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DownTown Blog – DownTown Mystic: Used Records History 1979-1985 Part 1 “Almost Famous”

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A letter arrived in the mail back in June 2017. The return address listed the Asbury Park Hotel with Attn: Nick Cohn. This was strange. What could this be? The letter opened with Nick Cohn saying he was a British music journalist. He had been in Asbury Park for the past few months working on a project to chronicle the historic music scene that took place in and around Asbury Park in the late 70s and early 80s. Well now…I had a band that played in AP during that time.

Mr. Cohn continued. He said he was looking into the records of bands that made an impact, big or small, during that time period and had come across “one curiously unknown band that seemed to pop out of nowhere then mysteriously disappear”. He said the band was called The Tupelos. WTF??!! That was my band!! Mr. Cohn went on to say that The Tupelos had done a show in the now defunct Fast Lane club, and in interviews with locals, it “was the best rock n roll show they’ve ever seen”. Ok…am I being punked?? This is really weird!!

The Fast Lane Asbury Park, NJ

The letter went on to say that he had traced the origins of the band back to me and he hoped he was correct. He apologized for taking up my time if he had been wrong, but if I was a member of the band, then I should read on. Mr. Cohn said that he and his publisher were putting together a very detailed account of that music period, along with any live recordings they could find. He wanted to consider The Tupelos for a chapter titled “Almost Famous” and then went on to ask some questions he wanted me to answer. He ended the letter by saying he was flying back to the UK and gave me his email to contact him.

The Tupelos 1979

Wow…this was a lot to take in. Was this for real?? I immediately googled Nick Cohn and found that he was indeed a British music journalist. But he was listed as Nik not Nick and was considered by many to be the father of rock criticism. His book Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom, written in 1969, is considered to be one of the best ever written on rock n roll. His 1976 New York Magazine article Tribal Rites of The New Saturday Night would be the basis for the movie Saturday Night Fever. Are you kidding??!!

When I emailed him I asked him how he found out about The Tupelos and if he was the same Nik on Wikipedia. He wrote back and he said he was the same Nik on Wiki. He also said that he had run into Pat Fasano, the former owner of The Fast Lane, who had a 45 record of the band. That would have been the 45 single we put out in 1979 with a cover of Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little 16 on one side and my song Please Be There on the other. This would be the same single that would get the attention of E Street bassist Garry Tallent.

Garry Tallent

That was 3 years ago and as far as I know, nothing has yet to come of Mr. Cohn’s research in Asbury Park. But his letter did make me go back and start to look into my music archives and rediscover some of the songs that would be the musical seeds for DownTown Mystic. All of the music from that period starting in 1979 was on reel to reel and cassette tapes. I tried to get as much of it onto DAT when I got a DAT machine in the 90s. Listening to the music I was making in those days took me back in time…from my work in The Tupelos to my solo stuff after I left the band. I took what I thought were the best tracks and had Larry Bentley master them one night at Cellar Dweller. The thought of possibly releasing them one day began to intrigue me, but when and how would I be able to do that?

It seems that after 3 years the right time to release those songs has presented itself. In January 2020 Sha-La Music released the DownTown Mystic Better Day album. 2 months later the Covid-19 pandemic hit and was closing down everything here in the NY/NJ area with everyone having to quarantine in their homes. While Better Day was having a good run at Worldwide Radio as well as Americana Radio here in the US, it provided a good time to revisit the idea of releasing the early material. Sha-La Music looked at its catalog and thought this was a good time to release projects that DownTown Mystic has been involved with and tie-in the early material. To that end, the DownTown Mystic: Used Records History 1979-1985 album was created.

To kick off the catalog releases, Sha-La Music released The Discontent Specialty Shows album last month in July. This album had been released on cd but never digitally. Its release coincides with the 20th anniversary of The Discontent making the Specialty Show charts, which brought the band national recognition. It was produced by DownTown Mystic (Robert Allen) and the late Ben Elliott. The track Dying Breath features DownTown Mystic and is a perfect single for this time of the pandemic, but might hit too close for comfort. In November the DownTown Mystic: Used Records History 1979-1985 album will be released and then the Bruce Engler One More Chance featuring DownTown Mystic album will come out in 2021.

Sha-La will release the 3-Way Heartbreak Single in September as a way to introduce the DownTown Mystic: Used Records History 1979-1985 album. 3-Way Heartbreak is the original track that was recorded in 1985. The single also includes the 1983 recording of Same Old Lover, which differs slightly from the original version on the album. 3-Way Heartbreak is a pure 80s track with the use of synths and drum machines and should fit in with the current comeback of 80s music.

Stranger Things Music Supervisor Nora Felder loved the song and wanted to put it in the 2nd season of the show until she found out that the song had not been a hit in the 80s because it had not been released. It was recorded at the same sessions that included Fly Like The Wind, which was selected by Music Supervisor Alexandra Patsavas for her TV show The Carrie Diaries because it was recorded in the 80s when the show takes place. Fly Like The Wind has become one of DownTown Mystic’s top sync-licensing tracks and will be in the upcoming Disney movie Flora and Ulysses. 3-Way Heartbreak will be released at Worldwide Radio and I’ll talk more about the album in Part 2 of this blog post.

To be continued…

Click link below to listen to 3-Way Heartbreak Single:

https://promo.theorchard.com/UrJ1v4vyODctbpYAArzn

DownTown Blog – Better Day Part 4

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So I was ready to get my Stem Cell Transplant in March 2019 but there was a Mercury Retrograde going on and I was not going to have any communications or equipment break down at such an important moment in my life. So I asked to have the transplant moved to April and it proved to be a very good move because the 45 year old woman, who had been a perfect 10 out of 10 match to be my donor, failed her physical in March and was taken off the donor roll. It was time for Plan B.

Plan B was to go to my family because of a bloodline and find a donor. I’m an only child with no siblings, so the next circle would be my first cousins. The cutoff age to be a donor is 60 yrs. because at that age everybody starts to make cells which are unique only to them. Science doesn’t quite understand why this happens, but it happens. All my cousins are over 60 so now I needed to go to their kids. Luckily my oldest cousin’s son volunteered to be tested at Christmas and had been a match. Actually, he is what is known as a Half Match because my father and his grandmother (brother & sister) shared the same gene and so do we. It’s called a Half Match because the bloodline is on only 1 side of the family, but sometimes it’s favored over a stranger who is a 10 out of 10 match because of the bloodline.

