NEW ORDER PART 4

David Gilbert

First off this story is in no way on earth intended to tarnish the name of Dave Gilbert. I have to tell the tale of the breakup of the New Order as it really happened. I loved Dave. I still love him, I will always love him. May he rest in peace.

The stage is set. We have booked The Starwood Club for a showcase performance for Mercury Records. This deal is all but done. All we have to do is play an average set tonight and the ink goes on the contract. Damn we are all feeling pretty excited and I have the butterflies...

Van Halen is set to open for us. They used to play the Starwood as often as NO. Cool club. They put on a blistering show. The audience is now pumped, sweaty and ready, The Mercury suits are in the audience with Neil Merriwether our second producer.

Only one thing missing... Dave.

It is getting to be about that time to go on stage and do it. Still no Dave. OMG, now what? We reassure ourselves not to worry he’ll show up any minute now. You know we have an impending sense of disaster beginning to forment but no one is brave enough to say it, to jinx it. We patiently wait…

Well it’s ten minutes past due stage time and yes, finally Dave strolls into the dressing room with 2 girls, one on each arm. He is wearing his wrap around Blues Brothers shades. He is oddly quiet and is not speaking to anyone. Strange… We gather Mr. Gilbert and single file it to the stage. Big response from the audience, our loyal fans are all here tonight. It’s the big one alright.

We break into our first tune, I think it was the Doors “Break On Through To The Other Side”, and Dave misses his intro cue to start the first verse. Hmmmm… Dave is standing stage front, middle, and he still does not sing! He just stands there. Ron (Asheton) turns to me with this big question mark “Whaaa” look on his face and I just shrugged my shoulders.

Still not singing. Ron gives me the guitar neck up & down signal to end the tune. I do a quickie snare fill in and we end the song. We immediately go into the second tune (don’t remember it) and by this time Dave is standing behind me and the drums to my right.

It is time for the vocal and once again no Dave.

I turn around and smack him pretty damn hard on his arm with a drumstick and shout, ”SING DAMMIT SING!!” “WTF is wrong with you?” He is just staring straight ahead and vibrating. I am aghast to say the least. Ron gives the cue to end this song now. The boys huddle up around the the drum set and we decide to tell the audience that we are experiencing some equipment problems and to hang tight with us.

We break into the Beatles, “She Was Just Seventeen”, which Jimmy and Ray sung. Dave still vibrating and staring with the shades still on behind me. I already know what the problem is.

Those girls were prostitutes, they kidnapped poor Dave. Maybe the tension of the whole ordeal got to him. I know in my heart it was not intentional, but he got started (drugs) and most likely could not stop.

I once went to a clinic every day in Royal Oak, MI right after the Five broke up. I needed to get a daily dose of methadone, and in two months I was free and clear. I got the nurse fired for cutting back my dosage so quickly.

The program was supposed to be for six months at $40 per visit. My father saved my life. He diligently drove me to and fro every single day. Thanks Dad...

Back to the action onstage. We told the audience to please give us ten minutes to fix the equipment problem. We scooted to the dressing room. I

went up to Dave and tore off his sunglasses to check his eyes, and my suspicion was confirmed. I ask him, “Are you okay? Dave, tell me what is going on?” I screamed at him, "What is your problem man!" "Talk to me!”

Hypothetically one could assume he might have chosen the wrong time to party a tad too hearty. That was it, there was no going back onstage. Not tonight anyway. That was terribly simple.

A bit of a ruckus then ensued and darn it, right on cue, in walks Merriwether with the head of Mercury A&R and asks “What seems to be the problem here?” Ron takes him aside and explains the whole miserable dilemma.

A band just died. We can’t finish the show. Dave sang 95% of our material because he was such a great singer, and that was it. Done. Two years of struggle down the drain. No record deal. No fame. No fortune. No touring. No recording. No career. Obviously we proceeded to get very drunk that night.

There was no way to patch this up. Dave was let go. Our only option was to start from scratch with a new singer but everyone was pretty much out of gas. Drained. That was not going to happen for NO.

