Ska In My Pocket: How Starting a Ska Band Changed My Life - Part 2

 

I love band origin stories. In fact I love them so much that my book Ska Boom: An American Ska & Reggae Oral History is all about the origin stories of 18 bands that helped to create a uniquely American version of ska and reggae. As a former reporter -- if only for a few months -- I learned early on that you have to include multiple points of view for any story to be honest and factual and attempt to reflect the reality of a situation.  That is why an oral history appealed to me so much. An oral history is predicated on the notion that everyone who was part of an event or collective and/or creative experience of some kind share their unique perspective to get to some semblance of the truth. 

And so, it gives me great pleasure to share how my bandmate Kevin Shields experienced meeting Steve Parker and myself for the very first time and how those initial meetings actually led to us starting the band that would initially be called Panic! and ultimately become Bigger Thomas.

Kevin was the very first person to respond to the flyers I posted around New Brunswick, NJ advertising for people to join the band.  In those pre-Internet days of the late 80s, people actually looked at things posted on public bulletin boards.  Classified ads were another way to find potential bandmates, but I chose to go old school.  I felt a designed flyer -- and I'm using the word "designed" here very loosely -- would be faster and make more of an impact.  

So I put a few ska albums -- The Specials debut, The English Beat's "I Just Can't Stop It", the "Dance Craze" LP and a Skatalites comp in my backpack and brought them to the Rutgers student center where I Xeroxed the front and back covers for ten cents a page.  I then cut out phrases and logos I liked -- "Calling All Rude Boys And Girls" was particularly appealing as was The Beat Girl and Walt Jabsco-- and then typed up a few lines about what Steve and I were looking for -- essentially everything but bass and guitar -- and then laid it all out on another sheet a paper with tape.  I took that designed page to a local Kinkos and had 25 copies printed on bright blue and pink paper.  My thinking was that those colors would be more eye catchy than white. And I was proved right, because a blue one outside the infamous Court Tavern -- a rock and roll dive bar institution a few blocks from the Rutgers campus -- caught Kevin's eye.

Kevin was a son of New Jersey through and through.  Raised in Hillsborough near the infamous Johns-Manville asbestos plant, he was seven years older than Steve and I. He was the fourth of five brothers -- some of whom he played bass with in a hardcore band called Detention.  Detention made a name for themselves on the Jersey music scene of the early 80s playing with a who's who of American punk and hardcore bands including Suicidal Tendencies, Circle Jerks, Kraut and more. Detention were well known for their song "Dead Rock and Rollers" which was an early 80s college radio hit. Kevin called it "97 seconds of fucking genius."  Give the song a spin below:

Though he was the son of teachers, Kevin had decided to enlist in the Coast Guard just four days after graduating from high school in June 1976. He stayed in for four and a half years. He later regaled us with crazy stories about his time protecting the coastlines of our country and his experiences in basic training.  One memorable story was how his drill sergeant would scream "nut to but" at recruits lining up for the day's march. Kevin would often shout this at us as we were about to get ready to go on stage.  Another from his time manning a boat was "stab and steer" which he would say followed by "drive it like you hate it" when one of us would take over the wheel when the band was on the road.  It never failed to make us laugh. Kevin recalled that his experience in the military, "...turned me from a precocious, impulsive, immature teenager into a precocious, impulsive, immature young adult."  The other thing his experience in the military did was change his relationship with music forever because his time stationed on the New Jersey coastline put him close to New York in 1978-79 to witness firsthand the rise of punk and new wave. Later when he was stationed in northern California he experienced the rise of hardcore.  Needless to say, Kevin knew his way around a dive bar club.

It was clear that Kevin had done a lot more living than either Steve or I and though he hadn't been to college, he was one of the most well read and intelligent people I've met.  He chalked this up to reading the newspaper and raucous dinnertime conversations where he and his four rowdy brothers were quizzed on current events and literature by their parents. Kevin also had a very dry sense of humor that really kicked in after he had a few beers. Later on, once the band got going, Kevin was responsible for memorable one liners, often to either break the tension of an uncomfortable moment (every band needs a cut up) or to point out what a stupid idiot he thought someone in our band or another band was.  None of us were spared his sharp wit. I just chalked it up to him learning to survive life with four brothers and then serving in the military. Nothing escaped his observation and like the good punk rocker he was, nothing was sacred, except when we were performing which he took very seriously.

When I was in the early days of writing Ska Boom, I reached out to Kevin for his memories about the start of the band.  They are pure, unadulterated Kevin:

Bigger Thomas had its’ beginnings in the fall of 1968, when I began to take trumpet lessons at Sunnymead School, in Hillsborough, New Jersey. 

Twenty years later I was sitting in my living room with one of my housemates, smoking a Lucky Strike Green the size of Wyoming and watching the “Reggae Sunsplash” festival on TV. I was really enjoying the music- upbeat, rhythmic, fun! Inspired, I turned to him and said “You know, I really ought to break out my trumpet.” He said “You should”. 

Literally a few nights later I stumbled (see: “walked”) out of the Court Tavern downtown when my eye was caught by a flyer posted on the bulletin board outside the bar. Checkerboard margin, black on Kinko’s blue, 2 Tone styling. “Wanted: musicians for original music band. Need drums, keyboard, vocals, TRUMPET”. 

