| |
ROCK N ROLL ROUNDTABLE - PART 2
With John Hawken, Bill Turner, and Mike Lefton
Two Generations of New Jersey Rockers Rap About The
Business of Rockin'
By Phil Rainone
About nine months ago, I sat down with Mike Lefton, Bill Turner
and John Hawken at Bill’s place for what I thought would
be pretty much a short, one time interview with three musicians
who share a hands on musical knowledge of rock ‘n’
roll, including blues and punk rock. John was the keyboard
player for the 70’s punk rock band World War Three.
He also played with 60’s British Invasion band The Nashville
Teens, the first lineup of Renaissance, The Strawbs, and rockabilly
group The Rocketmen. Bill played guitar with Bill Haley &
The Comets in the 70’s and now fronts his own band,
Blue Smoke. Mike, at the ripe old age of 20, has already been
in three bands that he started, and currently fronts The Mike
Lefton Express, for which he’s written a bunch of good,
solid originals. The first interview actually lasted a little
under three hours, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Q: Ok, last time we left off, Bill was sharing some great
stories about playing with Bill Haley & The Comets. A
guy that sounded like a snake oil salesman was trying to scam
Mike out of $1,000 to put his music on the Internet, and John
was being held by his ankles out a window about three stories
up by a promoter who didn’t want to pay the band for
their performance!
John; so we were all in trouble last time, but I’m sure
it can get worse!
Q: One of the things we touched on last time was how scarce
the club gigs have been getting.
Bill: The problem is that the state legislature is putting
out so many rules all, quote, unquote, in the image of public
safety. It’s getting to the point any more where people
feel like they don’t want leave their house anymore,
it’s just a hassle. You can’t smoke (in the club);
you get pulled over for every little reason, real or imagined,
all in the name of potential public safety. People are sitting
at home playing with their computers, and I feel that there’s
hardly any reason to interact (going to see live bands), anymore.
John: Actually you hit the nail on the head! They’d
rather interact with a machine rather than a human being.
Mike: With the advances in technology, now people have less
of a reason to go out, and more of a reason to stay home.
John: You can have two people in the back of a car texting
each other rather than talking to each other! So, you have
a very valid point there. I don’t think the smoking
or drinking is a problem because if people want to go out,
they’ll go out- you get stir crazy sometimes. Unless
the club is full, I think it’s more the people running
it that do not want to pay a living wage to the musicians
working there.
Bill: Well, they will pay more if they get a decent crowd
in there. Club owners have said, “You get a big crowd
in here and I’ll up your money- of course I haven’t
seen them do it yet…
John: They’ve made it our responsibility to fill their
clubs. In the old days it was their responsibility to advertise.
Mike: They don’t want to waste time out of their busy
day…
Bill: Well, it used to be where a club took out a weekly ad
… I mean, instead of advertising steaks and chops, why
don’t they put, in the same size lettering, who your
bands are going to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That’s
the way it’s done right! I’ve been doing this
continually for 40 years, and anyone that tells me it can’t
be done this way is totally rubbish! In the last 40 years
all the way through the early 90’s, I’ll say.
Clubs took out a weekly ad, and advertised who was going to
be appearing there. But some clubs get lazy. Let’s say,
if their last night that they’re open is Sunday, they
don’t even bother changing the sign as to who’s
appearing there next week.
Mike: Not only will they leave up who they had last week,
they would also replace it with their specials! So, instead
of the bands, you get to hear what their specials of the day
are!
John: I wonder if newspaper sales by dropping, become less
important, and that could be a reason why they’re not
advertising. Classifieds used to be six pages, and now there
are like four lines of classified ads.
Bill: Look at The Village Voice: their musician’s classifieds
used to be several pages long, now it’s only a couple
of entries. The Village Voice was always one of the barometers
and of course The Aquarian too, which seemed to have held
on for a little bit more traction than The Village Voice.
Their (The Aquarian) musicians ads are free.
John: They have a website as well. There are so many out there
that if you’re looking for work, they break it down
by state, area code, almost by town. It’s a great way
to look for work- saves you buying a newspaper and flipping
through.
Q: to Mike: What do you prefer, since your 20 years old? Do
you read newspapers?