The hero to my rescue was Marc Dral, my first cousin once removed, who had just turned 40. He was in from the start when I first asked him at Christmas and now I had to call him to let him know my 1st donor had failed her physical. To his credit, Marc never wavered in his help and support and for that I will always be eternally grateful. In fact, the whole experience of having to ask my relatives for their help was a very emotional experience. I had an outpouring of love and support from my wife’s family lining up to volunteer, including their friends. Unfortunately, like my wife, they’re complete strangers blood wise, but it was very gratifying to know they wanted to have my back.

Robert & Marc

Marc made his stem cell donation as planned in April and I received the transplant in May because I got sick in April a week before the scheduled day. I went into the hospital on May 2 and for 6 days they hit me with heavy doses of chemotherapy to kill off my immune system. Then on May 8th, I got my transplant and it’s considered to be your 2nd birthday because the nurses come in the room with a balloon and birthday greetings because I’ve been technically reborn with the immune system of a newborn baby. The idea of the transplant is for Marc’s cells to take over and form a new immune system in my body. I’m as defenseless as a baby and need to get all my vaccinations all over again. My blood type is now the same as Marc’s.

I would spend 26 days in the hospital. I had my own private room on the transplant floor at HUMC and the best of care from the doctors and nurses there. Just days before I went in I received my copy of TunedLoud Magazine with my photo on the cover. It came as a total surprise because the editor had to cancel the original cover because the artist wasn’t ready to release his project, which left an opening for the cover. The editor thought I was deserving of being on the cover and put me on and made me the centerfold story with other great photos that Mark Maryanovich had shot. Every time a nurse of doctor would visit I would pull out the magazine to show them and tell them that “I bet you didn’t know you were treating a celebrity”. LOL

I also brought the Rock’n’Roll Romantic cd to give out to anyone who might be interested in listening. Music would become a big part of my rehab there, particularly with 2 people. I gave the cd to an aide named Mark who looked after me. One day he came back to tell me he had listened to the cd and how impressed he was with my music. He went the extra step by playing me on Spotify over the speaker system on the ward. Every time I would go out of the room to walk around the ward (23 laps=1 mile), Mark would have my music playing in the halls. It was very uplifting for me to hear my music being played as I did my laps. THANK YOU Mark!! 😎

The other important person who came into my life there was Ike Lester. Ike did the caricature of me that’s on the inside panel of the Better Day cd. He used to do political caricatures for the Village Voice in NYC and was now volunteering his time doing them for the patients at the hospital. Ike is a soul man all the way and our talks about music and life were inspiring for me. I wasn’t very impressed with the 1st drawing he did of me until I realized that I really did look that bad. It wasn’t Ike’s fault. He might have made it a bit better. Then one day I showed him my magazine cover and he flipped over the photos, immediately picking one he wanted to draw. A couple of weeks later he knocked on my door and brought in the finished copy. It was GREAT!! I told him I would put it on the new cd I was planning and was able to give it to him after I was over my 100 days of quarantine after leaving the hospital. THANK YOU Ike!! 😎

I’m always surprised that people want to hear about what I went through during my stay and I understand why. Modern medicine is really doing amazing and unbelievable things but I will leave it here, except to say that I have 100% of Marc’s blood in me. The latest bone marrow test showed that there is no cancer or any blasts and I continue to regain my strength. Besides Marc and the great staff at HUMC, I owe my recovery to the love of my life—my wife Barbara, who is also my caregiver. I know it’s because of her undying love and care that I’m still around to tell my story. I’m a very fortunate and lucky man. 🙂

DownTown Blog – Better Day Part 3

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Going through this experience made me take a closer look at my life and reflect on many experiences. I took stock of where I’d been and where I was going despite trying to stay centered in the present moment. As I said at the end of Part 2 of this blog, I was going to have a Better Day in more ways than one and when I started the Drug Trial and chemotherapy, I began to focus on how to promote the new music I just recorded. I needed to keep my mind on my music and keep myself positive and moving forward, while I was spending 6-8 hours a day for a week each month sitting in the Infusion Center. I had music business to deal with.

In 2018 I signed a new Digital Distribution deal with AWAL/Kobalt Music and released a couple of singles off of Rock’n’Roll Romantic in the second half of the year. I promoted them to Worldwide Radio via the iPluggers online Radio platform and scored some good success. The plan for 2019 would be to release 3 new singles before putting out the Better Day album by the end of the year. I had new music but couldn’t decide which track to release first.

The decision would be made for me when iPluggers ran a special promotion for Valentine’s Day looking for love songs. With Love Light ready to go, it was a no-brainer for me. But instead of just releasing 1 track, I decided to add a B-side with the Americana tinged Tomorrow’s Clown. This is without a doubt the most unusual and unique track in the DownTown Mystic catalog and I wanted to give it some extra exposure before the album release. This song would also bring back an epic memory about how I came to write it because it involves meeting the legendary songwriter John Prine.

Trilogy

Way back on December 16, 1972, a month from turning 21, my band Trilogy would play a sold-out show opening for John Prine who was headlining with his self-titled debut album on Atlantic. A buzz was building in music circles about his unique songwriting skills. A week before Christmas, a capacity crowd of over 2000 people filled the gym of my alma mater Rowan University in historic Glassboro, NJ to watch an amazing all-acoustic show. We were the big band on campus so this was a really huge deal for us and as you might imagine, this was the largest audience we ever played for. We were out of our skins!! LOL Looking back we managed to play a strong set of our original songs and went over very well with the audience. However, John Prine was somewhat of a surprise headliner that night when compared to the other artists on the bill.

That bill included a young up-and-coming Bonnie Raitt, who was very popular in the Philadelphia area, which was only a half-hour away. She was touring behind her new critically acclaimed 2nd album Give It Up on Warner Bros. and getting a lot of radio play. But the guy from South Philly who really should have been the headliner instead of being the Special Guest, was the guy whose career was taking off like a rocketship with his 2nd breaking hit single Bad, Bad Leroy Brown—the late great, Jim Croce. He was the main reason the gym was filled to capacity and that WYSP in Philly was simulcasting the show on the radio. Also, his sideman, guitarist Maury Muehleisen, who left school at Rowan to sign and make a solo album for Capitol was returning home to Glassboro! It was heartbreaking to hear the news that both men had been tragically killed in a horrible plane crash only 9 months after this show.

