August 25, 2025 • 39 mins
Bradley Jay Fills in on NightSide
Biographer, critic, and musician Bill Janovitz detailed the formation, rise, and career of the hit band, The Cars in his book, “The Cars: Let The Stories Be Told.” Bill joined Bradley in studio to discuss the impact The Cars had on New Wave music and the musical, cultural, and commercial impact of the band.
Biographer, critic, and musician Bill Janovitz detailed the formation, rise, and career of the hit band, The Cars in his book, “The Cars: Let The Stories Be Told.” Bill joined Bradley in studio to discuss the impact The Cars had on New Wave music and the musical, cultural, and commercial impact of the band.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going you Beazy
Boston's news radio rather j for Dan.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is big if you're a music fan of Boston,
music fan, a Cars fan. Is there a more Boston
band than Cars? I don't think so. We are super
fortunate to have Bill Janowitz in here, who is a
singer guitar songwriter. You may remember him from Buffalo Tom
very very good and famous band. And as an author,
you Rock Saw fifty tracks that tell the story of
(00:30):
the Rolling Stones and Leon Russell, The Master of Space
and Times, Journey through rock and roll History and more
and now coming out in September, and I'm excited that
we're one of the very first, the first major media interview. Sure,
the book is called The Cars, Let the Stories be told,
(00:51):
And throughout this interview, I want to make sure that
I talk about an event, which is it's important because
it is a time sensitive thing. You can pick up
a book any time, but I wouldn't wait. But this
event is time sensitive and I'd like you to tell
me about the event.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Sure, September twenty ninth at the Berkeley Performance Center, Berkeley, Yeah,
the auditorium there. Oedipus from your old colleague at WBCN
is going to be moderating the basically the book launch.
We're going to be in discussion with two of the
three surviving members of the Cars who're still local, Greg
Hawks and David Robinson and myself. So and anybody that
(01:28):
buys a ticket for that event gets a signed copy
of the book as well.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
That's excellent, And it'd be cool. Is there seen assignment?
It would be cool to sit up front his first come,
first service. I think it's first come first saw. Yeah,
I don't know. I haven't thought about that. Yeah, and
you can. You will take questions from the audience, absolutely, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Will maybe maybe play some music and have them explain
what's going on, and you know whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's free fealing. I like doing local stuff and there's
nothing more Boston musically than the cars. They're so interwoven,
so insinuated into the culture of Boston, especially the Halcyon
days of rock here in Boston. So it's a big deal.
He wrote this, thank you for coming in. It's always
great when people come in. Now, what was your first
(02:12):
awareness of the cars were you were you a kid
and they were already super established, maybe they were even
gone by by then.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, I'm an old guy, but I'm not that old,
you know. I was twelve years old when that record. Then,
that first record came out in seventy eight, and I
was growing up in New York and suburban Long Island,
and I opened the book with this sort of this
sort of little vision of me. We had this my friends.
My friend had this older brother who was at college already,
(02:41):
and he drove an orange Camaro and he would drive
back with these amazing records that we had never heard of,
or like deeper deeper cook track like stones, records like
Black and Blue that we hadn't heard of yet or
something like that, you know. But he came back with
this record and it just said the cars on it,
and it had this this woman model on the cover,
the steering wheel. Everybody knows this like a cover, and
we were like, what is this? And then you put
(03:03):
it on, It's like what is this? It's like familiar
and new at the same time. But it really felt
like my mind was expanding when I first heard that
on a shag carpet, you know, in a wood paneled room.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And orange shag cart Yeah, exactly, so that that's true.
That was a very candy coated album cover. It was
just the colors was so inviting and this big smile
on the woman in the seat there.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, and the band themselves hated it, but they were
in no position yet to fight for this kind of thing.
But they felt like, as Elliott Easton, the guitar player, said,
we felt it was very West Coast. It was very yippy,
you know, sort of like too polished. Because David Robinson,
who was basically the visual guide in the band for
all things sort of you know, style and design and
(03:51):
visual right from the stage all the way down to
their album covers and the way they dressed. Even he said,
you know, he had come up with this whole collage
thing which was going to be the cover, but it
ended up being the inner sleeve of it.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So it was too upbeaten, positive and shiny and bright. Yeah,
how did they perceive themselves?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
They perceived themselves visually, Like you see that in that
in that if the inner sleeve is basically a black
and white, it's very punk rock, you know, So it
looks like if you if that had been the cover,
it would have looked like we were talking about Ultravox
before we got on there like maybe that first Ultravox
I'm even sure it's the first one, but it's like,
you know, like black and white collage, film strip type
of vibe, you know, almost like post punk.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
When did you come to know them solidly? Did you
come to the one of them through your professional music career,
like pump into them on the road, or was it
through the writing of the book?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Now it was through the well a little bit before.
So I pitched this book, before I pitched my previous book,
lit Leon Russell Book, which came out in twenty three,
I believe I had actually gotten to finally, you know,
after Buffalo Tom had had our Heyday. Well after that,
I was invited out to do this benefit, just to
sing a Kink song at this at this Wild Honey
benefit in Los Angeles. And you a benefit like that
(05:00):
in Los Angeles been going twenty years. It's not just
like you know local musicians. It's like, oh my god,
who do you want to play on here? Elliott Easton
and how about Pete Thomas from the Attractions and all
these different people are there because they're living in La
So I'm like, yeah, Elliott east would be amazing. And
I had never met any of those guys. I mean,
Elliott had been out in California since the nineties, I think,
but Greg and David are still around, and you know
(05:24):
they they I just never had never seen him. I mean,
Greg is down the street from me, essentially in Lincoln,
so I shouldn't give away their address or yours. I
don't live in Lincoln either, but close enough. Anyway, I
got to play. I got to play this Kink song,
stop your sobbing. You know that The Pretender's covered as well.
With Elliott, I'm guitar and we just struck up a car.
(05:44):
He's a very warm and open and a big music fan,
and he had I think he maybe had one of
my Stones books already, so we just got to talk
about music. And that's really sort of the only time
I had met any of them before.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Were you encouraged to write the book by others fans, friends, publisher,
maybe the band itself, or did you decide, hey, I
want to write this book.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You know, I have a friend, Paul Blumerfeld, just a
friend of mine. He's not in the music biz at all,
but he said something like, you know, hey, you should write,
you know, write an article about playing with Elliott Easton,
and I think people would love to know about that,
and that sort of led to this book idea. But
Rick o'cassick was still around. He was still very much
calling the shots, the leader of the cars, and I
(06:23):
think Elliott flew it up the flagpole and it got
shot down at that point, So it was really the interim.
Rick unfortunately passed away and I came back at it
after the Leon. The Leon Russell book was quite successful.
