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Friction & Friends - 10th Avenue Freeze-Out with Dick Trismen, Colgate '81

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Cape Cod Jam

The last weekend in June was another special Event for me. My 151 Bandmate, Mark DiOrio, hosted a wonderful party at his home in Pocasset, Mass. The seeds of this gig were planted over a year ago, when Mark let us know of the date. This was the third of these parties that he has hosted. When he told me about the Event, it was, “my High School Band (Friction), 151, and Despite Dwight” (his current Band with 151 and Colgate alum Jim Goldenberg).

The lead up to the Party was uneventful. Doug Watt made it from California, Dave ‘Ace’ Case from NJ, me from D.C., combined with Jim and Mark from the Boston area. We added another guitar courtesy of Mark Endresen from Despite Dwight and he was a great fit. Due to travel and logistics, the only rehearsal we got was a couple of songs during the Sound Check on Saturday afternoon. All-in-all, we did pretty well.

What I didn’t know was that the High School Band, Friction, would have some Guest players with impressive resumes. Most everyone gathered at Mark’s place on Friday night for pizza and beer. I pulled up to the house and was blown away. A beautiful property with a large house, pool, and a massive tent set up on the lawn. A 20 x 12 Stage, dance floor, etc. It looked like a wedding venue.

While we were hanging out, one of the singers introduced herself and asked, “How do you know Mark?” “We went to Colgate together”, I replied. “Oh, I performed at Colgate last year.” I asked, “Who did you play with?” “I was there with Aretha.” I immediately realized I was with some real pros. Turns out that 5 of the guys Mark played with in High School went on to pretty serious musical careers. His buddy Wayne married the singer, Vaneese Thomas. Vaneese’s Dad, Rufus Thomas, was a fixture on Stax Records (‘Walkin’ the Dog’) and on Memphis radio. She’s performed with Aretha Franklin, Sting, Eric Clapton, Pavarotti and many others. The rest of the 'Ringers’ had pretty impressive resumes as well. The Horn Section (trumpet, sax, and trombone) had an alum from Blood Sweat & Tears. Needless to say, these folks walked on Stage and just killed it. They did several Chicago tunes (25 or 6 to 4, Saturday in the Park, Beginnings) that were unbelievable. I was able to shoot a very low-quality video that went live on Facebook, and another of 10th Avenue Freeze-Out. Mark’s son shot the whole thing on video, so hopefully there will be some more to share.

My brother Jim and his wife Chrissie were able to come down and enjoy the show. At one point it looked like Jim was going to join Friction and all of the Ringers as a percussionist, but there just wasn’t enough room on the Stage for him to participate. In retrospect we should have asked him to join 151, but things were happening pretty fast and furious. Next time.

While I was really impressed with the talent of Mark’s friends, but was equally taken with how they all took the time to compliment 151’s performance. It was another great experience as I continue on my musical journey.

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Second Time Around

After our modest success at the April 29th Birthday Party, we were asked to perform at the Woodmont Block Party in North Arlington.  This is the home of our Guitarist Chris Brown and close to Jay Hawkin’s house.  We were initially hesitant; because of travel commitments and other issues we’d have very little time to rehearse before the Event.  Our Lead Singer, Steve, had two major work projects/events and would be on the road for most of the time up until the Show on June 3rd.

After discussing it some more, Steve decided he could handle to commitment, and we accepted the Gig.  The decision was made to stick with the Set List from the Birthday party, and not introduce any new material until later.  We also had to investigate renting a PA, since we had to return the Bose Tower System to Chris’s brother in Fredericksburg.  Mark stepped up and did a great job researching our options for rentals at Guitar Center, while I did the research on a Mixing Board.  Mark found us an PA for $150 for the weekend, and I purchased a Mackie Board with 22 inputs, surely enough to handle our needs.

As the Gig grew closer, another new factor emerged.  We had been approached by Karen Harned, another friend from WGCC, who offered to join us as a singer.  While I had not heard Karen before, others said she was a fantastic talent.  My only concern was what Steve would think of the addition.  Once he said he was on board, any reservations disappeared.  

We only had 3 rehearsals before the Gig, and only had the full crew for one of them.  Karen was only on board for last rehearsal, but she was a natural and fit right in.

Note to Self:  When you’re doing an outdoor show that involves moving all of your gear, helping to build a 16′ x 12′ platform, setting up a new PA and Board, AND performing its not a good idea to wake up at 5:00 am and spend your morning working outside on your House.  Needless to say, by the time were were ready to play around 6:30 that night, I was kinda spent. (It reminded me of Arlo Guthrie in ‘Alice’s Restaurant’, “Got good and drunk the night before so I looked and felt my best!”).  It showed in the First Set.  I was having trouble hearing everyone and messed up a couple of our songs.  After some corrections to my in-ear monitors, the Second Set was much better.  Mark compared us to the Patriots in the Super Bowl, as we made a great Second Half rally.  The folks at Woodmont loved it and we did receive many compliments.  We also learned that the Board I bought was probably better suited to static/studio use.  Thank god for Guitar Center’s refund policy.  I exchanged it for a more Gig-Friendly Mackie (VLZ 1604) this past week.

With Karen on board, our repertoire may expand a bit.  We have spent the past two weeks kicking around some new songs to learn, and will be practicing a few of them on Sunday at Barco.  I’m looking forward to trying a few new tunes. 