Being recently band-less for the first time in six years and bored, I took down the phone number given. Finding the number the next day, I gave a call. Me: “I saw your flyer outside the Court. Whadda you guys lookin’ to do?” Voice: “My friend and I have been writing a lot. Ska, mostly, reggae, pop-rock, worldbeat stuff. What instrument do you play?” Me: “Trumpet”. Voice: “Really!”. 

When Kevin called I was shocked.  Not in a bad sort of way, but more at how quickly my hopeful entreaty to the larger universe to start a band --albeit New Brunswick -- had actually connected with another living person. I had yearned to be in a band for so long that the reality of it actually happening was almost too much for me to bear. I know now that I was looking for a surrogate family and for a band of brothers, but back then, before years of therapy, I only knew I felt compelled to complete this particular mission to play music.  It was a mission I had devised and harbored for nearly five years since seeing the English Beat and Madness live during the summer of 1983.  And so, sight unseen, I quickly invited Kevin over to my apartment to meet Steve and I.  My roommate Jim Cooper was there as well to serve as as witness to what unfolded. 

Steve and I had played with Jim in our earlier college band and I had met Jim in my dorm during my first week at Rutgers in September 1983.  We hit it off and often went together for dinner in the dining hall or record shopping after class or on weekends.  We also hung out a lot in his room with his two music loving roommates, smoked weed and listened to albums.  Jim was a big fan of The Police, XTC, R.E.M and all other 80s new wave and rock but had a special place in his heart for The Beatles. Jim hailed from Marlton, a suburb just across the city line from Camden, on the Jersey side of the Delaware River.  And unlike my experience with people from that part of South Jersey, who in my limited experience generally loved classic rock like The Who or Zeppelin, terrible 80s metal and had frightening mullet haircuts, Jim was the complete opposite.  He was a bit of a loner and was studying Biology with hopes of getting work in a hospital or lab after graduation. We became fast friends when we discovered we had both been to a huge new wave show at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia in August 1983 featuring The Police, Joan Jett, Madness and R.E.M.

Jim was a quiet and unassuming guy with a huge appetite for new music and books about music. He spent hours perusing pop music history books at book stores and was partial to listening to albums loudly on his stereo headphones while lying on the floor in the dark. Jim was a self taught drummer and guitarist.  A lefty like his hero Paul McCartney, he sometimes played his guitar upside down so the strings were lined up correctly. We had further bonded over our shared struggles of self-taught musicianship and did our best to learn songs together from records.  When I graduated from Rutgers, I asked Jim if he wanted to find a cheap apartment to share and he had agreed. 

Steve and I had asked Jim to join our new ska band, but he was initially non-committal in a very Jim sort of way. It usually took time for Jim to warm up to anything new or different  But, he did say he would sit in on any meetings we had with anyone who came by the apartment and so on the appointed afternoon that Kevin stopped by, Jim was there, quietly taking it all in.  

When Kevin arrived I was caught off guard.  Unlike Steve, Jim and I, who were reserved and quiet, Kevin was loud and quick with witty observations and biting comments.  Kevin initially struck me as a young Rodney Dangerfield, if Rodney had previously been in the Coast Guard and then  a semi-successful hardcore band followed by a rock-a-billy band. Kevin arrived sporting a Stray Cats-style pompadour, a battered trumpet case and an eight pack of 8 ounce mini Budweisers.  He called them nips.  As someone who didn't drink, I was amused by the idea of nips.  They seemed like beers made for toddlers. Needless to say, I had never met anyone like Kevin.  And I'm pretty sure he had never met anyone like the three of us either.

So I go downtown to meet The Voice and his buddy. I got my pompadour skyin’, trumpet case in one hand, eight-pack of Bud nips in the other. I am, after all, a rock’n’roll star. The Voice: Marc Wasserman, bass guitar, songwriter. His buddy: Steve Parker, guitarist, vocalist, songwriter. 

I see these two penniless college grads and all I can think about is the shotgun scene from “Easy Rider”: “Hey, Roy, look at them ginks!” Now I’m introduced to penniless college grad Number Three, one Jim Cooper. Round-rim glasses, mop of blond hair, slap a uniform on the fucker and he could have been in Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.”Jim plays drums but he’s just gonna be temporary”. 

Notes are played, songs taught, ideas exchanged, nippers drunk by me. We are sufficiently encouraged that they invite me back a few days later.

After pleasantries were exchanged, Steve and I played our songs on a small boombox and Steve shouted out the notes and changes to Kevin  while we bashed through the songs.  Kevin did his best to play along on his trumpet but it was clear he was quite rusty.  As we went through the songs, we asked Jim to push the button on a small Casio keyboard that had drum pre-sets on it so we would have some sort of beat to keep us in time.  Our first rehearsal was the sound of Steve and I playing our guitar and bass along to a Gene Vincent rock and roll drum sample with Kevin bleating along nascent versions of what would later become horn parts to our songs.  Though I'm sure we all had a case of mutual culture shock after 90 minutes of rehearsing together, we were sufficiently inspired enough to agree to all met again a few days later when we would be joined by a new face -- Roger Apollon Jr!

Stay tuned for How Starting a Ska Band Changed My Life - Part 3!