Makeup to Breakup (8 page)

That night we lay there and then the next day, somehow or other they went out again and I escaped—I got out through this back door, shimmying through the little doggie flap. I must have walked miles, but I got to a phone booth and called Lydia. “You’ve got to call an army and the troops. Get Billy, the cook from Maine. He’s got a van. You’ve got to come up and get us, because this guy is going to kill us and you’re never going
to see me again.” And they did. A day went by and we told Jack, “ non sequiturs like “er when Our friends are coming up to get us.” He said, “Oh really?” And we said, “Yeah, they’re coming up tomorrow.” He said, “That could be a big mistake for everybody.” And we thought it was going to be like a mass murder, that he would let them come in and then kill us all and leave.

That night the dogs circled us again. They would come up to my face and I could hear them breathing. Nobody slept a wink that night. The next day we were waiting with anticipation when we finally heard a horn blowing outside. A few seconds later, there was a knock on the door, and Jack opened it. We looked out and there was Lydia and Pepi’s girlfriend and Billy the chef from Kennebunkport, Maine, who was driving his old fifties Chevy panel truck.

Jack put his Winchester out of sight and then walked outside to confront them. When he saw them all lined up, he realized that he couldn’t shoot everyone, so our friends came in. We rushed down to the basement and started moving all our gear out of the house into the truck. The whole time Jack was standing outside with his two dogs, looking confused. Just as we got the last piece out into the truck and we were ready to leave, Jack came up to me.

“Someday I’m going to fucking kill you,” he whispered ominously. “You’re never gonna know when, but I’m gonna fucking kill you someday.”

For many years, when I got up behind the drums, I used to get a feeling that it was gonna be—
boom!
God, I hope this book doesn’t stir up an old vendetta. But somehow I don’t think Jack made it to senior citizenship.

Now that I was back in the city with Lydia, I got the feeling that she was getting serious about our relationship. My relationship with Jerry Nolan had pretty much diminished, thanks to Lydia. She didn’t really like him and he didn’t really like her. Jerry and I were used to going everywhere together, and now there was my girlfriend tagging along. They used to argue all the time. I think Lydia wanted me all for herself.

Life with Lydia wasn’t a bed of roses. We fought a lot. Brooklyn chicks were a breed unto themselves, hard and tough, and Lydia was one tough girl. She was short, but she had a raging temper. If I bopped her, she’d pick
up whatever was near her and I’d get whacked with it. She took no shit from me. I think back and wonder how I could have done something so disgusting as hitting a woman. I would never do something like that now. But I did then.

Getting married would have been like putting gasoline on a fucking fire. So naturally we did it. I proposed to her in May 1969, right after we saw
Romeo and Juliet
. That movie just got to me. The next thing I knew I was saying, “Do you want to get married?” We used the theme song from the movie as our wedding song.

I told Lydia that I wasn’t going to get a nine-to-five job and, because I had no money, I wasn’t going to pay for anything, even the wedding. I was going to single-mindedly pursue my musical career until I made it big. So if we were going to wed, she’d have to work a nine-to-five job. Lydia had no problem with that: She believed in me, and she was prepared to be a good wife.

We got married on January 31, 1970. Being Italian, she wanted a big wedding in a big church, so she got a second job at a clothing store in the Village to pay for it. We had the reception in a big hall and I remember I was smoking a joint with Jerry and the guys in a room upstairs. “This is a fucking mistake. What are you doing getting married?” Jerry said to me. He was right. Donna Donna” ayl I wasn’t ready to get married.

But the party was great. Nautilus played, along with the Costello Brothers, who used to open for us at the Headliner. My grandmother was there in a wheelchair because she had had a diabetic stroke by then. She wasn’t really with the program, but she was there, God bless her. We continued the party back at Lydia’s house later, smoking and drinking.

