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DownTown Blog – Bruce Engler: One More Chance

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The One More Chance album by Bruce Engler featuring DownTown Mystic has been a pet project for some time now. It’s filled with great songs and it was a highlight of my career to work on and be a part of. Of course, I’m a bit partial since I co-wrote 2 songs with Bruce, including the title track, and Bruce was generous enough to record 2 of mine. Besides producing, I got to sing and play on every track on the album. Considering that Bruce and I have been collaborating and working together over the past 25 years, it was about time we did an album of his songs.

Buce & Robert

I wrote about how the title track One More Chance came to be written before and really started our working relationship. It’s been an interesting journey for the two of us. Bruce has been an integral part of the DownTown Mystic project since its inception, lending his many talents, chief of which is his excellent guitar work. I think Bruce is one of the most expressive guitar players I’ve ever seen, let alone worked with. His playing has a character all its own and it’s great that he’s finally getting some of the recognition he deserves. Of course, his slide playing brings out the best in him.

The Way To Know single is a great example of Bruce’s slide playing and technique. Aided and ably abetted by the RnR HOF rhythm section from The E Street Band, Bruce puts down layers of slide guitar parts that float on top of the track. When he solos during the instrumental break, it’s hard to tell if he’s playing slide or a synth is playing the part. Bruce is that good. Having written and produced the track, I got excited when Bruce recorded his vocal. Bruce’s vocal style is a lot like his guitar playing, where he’ll phrase something in a way that lifts the entire track.

One of my favorite tracks on the album is Fiona. From the moment I heard Bruce’s demo I knew I wanted to record it with harmonies not on the demo. PJ Farley (Trixter) lays down a great bass line and Rich Scannella (Bon Jovi) provides a cool reggae beat that brings the song to life. I came up with a cool vocal arrangement on the chorus that Bruce, me and the lovely Jaime Della Fave sing in the background. One of my all-time fave parts!

Bruce at Bitter End, NYC

One Step Closer is the original version by Bruce. DownTown Mystic recorded a version for the Better Day album. I always thought this was a breakthrough song for Bruce and his career as a singer/songwriter. It signified something deeper in him that I had not seen before. I love its message and the good feeling you get from it. Outside of the She Said, She Said cover, One Step Closer is the only song recorded but not written by DownTown Mystic.

Goodbye is a rocker with a classic riff that provides Bruce with the opportunity to show off his guitar chops in a big way and he doesn’t disappoint. Backed by the rhythm section from Ian Hunter’s Rant Band, drummer Steve Holley and bassist Paul Page lay down a solid track and Bruce does the rest. Blue Moonlight shows off some more tasty slide work from Bruce. I think it’s one of his most underrated songs. I had just bought my Rickenbacker 360/12-string and got the chance to use it on this track as well as singing a couple of harmony parts.

I’ve always thought that Bruce’s whistling on Go Back made it one of his most unique songs. Bruce and I disagree about this because he thinks I hated the song when I first heard it because of the whistle, but he would be wrong about that. 🙂 I first heard the song when Bruce sent me a homemade 8-tk recording which blew my mind, so it’s very unlikely that his whistle would have turned me off to the track. I still think that 8-tk is one of the best home recordings I’ve ever heard. Go Back really has it all—great guitar work, killer harmonies and a chill acoustic groove that Steve Holley and Paul Page star on.

Read The Signs is the other co-write on the album that I did with Bruce and it appears here as it did on the Better Day album. It’s too good of a song to keep off this album and once again, Steve Holley and Paul Page play a big role in its success. Letter To My Brother is one of the first songs I ever heard by Bruce and he shows off his acoustic guitar playing on the track. We also share the bass duties on it. I play on everything except the chorus, as Bruce came up with the part and it made sense to have him play it. I don’t think anyone can tell there are 2 different players as the playing is seamless. I think this is the first time I recorded a part with my Rickenbacker 360/6-string.