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Here’s our version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gimme 3 Steps.

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Band Camp

May 30, 2017

After spending a lifetime around Rock and Roll, I finally decided to do something about it.  

First some background.   I am in my late 50’s (OK almost 60), married for over 30 years, and the Father of two daughters.  I have lived in Northern Virginia outside Washington, DC since 1980 and am immersed in a variety of activities; I play golf at a local Country Club, have been involved in Competitive Swimming as an Official for nearly 20 years, still play pick-up ice hockey, and I’ve had my Pilot’s License since 1985.  I have no shortage of things to do.

As a kid, I played the piano and clarinet in grade school before graduating to the acoustic Guitar.  I played in Church through High School, but not much else.  In College at Colgate University, I gravitated to the Campus Radio Station, WRCU-FM.  I was a DJ and play-by-play man for both Hockey and Football.  After graduation, I came to the DC area to work as a DJ for a variety of AM and FM stations, including WFMD in Frederick, MD, WXTR-FM (”Extra 104″) and WMZQ-FM.  After getting the radio bug out of my system, I entered the Commercial Real Estate field where I’ve worked for over 30 years.

I’m the oldest of 5 kids, 4 boys and my “8 year-old Sister” who will turn 50 this year.  My Mom was a pretty good piano player and the likely source of any musical talent in the Family.  As kids, my Brothers were the musicians.  All three played in bands in High School and/or College and continue to play.  I made many road trips to Boston when I was in school to see their bands play at a variety of Clubs.  My youngest brothers, Chris and Jim, were drummers in Rods & Cones, which had a modicum of success in Boston and the Northeast during the early 80’s.  My other brother, Steve, played with a few groups while he was in College (part of the time with Chris), and even traveled up to Colgate in Upstate New York to play a couple of gigs at my fraternity.  These guys can play.  They spent the time during High School practicing and working on their craft.  I was too busy playing hockey and doing other extra-curricular stuff.  My sister was a pretty good singer and played the piano for a while as well.

Fast-forward twenty years or so, and I found myself thinking, “If only I had stuck with those piano/clarinet/guitar lessons, maybe I could play like my Brothers.”  Not too long after that my wife Kim surprised me with a Christmas gift of a new acoustic guitar and surprisingly it came back to me pretty quickly.  It just also happened that we ‘inherited’ an old spinet piano from my in-laws.  We wanted our daughters to take lessons; a side benefit was that I was able to fool around on the piano as well.  I didn’t take any lessons so the progress was slow, but I started to be able to play a few tunes.

At my 25th Colgate Reunion in 2005, some Classmates reconstituted their Band, 151, as our entertainment for the weekend.  As I mentioned to several people, the highlight of the weekend was Campus Security literally pulling the plug on them at 2:15 Sunday morning during the crescendo of ‘Freebird’.  As we lingered in the tents until nearly sunrise,  I told myself that I really wanted to be able to share that experience.  Five years later, I got the chance to fill in when 151’s regular keyboard player, Mark DiOrio, was unable to attend.  While a bit shaky, I managed to pull off playing bit bit less than half of the tunes.  I earned some kudos for handling the organ intro to ‘Freebird’ and was invited to join the Band as we accepted applause and a small gift at the Class Dinner on Saturday night.  Even though Mark returned for our 35th Reunion in 2015, I was able to participate, playing on over half of the songs as second keyboard/organ and adding background vocals.  I even sang lead on ‘Sweet Home Alabama’.  It was a blast.

Bolstered by my relative success at our 35th, I finally got up the nerve to revisit my woodwind background and took saxophone lessons for nearly a year.  I have acquired both an alto and a tenor horn, and continue to work on my sax skills.   Its been fun to explore another instrument.

About a year ago, I started discussing forming a Band with two guys from  my Country Club.  I know, not the place where you’d expect to make a rock ‘n roll connection, but Rob Francis, Chris Brown and I decided to give it a try.  After kicking it around for a while, in October of 2016 we committed to renting a rehearsal space every Sunday from 4 to 7 pm.  We recruited another guy from the Club, Jay Hawkins, as an additional guitar player.  Mark Leheney, a long-time friend/neighbor of mine joined as our drummer.  The final piece of the puzzle was the addition of Chris’s former band mate, Steve Harmon, as our lead singer.

Not long after we started rehearsing, a mutual friend from the Club approached Rob and Chris to see if we could play at his wife’s 50th birthday, an outdoor ‘gig’ at his home in late April.  After lots of discussion regarding potential police visits and knowing that the audience would be lots of friends, we elected to move forward.  One problem, we still didn’t have a name for our Band.  After a spirited debate, we settled on the name of ‘No One You Know’.

Next we had to come up with a set list, which wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.  Within a week or so we had 25 songs that we were comfortable performing.  7 weeks of intense practice paid off, and our first public appearance was a success.  Of course there were mistakes and things we wanted to correct, but overall we were happy with the result.

Going forward, we are hoping to play every 6 to 8 weeks at some of the local establishments here in Arlington.  We’ve decided that our focus for events will be on charity, with all net proceeds going to an organization that could use our support.  In the interim, we are doing a Block Party for another friend this Saturday (weather permitting).  I’ll have more to add after the weekend.  

All in all, its been a great experience that I look forward to sharing with you via Tumblr.