In the spring, we finally took our honeymoon. We got a joint passport to save money and then got on a plane for the first time in our lives. We went to Spain first—Madrid and Barcelona. We would sit in the outdoor cafés and drink wine all day and then walk around the city at night. But we saved the best for last. I had been pushing for England. I had ulterior motives. I made up business cards and left them everywhere we went. I thought maybe I’d get lucky and find someone looking for a drummer.

In the meantime, I made pilgrimages to the places that the Beatles played. In Piccadilly Circus, we went to see
Let It Be,
the Beatles’ last
movie. They were in the process of breaking up then and I just started crying like a baby. “Oh, my God. It’s over, it’s really over,” I was babbling. I recorded the whole movie on a little tape recorder and listened to it over and over again.

I hated the food in England, but I loved the clothes. I went to one little store near Carnaby Street and I picked out this beautiful black-and-gold velvet jacket. The owner was a nice man. I told him I was a musician and I was hoping to make it, and he took some of my cards and then he told us about a club called the Speakeasy, a private after-hours club that was
the
place to go in the music world. He got us in and we went to see some up-and-coming guy named Elton John.

Seeing Elton was an epiphany for me. He played “Your Song,” and I started crying—he was just so good. Each new song was better than the last one. I had never heard music like that in my life. While I was watching him play, I realized that I could never play “Knock on Wood” or “Foxy Lady” again. I had to play songs that had never been heard before.

The next morning we were getting set to go home. I put on my new velvet jacket, a pair of blue velvet bell-bottoms that I had just bought, a white T-shirt with red stars, and a white satin scarf. My hair was teased up like Jimi’s, and I slipped on my shades and stood in front of the mirror in the hotel room and I said, “You are going to go home and get into an original band and you’re going to make it. You’re twenty-four, you’re getting too old for this shit. Now is the time.”

As soon as I got back to Canarsie, I disbanded Nautilus and put an ad in the
Village Voice
and went on a bunch of auditions, but nothing panned out. Then I got a call from a guy named Mike Brand. He and his writing partner, Peter Shepley, had just gotten out of college and wanted to start a band. Mike was loaded: He lived in the Village in a beautiful brownstone with his wife, Beck, who also came from big bucks. Peter was married to a girl named Eleanor, but they didn’t have as much money. They had hooked up with this kid named Barry Minsky who wanted to be a rock manager. His dad was the famous nightclub owner who was the basis for the movie
The Night They Raided Minsky’s
.

Mike and Peter told me that this Minsky guy knew Lou Merenstein, who did
Astral Weeks
with Van Morrison, as well as John Cale from the
Velvet Undergrou">
We found our bass player in Queens, a big fat kid named Michael Benvenga. He loved speed—he could take four black beauties and sweat his ass off but keep playing forever. He and I played so well together that we started calling ourselves the Machine. Michael knew a Greek kid named Chris Aridas who played lead guitar. He actually sucked and was a rich kid with a shitty attitude, but they brought him into the band, over my objections.

I really bonded with Peter and Mike at first. We would meet in the Village every day and grab some sandwiches and roll some joints and write all day and night. I’d come home and tell Lydia, “This fucking band is it! This is the band!” We named ourselves Chelsea and auditioned for Decca Records. They loved us and gave us a contract. We recorded our album with Lew Merenstein producing. He brought in Larry Fallon, who did all the strings for
Astral Weeks,
and had John Cale play electric viola. Our music was so different, everybody thought we had a real shot at hitting the jackpot.

The album came out in February and we played a gig a few weeks later at a high school. Peter got completely fucked up on booze and passed out because he was so nervous about playing in front of people. Mike, on the other hand, got blasted on weed and couldn’t remember the chords. I was furious.

“This is a fucking disaster,” I screamed. “We can’t just make records, we have to go out and play fucking shows. Peter, you gotta be Mick Jagger. You’re the lead singer. You can’t come out wearing fucking khakis and a short-sleeved shirt and then pass out. You gotta be a rock star.”