Bruce Engler

Bruce sings my song Last Teardrop and his vocal is killer. The song has always been a problem for me because of the key but it fit Bruce’s voice perfectly. It was fun to do the harmony part as well as recording the acoustic guitars which I have to credit to producer Rob Harari for a great idea in layering them. The last track If We Believe was recorded at the same session as Fiona and features the same personnel—PJ on bass and Rich on drums, who lay down a solid rockin’ track for Bruce’s cool slide parts. Once again Bruce, Jaime and myself provide stellar background vocals as counterpoint to Bruce’s strong lead vocal. A fun track to end the album.

I’ve included an unreleased version of Fiona as a bonus track on the album. This is the full unedited track and shows off more of Bruce’s lead guitar work than on the final version. There was also an extra drum track that wasn’t used on the final, but overall, an interesting take. Even Bruce was surprised to hear how different it was from the final version. As I said at the start of this blog post, the One More Chance album has been a pet project of mine and one of my favorite albums to have worked on. I think it will help continue the roll that Bruce has been on since his excellent release The Landing in late 2020. Check out One More Chance.

DownTown Blog – DownTown Mystic On E Street Deluxe

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After going 4 years between releasing albums, DownTown Mystic has released 3 in the last 3 months! Ok, technically Welcome To Sha-La Land is not a DownTown Mystic album but DownTown Mystic is featured on all the tracks and released the Test Of Time single from it. But the release of the DownTown Mystic: Used Records History 1979-1985 album in November sparked the idea for the release of DownTown Mystic On E Street Deluxe. Going through the archives and listening to the music made back in the 80s and then releasing it was somewhat liberating. All those years of silence would finally be rewarded because of the reaction that the music received from fans and especially from the airplay at Radio.

Living in New Jersey, everyone knows Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band is the biggest thing that ever happened to the state. And that’s pretty BIG when you consider that Frank Sinatra, Tom Cruise and Bon Jovi also come from New Jersey, as well as many others like Jack Nicholson! People like to make fun of the Garden State but just look at those names!! Seriously, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb here. Come on people!! In the 80s Bruce was “The Boss” and about to release the biggest record of his career—Born In The USA. At the time, I happened to be working with his bass player, Garry Tallent.

As previously mentioned in the Used Records History blog post, I had met Garry when I was in The Tupelos, and Garry would record and play a show with us. We re-connected a couple of years after I left The Tupelos and Garry had returned from The River world tour. Garry had bought part ownership in a studio in Long Branch called Shorefire Recording. He was interested in learning to be a studio engineer, and when I asked him why he told me in part because of what he saw had happened with my band when he recorded with us in Washington D.C. That had been a disastrous situation where the engineer had sabotaged our sessions. That’s another long story but I knew what he meant. He said he never wanted that to ever happen to him. So lesson learned! 🙂

Garry & Max
Photo by Danny Clinch

I sent some tapes to Garry and he picked some songs to record. Hard Enough was his pick and when it came time to cut the track he had contacted the E Street Band’s drummer—“Mighty” Max Weinberg to come down and play with us. I thought this was going to be interesting because even before Max had gotten the gig with Bruce, he was already well known in my town. He was a BMOC in high school because of his drumming and when he showed up at the studio while setting up to record Hard Enough, I started throwing out names of people we both went to high school with. Max had graduated the year before me but we knew some of the same people, so we started reminiscing about our alma mater—Columbia High School in Maplewood, NJ.

While mentioning various names of people we had in common, at one point Max stopped and asked me, “Do you remember this girl?”—and was about to say her name, when I looked at him and we both said her name together, which really got Max going, “YES, you remember her??!!” LOL Garry had been slightly paying attention to our conversation, but when Max and I both roared about this girl (who I will not name to save her any embarrassment), he wanted to know all about her. Garry asked us, “Who is this girl? I want to meet her!” Max began to tell Garry about the hottest girl in our HS, and how every red-blooded male in that school would drool over her. I added that she was like a Playboy Centerfold at 17, but looked like 25. The irony was that the song we were about to record was probably written using her, from my subconscious, as the model for the girl in the song! Crazy, right?