I grabbed my Fibes drum set, drove a driveaway car back home to my mom & dad's to settle into the basement once again at 28 years old. Broken hearted, angry, resentful, and broke.

The moral of this story is your serenity as a human being is directly inversely proportional to your level of expectations. High expectations, low serenity. Low expectations , higher serenity. You never know when that pitcher called life is gonna throw you a knuckleball when your expecting a curve ball.

Six months later,

I got a call from Johnny Bee, drummer extraordinaire with Mitch Ryder, among many others, and he is calling for the scoop on Dave Gilbert. They are forming a band called the “Rockets” and they need a lead singer. “Tell me about Dave. He inquires. I tell him that he is a fabulous singer and a sweetheart of a man, just keep him clean and you got a diamond. John thanks me and Dave joined the Rockets. The rest is history. The band became successful with a couple of hits.

Dave Gilbert 1951-2001 RIP

Ray Gunn later worked with me as my foreman helping me to run an animatronic factory with 22 employees that built and installed Disney like six foot tall animated robot musicians for Major Magic’s All Star Pizza Review family entertainment center. It was like Showbiz and Chuck E. Cheese ( There is another post coming on that gig. That was the best “day job” I ever had in my life.)

Jimmy got married. Ron went on to construct the band “Destroy All Monsters.” I joined up with “Sirius Trixon and The Motor City Bad Boys.”

What I learned from this whole episode of my life is that all bands, save a few, break up eventually. They fall victim to drug and alcohol abuse, relationship problems, needing a day job to make the money to pay the bills.

So they quit and get a job that pays. Life in the music business is tentative on a good day. It is incredibly difficult to keep any band together. Personality clicks form. Arguments ensue.

I could list the myriad of challenges but you get the picture. As a friend of mine once said, “The center never holds.”I still have a little pain left inside over that breakup. We were a damn fine band and we had a shot. Life marches on doesn’t it? Don’t fear the reaper. Live your life to the hilt. God bless Ron and Dave.

Sincerely,

MGT

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NEW ORDER PART 3

Well, we are moving along with the work, and have settled into a very comfortable groove. Wasn’t many gigs in LA as Ron tells in the liner notes of the New Order album. So we decided to head back to Michigan and attempted to play the Second Chance ballroom in Ann Arbor. The owner almost did not book us as he was worried if anyone would show up. So like in the old days we flyered the whole city. “The New Order Returns to Play Michigan One Time” kind of wordage. Well, we packed the joint.

There was a cue around the block and many people couldn’t get in. Bravo! We then played some other less noteworthy gigs in Michigan and went back to LA with slick guitarist Ray Gunn. Ray was into King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and David Bowie among many other eccentric type bands. Hell he had an echoplex. He added another dimension to our musicianship. He was an eccentric lead guitar player with tons of energy and loaded with enthusiasm. Ray rounded out the band just fine thank you.

We had already recorded the first half of the New Order album. Ray contributed “Never Be the Same Again”, a love song, and a good one at that.

We head back to LA and we play the Starwood club, did some performance art onstage (tell ya later) the Troubadour, and some clubs out at Redondo beach.

We don’t have many venues to play as LA was into disco music then. Hard rock was like us, Van Halen and a few other brave bands. We needed a record deal in the worst way.

Enter Kim Fowley and he hooks us up with Mercury records. We now have enough songs to record the second half of our first record. Bud Latisitch, our rehearsal room proprietor, used to be the director of the NBC house orchestra, and he went to them and snagged a horn section. They appear on “Lucky Strike”, and “Sidewinder”.

I pretty much wrote Sidewinder with Ronny. The tempo is in 7/4 which bands didn’t attempt to play very often . Tricky time to play in. The added depth of the horns was trick and we now had the record.

Mercury records had pretty much agreed to sign the band and all they needed to do was to see us perform live one time and the deal would be sealed. A debut showcase gig was booked at the Starwood Club. If ever we needed to shine on stage this was it. Stay tuned to the next post as it will be a blockbuster.