Mike: I don’t, and I don’t know many people who
do still read the newspaper. Any news that you read is usually
online. That’s where you get your news, or if you happen
to stumble across the news on television, but generally people
my age don’t read the local newspaper. It doesn’t
seem like a of stuff that affects us. I’m sure if we
read it we’d find that it does affect us, but a lot
of us don’t really take the time.
John: to Mike: Do you buy any special publications, magazines
like Guitar?
Mike: I don’t personally, but I know a lot of other
people like to look through those types of magazines. Magazines
are more popular because you can get stuff from it (music
info, photos, etc.)
Bill: I like Fretboard Journal magazine. It’s real esoteric,
and it’s got some real, highly detailed photography.
It’s really an Americana-type magazine. Our generation
still reads newspapers because we’re clipping coupons
(laughing)!
Q: I remember back when I was a kid, I didn’t read many
newspaper, even
though that’s all there was. I watched some news on
TV, or word of mouth from my friends.
Mike: It’s an “age thing” I guess.
Q: to Mike: With the bands you’ve had in the past, did
using websites work for you to get people to know more about
you?
Mike: No, we really promoted our music through Myspace.com,
than the website, because MySpace had music there. You went
right to it, and the music starts playing immediately as soon
as you got to it. Whenever we had a gig we’d mention
to visit us at MySpace- that’s when MySpace was really
being used. People would go there, listen to the music, and
some of them would come to the gig. The website, I guess because
there wasn’t music there other than pictures and some
reading about the band- I guess we had videos on our website,
but it was much easier to go to the MySpace and have the music
right there, instead of waiting for videos to load, and all
that other stuff. I have my own website now which is: www.mike-lefton.com.
Q: So as far as advertising what works for you guys since
Mike has his website.
John: Well, I don’t do any advertising since I’m
not really working (John still plays with The Strawbs and
also does side projects with various configurations of the
band, and recently he’s played with The Yardbirds),
so the problem is solved. But if anyone wants to find me its:
Johnhawken.com. I noticed when Mike was talking about MySpace,
he used the word, “was,” and “used to.”
Mike: Facebook is now the way to communicate, it’s not
really the way to deliver music.
Bill: to Mike: What’s really the way to deliver music
now?
Mike: Youtube! I have my own Youtube page as well, so when
I need to let somebody know –‘hey, this is what
I sound like,’ I’ll send them a video or my Youtube
page and they scroll through my videos.
Bill: I don’t like to live on a computer. I try to limit
my time on it. I’ve know some really good musicians
that are really masterful players, and they stopped playing
and live on the computer all day long! They’ve put on
50 pounds, they’re diabetic. it’s sad it’s
become their alternative reality! They don’t go out
and play with anyone anymore!
John: Everyone’s spending way too much time on the computer…
Bill: Like I was mentioning about public safety before. They
don’t want second-hand smoke because of public safety-real
or imagined, yet, to have everyone sitting home in a sedentary
lifestyle- you’re getting heavier by the week-you’re
getting more prone to diabetes- you just sit there drinking
soda pop and energy drinks…but there not smoking!
John: Yes but, a lot of musicians - I’m one of them,
and the members of The Rocketmen, no one smokes in that band
- we were highly delighted when they put a ban on smoking!
We played down at the Pine Tavern (in Matawan, NJ), and you’ve
got a low ceiling, and you could barely see from one end of
the room to the other (because of the smoke)… and it
was the girls that were causing most of the smoke. They’d
cluster around the stage, and chain smoke, one after the other.
It was disgusting!
Bill: Well, back in the 90’s they came out with the
smoke eater system in the clubs, and that really did the job!
That’s where they should have left it. The smoke eaters
were solving the problem, but all the anti-smoking zealots
wanted all or nothing!
John: Well, fortunately that didn’t work because they
had those down at the Pine Tavern, and the ceiling was so
low - these things were going full-out (high speed), and STILL
nothing happened!... So I’m glad they did away with
it!
Bill: The bottom line is, we’re all out of work (musicians)
now! That’s the bottom line!
John: I don’t think that was the reason, but probably
one of the contributing factors…
Bill: That’s the collateral damage! My own feeling is
that the clubs should have a choice. You want to choose to
be a non-smoking establishment or smoking- it’s a matter
of choice. That’s the more democratic way to do it.