Needless to say, the good vibes carried over to the session because Max kills on Hard Enough and Garry’s bass line reminds me a bit of the bass line he played on Springsteen’s Ramrod, which is a fave of mine. Like any good classic RnR song, there’s a double meaning that’s sexual in nature. However, I must confess that the double entendre of “it gets hard enough to love her” was more by accident than planned. The only reason I wrote hard enough was that “it gets difficult to love her” didn’t fit or sound right. The whole song is about how difficult this girl makes this guy’s life, but she’s too hot for him to say no to. Garry had a good laugh about me and Max still being able to rave about this girl so many years later. How could this song not be about her? I’m telling you she was hot!! 🙂

We also cut Sometimes Wrong that day, which I picked. The version that appears on the Deluxe album is listed as a “demo”.  This is mainly due to never quite getting the track right. Garry and I would tinker with it over a 2 year period, adding parts and mixing at least 3 different versions. Going back and listening now it’s easy to hear “Mighty” Max and how bombastic he could be live. He’s the highlight on the track. It wasn’t until the Standing Still sessions with Steve Holley and Paul Page that I cut the original version the way I wrote it and it finally worked. I was probably too close to be objective because the “demo” gets rave reviews now from reviewers. But that was the great thing about working with Garry because he would try everything. He had the studio time and it didn’t matter if something worked or didn’t because we were learning as we went.

At the next session we cut And You Know Why and Way to Know. Max had just written his book called The Big Beat where he interviewed great drummers like Ringo, Charlie Watts, Levon Helm and Hal Blaine to name a few. I think he really took to heart what some of these great drummers told him so he could become a better well-rounded drummer. On And You Know Why he put that knowledge to good use. It might just be the least “Mighty” Max you’ll ever hear on a song he plays on, but he’s still solid keeping the groove against Garry’s economical bass line.

The next time I was going to the studio, I stopped at Garry’s to give him a ride and he told me to come in and sit down. He had headphones out by his stereo and told me to put them on. He then put on a record and I heard the Born In The USA album for the first time in its entirety. This was a week before the official release of the album, and as with all things Bruce, I had to swear not to tell anyone that I had heard the record until its release. The album floored me, and I understood why Garry played it for me when we got to the studio.

Up until then, Garry was not interested in using synths but after Born In The USA, it was obvious that synths were now going to be a big part of Bruce’s sound. In the studio waiting for us and already set up with his synths, was Joe Norosavage, who Garry had brought in to play on the tracks we recorded with Max. Joe immediately made a great impression when he came up with a cool lead line for And You Know Why. The rest of the session went just as smoothly and I started up a friendship with Joe, who would work on many of my projects in the coming years. I’m pleased to have been able to unearth the tracks and make them a part of the DownTown Mystic On E Street Deluxe album.

Looking back, the thing that I find really interesting is that at the time, Garry wasn’t doing any recording for himself with the studio. I couldn’t believe it when he finally recorded and put out a solo record a few years back. I never knew he had it in him and when I asked him why now, he said “67”. He had just reached that age and felt if he didn’t do it now, he never would. It just goes to show it’s never too late, even for an “old pro” like Garry Tallent. 🙂

DownTown Blog – Welcome To Sha-La Land

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2020 has been one tough historic year and it will be long remembered for the life-changing events that seemed to happen almost daily. People and History will talk about surviving the deadly Covid-19 Pandemic in the years that follow. What might not be talked about is the emotional toll it took on everyone. People had loved ones die and many never had a chance to see them or say goodbye. The pandemic has been like something out of a sci-fi horror movie. Hospitals were so overrun with Covid cases, that many died without anyone claiming their bodies, only to be buried in mass graves like something out of the Middle Ages when plagues were killing people.

It was back in the summer that the thought occurred to me that I should release some musical ‘positive vibes’ out to the world dealing with this pandemic. Sha-La was releasing The Discontent Specialty Shows album and the song Dying Breath struck me as being perfect for this time we were all going through. When I thought about all the music released on Sha-La I decided to make a compilation album with positive messages. It was obvious that the cover art for Welcome To Sha-La Land had a Christmas look to it with the green and reds flowing together, so I thought a Holiday release would be in order. Even though there are no ‘Christmas songs’, I felt that making the album have a ‘positive vibe’ would capture the ‘Christmas spirit’.