It was a New York Times bestseller. So I kind
of had a calling hard at that point.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So the publishers also wanting you to do another book
if they made money on the first one, they want
you to do it nothing.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, yeah, I'm always pitching ideas. It took a long
time to come up with the Leon Russell wanted to
come together. So this one was like just begging to
be written. There was no serious cars book. I mean
there was, you know, a guy named Joe Milligan wrote
a really good book about Ben Or It's got a
lot we're very well researched, a lot of uh you know,
people talking about about about about Ben. But it wasn't cars,
(07:07):
you know, it wasn't about the cars. It's more about
Ben and Ben's history, which was really interesting. But no,
I mean it was it was begging to be written,
and these guys, I think were finally felt very free
to you know, and these guys being Greg Hawks, David Robinson,
and Elliott Easton, because the other two guys had passed away,
so I think they felt open to talk about the
you know, sort of the dynamics of the band and
(07:29):
the ups and downs.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Okay, it's important to take a look and try to
remember the musical and cultural environment at the time, because
you know, if you if the Cars came out now,
it would be it would sound and feel and be
perceived much differently than than they were at that time
in that context. So what was the musical context of
(07:51):
that time that kind of made them stand out?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah, I mean they had been through these different iterations,
specifically Rick and Ben, and then they finally struck upon
this winning formula. You know, David Robinson had played with
the Modern Lovers, a great local band that had a
lot of critical acclaim, but never really put it together
to get a record out of there. Their great record
was actually Demos that came out after the band more
(08:14):
or less broke up. But aside from that, these other
guys have been sort of struggling around. David was playing
with DMZ with JJ Rasseler, another BCN guy. But you know,
all this punk rock energy had happened. So Oedipus was
was on what's what's now called w NBR. The MIT
station was then called TBS before Ted Ted Turner bought
(08:36):
the rights to that, so he was he had one
of the first punk rock radio shows, if not the
first in America. So Rick was really attracted. So all
that as was these as were the other guys. I mean,
Elliott Easton was more of a traditionalist. But it was
all these different kind of flavors that the band put together,
all these different record collections that the five of them
put together, that it took that punk rock energy but
(08:58):
really more of like Bowie and Eno and Roxy music,
that sort of stuff rather than like.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You know, sex pistols or whatever else.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It was that was the that was the vibe. The
clubs were starting to have more impact on allowing original
bands to play rather than just cover bands playing three
sets of cover tunes tonight. So famously, the rat in
Kenmore Square was like sort of ground zero for this
kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
What were some of the bands that were in the
forefront at that time, forefront nationally and actually both a
couple of bost couple of Boston couple of Nights, I
mean Boston had the band Boston had just broken through
two years before, roughly right seventy six and that, and
and they were local guys, but nobody knew who they were,
so they were still part of the thing that Punk
(09:47):
tried to break up. Yeah, part of that overblown bombastis
progue not quite Prague, but you know what I mean,
arena rock self self aware, kind of ooh, we're big,
you know, this is different, where as the cars very small,
kind of humble comparatively.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, they were just playing clubs and they were making
people dance. We were talking a little bit before we
came on the air. They were a dance band. A
lot of people talk about them, you know, The Paradise
once they graduated to the Paradise soon, you know, soon
into their first year they were playing. They went to
playing the Paradise after playing multiple nights in a row
at the Rap. But yeah, they were sort of pushing
(10:27):
back upon all that, and they were cool, you know,
like Rick the main and kind of almost only songwriter
except for collaborations here and there with Greg Hawks. He
was really into Dylan and Lou Reed and like you know,
like I said, Bowie and Roxy. So it was a
sort of cool, detached vibe after being a singer songwriter
kind of really putting it all out there on in
his previous iterations. He was sort of absorbing, as I say,
(10:51):
these influences and he was always sort of chasing the
zeitgeist until he hit upon the Cars, where all of
a sudden, they're on the forefront of all of this, basically,
you know, new wave really before that term became a
marketing term.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
All right, we're going to take a quick break, and
here's where I invite you to call and Mark and
Austin was on hold and he went away, Mark, you
welcome back. Now. I encourage the calls now six one, seven, two, five,
ten thirty and a reminder event September twenty nine, right, yep,
the at the Berkeley Performance Center right there on MASSF
and you'll be there, and a couple of the cars
will be there, and Oedipus will be there. Everybody you've
(11:25):
heard of Oedipus. This will be a chance to meet
him too and really get a sense of what it
was like back then, and really get a granular grasp
on the cars and the times, as you mentioned, the zeitgist.
And we'll continue on WBZ after this.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
WBZ news Radio ten thirty. It's nice Id Brad the
Jay for Dan, and we are talking with Bill Janevits,
who's written a cool, really great new book. I hold
it in my hand. I'm very proud the cars, Let
the Stories be told. This is his first major Madia
media interview. We were talking about how to describe the cars,
where do they fit in? And I will do that,
(12:10):
but I do not want to keep Brian from Rossallindale
on hold. So Brian say hello, Tabill.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Well, good evening, Bradley. It's father Brian from long Ago Hawius.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
There very well. Father Brian is the hit priest, that's
his actual name. He likes a lot of alternative songs
and rock songs and he loves what could do?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Is this the Brian I know? Probably Brian Clary?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, hey, father swandam I'm a big Buffalo Tom fan too.
Bill I've seen you, seen your great woods. I've seen
you at Brookline in Coolidge Corner. I sat next I
sat behind you with Tom Waite show years ago. So
I'm not stalking you. But a big fan of buff
Thoms since the day when you were you guys referred
(12:56):
to as Dinosaur Junior junior. But anyway to discuss that right, anyway,
the big cars fan growing up. I remember buying the
cassette a few times, the second album, but the third album, Panorama,
it just celebrated its forty fifth anniversary on August fIF
(13:16):
Dean and a very divisive album. I think people didn't
really know what to make of it, and I just
want to know. Obviously, I'm excited to read the book,
but what's your take on an album? And then in
your book on the cars, is there going to be
you know, with inevitable decline and why people didn't really
(13:38):
embrace them as much as they should and again their legacy.
So great to be with you in your first media appearance.
I can't make it on the twenty ninth. I'll be
out of town working, but interested in hearing your thoughts about.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I know, thanks, you know Panorama is the you know
sort of the dark Horse third album. They had those
first two records. The first one is jokingly referred to
by the band themselves as their greatest hitch record because
it's it's all killer, no filler. The second record was
pretty much a continuation of the first, and some people's
favorite of the of the two in fact. But then
(14:13):
they really took a left turn with Panorama. But it's
not as it's sort of a it's a bit of
a myth, how much of a left turn. It's it's
a lot more electronic, whereas the first two records were
a bit more organic rock and roll. Finally they were
sort of more into just the motoric beat of sort
of what we call kraut rock, you know, sort of
craft work and that sort of stuff, where it was
(14:33):
like a driving, linear beat, and it was a bit darker,
more minor key, more moody. But you know, it's got
some great songs on it. I love that record. I
didn't really know it very well before writing the book, Honestly,
I was like a lot of fans. I had those
first two records right off the bat, and you know,
then you go into other directions or whatever, but you know,
touch and go. I mean, it's it's a it's a
(14:54):
very strong record, and it's a really groovy record, and
it's it speaks to how far ahead of their time
they were. Now that you listen to that and you go, oh, well,
come on, this is this is pretty straightforward. There's really
nothing that's that left field here.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Thanks Brian, well again, appreciate it and looking forward to
read the book.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yep. By the way, the book is called The Cars
Let the Stories Be Told? Now? Can you pre order it? Yes? Please?
Do pre orders really help authors? Do you prefer that
folks buy it in a small bookstore? Do you get
a better deal if they get it in a small
bookstore or Amazon? Does that make a difference to you.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
No, commercially doesn't. I don't think it matters to me
at all. I just like to support the local indies
as well as anybody else, if not, if not more so,
But I'm happy for any kind of pre order.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
You know, you know, we're always looking something for something
fun to do, and going to a bookstore is fun.
It's this is a real good excuse for a cool experience. Yeah,
it's like I've that most people have forgotten. Yeah, absolutely,
go to I go to bookstores. I buy books that
I probably won't read for two three years, if ever,
they're sitting in a big pile in my basement.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Especially. Also use bookstores, you know, But the same with
the record stores. It's like, how many times do I
actually pull out records anymore? I mean, you know, I
have a cocktail every once in a while PU out a record,
but it's it's a it's a special occasion. But I
keep buying records because it's it's I like to go
to record stores. All right.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
There's a critic named Robert Palmer. I'm guessing it's not
the Addicted to Love Robert Palmer different one. It was
writer for the New York Times. Rolling Stone described the
car's musical style, and I find this kind of interesting
and actually thoughtful, and when I think about it, I
would have to agree. He said that they've taken some
(16:38):
important but disparate contemporary trends contemporary then punk, minimalism, synthesizer
and guitar textures of art rock, which I guess would
would that be talking heads y? They were?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
They were they were pre talking heads with synse stuff.
So it was more like Bowie and Eno and Roxy
were doing those kinds.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Of art rock, yeah, real rock rock, yeah, like sort
of pre art rock. And then the rockabilly. I never
would have guessed that. When I said this to you earlier,
you go, yeah, but I never heard it. What's the
rockabilly part?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Well, think about best friend's girl, Elliott's guitar. So it's
like it's like Chad Atkins meets Merle Travis. Uh, It's
it's fingerpicking, it's but that's Elliott. Elliott was a real
sort of Americana rootsy player, but he could really adapt
to anything. He was a songwriter's guitar player. No matter
who he's playing with. You don't really hear Elliot easton.
(17:29):
It's not like you're gonna put a Van Halen solo
on whatever. And it's all it's it's not always identifiably Elliott.