I hadn’t realized that those two guys had no experience playing before audiences. After the live disasters, Chris left the band. I was ready to quit, but then Mike and Peter came all the way out to my house in Brooklyn with a guy named Stan Penridge. He was going to replace Chris. At first I didn’t like Stan at all. There was something creepy about him that didn’t
sit right with me. He was a Greek kid, very slick, very smart; they wanted him in the band, and I was outvoted again.

The album had come out to great reviews in all the music trades, but it went nowhere. It was just devastating to me that this band didn’t make it. But we went back to writing. Stan lived in the Village, and I would bring a conga to his house and we’d get high and write all day. Then later Michael, the bass player, would come by after he got off work and the three of us would jam.

We got a gig in New Jersey with the new lineup. Peter and Mike were late to the show, so Stan, Michael, and I started without them. And the audience went crazy. When Pete and Mike finally showed up, the place was in an uproar. We knew right then that we wanted to be a power trio. That night, Lips was born.

We rehearsed for a couple of months and then played a club in Oceanside in October of 1971 as Lips. Then, naturally, it was back to the Headliner with my new band. In January 1972 we played a club called the Saint James Infirmary at the Hunter ski resort in upstate New York. We weren’t getting paid much, but they’d feed us these great hot dogs and we seemed content. But then I’d get flashes of “Why am I doing this again?” I still had that drive to be a star, and I was convinced that I was a better musician than St non sequiturs like “er when an and Michael.

Things were getting stagnant with Lydia, too. She was working and I was playing. I was in love, I guess. That’s a big word. People love their dogs and their cars; they love skiing. But I had gotten married, so I had to be in love. Lydia was a good cook and she kept a clean house. The problem was money. She was so tight. We didn’t have all that much money, but she was giving me only a buck a day to live on. She stuck by me, paid the dues with me, did all the things a wife does, but I was wild.

Part of the reason was her jealousy, especially if I got close to other guys. She wanted me all for herself. When you cage someone like that, forget about it when you let him out. Temptation is all around in rock ’n’ roll, especially on the road. You would call your girl and tell her how much you miss her and then go back and get laid. The road never changed.

Another reason I cheated was that Lydia and I didn’t really click in bed. She had no real experience; she had only gone out with two other guys
before me. And the sex was never enough for me. I always had to have more, and on the road I could have one-nighters every night. I know now that if you really love someone, that’s just not acceptable. But at that time I was young and wild and hungry for everything.

By April, Michael had left Lips and gone to work at a bank. I started hanging at Stan’s East Village pad, and that was a huge mistake. He had been selling pot, but then he started getting into heroin and speedballs. Stan was a very manipulative guy, and he could talk anybody into anything. My dream was shattering once again, and I was ripe for an escape. So when Stan asked me if I wanted to try skin-popping smack, I said, “Why not?”

It didn’t seem dangerous when Stan was doing it. He didn’t pass out on the floor. It was more like, “We’ll shoot a little dope and then we’ll write some more songs.” It was exciting, too. Shooting dope is definitely taboo. And it did nullify the pain. After shooting up, I didn’t feel any nagging doubts about whether I’d ever make it in music, no feelings that I was getting too old, no sense that my marriage was in a rut. Everything felt perfect for those few hours with him. Everything we wrote sounded genius, everything we did was great, everything we talked about was just right. We were living in a fantasy world. Then I felt guilty and was afraid that I would get hooked on heroin, so I confessed to Lydia that I had been shooting up. She freaked out and I stopped.

But I kept going over to Stan’s place to write. And he kept dealing smack. One day we were sitting up there working, and somebody buzzed from downstairs. We snuck down the stairs to see who it was and saw four tall, skinny black guys waiting by the elevator. They looked like you didn’t want to fuck with them. So we ran back upstairs and bolted the door. Stan grabbed a rifle and I picked up his wife’s knife. The guys came off the elevator and started pounding on the door and attempted to break in. They were after his drugs. I thought, I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time and I’m going to die over a shoebox of heroin. Finally they gave up and split. I was shaking like a leaf and wondering what this had to do with music. That was the last time I hung out at Stan’s place.