I needed a strong lead track to start the album that could also be a single for Radio. Test Of Time seemed to fit the bill. I had written and recorded the song as a gift for my wife Barbara on our 25th Wedding Anniversary, but taken another way, it really speaks to those who lost loved ones to the pandemic. Also, a pattern soon developed, with DownTown Mystic featured on the other tracks with Bruce Engler and The Discontent. It only seemed fair to feature Bruce on Test Of Time because of his great slide playing and harmony vocals on the track. Moving next to One More Chance, which I co-wrote with Bruce, seemed like the perfect segue. It’s also the title track from the album Sha-La will release in 2021 called One More Chance featuring DownTown Mystic.

https://soundcloud.com/shalaman/standing-still

Pollution is a track I co-wrote and produced with The Discontent. DownTown Mystic recorded the song and called it Breathe. Again, it seemed like perfect timing with the lyric “I can’t breathe”. Standing Still is one of my favorite DTM tracks and it was a tough song to write. I had started to try and write about my father’s parents (my grandparents) who both died within a couple of weeks of each other in different hospitals. My father and his 3 sisters never got to see their parents to say goodbye, which is something that’s been all too common in 2020. It became too difficult to get the story down so I focused on writing the song to my father, who died when I was young. The song comes full circle in my feeling like he must have felt with his father and mother.

https://soundcloud.com/shalaman/dying-breath-the-discontent

I included Bruce’s song Fiona because it’s one of my faves and I think one of the best he’s ever written. I wanted to record it from the 1st time I heard his demo of it. I feel the same way about Dying Breath by The Discontent. I recorded more guitar and harmonies on it to bring the track out a bit more. It really hits home right now with all of the lives that have been lost in this pandemic. It has one of the rare positive lyrics from Jessie where he flips the script, from asking to take his dying breath, to not wanting to die and finding meaning in life. It’s profound on a level that Jessie is not usually known for. 🙂

Next, we move on to a 3-song acoustic set starting with Better Day. This was a bonus track on the cd and is the acoustic mix of the song. It has a totally different vibe from the main version, mainly because the acoustic guitar plays a different rhythm than the electric guitars on the track. I wrote The Last Teardrop in 1980 and I’ve always considered it one of my best. It’s an Elegy about loss but it also offers hope for the future. I asked Bruce to sing it because I never liked my voice on it. His vocal is just so natural and I remember when he cut it in the studio. It was amazing! Then I got to record a harmony to it and finally got a definitive version of the song. Also, producer Rob Harari had us track 9 acoustic guitars that created a very cool sound landscape.

https://soundcloud.com/shalaman/the-last-teardrop-bruce-engler

Dead End Space is one of the rare acoustic tracks by The Discontent. Come to think of it, it’s their only acoustic track. I was trying to get the band a song that would allow the listener to ease up from their usual intense attack of material. I co-wrote the song with Jessie Hobbs and the late Ozzie Caccavelli and we recorded the track at Ozzie’s home studio. I’ll never forget Ozzie’s reaction after we finished writing it. I saw the look on his face, which seemed to be shock, and asked him what the matter was. He just shook his head and said it was too good for them. Lol

Welcome To Sha-L Land finishes with 3-Way Heartbreak, which I included because it was not on the Used Records History album and Good Karma by Monte Farber. Monte and I share the same birthday (he’s 2 years older) and first met in the NYC clubs we were playing back in the late 70s. Our lives parallel each other’s in so many ways it could only be coincidence. He’s an astrologer and I’m a numerologist. Monte would go on to become one of the leading New Age authors, creating some of the most incredible divination systems with his wife, artist Amy Zerner. Sha-La released Good Karma almost 30 years ago and it’s become a perennial holiday season favorite.

Sha-La Music celebrated its 33rd year in business in 2020. We started the year by releasing the positive Better Day album in January, not knowing that the Covid-19 Pandemic would soon be taking over the world and changing lives forever. We’ve all lost loved ones and friends that in many ways still feels surreal. It only seems appropriate that we end the year with Welcome To Sha-La Land and put out some more positive energy at the most emotional time of the year. We hope that 2021 will find an end to this pandemic and allow all of us to get back to our lives for the better.