And that's a high compliment because he adapted.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
He was real good guitar player.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
He was one of the and still is one of
the best in fact, and among guitar players. It's not
it's not that he's underrated or undappreciated, because it's more
like he's not as well known as say like Eddie
Eddie Van Hill as a guitar hero because I was
talking about somebody else's guitar solos. First of all, it
wasn't all about the solo. It's about the parts. And
like think about Jimmy Page playing all these different layers,
(18:02):
or Johnny Marr from the Smiths, or but when it
came to solos, I think he's comparable to say I mean,
he's probably better than Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, but they
would play these really almost composed, beautiful not almost composed,
beautiful solos that are hummable and little compositions within the composition.
And he could play as flashy as anybody else, but
he kind of played these beautiful melodic solos.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
You know, it's noticeably better to speak to an author
on a rock band who is a rock person themselves. Yeah,
that's my angle. You have insights that they wouldn't. Yeah,
you've been on the road, in the trenches, you've written
the songs, You've gone through the whole process at a
fairly high level, by the way.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, not anywhere nearer side of the cars, but that's
rarefied air up there. But yeah, you know, you know,
once you're in a band and you're in the road,
for let's say, two three four tours. You really kind
of get the vibe of what it means to be
in your twenties and thirties and in a collaborative andron
and in kind of a submarine on the road. You know,
So you've written a record together, you've recorded a record together.
(19:06):
Now you're out performing it, and you can't stand to
look at each other for more than you know, ten
minutes at a time when you're on stage or whatever
it is. You know, you get tired of each other.
But yeah, I try to bring that expertise more of
like what I learned.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
In the studio.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
My ears really developed during those years, and to be
able to articulate what's going on in a record, in
a song without without really being boring or pedantic or
like academic about it.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Justin in Marlborough. I don't want to make you wait,
so we'll get to you before the break, which is
right now. Justin and Marlborough.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Hi, Justin, Hi, thank you for taking my call. I
wanted to say I met Greg Hawk at a folk
music workshop in Cambridge, and I can't I can't compliment
him enough in that he was very low key and
he didn't try to show up the teacher saying look
at me. And I asked him doing break? I said,
(19:59):
were you in the CA and he's like yes. I
was like, wow, I thought that said a lot about him.
I thought I I thought he was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
I was wondering how you thought about him.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Yeah, that's exactly, that's that's Greg. That's Greg Hawks in
a nutshell. That would have been a past seem I think.
And he was probably given a ukulele workshop because he uh,
he learned uh and sort of mastered the ukulele later
on after the cars and his wife Elaine got got
one for him at at the music Emporium in Lexington,
So you know, it's all this great local stuff. But yeah,
(20:33):
he's one of the humblest people you'll meet, ever meet,
and he's yeah, exactly completely unassuming.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Thanks justin anything any follow up on it?
Speaker 5 (20:44):
And I also want to say do you have do
you ever hear? But the one criticism I hear about
the Cause, and this is just from the general music fans,
is that sometimes they were much better on the albums
than live. They didn't they sometimes didn't seem energetic.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I'm glad you brought that up, it has to be addressed.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, absolutely, they were. They were known for being anti
theater is the term that that Ricocassack would use. I
mean they were studied, cool, detached. I mean, every once
in a while Elliot would come out to the level
of the stage to play a solo and then recede
back into the lights. But then they later learned how
to sort of use the trappings of of state you know, arenas,
(21:25):
like light shows and sets to sort of bring out
the show a bit more. But if you if you
listen to any of the recordings, like there's a great
record call Live at the Agora from that first tour
on the road in seventy eight, they were nothing but
an amazing group of players that really, if I mean,
if I guess back then, the criticism was also that
(21:47):
they played the songs exactly like they recorded them.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yea, yeah, it was just some people go to shows
and go they didn't sound anything like that.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, Bob Dylan, right, I don't know what that song
that is, but yeah, no, I mean, like we were talking
about Elliott solo's you don't want to hear him play
something sort of different, maybe some variations of it, but
it's like those solos. It's like you'd be, you'd be,
you'd feel robbed if you didn't get to hear that
hummable melody within the melody.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
So, but they were a really rock and roll band
at the heart, and I don't I don't think they
they they they they like they felt it was. They
were post all this like Hello Cleveland kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
You know, Hey, really good call justin, thanks, thanks, thanks here?
So see how that goes? Very easy? He had a
couple of questions about the cars, and it went very well.
He called six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty?
Do you love him? Would you like about him? Did
you ever see him? Where did you see him? Did
you go to the paradise? Did you ever meet him? They?
You know, they were around here a lot. People always
(22:42):
talk about meeting Steve Tyler down down in Marshfield or something.
Did anything like that ever happen to you? Did you
love him? Which album did you like? And all that?
I have a little Oh, I have to tell a
story about Greg Hawks. Since we're I'll follow up with
the weird personal story with Greg Hawks because if I
(23:02):
don't tell it now, I'll never be able to tell
it again in my life. This is the only situation
in which I could. And we'll do that next on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Night Side with Dan Ray. On WBZ Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
We continue with Bill Jenovitz, author of new book about
the cars. Really knew It's not it's available soon? And
when is it available?
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Actually the next day after the event, so it's on
September thirtieth.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
The Cars, Let the stories be told. Get it. Get
it at a small place if you can, get it
at the big place if you can't. And we have
a couple of callers. We have gene In conquered Jane
and conquered Mass or conquered New Hampshire, Concord Mass. Okay, Jane,
how you doing.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
I'm okay, I'm just I'm just talking off the beaten track.
And because it has nothing to do with the cars, oh,
I just wanted to know when you talked about, you know,
finger picking, it brought to mind one of my favorite
guitar PLU person people, Mark Knopfler, and he seems, you know,
(24:12):
he's a tremendous guitar player, and I just don't understand
why he didn't get more, uh, you know, more traction
more people, you know, who were aware of how truly
great he is.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Well, you know what, we can relate that to the cars.
How did Mark Knopfler compare it to Elliot? That's a
good question.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I mean, you may think it's off the beaten path,
but they're both influenced by a lot of the same people,
you know, Like Mark Knopfler is very much influenced by
a lot of these American pickers, these guys that play
the telecaster. But he was also a big I think
i'd use the word protegee of Chet Atkins as well,
who was a hero to pretty much pretty much every
(24:54):
guitar player. Yeah, but I think of Mark Knopfler and
Dry Streets as being gigantic rock.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Stars, pretty famous. Yes, but I hear you.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I mean, do you never think these people are maybe
as appreciated as they should be?
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Right, he did get famous, Maybe not as appreciated as
a guitar player as he should be. Maybe he's just
famous for I Want my MTV.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh please, I danced to that
every night.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
That's cool. You know.
Speaker 6 (25:22):
Recently he he had like a warehouse sale. He sold
about and he sold about forty of his guitars, the
ones that weren't the ones that he absolutely had to keep.
It was very interesting. He was he was the you
know he, and there was all these rock stars in
the audience trying to.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
I think, yeah, I'm sorry, just I don't mean to
talk over you there. I think he also owns a
great studio in or around London where the Stones recorded
Blue and Lonesome, one of their more recent blues records.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well that was a great called Jene, thank you very much.
And it's Jim and fall River set up in fall
River right.
Speaker 7 (26:01):
Right, Jim, Hi, Hi Bradley and Hi Bill, Hi, Hi,
Hi you listen. I was introduced by the Cars. The
guy that I worked with brought that album in with
the girl on the cover, and so then I started
to listening to them. And I never got to see
the original group perform alive. But I did see Ben
(26:23):
or Aren't a band at City Hall Plaza. They had
summer free summer concerts and I saw him and he
whoever he had, I don't know who he had in
this band, but he but he sounded just like the Cause.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Actually yeah, yeah, he and he would play. I think
he played a gig at South station as well what
you can see on YouTube. Yes, I think it was
w B O S Earth Day or something.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (26:48):
Yeah, And I don't know if you know this, but
years later they there was a reunion planned of the
Cause and they were playing at Mohikan's Son I think,
and I got tickets, but they canceled and Uh, I
think maybe Todd Runan was gonna fill in with into
with that group. I don't know who watch band members
(27:09):
are gonna gonna perform at the time, but there were
leased three of them, I think.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
After Ben passed away, which was two thousands, there was
there was a moment where they were going to try
to get the Cars back together. Uh, and Rick didn't
want to sign on without Ben, uh and probably probably
some other reasons, but they did what's called the New
Cars with Todd Rudgren fronting the band, and Uh. Then
there was after that. In twenty eleven, the Cars did
(27:35):
reunite without Ben and put out a record called Move
Like This, which is kind of a joke about them
not moving very much on stage, among other things. But
they did do him, I think an eleven date tour
on that if.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
I have the right.