Jim Croce & Maury Muehleisen- (Photo by: Fred Sabine/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

Jim Croce was a really cool, humble, open kind of guy. You would not know he was on the verge of a meteoric rise to stardom, and he graciously gave me a great tip that night. He went on after us and did a killer set that brought the gym to its feet. I saw him backstage afterward and asked him how he could play his acoustic guitar without being miked up like we were. He showed me a brand new tiny acoustic pickup called a Barcus Berry that he taped to the bridge of his guitar. You couldn’t even see it from the stage and I was right up front watching. The next time I went home I made a trip to W.48th Street in NYC to visit the mecca of music stores—Manny’s Music and bought 3 brand new Barcus Berry pickups for the band. It changed everything. Thank you Jim Croce!! But I digress…

Bonnie & John

Bonnie Raitt would actually close the show because her flight from Syracuse had been delayed by a snowstorm. So John Prine followed Jim Croce as Bonnie was being driven from the airport to the show. As he was walking up the back of the stage, the backdoor to the gym suddenly opened and in walked Bonnie with her bass player Freebo. She ran over and grabbed John around the neck in a hug that nearly pulled him back off the stage. Luckily he was able to maintain his balance and avoid a nasty fall. He then went up to the mike and with a sly smile muttered something like “I knew a little snow wouldn’t stop Bonnie”, much to the delight of the crowd at hearing Prine’s inside joke. But I digress…again…

On this night John Prine was 25 and just starting out on his musical career. He had recorded his major-label debut album and in 1972 he earned a Grammy Nomination for Best New Artist. Nearly 50 years later he shed his cult status and was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. That debut album, John Prine, is now considered a classic, filled with little masterpieces that got the buzz growing on the mailman turned songwriter from Chicago. Backstage there was definitely something about him that was different from other people. You could see it in his eyes and I was intrigued by him. It made me want to see him play. We chatted a bit as he sat a bit bemused by his headline status, quietly drinking beer to take the edge off his nerves before the show. I probably spent more time talking to his manager Al Bunetta because the 2nd artist that Al was managing, Steve Goodman, was having a breakout hit with his now-classic song City of New Orleans.

John Prine (Photo by Tom Hill/WireImage)

It’s funny thinking back to that night and just how much I absorbed from watching John Prine’s performance. I was like a sponge back then and I was paying very close attention to him and how he started every song with a certain style of fingerpicking that always had this little rhythm to it. It certainly rubbed off on me because it wasn’t long after that show that I came up with the fingerpicking for the music that would become Tomorrow’s Clown. The other thing about John Prine was his way with words and how he just seemed to have a knack for writing about life. He could take something small and natural and make it sound offbeat and still get to you.

Robert/Trilogy

I know he got into my head that night because not only did he influence my fingerpicking, but he also got my attention with his lyrics. Tomorrow’s Clown is a love song about a serial killer (pure Prine). The inspiration for the song came from watching an episode of Kojak, a popular TV series at the time, but the lyrics are definitely due to John Prine. I say this because I’ve never written anything like it before or since and I can only conclude that there’s just no way I could have written the song if I hadn’t seen and met him that night.

Ben & Robert

Tomorrow’s Clown is one of the oldest songs that I’ve written and recorded and like a John Prine song, there’s something particularly poignant about the song itself, as well as the recording of it. 2 of the people involved have recently passed away. My engineer of 20 years, Ben Elliott, who recorded everything DownTown Mystic ever recorded, just passed away a couple of weeks ago as I write this. Ironically, the only time I’ve ever used his voice on a recording is at the start of Tomorrow’s Clown, when he hits the record button on the Studer tape machine and says ”we’re rolling”. It’s something he said to me hundreds of times in my headphones over the years and I have it for posterity now.

Tommy & Robert

The other person who’s no longer with us is the drummer on the track, Tommy Mastro. Tomorrow’s Clown is the last track we ever recorded together. Once again, it turned out to be a totally unique experience. We had started that last session around 1 pm and it was now 1 am. Tommy was set up in the studio and I was set up in front of the mixing console with my acoustic guitar miked in front of the floor to ceiling studio glass so that we could see each other. It was the only time that I ever did this working at Showplace Studios with Ben. The basic track was cut live as you hear it. Ben says “we’re rolling”, I start the count and then start fingerpicking my acoustic in the control room looking at Tommy playing in the studio, just the 3 of us. I’m forever grateful to have it on tape. As I said earlier, Tomorrow’s Clown is the most unique song I ever wrote or recorded and I’m lucky enough to owe it all to one man. Thank you John Prine!! 🙂

To be continued…

DownTown Blog – Better Day Part 2

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As you will see, the making of the Better Day album would become an adventure. 2 weeks before going in the studio to start recording, I had done a photoshoot in NYC with LA photographer Mark Maryanovich, which I considered to be part of the project. I had never released any DownTown Mystic recording with my face on the cover and I intended that to change with Better Day.

The following week after the photoshoot, Mark got back to LA and sent me the photos. I hate to take photos of myself but Mark had done an incredible job. Even I was really impressed. There were so many great shots to choose from. Mark had given me everything I needed to get the project rolling. With my head filled with good vibes, I entered the studio ready to rock!

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

The tracking sessions took place at Showplace Studios with my engineer of 20 years Ben Elliott and then recording moved to Sound Spa here in NJ, helmed by Stephen DeAcutis, also known as Stevie D. I had worked with Steve before and knew he was also a great guitar player. Given that DownTown Mystic is primarily all guitars, I figured Steve would be the best man to work with on the new songs. Steve was still in the process of finishing his own album Torn From The Pages with Cory Glover, of Living Colour fame, on vocals. So I was in very good hands.

Steve Holley, Robert & Paul Page

The sessions were a blast. Steve Holley and Paul Page provided the backing as the rhythm section (which they also do for Ian Hunter’s Rant Band) and the end result was some of the best music I had ever recorded, including some of my best guitar solos. From the Tom Petty inspired 12-string solo on Better Day to the ripping guitar on Modern Ways. One of the more memorable moments came one night when I was trying to flesh out the solo on The Wish. I had asked Lance Doss to put down a guitar part for me just before he was to pack up and go home. He laid down a part in one pass. Some of it worked and some of it needed some improvement. So for about 30 minutes I toiled trying to piece something together with what Lance had played and it wasn’t working.