DownTown Blog – DownTown Mystic: Used Records History 1979-1985 Part 2 “A Long Strange Trip”

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What a long strange trip it’s been…or words to that effect. Going back into my musical archives and listening to all the songs I recorded 35-40 years ago brought back memories…both good and bad…but mostly good. The main thing I took away from the experience was how much the music always mattered to me. I left a band that was my life for 10 years to go solo because I wanted to concentrate on writing better songs and getting more into the recording process…and that’s exactly what I did. I stayed true to myself and the music, and that’s not something many people can say.

When putting the album together I decided to arrange the songs chronologically by the year they were recorded, starting with 3 tracks by The Tupelos (1979-80). The only exception was the 1st track Please Be There, which features Garry Tallent from The E Street Band on bass. This song had been on the 45 single with Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little 16 from 1979. We changed the arrangement with Garry. I thought it should be the lead track because it was recorded as part of a Production Deal that was the last highlight for the band.

The Tupelos 1980

Actually, it was that single that attracted Garry to the band at the end of 1979, when he was recording The River with Bruce and The E Street Band. Garry came over to my house in 1980 to jam with the band and agreed to play bass and record with us when we got a deal. We got the deal and Garry came down with us to record in Washington DC and then last played with us on stage at The Fast Lane in Asbury Park. Garry would be our bass player from April to August 1980. There’s no other band that can make that claim outside of Springsteen himself. LOL

https://soundcloud.com/shalaman/sweet-little-sixteen

I left The Tupelos in early 1981 and went to LA, driving cross country with the bass player George (who we met at that Fast Lane show). My publisher hooked us up with Gregg Thomas, a drummer who had worked with Neil Young and Leon Russell and we recorded some songs with him. This was really the 1st time that I got to play with a pro drummer and I learned a lot from it. There’s something that I can only describe as “solid” by the way guys like him, Max Weinberg and Steve Holley all play. It was this same quality that I saw in Tommy Mastro when I heard him play with The Discontent that made me want to get back into recording my songs again.

Robert at Alley Studios 1981 N. Hollywood

 When I got back from LA I knew what I wanted to do and went solo, recording my 1st project in 1982. I would play all the instruments with the exception of bass, enlisting the help of my good friend and fellow Aquarian Monte Farber. Monte has since gone on to become one of the leading New Age authors in the world. Along with his wife, artist Amy Zerner, they’ve created some of the best-selling divination systems ever created. You can hear Monte on the Welcome To Sha-La Land release and his own album, Good Karma.

I chose the 3 best tracks recorded with Monte for this album. Baby Believe Me, Night Time Girl and I Just Want To Love You all feature piano as the main instrument. This was something new for me and helped to add a new dimension to my songs. Night Time Girl was written right after I wrote Brian Jones in 1980 and both were in The Tupelos setlist. I Just Want To Love You was one of the 1st songs I wrote for The Tupelos and it was the last song I recorded with the band. I also recorded it with Gregg Thomas in LA. I clearly had a thing for this song because I couldn’t let it go of it until I had a definitive version that I felt was IT. You’ll notice that I have 1979 & 1982 listed for Sweet Lies. This song was recorded with the band as part of the 1979 Single session and then I went back to it, recording piano and re-mixing it during my solo session in 1982. 30 years later, I borrowed the intro and verse chords to write Read The Signs with Bruce Engler.

The next 2 songs, You Didn’t Know and Same Old Lover are from a 1983 8-tk demo session which would be a very important turning point for me. It’s not these songs alone, but the ones that were also recorded and are missing–the original versions of And You Know Why & Way To Know. These were much different from the versions I recorded with Garry Tallent & Max Weinberg. This was also the 1st time I ever played bass on a recording, thanks to swapping my pedal steel with Garry for one of his bass guitars. I wish I could find those original demos, especially Way To Know. Most likely I sent the reel to reel tape with them on it to Paul Schindler, my music attorney at the time. It was another era.

The remaining 4 songs (1985) were the last recordings I did until starting the DownTown Mystic Project 12 years later. I think you can hear a marked improvement in my writing and recording. I hooked up with Joe Norosavage, a keyboard player I met through Garry Tallent. The 80s and MTV were in full swing, as were synths, sequencers and drum machines. I decided to forego a band to make a state of the art recording. Turn Around and Go gets the full 80s treatment here. Who could have guessed that Fly Like The Wind would be discovered 30 years later and become one of my top sync-licensing tracks!