MGT

As we were getting ready to do this post we ran into a post about Ron on the Bonfide Records Blog. Go check it out HERE

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NEW ORDER PART 2

Enter Dave Gilbert, may God rest his soul. One day in 1973/4, Dave Gilbert appears in LA. Dave was doing what I had done, what a lot of Detroit musicians were doing at the time. He was a musical gypsy in search of a new home, a second chance, a new life. He was drop dead good lookin’, with a wild mane of natural curly hair and a smile that melted girl’s hearts on first sight. We gotta recruit this man...



Dave was a diamond in the rough. We nicknamed him “The Peen”, because his nose slightly resembled the tip of a small ball peen hammer. He never liked that one. Sorry Dave... All in good fun!

We helped him to reach his full singing potential with some aggressive coddling, teasing, parroting, and coaching. We did whatever it took to get him to sing with his whole soul. To project with power from the center of his heart. It worked as he grew to become a great singer. After the band broke up, Dave went on to lead sing for the Rockets, a damn fine touring/recording band from Detroit.

We used to sit down at practice sessions and talk about food. Ron (Asheton) would say,” Yeah man I would love a prime rib rare with a baked potato with cheddar cheese just oozing. Jimmy would chime in with SHRIMP TEMPURA, I want some damn SHRIMP TEMPURA. Then I would say something like, “Man I sure could dig some corn on the cob dripping in butter, a filet mignon, a bottle of Jack, and three naked women!

That’s how some good music can get created. Pain-Hunger. After all there was nothing much else to do but play music when you don’t have a dime to your name. We never went to the library.

Dave Gilbert was drummed into the band literally. He was so hung over one day he fell asleep on the practice room floor, so we put a floor tom over his head and all three of us started banging away. That’s six drumsticks pounding on full tilt. He did not wake up. Honest to God. Amazing? Yeah… By the way we did this at least once a week.

But we got used to the lack of money and that special time with those men was actually some of the absolute best times of my life.

You don’t have to be rich to enjoy yourself or your life. You have to be doing what you like to do. For you, and I mean just for you. If you don’t enjoy your work you will be spending one third of your life in emotional pain. Pretty sure about that I am. Be who you are and damn the poverty, the folks, society in general, and Kick Out The Jams...

Our lives are configured by the choices we make. I personally have made some darn fine choices and some not so fine choices. Nonetheless, the consequences of my actions are created by these choices I make, and I would strongly suggest hard work, focus, drive, open-mindedness, perseverance and a lust for life to quote a friend of mine.

We were always imitating the Three Stooges, and Ron had Curly and Moe down to the letter. This was fun. The song we wrote, “Victim of Circumstance’ was dedicated to Curly Howard. You see, I believed in the Stooge philosophy as much as the rest of the guys. While on this journey to who knows where, can we have a little fun along the way? Please? You better well bet. I want a lot of fun. You gotta laugh loud and hard, it’s so good for you.

There was a party store on the corner of our block called the Vendome. To get there you had to walk past this used car lot. Except the used cars were the world’s most exotic sports cars in the world. There were Ferrari’s, Maserati’s, Aston Martin’s, Bugatti’s, Lamborghini’s and the like. Talk about heartbreaking! What a tease! We’d walk to the store for smokes and swore to each other that one fine day we would each buy a car from that lot…

Ron, John, and Jimmy (Recca) used to visit Larry Fine from the original Three Stooges at a nursing home in Hollywood. The guys were real good friends to Larry. They would take him a couple cartons of Lucky Strike cigs, a bottle of booze and sit down with Larry to have a drink or two. He would tell them all these great esoteric Stooge inner scuttlebutt and anecdotes. It was a sad day when Larry finally died. I never got to meet him as he passed just before I got to Hollywood.

Next episode, Ray Gunn joins the team...

MGT

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BEGINNING OF NEW ORDER

In 1972 I got a call from Ron Asheton, the Stooges guitar player. He asked what I was doing with myself musically. I said I was in between bands and thinking of moving to LA. I said I was selling my 1965 427 cubic inch silver Corvette to drum up money to finance my trip to Los Angeles.

