Friday, April 24, 2015

Sing Out, Louise!

So it appears that the New York Times was unenthused by the new Broadway musical version of Doctor Zhivago.


I only bring this up because -- as longtime readers may recall -- my one big-time professional music gig was as a member of the show's composer Lucy (sister of Carly) Simon's touring band at the time -- 1975 -- she was promoting her then debut LP on RCA Victor Records and Tapes.


(I would be remiss at this juncture if I didn't mention that "touring band" is a bit of an overstatement; said tour consisted of a couple of nights at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village and then a Thanksgiving weekend at a dive on Long Island. And yes, that's me on the left in the stupid hat.)


You can read my amusing account of the whole sordid business over here.

In the meantime, let me simply add that while Lucy is a very nice and very gracious lady, I wasn't particularly surprised by the review. If you know what I mean.

10 comments:

Brooklyn Girl in Queens said...

I wonder if she's ever seen a MetroCard --- :-)

steve simels said...

Our old friend Geo3rge says her musical version of THE SECRET GARDEN was actually really good.

Anonymous said...

I can't stand Lucy Simon's voice. Must have been tough listening to that precious cunt warble those insipid songs night after night. Hope the money was kinda OK for you, poor thing.

Nevertheless, based on the photo, it looks like more people than I would have thought showed up for the gig. Was she opening for someone good?

Dr. Zhivago as a musical sounds ridiculous on the face of it. I was forced to read that book for school, so I bought the notes and saw the picture. Way overrated.

Had a lanky boyfriend around that time who had a light blue tweed hat like that. It went well with his long blonde hair and blue eyes. Matched his Delft-blue hash pipe as well.

His parents had sent him to a really fucked up Christian school in Santa Barbara called Westmont College. It was extremely repressive to say the least.

He was a dormy which made it even worse. It was like being in prison and looking out your window with longing at all the sensual pleasures of Paradise, all that dew soaked low-hanging fruit just out of reach. Poor bastard.

To top it off, the college had a housing problem so they were putting three guys to a room with triple stacked bunk beds. He had the top bunk.

At the time, anything above holding a girl's hand on campus was against Westmont's rules. Really. The place was totally bogue.

I snuck in his dorm room and gave him a good thrashing on that top bunk, banging my head on the ceiling repeatedly in the process. His traumatized roomies ratted him out and he got kicked out of that hellhole. Mission accomplished.

The school phoned his Bible-bangin' parents and informed them of his gross misdeeds. Oh, the shame of it:-)

Meanwhile, we went up the coast to El Capitan Beach in my convertible. On the way there we laughed hysterically. I told him he was now free, grabbed his stupid driving hat off his head and heaved it out of the car.

Vickie Rock

Ken J Xenozar said...

Wow. That story is as epic as Dr. Z. Fantastic Vickie.

Allan Rosenberg said...

Secret Garden was very good!

Capt. Al

Mark said...

Piece on Lucy and Carly in the Fashion section of the weekend NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/fashion/carly-and-lucy-simon-on-sibling-rivalry-and-yes-james-taylor.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=0

buzzbabyjesus said...

I was a lifeguard at El Captan State Beach from 1975-9. Refugio, and Gaviota, too.

buzzbabyjesus said...

And I remember reading about your gig back in the day, in the pages of the magazine formerly etc.

Anonymous said...

Your lifeguard tenure coincided with my limited Santa Barbara experiences. The guy from Westmont College was not a local. But he dug the area so much that he stayed about a year after he got booted out of school.

We'd go to the cliffs/hillside near El Capitan and bring a blanket. We had a regular and pretty private place staked out for our flesh session picnics. It was a short hike and the journey getting there only made us more horny with anticipation. We'd be ripping off our clothes the second we laid the blanket down.

Once we were caught in point-of-no-return coitus by some Lepidopterist dweebs with their stupid nets. We both noticed them but it didn't matter. We were panting, glistening, eyes glazed over and drooling. It was heels-over-head as we galloped to glory and the startled interlopers looked on. Cherished memories.

Vickie Rock

Anonymous said...

P.S. Aztec Two-Step sucks the big fuckin' rod.