If you’re wondering why I called the project Used Records it’s because those songs from 1985 would be released in Europe on a cd called Used Records by a German label called Long Island Records in 1995. I was managing bands by this time and was out in LA when I met the label’s owner and all-around nice guy, Sondi. He wasn’t interested in a band I was shopping at the time but then we got to talking about this project I had done with the likes of Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg. This seemed to get Sondi’s attention and we made a deal. I wanted to get my songs on a cd since all my tapes were wearing thin, so this was a win-win! 🙂

Robert & 1976 Les Paul

It’s been strange to go back over songs I wrote and recorded in another century. I still think about getting Nik Cohn’s letter in the mail 3 years ago and just how strange it was to read his words. I look at it now like someone tapping me on the shoulder, trying to get my attention to look at this music. There’s certainly karma at work here. So in a very real sense, this album feels inevitable to me now. As I said at the start of this post, what a long strange trip it’s been. 🙂

Listen to DownTown Mystic: Used Records History 1979-1985

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 – The Album Lives

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I know that the word on the street is that the album is dead but I think it’s premature, or at the very least, debatable. I think one of the problems with the album, as we know it, is that it was a product of the vinyl record. But with the passing of vinyl and the CD becoming the main medium for recorded music, artists lost the focus of what an album was or could be.

Recently, Sheryl Crow released her new album Threads and announced it would be her last album. Her reasoning was that since streaming had now become the main way that people listen to music, it was individual tracks that were important and not a full album of tracks. She said she would still record music but just release individual tracks when she felt like it. I can’t say that she’s wrong because what she says makes sense. But I still think the album has a place if done in the right way.

I think that Threads is a really good album but I also think that Sheryl lost her focus with it, and here is where the cd vs the vinyl record debate comes in. When the CD became the main medium for releasing music, we went from being able to fit 35-40 minutes of music on 2 sides of a vinyl record to being able to put 80 minutes of music on a cd. Also, the price of a cd doubled the price of a vinyl record, and artists felt that they needed to give more music for the money. So it wasn’t unusual to buy cds with over an hour’s worth of music and 15-20 songs.

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I don’t care how talented you are, you’re not going to write 15-20 great songs, record them and put them all on one album. As an artist you’ll hold some back, which means some of those 15 songs will be ok to fill time and that’s why interest in albums began to fade. I know that I don’t really want to listen to more than 6 songs at a time, let alone 14-16 on a cd. Sheryl Crow’s Threads would have been a great album if she had decided to release 10-12 songs instead of the 17 that she put on it. There’s no way to focus on 17 songs in one sitting.

I stated earlier that the album was a product of the vinyl record because the medium supported the concept of an album. You had 2 sides of music to listen to, so you could only listen to 4-6 songs at a time, depending on the amount of time the songs took up. When one side of the record stops, the listener has to physically get up and put the other side on to play. Think about that, compared to listening to cds or MP3s on an iPod or streaming on Spotify, Pandora, etc.

When you look at what are considered to be classic albums, generally you get 10-12 songs on them. That’s because of the limitation of time allowed per side of the vinyl. Back in the day, the 1st and last song on each side were important, particularly the last song on Side 2. Some of those last songs on Side 2 are classics from the bands that recorded them. Take A Day In The Life from The Beatles Sgt. Peppers or We Won’t Get Fooled Again from The Who’s Who’s Next LP. These songs became classics because of what came before them on the album.

I’m not saying that these songs don’t stand on their own, but if they were released today as individual tracks for streaming, I don’t think they would have the same impact. That’s why the album is so important to the artist. That’s also why vinyl is important. An artist can release 5 or 6  unrelated songs on one side of an album and put 5 or 6 songs with a central theme on the other side to make a statement. It’s working within the limitation of the vinyl that gives an artist more freedom than stacking one song after another on a cd.

So is the album really dead? I don’t think so and I offer up the resurgence in vinyl records as proof. The comeback of vinyl will keep the album alive and kicking for years to come. It just goes to show that the “old school” way of doing things like analog recording to tape, vinyl records, etc. will never really go out of style, allowing a new generation of musicians and artists a chance to innovate and put their own brand on making records now and in the future.