Lance & Robert

Now sitting next to me punching in my takes is Steve. I’m looking at him and thinking, “what am I doing here”? I handed him my Les Paul and asked him to have a try and just play whatever he wanted. I think he had the solo finished and recorded within 10 minutes and it was perfect! These are the moments, as a producer, that I live for. It was truly magical! Lance and I never stood a chance. So my intuition to work with Steve had already paid a big dividend.

At The Spa

We finished the sessions in early October and it would be another month before I could get more studio time. 2 weeks later I went for my annual physical with my primary doctor, Dr. Edward Gold. When the doctor called a few days later with the results, I was not really surprised by what he said. For the past 2 years Dr. Gold had been trying to find out the cause of my hemoglobin dropping. His diagnosis had been Chronic Anemia, which I was never really satisfied with. Now he told me my hemoglobin had dropped from 9.2 to 7.2 in the last 6 months (normal hemoglobin range is 14-18). He said we needed to do another bone marrow test to see what was going on.

I went for the bone marrow test and got the results from Dr. Gold on Halloween before I left for the studio to continue recording. The doctor said I had what they used to call “pre-leukemia”, now called MDS (Myelodysplastic Syndrome). Actually, in an odd way, I took this as kind of good news because there was finally an explanation for what I was going through in the last 2 years. The doctor wanted me to see a specialist, Dr. James McCloskey at HUMC. I called and made an appointment and then headed out the door for Sound Spa. I was not going to let anything deter me from finishing the album, especially now. Who knew what was ahead of me? The main thing was to stay in the moment and make music.

Steve & Rob

I remember walking into the studio and talking to Stephen. We would usually chat before a session about what was going on since we had seen each other last and I told him my news. I could see the concern on his face and I told him I would be ok. In previous conversations I had with Steve, I told him about my sessions with Dr. Peebles and Natalie Gianelli, who channels the good doctor (this would make for another post). The main teachings of Dr. Peebles are to take responsibility for your life and to connect with your heart, which will connect you to your Higher Self and who you really are. The mind (ego) will always try to get involved and micro-manage everything, which makes it hard for us to get out of our own way. Dr. Peebles told me that everything in my life was always working for me and never against me. So I was now applying that to the MDS and looking at how it was going to benefit me. Little did I know how much this new mindset would help me in the days to come.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

With the discussion over, I changed my focus back to the music and spent the next week recording and mixing. Song titles like Better Day, The Wish, One More Chance, Love Light, One Step Closer, Read The Signs and Lost & Found took on very different meanings then they had just a few days before and the irony wasn’t lost on me. The positive vibes that started with the photoshoot had continued with the recording sessions and helped me to keep my attention in the present moment. What was about to occur was not something I was giving a lot of thought to and this will be the 1st time I’ve ever talked about it at any length, so please keep that in mind.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

I continued recording and mixing the Better Day album in the first week of November 2018. The following week I met with Dr. James McCloskey, the head of the Leukemia Dept. at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center here in NJ. Dr. McCloskey had looked at my bone marrow test and told me that the test revealed I was making these irregular cells called “blasts” at 12% of my cells. He said that at 20% it’s considered to be Leukemia. At 12% I was in the high range and needed to be treated as soon as possible, because unchecked, the blasts would become Leukemia cells. He said that I was a good candidate for a new drug trial he was doing that was in its 3rd and final stage before getting approval by the FDA. It was a chemotherapy drug in pill form that took the place of the intravenous drug and with fewer side effects.

But the real news of my meeting was that there was a CURE for MDS, usually a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. I then met with the Transplant Team headed by Dr. Scott Rowley. The plan was for me to enter the drug trial, get as healthy as possible and then get a transplant. I started the chemo treatment in December for a full week and every month after until March, when I met with Dr. Rowley and was told that I was ready for the transplant. My hemoglobin was up to 13.2 and the blasts had been reduced down to 2%. I was feeling so good I asked them to put off the transplant until April. It seemed I was going to have a Better Day. 😎

To be continued…

DownTown Blog – Better Day Part 1

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In the last blog post, I wrote about how the album still lives and the new Better Day album I’ve just released will be a case in point. I decided back in late summer 2018 that I would create an album of all positive songs and call it Better Day. This was a year before I would hold the actual album in my hands. Now I was gearing up to go into the studio in early Fall 2018 to start recording the material that would become Better Day.

I had started the year by deciding to finish writing 2 songs that were “sitting in the can” as it were, meaning I had recorded the basic tracks for them during previous projects and never finished them. One had been “sitting in the can” for 9 years and the other one for 6 years! It was finally time to get down to finishing each one and then recording them later in the year.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

The 1st song that I finished writing from 2009 was called The Wish and the other one from 2012 was called Love Light. I had put the rough mixes from the studio sessions on my 8-Tk digital recorder so that I could record vocals and guitar parts and get a demo for each song. Soon I added demos of 2 other songs, Better Day and Modern Ways. I was so happy with the results that I booked time for the end of September to record them.

It had been 7 years since my last photoshoot and I knew this was the time for new photos. I was supposed to have a photoshoot in August with LA photographer Mark Maryanovich but it had been canceled due to a week of constant rain. Mark called me a couple of weeks later and said he would be in NYC the 2nd week of September and we should book a session. This turned out to be a stroke of luck as the weather was now 20 degrees cooler than back in August and with the studio already booked for the end of the month, this would allow me to get in the proper frame of mind as an artist.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

Mark had asked me to scout out some locations for the shoot. He said he was looking for a kind of gritty street vibe, or something like that. I had recently seen a video that Bruce Engler had done using the Brooklyn Bridge. There was a shot at the end of the video that had the bridge in the background and I sent it to Mark to see what he thought of the location. Mark loved it and said it was perfect for what he wanted to do with me.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

Bruce said there was a warehouse area on the Brooklyn side under the bridge. This seemed like the logical place to start with Mark. So a week later I got up with my wife Barbara at 3am on a Saturday morning to meet Mark and his wife Carolyne down at the Circle Line on the West Side Highway in Manhattan so we could get over the Brooklyn Bridge at 5am because Mark wanted to shoot with his light setup. The area under the Brooklyn Bridge would turn out to be a better location than expected for a photoshoot.