John: Well, you’re cutting out a lot of people that
would go out but didn’t like the smokey atmosphere.
I did shows like that. I’d say I’m playing at
The Pine Tavern, and my friends would say, ’I’d
love to come but that smoke kills me!’ Because more
and more people have given up smoking!... I’ll tell
you another factor. There’s a gig they (The Rocketmen)
used to play down in Spotswood. Everyone would sit around
watching the TV’s in a semi-circle around the bar. They
band be blowing themselves up (playing real tight), no one
there! They (the customers) were sitting down all night- they
never moved from their seat! They get themselves into a trance
watching TV! Why not stay home and watch TV?
Mike: Well, The Blue Moon- they really don’t have the
TV going,, but The Brick House has, like, 12 televisions all
around the place- so whenever we have the open mike, we constantly
get told to turn down ( the music), because people would rather
watch TV than listen to us. If that’s the case, than
stay home and watch TV!
Bill: We still manage to draw a fairly good dancing crowd,
and I’ve found the most effective way to get people
back into the clubs is direct mail advertising. I’ve
got some 3,000 e-mails and send them out religiously every
month… I sat up bleary-eyed the last couple of nights
writing out postcards, and sending them directly. - That is
still very effective! It’s trying to work smarter in
this day and age… I’m firmly a believer in the
musicians union…
John: The British union was absolutely useless! They were
never there!...And if we came over here (from England), they
met us at the airport to make sure we were in the union, and
they’d turn up at just about every gig, to make sure
we got our money and that everything was ok.
Q: to John: You had mentioned to ask you about a story before
we started the interview...
John: We (The Nashville Teens back in the 60’s) had
a hit record and we were playing in Paris. A live, 3 hour
rock ‘n’ roll show around ’65-’66.
There were three bands and we were topping the bill, and it
went from 9 ‘til midnight… Well, if you leave
a band in a Green Room with all the booze you can have- a
lot of food, but more booze than food, you’ve got a
problem (laughing)! So, while the bands were out there, we
were back there soaking it up! The stage was set up so where
the piano was, when I sat down I was looking at the stage,
and on my right were all these TV cameras- it was live TV.
So, everyone’s worse for wear (from drinking), and we
screw up the first song, but that’s ok, because the
crowd was enjoying it, everyone’s had a few. We get
to the last song which is “How Deep is the Ocean?”
We used to do a boogie thing at the end of it going from C
to A minor. The two singers would leap out into the crowd,
and get amongst the ladies. So they leapt down, and they’re
doing their thing, and then they came back up on stage. The
young guy would leap up with one bound, and he was back on
stage. The older guy took his time- one leg up, than pulling
his ass up on stage- split his pants from the knee to the
waist. He turned ‘round- he wasn’t wearing any
underwear! He’s jumping up and down in a three-piece
suit, (his penis) was flapping in the breeze! I saw the camera
man going like this (John wiggles his index finger up and
down real fast). Now, the producer of the show was a woman!
She passed out in the wings, and the show was going out live,
there was nothing you could do about it! So after the show
someone came around and said, ‘It might be a good thing
if you left town.’ We packed up the band and we got
out of there!
What I got most out of the interview was, that between the
three musicians there was a lot of sharing going on, not only
with their each unique stories, but also with respect, and
earnestly listening and sharing their experiences,
Once again, just like the first interview, it was over
two hours of Rock ‘N’ Roll 101. It was like a
really cool music seminar with stories of the past present,
and future of rock ‘n’ roll. Thinking back, it
was the Blue Moon in South Amboy where I got the idea for
the interview. Mike, John and Bill (bluesmokeband@verizon.net)
have played there separately and together over a few years.
The Moon has been open for about 6 years now, and the quality
of the musicianship and the way the place is run by Walter
and Adrian with their special TLC makes for a fertile musical
environment that is not seen in these parts very often!
Again, the interview was just a little more of the ice melting
away from the iceberg. They’ll probably be a Part 3
sometime in the near future. I can just imagine the stories!
JerseyBeat.com
is an independently published music fanzine
covering punk, alternative, ska, techno and garage
music, focusing on New Jersey and the Tri-State
area. For the past 25 years, the Jersey Beat music
fanzine has been the authority on the latest upcoming
bands and a resource for all those interested in
rock and roll.
|
|
|
|
|
|