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 – Rock’n’Roll Romantic: Rock’n’Roll

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DownTown Mystic: Rock 'n' Roll Romantic

To quote Pete Townsend of The Who, “Rock is dead they say”…whatever. This is a tired old chestnut that “they” bring up over and over. I’m not sure who “they” are, and I’m not sure what “they” mean by “rock”. Are we talking ROCK from the 70s, 80s or 90s onward? Or since the turn of the century? It’s a very broad term for a particular kind of music. For the sake of this blog post, I’ll be talking about the original “rock”—Rock’n’Roll.

Since I’ve already made certain statements in interviews about my intention to bring RnR into the 21st century, I’ll back it up. Rock’n’Roll is a totally other animal than “Rock”. As Tom Petty said earlier this year about his discovering RnR, “Not rock; this was Rock and Roll. The roll designates a swing — there’s a swing in the roll.” That’s what I’m talking about. There’s a difference between Rock and Rock’n’Roll, and just to be clear, it’s RnR that I’m putting out there.

All that aside, I intended the Rock’n’Roll Romantic album to be my statement about RnR in the 21st century. I took over a year to build up to the release of it and when I finally did release it on CD in October 2016, it proved to be my most successful release to date. The CD starts off with 2 of 3 songs that feature RnR Hall of Famers Max Weinberg & Garry Tallent—the rhythm section from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. In fact DownTown Mystic is the only artist in the world that can make that claim. Not even Garry Tallent and Little Steven can say that about their new solo records. Not too shabby! 🙂

A big part of the success of Rock’n’Roll Romantic was at Radio. The previous release of the DownTown Nashville EP at Americana Radio in the spring last year was easily DownTown Mystic’s biggest release at the format and helped to set the stage, so to speak, for Rock’n’Roll Romantic. But I also knew that Rock’n’Roll Romantic had a broader appeal to it than just Americana. The strategy of going to the AAA and College formats along with Americana garnered DownTown Mystic its largest radio audience, going from 16 to 36 Adds and more than 70 radio stations playing the music. For me, these results show that RnR in today’s marketplace is not dead, to say the least.

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2017 started out by continuing the success of Rock’n’Roll Romantic when DownTown Mystic signed a deal with UK indie label Nub Music to release Rock’n’Roll Romantic in Europe. How apropos for 2017 to be the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles classic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the 1st Concept Album. Besides the noise of “the death of rock” is the noise about “the death of the album” and “the death of the CD”. Besides being a true RnR album, Rock’n’Roll Romantic is also a true concept album.

The truth is Rock’n’Roll is here to stay…it will never die. Wait, that sounds like a song I once heard. Nevertheless, it’s true. There’s something undeniable about an electric guitar playing along to a groove that’s being put down by a real drummer and bass player. It’s an irresistible force. Sure, it might not be what’s popular on Top 40 Radio but who cares? There are millions of people who don’t listen to Top 40 Radio.

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Meanwhile in the UK, Nub has already released the Side 2 EP to help set up the release of the full Rock’n’Roll Romantic album later in the year. What better place to release some new RnR than in the UK? Oasis has been the biggest band there since The Beatles and they’ve been around now for 20 years. So it’s safe to say that Rock’n’Roll is still alive and well there. This next chapter with Nub Music may turn out to be even more exciting than the success at US Radio for Rock’n’Roll Romantic! 🙂

DownTown Blog – Rock’n’Roll Romantic: Tommy Mastro

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DownTown Mystic: Rock 'n' Roll Romantic

In the last blog entry I wrote about one of the musicians involved in the making of Rock’n’Roll Romantic who I owed a debt of gratitude—Garry Tallent from The E Street Band. In this blog entry I want to talk about someone not as famous as Garry, but just as important to the making of Rock’n’Roll Romantic—Tommy Mastro.

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Tommy & Robert

I first met Tommy when he was playing drums for a band called The Discontent. This was in my previous life as a Manager. It was obvious from the get-go that Tommy was clearly the best musician in the band (I don’t think any of them would disagree) and he played a big part in my decision to manage them. It wasn’t just his muscular playing with “old school” feel that impressed me like Kenny Aronoff (drummer for John Mellencamp & John Fogerty), but perhaps even more importantly, his attitude and personality. He loved to laugh and kid around and was there to be a cheerleader when necessary. His positive vibes were very contagious and many times lifted the band up whenever challenges arose. As a manager, I can’t tell you how important it is to have a guy like that in a band!