Courtesy of Barbara Szala

Not only was there a warehouse that was lit up at night, but once you walked around a small bird sanctuary with trees and bushes blocking the view, there was a small park and Jane’s Carousel, glass-enclosed and all lit up with the East River rolling by. We worked for over 2 hours as the dawn broke in a light misty rain. We left about 7:15am back over the bridge to our 2nd location in lower Manhattan.

Courtesy of Barbara Szala

I had picked the Wall St. area because I knew it had some of the oldest bars & cafes in the city. There was one area where 2 streets crossed by Del Monicos but it was Saturday and that’s trash day. The streets were filled with black trash bags piled all over the place. We needed to find another location. As luck would have it, we had passed a cobblestone street, appropriately called Stone Street, as we made our way up to the 1st location. With all the streets being 1-ways, we circled back around to find Stone Street.

Courtesy of Barbara Szala

I pulled in front of the oldest café in NYC on the corner of Stone Street so Mark and his wife Carolyne could get out and scout the location. About 10 minutes later Mark came running back and motioned me to get out and follow him. I walked down the cobblestones to the middle of the block where Mark was standing in front of a private residence that was undergoing renovation with scaffolding all around it. In front of the residence’s entry was a small thru street that was now blocked off to traffic, making it a private driveway.

Courtesy of Barbara Szala

I quickly ran back to my car and backed it down the street and into the private driveway, hidden from view. Mark set up his equipment and for the next 90 minutes, we had our own little set and a complete run of the street. The rain stopped as Mark started shooting me on a street unlike anywhere in NYC. You would have thought we were in Vienna or some other old city in Europe. It really was unbelievable and thanks to the clouds, there were no shadows that would have been created had the sun been out. Mark and I couldn’t have asked for a better day or 2 better locations.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

As we wrapped up the shoot I went into the bakery across from the driveway, which had just opened, to buy everyone lattes. Then we packed up and headed back to mid-town Manhattan to drop off Mark and Carolyne at their hotel, having completed a somewhat magical morning in NYC. Mark and I had been talking about doing a photoshoot together for over a year and now it had finally come to pass. There was no way back then that we could have planned such a day. With the photoshoot behind me, I was now in the right frame of mind to head into the studio. 😎

To be continued…

DownTown Blog – One More Chance

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One More Chance Single Cover

It’s not every day that a song sneaks up on you and stays with you for years and years. That’s kind of the story for me with the song One More Chance. It was back in the early 80s that I would come up with the chord changes for the verse of the song. I had quit a band I had been with for over 10 years and I was intent on finding my own way as an artist and a songwriter. This was a change that was new to me.

I had just finished my 1st solo recording project and was now in the “after-birth”, as it were. I kind of connect it with postpartum depression. You give birth to something you’ve created and now you’re finished. There’s a kind of emptiness you feel because after being creative, all the work you’ve done is suddenly over. There was a beauty to it as you felt totally fulfilled, but now it’s come to an end and you’re not quite ready to start over on something new. As a matter of fact, you’re feeling a bit depressed and trying to start something new is the furthest thing from your mind.

Eventually, I forced myself to pick up my guitar and start doodling around, in hopes of finding a spark to catch my attention. I can’t remember when it happened but one of the things that I came up with was this chord progression that definitely caught my attention. It became like a meditation for me. I would play it over and over, this descending 4 chord progression. It was hypnotic to me as I played it every time I picked up a guitar, but I had no idea where to go with it. I just loved playing it over and over. After a while, I knew that I needed to find some other place to go to in the song.

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After awhile I came up with 2 more songs to work on. One of them was in the same key as my meditation song. If you read the blog post on The Wish, I would take a section of it to use as the chorus for my meditation song, which would become One More Chance. Now I had verse chords and chorus chords to play with. It would stay that way for a number of years as I never could seem to get beyond this point. I would try to put a melody to the parts but I was never really satisfied with it, which is probably why I put it aside.

With the dawn of the 90s I was in full swing with my publishing company Sha-La Music. I would be out and about in clubs or at music industry functions meeting people, who would give me their tapes. Songwriters would send me their songs in the mail. Generally, the tapes in the mail did not have anything of interest for me. That was, until one day a tape arrived that caught my ears in a big way. A songwriter from the area named Bruce Engler had sent me a tape and when I put it in the cassette player I was immediately struck by his voice and style. I liked his songs and felt like I had a connection with him.

Bruce Engler

Bruce Engler

The following week I gave Bruce a call to see what his story was and what he was looking to do. As it turned out he had been in a band that had won Star Search, a TV talent show in the 90s that was the forerunner of shows like American Idol and America’s Got Talent. He had left the band and wanted to try his hand at songwriting. I told him what I thought of his songs and that he should also consider being a solo artist. Bruce was a bit ambivalent about the artist thing, having just left a band. I could relate to that. 🙂

After a few more calls we finally met and began a working relationship. I felt that the songs that Bruce was writing were really good but the artists that they would be a fit for, were artists who wrote their own material. Again, I brought up to Bruce that he should seriously think about being an artist to showcase his songs. He had a great sounding voice and was an excellent guitar player. He just needed a bit of confidence in himself and more songs. At some point, as we got to know each other better, I decided to show Bruce the meditation song of mine.

Bruce & Robert

We set up a time to get together and he came over to my house. I played him what I had and we began to play around with the verse chords. I got inspired and started to come up with lyrics for the melody I had for the chorus. I hit on the title One More Chance and all of a sudden the song was taking shape. Bruce liked what we had created together. I told him to take it home and finish it. I had a melody for the verse but I thought it would be better if he came up with his own melody to write lyrics to. This would allow him to be free to go in whatever direction he wanted. It would prove to be the right move on my part.

The next time I saw Bruce, he played me the finished version of One More Chance. He was quite happy with it but said it took a lot of work, especially the lyrics. He also added a B section after the verse to connect to the chorus that worked really well. I was impressed with his melody and lyrics and how it all fit with the chorus we had written. After all the years of playing the chord pattern over and over to myself, my song was finally finished. It was kind of a surreal moment for me. To think that a random tape in the mail would connect me with the person who now sat in front of me playing me the finished version of what was now our song, One More Chance. 🙂

DownTown Blog – The Wish

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DTM The Wish Single cover 1500

The Wish is one of those songs that has had a life of its own. I first came up with the main chord changes sometime in the mid-80s and played around with them on and off over the years. I would come up with 2 other songs that formed sort of a trilogy, having chord changes to 3 songs with no lyrics or melodies. I would work on these over the years, trying to fine-tune them into actual songs.

