t there to hold. Charlie Larkey got a job playing be feared as failure. I couldn’t really Or to stay….. bass guitar with the Fugs. Rick Philp tell you. When Neil Bogart showed Now she’s free, free as the wind went to Boston and enrolled at up with his Cameo-Parkway record Heyyyyyy Running wild and riding high Emerson College. Dave Palmer took contract, I suddenly knew how Free, free as the wind up employment as a stock boy in a General Custer would have felt if, out Instrumental And me, music publishing house. Gerry Goffi n of the skies, he suddenly had gotten I just stay here and I cry and Carole King fi led for divorce. air support. The way things turned No one would give him a reason for livin’ Hear me cry My wife went back to work. out, Neil Bogart might as well have They’re all on the edge of their seats put General Custer’s name on the Help has arrived but will he survive? Soft and warm and sweet was the love she gave to me As for me, I returned to my dollarless contract. While The Myddle Class The kind of girl, who never brought you down. typewriter. I was, of course, through went back into the studio, recording Will he look before he leaps If I had thought I could have made her stay with me with rock and roll, but rock and a third 45 r.p.m. called Don’t Look But there’s a man on a bridge But I let her slip away from me roll wasn’t through with me. Here I Back, another young entrepreneur Standing on the edge am still writing about it. I couldn’t named Allen Klein was busy taking Telling his trouble to the water below Now she’s free, free as the wind honestly say I’d rather be working as over control of Cameo-Parkway’s Man on a bridge hanging on to the edge Running wild and riding high a building superintendent, but then stock. Allen Klein is now better Making up his mind about whether to go Free, free as the wind the record business is full of people known as the new business manager Or to stay….. And me I just stay here and I cry who occupy themselves putting out of the Beatles but in those days he Hear me cry garbage. As my wife says, it’s not a was the villain of The Myddle Class. Hear me cry funny story. Former fans sometimes His very presence at Cameo-Parkway speculate that maybe The Myddle resulted in the stock going up and Class will get together again, but Neil Bogart going out. The day that Now she’s free, free as the wind that’s impossible now. Rick Philp, Don’t Look Back was released was (Running wild and riding high) who had devoted his young life to the same day that Bogart quit, along Free, free as the wind his guitar, giving up the promising with his entire staff of lieutenants. Free, free as the wind business career his father had laid out for him, was bludgeoned to death Wake Me, Shake Me Dedicated to: by a berserk roommate in Boston Written by Billy Guy last May. Rick Philp I saw my mother this mornin’ Ann & Al Aronowitz In his honor, Neil Bogart, now known She was walkin down that lonesome road as the king of bubblegum music, is Tryin to make it in due time planning to put out a memorial album Before the heaven doors close Special Thanks to: of collected Myddle Class tapes Tryin to get to heaven in due time on Buddah Records, his new label. Before the heaven doors close Charlie Larkey Otherwise, you can still hear The David Palmer Myddle Class by going up to Albany I thought I heard her say: Myke Rosa and waiting for the local radio WAKE ME, SHAKE ME Steve Philp stations to play our golden oldies. Don’t let me sleep too long George Geier Tryin to get to heaven in due time Thom Lynch As Ché Guevera once said, in the Before the heaven doors close for their generous time textbook he did write, called On Tryin to make it in due time and cooperation Guerilla Warfare, “ … war is subject Before the heaven doors close to certain strategic laws… Those who violate these laws will be defeated.” How I Nearly Made a Million Dollars Anyone who thinks he’d like to go in the Rock ‘n Roll Business into the rock and roll business ought written by Al Aronowitz to read Ché Guevera’s book fi rst. AGA 1969 Produced by Gerry Goffi n Cover photo and headshots by Carl Fischer Additional photography by John Lynch, Thom Lynch and “Bear.” Solo by Rick Philp Illustration by Susan Gregory

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