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I was either lucky or dumb to have 2 bands recording their projects at the same time in different studios. It kept me busy shuffling between the 2 and it also got my juices flowing to record my own songs again. I had always wanted to produce and make records as an artist, but I let go of that dream to start my own company Sha-La Music. However, I started working more and more in the studio with The Discontent and that’s how I met studio engineer Ben Elliott, who the band was working with at Showplace Studios in Dover, New Jersey. Funny thing, the Showplace used to be a club and my band had played there 15 years earlier opening for acts like Robert Gordon and Elliott Murphy. Now it was cut in half, divided by a wall with a GoGo Bar on one side and the recording studio on other side, where the stage used to be. I could usually find the band in the bar when there was downtime in the studio. 🙂

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Besides managing The Discontent, Sha-La became the band’s label, releasing their 1st cd societydidit. When it came time to work on new material, I decided to take the band into the studio to record some demos. It was also at this time that I decided to record some of my own songs. I’d been watching Tommy play drums and I could see how solid he was. I had recorded with some real pros like “Mighty” Max Weinberg. The drummer is the engine that drives a band, especially in the studio. The basic track is really all about the drums. A great drummer can make all the difference in recording a great track.

I could see that Tommy had that ability too. I saw and heard what he had done on societydidit. The Discontent played punk with a metal edge and Tommy would put a groove in that you don’t usually hear in those kinds of songs. I began to wonder what he could do with my more “old school” songs and was looking forward to making that happen. So when the time came to go back to Showplace Studios to cut some demos, I asked Tommy and the bass player Eric Hoagland, if they would be interested in cutting some of my songs before their session. Both were enthusiastic and one night after a Discontent rehearsal we ran down the songs and it was off to the studio.

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Tommy & Eric

It was very cool for me to be making music again and recording with Tommy and Eric made the experience even cooler. I could see Tommy was a bit of a “head case” when it came to playing in the studio. He would stress himself out. I told him not to over think it because he was a great drummer and just needed to let his intuition guide him when playing. He would start to relax and lock in the groove. When it came to playing rock’n’roll he was a natural. He kept it fairly straight but he played with such power locking in on the groove. It really allowed me to enhance the rhythm. I think the 1st track we cut was Turn Around And Go. You can hear how he attacks the track but keeps the groove together.

We cut 6 tracks in that session that I could work on at my leisure when I had some down time. I was also very impressed with what Tommy played. He knew who I had worked with and wanted to impress me. He also knew what I wanted and he knew how to make the songs rock. I started calling him “2 Take Tommy” because we would be doing the 1st take and at some point he would stop. Then he would nail the 2nd take! 🙂

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Little did I know at the time that these sessions would be the start of what would become DownTown Mystic. Looking back I have Tommy (with an assist from Eric) to thank for that. As I became more involved with working on the tracks, I decided I needed a name for my project. As it would turn out, The Discontent would indirectly help me find one. On a trip up to Providence, RI for a gig with the band I saw an old wooden sign on the side of the road that read “next exit Downtown Mystic”. Presto! I had my name for the project. On all our trips up to New England I’d never seen it before. Never saw it again. 🙂

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Tommy would eventually leave The Discontent, but I stayed in touch and never hesitated to call him to play on my DownTown Mystic sessions. His playing is all over Rock’n’Roll Romantic, playing on half of the album. One of the tracks, Dead End Space, was written with The Discontent after he had left the band and we cut my version with just the 2 of us in the studio. I’ll always remember that session because it was late at night and the only time I was set up with my acoustic guitar in front of the mixing board in the Showplace control room. Tommy was set up with his drums in the studio so we could see each other through the control room glass as we cut the track live to tape. After the 2nd take Tommy was beaming. I could hear him say (in true Tommy fashion) through the glass, “that was so coool”!!

That was Tommy, a true Rock’n’Roll Romantic. 🙂