One of these songs wasn’t what you could call a song. Just this chord sequence that intrigued me to no end. Eventually, I would take what was the original chorus of The Wish and add it to the chord sequence and make it the chorus on that song, which I would eventually give to Bruce Engler to write a lyric and a melody for. That song would become One More Chance.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

The other song of the Trilogy was a fully contained track, with melody, verse and chorus. It would find its way to Eddie Walker, who would write the lyrics and become Think A Little Louder. So with 2 of the 3 songs of the trilogy now finished, I thought I would do the same for the music of the 3rd one, but the situation never quite presented itself. I never found a potential co-writer for it, so I guess it would have to fall on my shoulders to finish it.

With a new chorus in place and nearly 25 years after I first started doodling with the chord changes, I decided to record a track as part of the Standing Still project. I had written some lyrics and recorded a demo to send to drummer Steve Holley and bassist Paul Page to learn for the recording sessions, which would take place in December of 2009 and consist of 15 recorded tracks. The last being The Wish.

Steve, Robert & Paul

Steve, Robert & Paul

The original version of The Wish was more uptempo than the finished version. I recall drummer Steve Holley not being a fan of the uptempo version. Steve had a suggestion, which he usually started with the phrase “I know you’re probably going to hate this but”…Now Steve Holley is a very distinguished musician and only a fool would not listen to what he has to say. I asked him what his idea was and he said he heard the song in half-time as a cross between Neil Young meets Pearl Jam. How could anyone not want to hear what that would sound like?

And so we started to try out Steve’s idea. It was fairly obvious that this was the new version we would record. Steve’s idea of slowing the track down by using half-time made the groove much stronger. What was also obvious to me was that the new track did not fit in with any of the other tracks recorded for Standing Still. And so The Wish, as the track was now called, would once again find itself in limbo for another few years.

Fast forward to 2018. It’s time to think about a new album and I’ve already got some songs to work on. One is already “in the can” and just needs me to finally finish the lyrics and put a vocal on it. I’m determined to finish The Wish. I spend a couple of weeks honing the final draft of the lyrics and demoing the track at home until I’m satisfied. Then in late September, I go into my old friend Stephen DeAcutis‘ Sound Spa Studio. Stephen is also an artist, aka Stevie D. He lends his support by adding some tasty lead guitar to the track and in early October I’ve got a finished mix of The Wish.

Over 30 years after I first came across the chord changes, I’ve finally finished writing and recording the song The Wish. In April 2019 I release it as a single and then in May as The Wish EP in Europe via Last Man Music in the UK. Talk about what a long strange trip it’s been. That certainly would describe the journey of The Wish. 🙂

https://soundcloud.com/shalaman/the-wish

DownTown Blog – Think A Little Louder

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The new single Think A Little Louder is probably the song with the most unusual recording history in the DownTown Mystic catalog. I came up with the music back in the 80s and kind of shelved it since I had no lyrics for it. It wasn’t until I met a NYC singer/songwriter named Eddie Walker that I would bring the music out again.

I met Eddie at the old New Music Seminar that took place every summer in NYC. We struck up a friendship and eventually began working together. Eddie had a band and was looking to do some recording. I told Eddie that I would help him out with the producing and began to go to band rehearsals to work on the songs. After listening to the material that Eddie had, I suggested that he needed to have something a bit more up-tempo and commercial.

He asked me if I had anything and I played him the music for the song that needed lyrics. I told him that if he liked the song to write lyrics for it and we’d record it. Eddie liked what he heard and I told him I’d get him a tape with the music and melody so he could work on it. A week or so later at rehearsal Eddie said he had finished the song and wanted us to hear it.

We all knew that Eddie was looking to take his relationship with his girlfriend Ann to the next level and that things were not going as smoothly as he would like. Now Eddie was on mike strumming his electric guitar, playing at a slower tempo than the song should be played, but the slower tempo somehow made it more intimate as Eddie began to sing “well my heart isn’t bound by tradition”.

DownTown Mystic THINK Single Cover

The other members of the band and I stood there in rapt attention listening to Eddie as he continued to sing the new song called Think A Little Louder. When he finished we were all blown away. To this day I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better version of the song, stripped down bare like that. Eddie sang it from his heart. We recorded the new song a few weeks later and it came out really good. Unfortunately for Eddie, his relationship with Ann did not turn out as well. They would break up and Eddie would leave NYC and go down to Austin, TX.

I kept in touch with Eddie down in Austin. He was becoming part of the music scene down there and seemed to be getting along nicely. It was around this time that I would go into the studio to cut 6 tracks with members of a band I was managing. Little did I know that this session would be the start of what would become DownTown Mystic.

One of the 6 tracks we cut that day was Think A Little Louder. As far as I was concerned, it was the worst of the bunch. It just didn’t seem to gel. Whether it was the key or the arrangement, something just wasn’t working for me. I put it aside while I worked on the other tracks. 3 years later I decided to go back in the studio and finish work on it. When it came to Think A Little Louder I made a somewhat drastic decision.

The first thing was that I didn’t like the key it was in. After listening to the original track I decided that I wanted the rhythm guitars to be played on acoustics. The original track was in B but the acoustics would sound better in A. So I made the decision to do something I had never done before—erase all the guitars, bass and vocals, keeping only the drums. Tommy Mastro who played the drums on the track had locked in and played a really solid track, so I felt I could keep his track and recut new parts to it.

Having had 3 years to listen to the track, I was determined to make it work better. Besides changing the key to the song I was also going to change the arrangement. Part of the problem for me was that it was too long. Eddie had written 3 verses to the song and there was also a guitar solo that I just wasn’t feeling. Getting from the solo to the 3rd verse had always felt and sounded awkward to me. The solution was to eliminate both.

