In
1979 I moved from Montreal to San Diego to form Streetlife with childhood friend John Kargacos. We met in Sunday School at the age of four,
became best friends, and later learned to play guitar together.
He played a Telecaster. His roots were in players like Robbie Robertson
and Jerry Garcia. He was the best guitarist I ever played with.
He was a great songwriting collaborator. We
used to write on acoustic guitar. It kept the roots flavor in the mix.
The band played a mix of covers and originals. We had a lot of material. In
those days bands played all night—three sets—and the band had to
keep people drinking and dancing. We played some weird gigs—Navy clubs with MP’s
chasing stoned sailors around while the audience screamed for “Free
Bird” —to weddings—I can’t imagine what they
were thinking—to exclusive parties where the costumes cost thousands of
dollars and people rode into the party on horses.
San Diego was in the throes of the disco era. We were playing music mostly
rock and alternative rock but most of the clubs were doing prefab
tourist shit. John had a great ear for figuring out songs and we used to do some
wicked versions of great songs like “Whipping Post”, “Born to Run”, and “Deacon
Blues”. We had a great local surfer-drummer, Jeff Stasny, and after playing with him,
drums became my favorite instrument.
Recording meant a label back then. We sort of went after it but there were a lot
of misconnections. An acquaintance from San Diego (who happened to be gay—it’s
relevant) hooked me up with Bill Graham’s organization. So I went to San
Francisco to Bill Graham’s house, the old Doris Day place in Tiburon, where I
was to meet Zohn Artman, Bill Graham Presents’ Resident Wizard, as his business
card said—and Zohn shows up at the door wearing nothing but his silver silk
boxers. He seemed visibly disappointed to see that I was with my wife, Barri.
But he recovered and was very gracious. He showed us his gargoyle collection and
accepted my demo tape. We didn’t get any deal and later I realized that was one
crappy demo tape in the first place.
The band resolved to make a real record—a single. We went into this beautiful
studio run by some kid whose dad owned it and who probably knew nothing about
making records. But we hung with it and got “Lights for Streetwalkers” and
“Lucky’s Café.” I rather like this version of “Lucky’s Café. It’s kind of an
anti-ballad, a little morose, not sappy. Our keyboardist David Davenport did a
nice job on the lead vocal, and John played his usual stellar guitar. The bass
player was Jim Dobbins, a bandmate from Harlequin in Montreal.
In my experience, a first release will either move the band to a new level or
precipitate its break-up. In the case of Streetlife, it was the latter.