Speaker 7 (27:52):
Somewhere around the Yeah, one of my favorite songs with
Hot Break City.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yeah, that's a great yeah. Yeah, and they played that
at Live Aid. Actually that song among.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
I've seen that.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, very cool. So, Jim, you seem like a big
Cars fan. Do you think you can make it up
to cool event in Berkeley?
Speaker 7 (28:13):
Think of it?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, you know the day Berkeley quiz I do, yes,
I do? What is it?
Speaker 7 (28:18):
What is it? Let's yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
You can ask questions directly to Greg and or David.
Speaker 7 (28:28):
Thank you, all right, thank you very good.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Nowhere was I? Okay, we spoke about Live Aid. Tell
me about some of the other huge gigs. I don't
really think of Cars as a huge gig band, but
they must have done some really big things.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Well, just even on their own their first tour, they
went from like opening for Sticks and uh and bands
like foreign maybe for four Sticks and uh yeah, Foreigner
and some other bands. But then, like as they got
as that record climbed up the charts over that summer
of seventy eight, soon they were headlining places themselves, and
(29:05):
then they were headlining arenas themselves, and they never really
came back from that. They were always up at the
top level. One of their first giant shows. Was the
US Festival, which was sort of a predecessor, maybe even
an inspiration to Live Ad. It was a satellite hookup
with Russia and it was put together by Steve Wozniak
(29:27):
of Apple Computers, and it was in San Bernardino and
the you know, the Police played there, the Clash played,
the Springsteen turned it down, I think, but Fleetwood Mac
I mean it was a giant act, you know, and
they played to I don't know how many hundreds of
the one hundred thousand people or something there.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Thank you. Now, I'm always interested in the evolution when
the individual when individual members were in bands, those bands
sounded nothing like the Cars. As a matter of fact,
there's one band from around seventy two called Milk, which
is kind of Crosby Stills Nation. You know, which one
of the Cars was in that? Which one or more
(30:05):
than one? What was that like? And then talk about
some of the other members and their previous bands, and
then this is this is a long one. I guess
maybe I should do a break first so we don't
have to interrupt. That take us from those individual way
different bands to who met who and when, And that's
(30:27):
a kind of a tricky thing that's gonna take a while,
so we'll do that right after this. On WBZ.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I brought the Jay for Dan tonight and we're with
Bill Jennifers, musician and author. And this time we're talking
about The Cars, brand new book out on the twenty
out on the thirtieth of September.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Correct, correct, Yeah, but you get get it early if
you come down to the twenty ninth.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Oh yeah, and you can get it in person. Yeah,
and g that is completely worth it. The Cars, Let
the story be told. If you're from Boston and you
like music, this is the band. There's no no more
Boston centric band I can think of. I suppose Arrowsmith
and all.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
But yay Giles, Yeah, but I mean I take it all.
But I mean they're they're they're one of let's say
the top. You can't mention Boston rock without mentioning.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yes, of course, of course, Jay Giles, sorry, Peter, of course, Arrowsmith, sorry, Steve.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah, No, I think they're doing all right with us.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
So I posed this question before the break. I'd like
to know about the bands they were in before the Cars.
What their bands were like and then how the various
members came and went and met. Where'd they meet and
what roles did they fit?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah, So Rick Ocassick met Ben Or in Ohio in
their you know, late teens, early twenties in the in
the in the late sixties, that's how old they were,
or even though they sort of hid their age, not
sort of they hid their age. They once they find him,
finally made it in the cars. But they had been
they were trying out all these different things, and they were,
(32:10):
like I said earlier, there, Rick was the songwriter. Ben
was the natural, like gorgeous looking guy that could sing
anything like Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson or anything like,
just an natural, fantastic pop singer. And he had already
been in a band as a teenager on a kind
of a local show that was syndicated. He sort of
(32:31):
was a house band called the Grasshoppers, and so he
was already a bit of a teen idol around Cleveland.
But they met up in Columbus, Ohio, and they started partnering.
I think Rick just recognized in Ben, oh, I have
to hitch my wagon to this guy, and vice versa.
This guy's writing a bunch of songs, says Ben, and
they and they sort of put together various permutations that
eventually brought them to Boston just to kind of give
(32:52):
it a shot, because you know, they had heard there
was a folk scene here that we were talking earlier
about this marketing thing called the boss Town Sound that
came and went.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
It was a phony, baloney thing that was awful and
it was bad for some bands, but it was gone.
But by the time it was gone.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, So that was sort of a late sixties psychedelic
garage rock thing put together by MGM Records, which kind
of came and went, as you said. But so they
come to Boston and the first band that Rico.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Cassi, Yeah, why Boston.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Yeah, I mean they kind of threw out different idea
they had tried out in New York. But I think
it was just a bit over the top for some
of them, you know, because they were talking about their
wives as well. Chris Aora, Chris Orr, who's still around
the area here. I spoke to her. She said New
York was just too much. They probably couldn't even though
it was cheap back then, it wasn't as cheap as Boston.
I think Boston felt a little bit more comfortable to them,
(33:40):
and there was a there was some there was a
music scene in a college scene specifically that they really
wanted to be part of. And to this point, I mean,
Rick goes down, he gets an apartment, he walks down
to the Cambridge Common from Somerville and there on the
Cambridge Common, which you know is over near the Sanders Theater,
there there is the Modern Lover is playing.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
And he's like, who is this?
Speaker 3 (34:00):
This is Jonathan Richmond and Jerry Harrison who would go
on to be uh in the Talking Heads, and David
Robinson who would later be in his band.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
He three.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Rdie Brooks, yeah, yeah, and John Felice from The Real Kids.
I think he was in different different lineups. I don't
know if he was on this on this particular day,
but yeah, they were all all in this band. And
uh so he's like, this is the right place. You know,
he wanted to make new music. But still the first
thing he did was this duo trio actually trio with
Jim Goodkin called Milkwood, which was very introspective singer songwriter wispy.
(34:34):
You know, you you hear Rick, it's not really it
doesn't sound like Rick singing. It sounds very whispy.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Did I hear that? Compared to Young? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Three part harmonies, Yeah, an acoustic It's all acoustic really,
And the three of those guys sang together and Ben
is still Ben came out fully formed. His voice is there.
Rick is tentative. You can really hear him pulling back
the first time in front of a mic, probably in
a really in a recording studio for the for for
a real recording studio. And that record flopped, and they
kind of kept trying different things. There was Richard and
(35:05):
the Rabbits.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
You mentioned Jonathan Richmond. You're wearing a Martin Loves t
Shirts T shirt And it was Jonathan that suggested Richard
and the Rabbits.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Right, Yeah, Rick rickle Casslick went to him, UH named
Richard and uh and and said I'm forming a new
Benny and and Jonathan just instantly said, well, you have
to call it Richard and the Rabbits. And he said, okay,
I guess I guess I do, and he did, Yeah,
and they were they they gigged around town a lot
and and uh with a guy named Fusby.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Moorse band names are really important, and I think that
was not a I was a loser.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Well, you know who was in that band was Greg
was Greg Hawks, Greg Hawks name the name how far
can You Go?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
It was once stold to me by a famous DJ
that your band name has to be something that will
sound right in the Boston garden, you know, the crowd roaring,
and you have to get it over there over the
microphone to the asses. And you can say a c
D right right right. But you can't say Richard and
(36:07):
the Rabbit.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Red Chard, no, you exactly. You can say Boston, Welcome Boston.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
And so that list was with that litmus test. Richard
and the Rabbit is a fail in mind?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that led to you, well, Greg,
eventually that that bands that There's some funny stories about
how that band broke up. They came close to getting
record deals because at this point Susanne Ocassik and krist
and Chris Orr are both working at WEA. Warner's Records, uh,
and they had some sway at least to get the
tapes to the right people, but they just couldn't. They
(36:45):
were just star cross. They just couldn't get this thing
to happen. There's some funny anecdotes about that. They kind
of came back to a duo band and just okassick
and or just gigging around Harvard Square and then formed
a new band and it was called Cap and Swing.