I came up with the idea to replace the solo with a bridge that would get me back into the chorus which I could fade out on. For those of you not familiar with a “bridge”, it’s an old-school songwriting device that allows you to “bridge” one part of a song to another part of the song. If you’re really old-school you might call it “the middle eight”. The tricky part was coming up with a bridge that would time out exactly to the length of the guitar solo, then edit out the 3rd verse and splice in the chorus. In theory, it should work. 🙂

At this time I was managing a band that included 2 of the founding members of the band Trixter. I brought in PJ Farley to record a new bass line and Steve Brown to add guitar. But first I had to record the acoustic rhythm guitars in the new key and with the new bridge. Then we made the edits eliminating the 3rd verse so now the song flowed from the bridge to the final chorus just as planned. Then PJ laid down a great new bass part and Steve recorded these hard-sounding power chords throughout the song that really gave it some muscle.

I sent a tape of the song to Eddie with the new bridge and he really liked it. Eventually, for the Rock’n’Roll Romantic album, I got Bruce Engler to sing harmonies and he added a guitar part on top of Steve’s power chords on the intro part that plays throughout the song. We mixed it and this is the final version of Think A Little Louder that you now hear. I’m not sure if Eddie has ever heard this current version because I lost contact with him years ago. Wherever he is, I hope he’s rockin’ and I’m glad our paths crossed long enough to write this song together. 🙂

DownTown Blog – Turn Around And Go

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The recently released single Turn Around And Go has always been one of my fave songs. From the moment I came up with the music, I knew that I just couldn’t settle for anything that didn’t live up to it. When inspiration did strike I knew immediately that it was a perfect fit for the music.

Her name was Starr and in just a few seconds she inspired me to write one of my favorite songs…

Before I tell you about that inspiration, let me back up a bit. My 1st summer home from college I got a job driving a van for a Tuxedo store during their busy prom season. One day I was told to go into NYC for a pickup in the Garment District. When I got there I was told everyone was on their lunch break and that I might as well take one too. So I walked down the street and came to the corner and saw a small luncheonette across the street. I went in and ordered a sandwich and was told to take a seat inside and they would bring me my sandwich when it was ready.

I walked through another door into a dimly lit room and realized I was in a bar and that the luncheonette was actually the kitchen to the bar. Had I been walking down the street from the other direction I probably would have walked right by because the bar was really nondescript from the outside and I wouldn’t have even noticed it. So I went in and took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer. About 5 minutes later these bright lights went on to reveal a stage behind the bar and this great looking dancer came out and began to do her thing.

What was really an eye-opener was when she took her top off! I had never been to a Go-Go bar before and certainly didn’t think I had wandered into one. But the room behind me started to fill up with various businessmen who I assumed worked in the area and probably came in for lunch on a daily basis. At a nearby table, 3 guys in suits sat down. By this time the 1st girl left the stage and another came out. If  I thought the 1st dancer was hot, the 2nd dancer was really hot!! 🙂

I assumed she was the headliner because she wore a sparkling sequined 2 piece and was built like the proverbial brick sh!t house. (whoever came up with that expression??) Anyway, she was stacked in the right places and was drawing the attention of those 3 guys at the nearby table. One, in particular, a chubby redhead was quite vocal yelling up at the stage. They looked like accountants and the chubby redhead looked like he was showing off for them. It didn’t take long for him to get the dancer’s attention and she walked to the front of the stage and asked the chubby redhead for his tie.

After getting encouragement from the other guys at the table, the chubby redhead took off his tie and handed it to the dancer, who proceeded to turn her back to the crowd and tie the tie around her waist. When she turned around the tie was dangling between her legs and she started to grind her hips forcing the tie to swing back and forth between her legs. This got a roar from the table, with the chubby redhead continuing to yell at the dancer, which sounded more and more like heckling.

The dancer continued to strut her stuff and was not going to ignore the chubby redhead. She exchanged words with him as she danced, keeping her cool. Finally, she turned to him and asked him for his T-shirt. The chubby redhead yelled back something like “no fu**king way” but now his compadres began to egg him on to give her his T-shirt. After a few minutes, the chubby redhead relented and took off his suit jacket and then unbuttoned his dress shirt revealing his white T-shirt. Unbelievably, he took off his T-shirt and threw it on the stage!! I’m eating my sandwich and drinking my beer, looking at a half-naked chubby redheaded man standing in this nondescript dimly lit Go-Go bar and thinking “only in NY”!!

The dancer proceeded to pick up the Tshirt and rolled it up, putting it around her neck. She turned her back to the crowd and I could see her doing something to the shirt with her hands. When she was finished she rolled the T-shirt down over her body and when she turned around she pushed her quite amble boobs through the 2 slits she had made in the T-shirt and shouted at the chubby redhead, “now explain this to your wife!!”. The place exploded, with the half-naked chubby redhead mortified. I paid my tab and walked out laughing. Only in NYC!! 🙂

That was my 1st experience in a Go-Go bar and it was certainly quite memorable. But I digressed from my story about Starr…as you might have guessed, I was sitting in another Go-Go bar. It’s about 14-15 years later and my cousin had found this out of the way place that was literally “on the other side of the tracks”. He had taken me there a couple of times before and all I remember was driving on a road that seemed to go through all these towns in NJ and finally crossing over these railroad tracks and this Go Go bar called Cheeques suddenly appearing.

On this particular day, we were sitting right in the middle of the bar with a perfect view of the stage. The lights went down and the next dancer was announced as “Starr”, who came strutting out on stage with a top hat on her head in a sequined tuxedo jacket with tails and high heels. As she reached the middle of the bar, directly in front of us, she threw her leg out with her high heel balancing her between the stage and the bar. She then bent over, and with her hand, grabbed my face and proceeded to plant a kiss on my lips!!

She then pushed off the bar, back onto the stage and went into her dance routine. At that very moment, I knew I had the inspiration I had been waiting for. I knew right then that I would write the song with the music that would become Turn Around And Go. Meanwhile, I turned to see my cousin’s face staring at me with his mouth open in disbelief. I looked at him and said “what?” He shook his head and in a somewhat outraged voice replied, “do you know how many times I’ve been here? You come in here and get a kiss! I’ve never seen anything like that in here!!”

