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They say that everyone has a story to tell, but that's not true. There's always more than one. |
| In 1979 I was playing in a band called the Blame, doing songs by The Ramones, the Clash, the Who, and other bands with the in their names. "We're the Blame" was fun to say when people asked who we were. It felt like a confession. |
 the Blame at the End- Jeff Coleman, Steve Patton, Glenn Redcay, Guy Debris |
| At the time there was a thing called D.I.Y. going around. Doing It Yourself was true of any band I'd ever been in, but finally somebody coined the expression and gave it credibility. Otherwise, we were just four broke musicians booking our own gigs and hauling our shabby equipment in a $300 panel truck. Because of D.I.Y. our position as outsiders was an advantage. Whatever we lacked in cash we made up for in authenticity. |
| It didn't hurt that we could get people up dancing. |
| The D.I.Y. attitude extended to songwriting. The possibilities were endless- anything might catch on- so we went exploring sounds and attitudes and wrote a bunch of our own stuff. We got wind of a guy who had opened a recording studio in Marietta, at an old movie house he called Atlantic Sound Productions. He was offering an incredible deal- 500 7" singles, recorded, mixed, and pressed, for $595. We somehow raised the money and made the date. Soon we had a record. |
| A little later I came up with a song about a guy who just could not stop thinking about his girl. He knew he had to go to work to make the rent, but found himself making a break for her place instead. What a predicament! When I got home from my day job (where I scribbled down the lyrics to the drone of ice cream freezers) I grabbed my Strat and worked out the chords and melody. The guy I pictured performing it was charismatic Sam Luger, guitarist and singer for our "cross-town rivals" The Sharks. |
| Glenn Redcay and I recorded a demo of this song, called You Make Me, at my house in Paradise. I ran a cassette over to the Sharks' place and they liked it, quickly turning it into an exciting live number in local clubs. It was weird and wonderful to be in The Village when the band hit the opening harmonies and folks made a dash for the dance floor. It was even more wonderful when they recorded the song and it became a hit on regional radio stations. I couldn't believe it- there was a song I wrote playing on the car radio. I expected it to go national and put me in clover. |
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But that didn't happen. I did earn about $100 in royalites from local radio airplay, and as a registered songwriter and publisher found that the broadcasting rights organization BMI was quite helpful when it came to stopping a hair salon using You Make Me as soundtrack for a TV commercial without asking. Can you imagine turning down that sort of cross promotion now? So naive. |
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