And this is basically the real predecessor of the Cars.
Elliot Easton went to go see them, Richard Rabbits, and
(37:07):
he eventually joins this new boot group called capin Swing,
which is also a horrible name. I think by any measures,
it's not Captain, it's.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I just wish people would check with me before they
d exactly.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, well he checked with Max answered Tory. Okay, yeah, no, no, no,
she said, she said she went to go see them
because now Rick really so Max answer Tory came to.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
She was a DJ at WBCN.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yeah early on Your Your Home, Yeah, your previous home.
She came out all of the age of I think
she was twenty when they when they brought her out
from Seattle, Charles Lockwadera and those guys, they really looked
up to her. She was breaking band. She broke Aerosmith
on on BCN. She really supported Bruce Springsteen before a
lot of the mail jocks were, and she helped break
(37:53):
Queen in America, and she definitely broke the cars playing
their demo of just what I Needed before they even
were the cars. Really, I think, well, you know, let's
say it was around the time of the Cars. But
she went to go see Rich. She went to go
see capin Swing do a showcase. Elliott Easton's on guitar
and Greg wasn't in the band yet. They had some
(38:16):
different guys, and she said, you look like you met
at a bus stop first of all, and said, let's
form a band. You did like, there's no cohesive look
to you. Guys, the name is stupid.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
She did that. Yeah, she was acting as a manager.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah after the showcase, well, no, as an advisor, as
a friend to.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, we're not done. You have to stay, Okay, okay,
I'd love to have your call six one, seven, two, five, four,
ten thirty. You heard that. It's easy. I know how
stressful it can feel like potentially calling that, but I
trust me, I will make it a fun experience for you,
and and Bill will too. More with Bill Jenevitch, author
(38:54):
of the New Cars book, coming up on WBC News
Radio ten thirty. Once again, write this down. The number
six one, seven, two, five, four, ten three O
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm going you Beazy
Boston's news radio rather j for Dan.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is big if you're a music fan of Boston,
music fan, a Cars fan. Is there a more Boston
band than Cars? I don't think so. We are super
fortunate to have Bill Janowitz in here, who is a
singer guitar songwriter. You may remember him from Buffalo Tom
very very good and famous band. And as an author,
you Rock Saw fifty tracks that tell the story of
(00:30):
the Rolling Stones and Leon Russell, The Master of Space
and Times, Journey through rock and roll History and more
and now coming out in September, and I'm excited that
we're one of the very first, the first major media interview. Sure,
the book is called The Cars, Let the Stories be told,
(00:51):
And throughout this interview, I want to make sure that
I talk about an event, which is it's important because
it is a time sensitive thing. You can pick up
a book any time, but I wouldn't wait. But this
event is time sensitive and I'd like you to tell
me about the event.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Sure, September twenty ninth at the Berkeley Performance Center, Berkeley, Yeah,
the auditorium there. Oedipus from your old colleague at WBCN
is going to be moderating the basically the book launch.
We're going to be in discussion with two of the
three surviving members of the Cars who're still local, Greg
Hawks and David Robinson and myself. So and anybody that
(01:28):
buys a ticket for that event gets a signed copy
of the book as well.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
That's excellent, And it'd be cool. Is there seen assignment?
It would be cool to sit up front his first come,
first service. I think it's first come first saw. Yeah,
I don't know. I haven't thought about that. Yeah, and
you can. You will take questions from the audience, absolutely, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Will maybe maybe play some music and have them explain
what's going on, and you know whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's free fealing. I like doing local stuff and there's
nothing more Boston musically than the cars. They're so interwoven,
so insinuated into the culture of Boston, especially the Halcyon
days of rock here in Boston. So it's a big deal.
He wrote this, thank you for coming in. It's always
great when people come in. Now, what was your first
(02:12):
awareness of the cars were you were you a kid
and they were already super established, maybe they were even
gone by by then.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, I'm an old guy, but I'm not that old,
you know. I was twelve years old when that record. Then,
that first record came out in seventy eight, and I
was growing up in New York and suburban Long Island,
and I opened the book with this sort of this
sort of little vision of me. We had this my friends.
My friend had this older brother who was at college already,
(02:41):
and he drove an orange Camaro and he would drive
back with these amazing records that we had never heard of,
or like deeper deeper cook track like stones, records like
Black and Blue that we hadn't heard of yet or
something like that, you know. But he came back with
this record and it just said the cars on it,
and it had this this woman model on the cover,
the steering wheel. Everybody knows this like a cover, and
we were like, what is this? And then you put
(03:03):
it on, It's like what is this? It's like familiar
and new at the same time. But it really felt
like my mind was expanding when I first heard that
on a shag carpet, you know, in a wood paneled room.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
And orange shag cart Yeah, exactly, so that that's true.
That was a very candy coated album cover. It was
just the colors was so inviting and this big smile
on the woman in the seat there.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, and the band themselves hated it, but they were
in no position yet to fight for this kind of thing.
But they felt like, as Elliott Easton, the guitar player, said,
we felt it was very West Coast. It was very yippy,
you know, sort of like too polished. Because David Robinson,
who was basically the visual guide in the band for
all things sort of you know, style and design and
(03:51):
visual right from the stage all the way down to
their album covers and the way they dressed. Even he said,
you know, he had come up with this whole collage
thing which was going to be the cover, but it
ended up being the inner sleeve of it.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
So it was too upbeaten, positive and shiny and bright. Yeah,
how did they perceive themselves?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
They perceived themselves visually, Like you see that in that
in that if the inner sleeve is basically a black
and white, it's very punk rock, you know, So it
looks like if you if that had been the cover,
it would have looked like we were talking about Ultravox
before we got on there like maybe that first Ultravox
I'm even sure it's the first one, but it's like,
you know, like black and white collage, film strip type
of vibe, you know, almost like post punk.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
When did you come to know them solidly? Did you
come to the one of them through your professional music career,
like pump into them on the road, or was it
through the writing of the book?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Now it was through the well a little bit before.
So I pitched this book, before I pitched my previous book,
lit Leon Russell Book, which came out in twenty three,
I believe I had actually gotten to finally, you know,
after Buffalo Tom had had our Heyday. Well after that,
I was invited out to do this benefit, just to
sing a Kink song at this at this Wild Honey
benefit in Los Angeles. And you a benefit like that
(05:00):
in Los Angeles been going twenty years. It's not just
like you know local musicians. It's like, oh my god,
who do you want to play on here? Elliott Easton
and how about Pete Thomas from the Attractions and all
these different people are there because they're living in La
So I'm like, yeah, Elliott east would be amazing. And
I had never met any of those guys. I mean,
Elliott had been out in California since the nineties, I think,
but Greg and David are still around, and you know
(05:24):
they they I just never had never seen him. I mean,
Greg is down the street from me, essentially in Lincoln,
so I shouldn't give away their address or yours. I
don't live in Lincoln either, but close enough. Anyway, I
got to play. I got to play this Kink song,
stop your sobbing. You know that The Pretender's covered as well.
With Elliott, I'm guitar and we just struck up a car.
(05:44):
He's a very warm and open and a big music fan,
and he had I think he maybe had one of
my Stones books already, so we just got to talk
about music. And that's really sort of the only time
I had met any of them before.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Were you encouraged to write the book by others fans, friends, publisher,
maybe the band itself, or did you decide, hey, I
want to write this book.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You know, I have a friend, Paul Blumerfeld, just a
friend of mine. He's not in the music biz at all,
but he said something like, you know, hey, you should write,
you know, write an article about playing with Elliott Easton,
and I think people would love to know about that,
and that sort of led to this book idea. But
Rick o'cassick was still around. He was still very much
calling the shots, the leader of the cars, and I
(06:23):
think Elliott flew it up the flagpole and it got
shot down at that point, So it was really the interim.
Rick unfortunately passed away and I came back at it
after the Leon. The Leon Russell book was quite successful.
