Men_P_4

   The Pentathingie was, as Weston described, a numerologically correct, astrologically proper, part of Sacred geometry, blah, blah, blah, new age, West LA, Laurel Canyon mysticism to the max, bullshit.
Where the lines crossed was to be where the singers were to stand, except for the three in the middle all around one, count em, one microphone. Weston had also positioned us by height, shortest in the inner circle and tallest in the outer circle. As it happened the shortest were the tenors, closer to the mike than the baritones and basses. Tenors voices tend to "cut through" any recordings so it is wiser to position them relatively farther away from the mike than the Barri's or basses. This made no difference to Weston as the integrity of the Pentathingie was more important to preserve than mere technological requirements. There were no mikes on the instruments so the back row, banjos were lost, as well as the double basses, which were in the back row because mikes in those position. would again ruin the balance of the Pentathingie. There were no drums because they wouldn't fit in the Pentathingie.

The first tentative takes on the now forgotten song were wildly tenor heavy having no blend whatsoever with the lower voices, the instruments were not recordable, the lead singers couldn't hear the basses, and the tempo was non-existent. It was a disaster, a train wreck. I looked through the large booth window and saw the engineer gesticulating in a very animated fashion at Doug silent to us in the recording room. I believe Doug stormed out of the session, locks flowing against the unusually cool Santa Ana winds that evening, long knitted muffler trailing behind threatening to do an Isadora Duncan on his throat, and leaving us to stare at each other and wonder what the hell had just happened. Doug's tenure as manager of the men was now obviously in question. Enter the team of Dean Fredricks and Joe Koistra.

Terry met Dean at a gig that The Men did one evening at the Troub and had formed a friendship with Dean and his Wife, Maida. Dean was an actor with a TV series recently under his belt, "Steve Canyon", a series about a comic book Air Force hero pilot. He had also starred in an exquisitely horrid science fiction movie called "The Phantom Planet" .

In the course of Terry and Dean's friendship our problems with management had arisen. Dean, even though he had a blossoming career as an actor, was perhaps more of an entrepreneur than anything else. He had more than one iron in more than one fire. One of his fires was automobile design, yep. Dean had designed a sports car that was slated to be the rival of the Corvette and the then piggy Ford Thunderbird. He even had a prototype built and would cruise the streets of Hollywood in this bad ass little machine and bad ass it was, a fast, sexy, convertible two seater. As I remember it looked like a very shapely '55 thunderbird, combined with a Lotus Elan.

Dean got the management bug and took the idea to another aspiring actor, Joe Koistra. Joe liked the idea so they decided to present themselves as a potential management team for The Men. They were exactly what the Men were looking for, completely sane, down to earth personalities, rare for actors, with knowledge of the business and willing to take a risk.. Dean would be the liaison to the industry having been a proven performer with many contacts, and Joe would be the one who interfaced with the band on a daily basis. Both men knew what performing was about and understood the dynamics of performers far better than Weston giving them a visceral knowledge of what The Men was about. In a heartbeat The Men left Weston and joined forces with Dean and Joe.

Dean and Joe decided it was time to the next step toward "professionalizing" The Men, which did seem very logical. Dean and Joe rented an official rehearsal space, Larchmont Hall. We all decided that it was time to get "professional" help and to that end Dean and Joe hired Ruby Raksin to arrange some music for us. Ruby Raksin, brother to David Raksin, was a well known arranger and songwriter at the time. He was known for movie and documentary productions.

I think we met Raksin, once then a week or so later he came to a rehearsal, score in hand, sheets and sheets of music and a gleam in his eye. We were pretty excited for here it was, an official Hollywood arranger was about to do his thing with us. He issued scores to tenors, basses and Baritones and began to show us the song and parts on the piano. It went something like this:

"We are told very loudly and often to lift up our hearts..
(A few lines that I can't remember) . . .
So no matter what ever (Blah Blah Blah) . . .
We just raise up our voices and sing with glee

Hi, ho   . .(Blah Blah)"

Several of us looked at each other with most puzzled expressions backed with an "oh shit, what have we gotten in to?" feeling. Several others were content to go on with the show. I called an immediate meeting disrupting the rehearsal to much consternation from Ruby Raksin and others in the band. Raksin had been told to leave, that the band had "issues" to discuss. I think he got rather huffy because these young boys had called his talent into question, which wasn't the case, and quit on the spot. During the following hour or so it got very hot. Dean and Joe wisely let us go for it. They were not sure exactly what the problem was about and were content to let the issues unfold during the meeting.
During the intense meeting tempers flared, words and concepts were machine gunned at each other. The meeting turned into a battle of paradigms in which there were two factions, one who wanted the Men to go on a more acoustic (read unplugged) approach to our songs in general. The other who wanted to go just the opposite way and let evolution have its way, to get more electric, to get newer material, to do songs we were beginning to write. Terry and I led this faction. Neither side thought that doing numbers from forgotten musicals was the way to go however .

I believe Terry Kirkman, after a wonderfully loud and sincere rant about the nature of music, evolution and the meaning of life, quit the band and walked out. I certainly agreed with, was a part of his POV and went immediately after and caught up to him on the the breezy Larchmont street. Terry was looking kind of wild eyed and wind blown after his diatribe. I quickly said that we should start a new band with a musical philosophy that would echo exactly what we had been touting in the rehearsal hall, then in a rush of words started outlining, off the top of my head what we could do. When I looked around Ted, Brian, Russ, and Bob had joined the circle having also quit and began adding suggestions and ideas about how to make it happen. We were together and it was decided in less than five minutes that we would form a new band.

Dean and Joe came out of the rehearsal hall and approached us asking what was going on. I believe that I outlined what our feelings were, apologizing profusely about wasting their time with the Men when Dean smiled a huge smile and said "Are you kidding"? "Do you want a management team"?
HA. It was a done deal. The Men was dead and a new band was started. We decided to meet at Terry's Melrose Place apartment (Yep, the same one. It really does exist). We spent the evening at Terry's laughing, planning, drinking wine, and smoking in a most rebellious fashion. Dean and Joe had ruffled feathers to smooth so they didn't join us. The late evening was ending as we tried to come up with a name for the band. Terry's then girlfriend, the world wise Judy Gelbord , while holding a dictionary said, "Hey guys how about this . . . The Association"

   Previous Page                                                           Home                                                                  Next Page