Detroit was deader than dead. I needed a bankroll and I did not want to sell that car, but you have to reach out and take risks to move forward in life. I sold it for $4,500 and now worth $150,000. The choices we make sometimes—sheesh…

Ron told me he had this great band together, a financial backer, manager, and needed a drummer. He wanted me in the worst way. He said I could live with him in his spacious apartment on Sunset Blvd. and check out the scene, but would I consider playing in his band?

I thought about it. And I thought about it some more. So I sold that beautiful Vette and bought a ticket to LA. I was flat broke after the Five disbanded and I was not ready to quit the music business at all.

Onward and upward mate.

I arrive at LAX with visions of a fantastic new life dancing rigorously in my head. I always liked Ron and I was thinking that this could be a really good thing. Wow I was on my way again! Little did I know…

We get to the apartment and it was big. I then meet Jimmy Recca. He used to play bass with the Stooges for a time. Guess what? I have now met the entire band! I was slack-jawed and completely floored. WTF! Now what?!!! This is what I get for having such high expectations...

So if I stay at his place, the pressure is on to join up. If I don’t, I need to get a hotel room with a weekly rate. But I really don’t have any Cali connections.

What to do? I began rehearsing with Ron & Jim. We rehearsed every day during the week. John Reilly, the backer/manager would drop us off at the rehearsal room and pick us up around six in the evening.

We had good ideas and Jimmy was a great bass player. We were making good music together and writing numerous tunes. Only one small problem we had.

No lead vocalist. None of us sang well enough to be the lead vocalist, just background vocals. Audition time. I do not remember how many knuckleheads we auditioned but there were too many I’ll tell you that much.

We finally tried this kid named Jeff. He had super powerful vocal chords but he really didn’t fit this style we were developing musically. I can’t remember how we let him go, but we did. Sorry, Jeff.

So at this point in time, we are eating “boot soup” which I named because the stuff was like army food. This is a soup with five different beans and a ham bone. Lasts for a week. We seldom ate breakfast, because we were individually stone broke. John watched the funds very closely to buy us the time we needed to get a record deal. We were lucky to get a case of beer on the weekends and couldn't even afford weed.

You see folk’s, it was all about the music with us. We were the Rock N’ Roll Soldiers.

Once Jimmy and I pulled a caper on Ron. We gave him a catnip joint, and told him it was the “bomb”. He smoked it and then says, “this is really good pot.” We laughed our asses off and told him it’s just catnip.

He says very funny and we are on the floor rolling and laughing till tears come out of our eyes.

Our next mission, as we still hunt for a singer, is to find a second guitarist. I know of one living in Detroit.

Keep tuned for Part Two. Dave Gilbert (former Rockets lead singer and Ray Gunn (Virgin Dawn guitarist) join the band, and of course, more is revealed…

MGT

New Order's video HERE

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AMAZING ALICE AND JEFF: DETROIT MUSIC YEARBOOK

photo: retrokimmer
Hiawatha, Amazing Alice and Jeff

Happy Friday folks! MGT is under the weather (feel better!) and I am going to do a little post for him!

Two weeks ago I went to the Scott Morgan show at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor we ran into MGT's pal Hiawatha Bailey! Dang HI is tall one! RK also met Jeff Kelledes and Amazing Alice! They are the promoters of the Detroit Yearbook. It is actually a copy of the great Detroit Rock book: Grit Noise and Revolution by David Carson.

Read MGT's post on that book HERE

They sat with me as I was filming the show. About half way through they smiled and asked me if I wouldn't mind.... (I was sure they were going to ask me to wrangle Machinegun's signature)ME signing their Detroit Yearbook! MOI? How about that?