It was a New York Times bestseller. So I kind
of had a calling hard at that point.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So the publishers also wanting you to do another book
if they made money on the first one, they want
you to do it nothing.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, yeah, I'm always pitching ideas. It took a long
time to come up with the Leon Russell wanted to
come together. So this one was like just begging to
be written. There was no serious cars book. I mean
there was, you know, a guy named Joe Milligan wrote
a really good book about Ben Or It's got a
lot we're very well researched, a lot of uh you know,
people talking about about about about Ben. But it wasn't cars,
(07:07):
you know, it wasn't about the cars. It's more about
Ben and Ben's history, which was really interesting. But no,
I mean it was it was begging to be written,
and these guys, I think were finally felt very free
to you know, and these guys being Greg Hawks, David Robinson,
and Elliott Easton, because the other two guys had passed away,
so I think they felt open to talk about the
you know, sort of the dynamics of the band and
(07:29):
the ups and downs.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Okay, it's important to take a look and try to
remember the musical and cultural environment at the time, because
you know, if you if the Cars came out now,
it would be it would sound and feel and be
perceived much differently than than they were at that time
in that context. So what was the musical context of
(07:51):
that time that kind of made them stand out?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah, I mean they had been through these different iterations,
specifically Rick and Ben, and then they finally struck upon
this winning formula. You know, David Robinson had played with
the Modern Lovers, a great local band that had a
lot of critical acclaim, but never really put it together
to get a record out of there. Their great record
was actually Demos that came out after the band more
(08:14):
or less broke up. But aside from that, these other
guys have been sort of struggling around. David was playing
with DMZ with JJ Rasseler, another BCN guy. But you know,
all this punk rock energy had happened. So Oedipus was
was on what's what's now called w NBR. The MIT
station was then called TBS before Ted Ted Turner bought
(08:36):
the rights to that, so he was he had one
of the first punk rock radio shows, if not the
first in America. So Rick was really attracted. So all
that as was these as were the other guys. I mean,
Elliott Easton was more of a traditionalist. But it was
all these different kind of flavors that the band put together,
all these different record collections that the five of them
put together, that it took that punk rock energy but
(08:58):
really more of like Bowie and Eno and Roxy music,
that sort of stuff rather than like.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You know, sex pistols or whatever else.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It was that was the that was the vibe. The
clubs were starting to have more impact on allowing original
bands to play rather than just cover bands playing three
sets of cover tunes tonight. So famously, the rat in
Kenmore Square was like sort of ground zero for this
kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
What were some of the bands that were in the
forefront at that time, forefront nationally and actually both a
couple of bost couple of Boston couple of Nights, I
mean Boston had the band Boston had just broken through
two years before, roughly right seventy six and that, and
and they were local guys, but nobody knew who they were,
so they were still part of the thing that Punk
(09:47):
tried to break up. Yeah, part of that overblown bombastis
progue not quite Prague, but you know what I mean,
arena rock self self aware, kind of ooh, we're big,
you know, this is different, where as the cars very small,
kind of humble comparatively.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, they were just playing clubs and they were making
people dance. We were talking a little bit before we
came on the air. They were a dance band. A
lot of people talk about them, you know, The Paradise
once they graduated to the Paradise soon, you know, soon
into their first year they were playing. They went to
playing the Paradise after playing multiple nights in a row
at the Rap. But yeah, they were sort of pushing
(10:27):
back upon all that, and they were cool, you know,
like Rick the main and kind of almost only songwriter
except for collaborations here and there with Greg Hawks. He
was really into Dylan and Lou Reed and like you know,
like I said, Bowie and Roxy. So it was a
sort of cool, detached vibe after being a singer songwriter
kind of really putting it all out there on in
his previous iterations. He was sort of absorbing, as I say,
(10:51):
these influences and he was always sort of chasing the
zeitgeist until he hit upon the Cars, where all of
a sudden, they're on the forefront of all of this, basically,
you know, new wave really before that term became a
marketing term.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
All right, we're going to take a quick break, and
here's where I invite you to call and Mark and
Austin was on hold and he went away, Mark, you
welcome back. Now. I encourage the calls now six one, seven, two, five,
ten thirty and a reminder event September twenty nine, right, yep,
the at the Berkeley Performance Center right there on MASSF
and you'll be there, and a couple of the cars
will be there, and Oedipus will be there. Everybody you've
(11:25):
heard of Oedipus. This will be a chance to meet
him too and really get a sense of what it
was like back then, and really get a granular grasp
on the cars and the times, as you mentioned, the zeitgist.
And we'll continue on WBZ after this.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
WBZ news Radio ten thirty. It's nice Id Brad the
Jay for Dan, and we are talking with Bill Janevits,
who's written a cool, really great new book. I hold
it in my hand. I'm very proud the cars, Let
the Stories be told. This is his first major Madia
media interview. We were talking about how to describe the cars,
where do they fit in? And I will do that,
(12:10):
but I do not want to keep Brian from Rossallindale
on hold. So Brian say hello, Tabill.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Well, good evening, Bradley. It's father Brian from long Ago Hawius.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
There very well. Father Brian is the hit priest, that's
his actual name. He likes a lot of alternative songs
and rock songs and he loves what could do?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Is this the Brian I know? Probably Brian Clary?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, hey, father swandam I'm a big Buffalo Tom fan too.
Bill I've seen you, seen your great woods. I've seen
you at Brookline in Coolidge Corner. I sat next I
sat behind you with Tom Waite show years ago. So
I'm not stalking you. But a big fan of buff
Thoms since the day when you were you guys referred
(12:56):
to as Dinosaur Junior junior. But anyway to discuss that right, anyway,
the big cars fan growing up. I remember buying the
cassette a few times, the second album, but the third album, Panorama,
it just celebrated its forty fifth anniversary on August fIF
(13:16):
Dean and a very divisive album. I think people didn't
really know what to make of it, and I just
want to know. Obviously, I'm excited to read the book,
but what's your take on an album? And then in
your book on the cars, is there going to be
you know, with inevitable decline and why people didn't really
(13:38):
embrace them as much as they should and again their legacy.
So great to be with you in your first media appearance.
I can't make it on the twenty ninth. I'll be
out of town working, but interested in hearing your thoughts about.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I know, thanks, you know Panorama is the you know
sort of the dark Horse third album. They had those
first two records. The first one is jokingly referred to
by the band themselves as their greatest hitch record because
it's it's all killer, no filler. The second record was
pretty much a continuation of the first, and some people's
favorite of the of the two in fact. But then
(14:13):
they really took a left turn with Panorama. But it's
not as it's sort of a it's a bit of
a myth, how much of a left turn. It's it's
a lot more electronic, whereas the first two records were
a bit more organic rock and roll. Finally they were
sort of more into just the motoric beat of sort
of what we call kraut rock, you know, sort of
craft work and that sort of stuff, where it was
(14:33):
like a driving, linear beat, and it was a bit darker,
more minor key, more moody. But you know, it's got
some great songs on it. I love that record. I
didn't really know it very well before writing the book, Honestly,
I was like a lot of fans. I had those
first two records right off the bat, and you know,
then you go into other directions or whatever, but you know,
touch and go. I mean, it's it's a it's a
(14:54):
very strong record, and it's a really groovy record, and
it's it speaks to how far ahead of their time
they were. Now that you listen to that and you go, oh, well,
come on, this is this is pretty straightforward. There's really
nothing that's that left field here.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Thanks Brian, well again, appreciate it and looking forward to
read the book.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yep. By the way, the book is called The Cars
Let the Stories Be Told? Now? Can you pre order it? Yes? Please?
Do pre orders really help authors? Do you prefer that
folks buy it in a small bookstore? Do you get
a better deal if they get it in a small
bookstore or Amazon? Does that make a difference to you.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
No, commercially doesn't. I don't think it matters to me
at all. I just like to support the local indies
as well as anybody else, if not, if not more so,
But I'm happy for any kind of pre order.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
You know, you know, we're always looking something for something
fun to do, and going to a bookstore is fun.
It's this is a real good excuse for a cool experience. Yeah,
it's like I've that most people have forgotten. Yeah, absolutely,
go to I go to bookstores. I buy books that
I probably won't read for two three years, if ever,
they're sitting in a big pile in my basement.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Especially. Also use bookstores, you know, But the same with
the record stores. It's like, how many times do I
actually pull out records anymore? I mean, you know, I
have a cocktail every once in a while PU out a record,
but it's it's a it's a special occasion. But I
keep buying records because it's it's I like to go
to record stores. All right.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
There's a critic named Robert Palmer. I'm guessing it's not
the Addicted to Love Robert Palmer different one. It was
writer for the New York Times. Rolling Stone described the
car's musical style, and I find this kind of interesting
and actually thoughtful, and when I think about it, I
would have to agree. He said that they've taken some
(16:38):
important but disparate contemporary trends contemporary then punk, minimalism, synthesizer
and guitar textures of art rock, which I guess would
would that be talking heads y? They were?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
They were they were pre talking heads with synse stuff.