What can I say? Call it kismet. Something always seems to happen when I go into a Go-Go bar. On that day it seemed like this dancer Starr had been mystically drawn to me when in reality, she was going to kiss whoever was sitting there as part of her big opening. As luck or fate would have it that would be me and not my cousin. Even better, I got a great song out of it. 🙂

DownTown Blog – Used Records: Fly Like The Wind

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USED RECORDS Cover

Recently I posted a link for a movie trailer on FaceBook that would garner the biggest response from my family & friends that I ever received (outside of my birthday). The reason I posted the link was because my song Fly Like The Wind is actually in the last 35 seconds of the trailer for the Indie film Better Start Running (originally called Monumental). The movie was supposed to be released in late 2017 but nothing ever happened. So for over a year I knew I had a song in the movie but had seen or knew little of nothing more than that.

I have to admit I was taken by surprise when I saw the trailer for the 1st time because I was just curious to see what the movie was about after all this time. Plus, there are some recognizable names in the film like Oscar winner Jeremy Irons, so it can’ be too shabby. lol The last thing I expected to hear was Fly Like The Wind playing over a large chunk of the final sequences of the trailer!! Lol How cool is that??!! Obviously, very cool because my FaceBook page lit up like never before! 🙂

Hearing my song in the Better Start Running movie trailer made me think about writing and recording Fly Like The Wind, and the long strange trip it took to get there. Every step of the way seemed to set up the next thing that would happen. Understand that I’m talking about a song I wrote and recorded in 1985. Each step took 10-20 years to occur but without that step, Fly Like The Wind would not be in this movie. So how did it happen?

Back in 1985 I was still a struggling artist trying to get a record deal (this is 20 years before my mid-life crisis to become DownTown Mystic). I decided that I would write the best commercial songs I could as an artist/writer/producer to showcase my abilities and talents. These songs had to sound like the songs that were heard on MTV & Radio at that time. In 1985 I was committed to using the cutting edge tools available at the time like a Linn Drum machine and synths to fashion a sound that would be immediately recognizable.

Fly Like The Wind was written to be a “hit song” (whatever that is), nothing more and nothing less. Just get to the chorus and the hook as quickly as possible and repeat. The one thing I remember about working on the track was that I wanted the snare drum on the verses to sound HUGE. I was having trouble getting what I wanted so much so that I called Garry Tallent and asked him to come to the studio to help me out. Luckily, Garry drove over and we worked for over 2 hours using the state of the art PCM Sound module to finally get that HUGE 80s snare sound!! 🙂

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Unfortunately, there would not be any record deal and I would never get to know if I had written a “hit song”. I finally decided to give up on being a struggling artist and become a struggling publisher, starting my company Sha-La Music. I continued to write and record songs and send them out to other artists looking for material. I sent Fly Like The Wind to quite a few but with no luck. In the 1990s I began to manage artists. My 1st client was a band that had a release in the UK and I began to do business in Europe for them.

It was the mid ‘90s and the CD was now the standard used for recording. I had all of my songs on reel to reel and cassette tapes, so I really wanted to get my best recordings on a CD. I was no longer an artist but I saw a chance to create a project for the purposes of getting my music released on CD. I called the project Used Records and used the nom de plume of Walker Reeves as the artist behind Used Records. I sold the project to a German label called Long Island Records, run by a very nice chap named Sondi. I signed a Licensing Deal for Used Records (which included Fly Like The Wind ) with Sondi, who unfortunately passed away much too soon in the early 2000s. Used Records was a bust but I got my CD. 🙂

I mention the Used Records CD because, without it, my future sync licensing success would be in jeopardy. Doing business in Europe took me to Midem in Cannes, France. Midem is the largest and most important International Music Business event that takes place every year. I attended Midem a few times in the 90s and went back in 2011, getting a Licensing Deal with another German Label, this time for DownTown Mystic. I mention this because I met a great character named Eddie Caldwell from Chicago there that year.  We hit it off and made plans to do business together.

Rob&Eddie

I mention Eddie because a year or 2 later he sends me an email asking if I have any songs that were actually recorded in the 80s, particularly in 1984-85. Now I ask you, what are the odds? Of course I tell Eddie that I do happen to have some songs recorded in the very period he’s looking for and Eddie says to send them ASAP!! It turns out that Eddie has managed to get to probably the #1 Music Supervisor in LA—Alexandra Patsavas of Chop Shop Music, and she’s looking for music for a new show she’s working on called The Carrie Diaries, a sort of prequel to Sex and The City. Not only that but she wants authentic sounding 80s music and it has to be recorded in 1984-85. WTF??!!

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This is a HUGE opportunity!!! The problem for me is I don’t have any digital files of the songs to send to Eddie. But wait…I remember I have a copy of the Used Records CD!! All I need to do is convert the cd to digital files…YES Used Records!! Now Alexandra Patsavas has a reputation for having “great ears”. She’s been known to discover “hit songs” for her TV shows. Of the 3 songs that I send to Eddie, she picks Fly Like The Wind, which appears on the last show of the 1st season of The Carrie Diaries. There’s a party going on at the hip fashion magazine that Carrie works at and playing in the background at the party is Fly Like The Wind!! 🙂

I had to hand it to Alexandra Patsavas for having “great ears”. She picked the best song of the ones I sent to Eddie. As far as I ‘m concerned, her picking Fly Like The Wind was an affirmation for me that I had written a “hit song”. For the 2nd season she picked another one of my best songs—And You Know Why. Eddie wanted to release the songs he had sent to Chop Shop as an independent project, so I told him to call it Used Records and even sent him the cover art from the original cd. YES… Used Records rides again!!

USED RECORDS Cover

A couple of years go by and Eddie tells me he has a deal for Fly Like The Wind to be in a movie called Monumental. I’m thinking “how cool is that to get the same song picked again”? I also thought they wanted it because the movie must take place in the 80s. So I was even more surprised when I found out that Monumental was now being called Better Start Running and after seeing the trailer, the movie was not set in the 80s. They must have really liked the song!

I told you it was a long strange trip. If I hadn’t become a manager and started doing business in Europe, I wouldn’t have gone to Midem or made a deal to create the Used Records CD. Years later when I wanted to get a deal in Europe for DownTown Mystic, I went to Midem again and met Eddie Caldwell there. If I hadn’t met Eddie Caldwell I probably would never have a 30 year old song, that I all but forgot about, become my biggest sync success to date. Without the Used Records CD I wouldn’t have been able to create the digital files needed to send that song to Eddie.  As I stated earlier, what are the odds??!!  🙂