So we snagged our red sharpie and signed their Yearbook on the page where Machinegun's band is located. (MC5)



Jeff and Alice's Detroit Yearbook page is HERE

Who Jeff and Amazing Alice would like to meet! Of course they need Machinegun's autograph and we'll be hooking them up soon! (Dec 18)

Jeff and Alice would like to meet more people who have touched or been touched by our great city to sign our Detroit Yearbook ("Grit, Noise and Revolution"). In the past months our lives have been so enriched by the incredibly wonderful, fun folks we've encountered in the Motor City so why stop now. This includes (but not exclusive to) folks mentioned in the book. A random list of groups includes MC5 Up!, Pleasure Seekers, Psychedelic Stooges (remember when?), SRC, Frost, Funk Bros, Brownsville Station (R.I.P. Cub), Minah Birds (look 'em up kids you won't believe it, Motown Rec. had 'em), Detroit Wheels, Grand Funk, Destroy All Monsters, Twisted Brown Truckers, Slum Village, Jack White, Pinkeye and more. Some of the individuals we hope to cross paths with are Rachel Nagy (Detroit Cobras rule, next show?), Johnny Powers, Uncle Russ, Genie Plamondon, Smokey, Martha, The Ghoul, Regina Carter, the Bach of Rock, the cast goes on. BUT most importantly YOU! (yeah, YOU) DON'T BE THE LAST to join our alumni that have signed the Detroit Yearbook, the class includes RETRO:KIMMER Scott Morgan, Deniz Tek Johnny "Bee", Jim McCarty, Spaghetti Man, The Lundgrens (great folks, BUY his art, there's your plug 'cause you played a big part in this), Mark Arminski (salt of the earth), Papa Joe Z. (Garden Bowl 4ever!), Leni, Celia, Sunny, Darling Beyonce', and John Sinclair, Defense Minister Pun Plamondon, Frank Bach, Gary & Laura Grimshaw, Karen (Queen Bee), Drew Abbott, Thornetta Davis, Mary Ramirez (thanks for not pepper spraying me @ the John S. after party when I asked you to sign our Yearbook), Jeff "Baby" Grand, Harmonica Shaw, Danny Kroha, Rodriguez (@ J.S. afterparty hangin' w/ J. Grand) & Lovely Regan (Raygun), Question Mark & all those Mysterians (who pointed out Steve Lyman of legendary SRC was in da house), Tammy/Timmy, Stoney Mazar, Carolyn Striho, Gary Quackenbush, Nikki Corvette, Mathew Smith, Cary Loren, Melissa ("A professsional groupie"), Howling Diablos, Reefermen, Dirtbombs, Amino Acids, Toxic Shock Syndrome, , Mitch & Megan Ryder, Gwen Joy, The Wolfman Mac Pack, Muggs, Toni Deville, Brett Callwood, Jim Diamond, Hiawatha, Art P, David Carson (Thanks for the root of our travels), Jackson & Meg, Her Highness Aberta Adams, Dennis Coffey and so many more incredible folks (over 350 & still enjoying this great area all we can).

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Detroit Riots MC5 1967

Fire, smoke, gunshots, shouting, screaming, looting, rocks, bottles, Molotov cocktails, blood spilling and some people dying, and hundreds of injured. Citizens mostly. Spiraling confrontations all over the city proper.
Wow!

Detroit’s finest, and the Michigan National Guard had a hell of a job that week. Was this the beginning of the second American Revolution? It sure seemed like it. This indeed is what a modern day mini Armageddon looks like people.

Scary tension. Hundreds of arrests were made and jail time for many. And an M1A1 Abrams tank parked right across the street from the Artist’s Workshop, which doubled as the MC5 band house on the second floor.

Couple of members of the MC5 were arrested for assault, I believe. Broke down our doors and crashed in ala Swat at it’s best Whew!

There were fires everywhere. John Lee Hooker wrote “The Motor City’s Burning” and we began to play that song in our set as an homage to all the strife and pain suffered by all the victims on both sides.

“It started on 12th and Claremont ya’all…”

I got out on the first day and holed up at my parent’s house in Lincoln Park. After all, it was safer to watch on TV then to get killed. At least not yet. Work to be done. After this maelstrom of hate and fear there wasn’t a doubt in my soul as to where I stood as a human being.

End the ugly Vietnam war, the riots, the racism and bigotry. Go out as minstrels spreading the word that we all desperately need to ban together and hopefully, or forcibly, change this damn stupidity.

“Kick Out The Jams Motherfuckers!”

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