So it was more like Bowie and Eno and Roxy
were doing those kinds.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Of art rock, yeah, real rock rock, yeah, like sort
of pre art rock. And then the rockabilly. I never
would have guessed that. When I said this to you earlier,
you go, yeah, but I never heard it. What's the
rockabilly part?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Well, think about best friend's girl, Elliott's guitar. So it's
like it's like Chad Atkins meets Merle Travis. Uh, It's
it's fingerpicking, it's but that's Elliott. Elliott was a real
sort of Americana rootsy player, but he could really adapt
to anything. He was a songwriter's guitar player. No matter
who he's playing with. You don't really hear Elliot easton.
(17:29):
It's not like you're gonna put a Van Halen solo
on whatever. And it's all it's it's not always identifiably Elliott.
And that's a high compliment because he adapted.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
He was real good guitar player.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
He was one of the and still is one of
the best in fact, and among guitar players. It's not
it's not that he's underrated or undappreciated, because it's more
like he's not as well known as say like Eddie
Eddie Van Hill as a guitar hero because I was
talking about somebody else's guitar solos. First of all, it
wasn't all about the solo. It's about the parts. And
like think about Jimmy Page playing all these different layers,
(18:02):
or Johnny Marr from the Smiths, or but when it
came to solos, I think he's comparable to say I mean,
he's probably better than Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, but they
would play these really almost composed, beautiful not almost composed,
beautiful solos that are hummable and little compositions within the composition.
And he could play as flashy as anybody else, but
he kind of played these beautiful melodic solos.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
You know, it's noticeably better to speak to an author
on a rock band who is a rock person themselves. Yeah,
that's my angle. You have insights that they wouldn't. Yeah,
you've been on the road, in the trenches, you've written
the songs, You've gone through the whole process at a
fairly high level, by the way.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, not anywhere nearer side of the cars, but that's
rarefied air up there. But yeah, you know, you know,
once you're in a band and you're in the road,
for let's say, two three four tours. You really kind
of get the vibe of what it means to be
in your twenties and thirties and in a collaborative andron
and in kind of a submarine on the road. You know,
So you've written a record together, you've recorded a record together.
(19:06):
Now you're out performing it, and you can't stand to
look at each other for more than you know, ten
minutes at a time when you're on stage or whatever
it is. You know, you get tired of each other.
But yeah, I try to bring that expertise more of
like what I learned.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
In the studio.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
My ears really developed during those years, and to be
able to articulate what's going on in a record, in
a song without without really being boring or pedantic or
like academic about it.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Justin in Marlborough. I don't want to make you wait,
so we'll get to you before the break, which is
right now. Justin and Marlborough.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
Hi, Justin, Hi, thank you for taking my call. I
wanted to say I met Greg Hawk at a folk
music workshop in Cambridge, and I can't I can't compliment
him enough in that he was very low key and
he didn't try to show up the teacher saying look
at me. And I asked him doing break? I said,
(19:59):
were you in the CA and he's like yes. I
was like, wow, I thought that said a lot about him.
I thought I I thought he was wonderful.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
I was wondering how you thought about him.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Yeah, that's exactly, that's that's Greg. That's Greg Hawks in
a nutshell. That would have been a past seem I think.
And he was probably given a ukulele workshop because he uh,
he learned uh and sort of mastered the ukulele later
on after the cars and his wife Elaine got got
one for him at at the music Emporium in Lexington,
So you know, it's all this great local stuff. But yeah,
(20:33):
he's one of the humblest people you'll meet, ever meet,
and he's yeah, exactly completely unassuming.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Thanks justin anything any follow up on it?
Speaker 5 (20:44):
And I also want to say do you have do
you ever hear? But the one criticism I hear about
the Cause, and this is just from the general music fans,
is that sometimes they were much better on the albums
than live. They didn't they sometimes didn't seem energetic.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I'm glad you brought that up, it has to be addressed.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, absolutely, they were. They were known for being anti
theater is the term that that Ricocassack would use. I
mean they were studied, cool, detached. I mean, every once
in a while Elliot would come out to the level
of the stage to play a solo and then recede
back into the lights. But then they later learned how
to sort of use the trappings of of state you know, arenas,
(21:25):
like light shows and sets to sort of bring out
the show a bit more. But if you if you
listen to any of the recordings, like there's a great
record call Live at the Agora from that first tour
on the road in seventy eight, they were nothing but
an amazing group of players that really, if I mean,
if I guess back then, the criticism was also that
(21:47):
they played the songs exactly like they recorded them.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yea, yeah, it was just some people go to shows
and go they didn't sound anything like that.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, Bob Dylan, right, I don't know what that song
that is, but yeah, no, I mean, like we were talking
about Elliott solo's you don't want to hear him play
something sort of different, maybe some variations of it, but
it's like those solos. It's like you'd be, you'd be,
you'd feel robbed if you didn't get to hear that
hummable melody within the melody.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
So, but they were a really rock and roll band
at the heart, and I don't I don't think they
they they they they like they felt it was. They
were post all this like Hello Cleveland kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
You know, Hey, really good call justin, thanks, thanks, thanks here?
So see how that goes? Very easy? He had a
couple of questions about the cars, and it went very well.
He called six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty?
Do you love him? Would you like about him? Did
you ever see him? Where did you see him? Did
you go to the paradise? Did you ever meet him? They?
You know, they were around here a lot. People always
(22:42):
talk about meeting Steve Tyler down down in Marshfield or something.
Did anything like that ever happen to you? Did you
love him? Which album did you like? And all that?
I have a little Oh, I have to tell a
story about Greg Hawks. Since we're I'll follow up with
the weird personal story with Greg Hawks because if I
(23:02):
don't tell it now, I'll never be able to tell
it again in my life. This is the only situation
in which I could. And we'll do that next on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Night Side with Dan Ray. On WBZ Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
We continue with Bill Jenovitz, author of new book about
the cars. Really knew It's not it's available soon? And
when is it available?
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Actually the next day after the event, so it's on
September thirtieth.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
The Cars, Let the stories be told. Get it. Get
it at a small place if you can, get it
at the big place if you can't. And we have
a couple of callers. We have gene In conquered Jane
and conquered Mass or conquered New Hampshire, Concord Mass. Okay, Jane,
how you doing.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
I'm okay, I'm just I'm just talking off the beaten track.
And because it has nothing to do with the cars, oh,
I just wanted to know when you talked about, you know,
finger picking, it brought to mind one of my favorite
guitar PLU person people, Mark Knopfler, and he seems, you know,
(24:12):
he's a tremendous guitar player, and I just don't understand
why he didn't get more, uh, you know, more traction
more people, you know, who were aware of how truly
great he is.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Well, you know what, we can relate that to the cars.
How did Mark Knopfler compare it to Elliot? That's a
good question.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I mean, you may think it's off the beaten path,
but they're both influenced by a lot of the same people,
you know, Like Mark Knopfler is very much influenced by
a lot of these American pickers, these guys that play
the telecaster. But he was also a big I think
i'd use the word protegee of Chet Atkins as well,
who was a hero to pretty much pretty much every
(24:54):
guitar player. Yeah, but I think of Mark Knopfler and
Dry Streets as being gigantic rock.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Stars, pretty famous. Yes, but I hear you.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I mean, do you never think these people are maybe
as appreciated as they should be?
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Right, he did get famous, Maybe not as appreciated as
a guitar player as he should be. Maybe he's just
famous for I Want my MTV.
Speaker 6 (25:12):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh please, I danced to that
every night.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
That's cool. You know.
Speaker 6 (25:22):
Recently he he had like a warehouse sale. He sold
about and he sold about forty of his guitars, the
ones that weren't the ones that he absolutely had to keep.
It was very interesting. He was he was the you
know he, and there was all these rock stars in
the audience trying to.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
I think, yeah, I'm sorry, just I don't mean to
talk over you there. I think he also owns a
great studio in or around London where the Stones recorded
Blue and Lonesome, one of their more recent blues records.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well that was a great called Jene, thank you very much.
And it's Jim and fall River set up in fall
River right.
Speaker 7 (26:01):
Right, Jim, Hi, Hi Bradley and Hi Bill, Hi, Hi,
Hi you listen. I was introduced by the Cars. The
guy that I worked with brought that album in with
the girl on the cover, and so then I started
to listening to them. And I never got to see
the original group perform alive. But I did see Ben
(26:23):
or Aren't a band at City Hall Plaza. They had
summer free summer concerts and I saw him and he
whoever he had, I don't know who he had in
this band, but he but he sounded just like the Cause.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Actually yeah, yeah, he and he would play. I think
he played a gig at South station as well what
you can see on YouTube. Yes, I think it was
w B O S Earth Day or something.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (26:48):
Yeah, And I don't know if you know this, but
years later they there was a reunion planned of the
Cause and they were playing at Mohikan's Son I think,
and I got tickets, but they canceled and Uh, I
think maybe Todd Runan was gonna fill in with into
with that group. I don't know who watch band members
(27:09):
are gonna gonna perform at the time, but there were
leased three of them, I think.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
After Ben passed away, which was two thousands, there was
there was a moment where they were going to try
to get the Cars back together. Uh, and Rick didn't
want to sign on without Ben, uh and probably probably
some other reasons, but they did what's called the New
Cars with Todd Rudgren fronting the band, and Uh. Then
there was after that. In twenty eleven, the Cars did
(27:35):
reunite without Ben and put out a record called Move
Like This, which is kind of a joke about them
not moving very much on stage, among other things. But
they did do him, I think an eleven date tour
on that if.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
I have the right.
Speaker 7 (27:52):
Somewhere around the Yeah, one of my favorite songs with
Hot Break City.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Yeah, that's a great yeah. Yeah, and they played that
at Live Aid. Actually that song among.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
I've seen that.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Yeah, very cool. So, Jim, you seem like a big
Cars fan. Do you think you can make it up
to cool event in Berkeley?
Speaker 7 (28:13):
Think of it?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, you know the day Berkeley quiz I do, yes,
I do? What is it?
Speaker 7 (28:18):
What is it? Let's yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
You can ask questions directly to Greg and or David.
Speaker 7 (28:28):
Thank you, all right, thank you very good.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Nowhere was I? Okay, we spoke about Live Aid. Tell
me about some of the other huge gigs. I don't
really think of Cars as a huge gig band, but
they must have done some really big things.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Well, just even on their own their first tour, they
went from like opening for Sticks and uh and bands
like foreign maybe for four Sticks and uh yeah, Foreigner
and some other bands. But then, like as they got
as that record climbed up the charts over that summer
of seventy eight, soon they were headlining places themselves, and
(29:05):
then they were headlining arenas themselves, and they never really
came back from that. They were always up at the
top level. One of their first giant shows. Was the
US Festival, which was sort of a predecessor, maybe even
an inspiration to Live Ad. It was a satellite hookup
with Russia and it was put together by Steve Wozniak
(29:27):
of Apple Computers, and it was in San Bernardino and
the you know, the Police played there, the Clash played,
the Springsteen turned it down, I think, but Fleetwood Mac
I mean it was a giant act, you know, and
they played to I don't know how many hundreds of
the one hundred thousand people or something there.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Thank you. Now, I'm always interested in the evolution when
the individual when individual members were in bands, those bands
sounded nothing like the Cars. As a matter of fact,
there's one band from around seventy two called Milk, which
is kind of Crosby Stills Nation. You know, which one
of the Cars was in that? Which one or more
(30:05):
than one? What was that like? And then talk about
some of the other members and their previous bands, and
then this is this is a long one. I guess
maybe I should do a break first so we don't
have to interrupt. That take us from those individual way
different bands to who met who and when, And that's
(30:27):
a kind of a tricky thing that's gonna take a while,
so we'll do that right after this. On WBZ.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I brought the Jay for Dan tonight and we're with
Bill Jennifers, musician and author. And this time we're talking
about The Cars, brand new book out on the twenty
out on the thirtieth of September.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Correct, correct, Yeah, but you get get it early if
you come down to the twenty ninth.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Oh yeah, and you can get it in person. Yeah,
and g that is completely worth it. The Cars, Let
the story be told. If you're from Boston and you
like music, this is the band. There's no no more
Boston centric band I can think of. I suppose Arrowsmith
and all.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
But yay Giles, Yeah, but I mean I take it all.
But I mean they're they're they're one of let's say
the top. You can't mention Boston rock without mentioning.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yes, of course, of course, Jay Giles, sorry, Peter, of course, Arrowsmith, sorry, Steve.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah, No, I think they're doing all right with us.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
So I posed this question before the break. I'd like
to know about the bands they were in before the Cars.
What their bands were like and then how the various
members came and went and met. Where'd they meet and
what roles did they fit?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Yeah, So Rick Ocassick met Ben Or in Ohio in
their you know, late teens, early twenties in the in
the in the late sixties, that's how old they were,
or even though they sort of hid their age, not
sort of they hid their age. They once they find him,
finally made it in the cars. But they had been
they were trying out all these different things, and they were,
(32:10):
like I said earlier, there, Rick was the songwriter. Ben
was the natural, like gorgeous looking guy that could sing
anything like Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson or anything like,
just an natural, fantastic pop singer. And he had already
been in a band as a teenager on a kind
of a local show that was syndicated. He sort of
(32:31):
was a house band called the Grasshoppers, and so he
was already a bit of a teen idol around Cleveland.
But they met up in Columbus, Ohio, and they started partnering.
I think Rick just recognized in Ben, oh, I have
to hitch my wagon to this guy, and vice versa.
This guy's writing a bunch of songs, says Ben, and
they and they sort of put together various permutations that
eventually brought them to Boston just to kind of give
(32:52):
it a shot, because you know, they had heard there
was a folk scene here that we were talking earlier
about this marketing thing called the boss Town Sound that
came and went.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
It was a phony, baloney thing that was awful and
it was bad for some bands, but it was gone.
But by the time it was gone.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yeah, So that was sort of a late sixties psychedelic
garage rock thing put together by MGM Records, which kind
of came and went, as you said. But so they
come to Boston and the first band that Rico.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Cassi, Yeah, why Boston.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Yeah, I mean they kind of threw out different idea
they had tried out in New York. But I think
it was just a bit over the top for some
of them, you know, because they were talking about their
wives as well. Chris Aora, Chris Orr, who's still around
the area here. I spoke to her. She said New
York was just too much. They probably couldn't even though
it was cheap back then, it wasn't as cheap as Boston.
I think Boston felt a little bit more comfortable to them,
(33:40):
and there was a there was some there was a
music scene in a college scene specifically that they really
wanted to be part of. And to this point, I mean,
Rick goes down, he gets an apartment, he walks down
to the Cambridge Common from Somerville and there on the
Cambridge Common, which you know is over near the Sanders Theater,
there there is the Modern Lover is playing.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
And he's like, who is this?
Speaker 3 (34:00):
This is Jonathan Richmond and Jerry Harrison who would go
on to be uh in the Talking Heads, and David
Robinson who would later be in his band.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
He three.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Rdie Brooks, yeah, yeah, and John Felice from The Real Kids.
I think he was in different different lineups. I don't
know if he was on this on this particular day,
but yeah, they were all all in this band. And
uh so he's like, this is the right place. You know,
he wanted to make new music. But still the first
thing he did was this duo trio actually trio with
Jim Goodkin called Milkwood, which was very introspective singer songwriter wispy.
(34:34):
You know, you you hear Rick, it's not really it
doesn't sound like Rick singing. It sounds very whispy.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Did I hear that? Compared to Young? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Three part harmonies, Yeah, an acoustic It's all acoustic really,
And the three of those guys sang together and Ben
is still Ben came out fully formed. His voice is there.
Rick is tentative. You can really hear him pulling back
the first time in front of a mic, probably in
a really in a recording studio for the for for
a real recording studio. And that record flopped, and they
kind of kept trying different things. There was Richard and
(35:05):
the Rabbits.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
You mentioned Jonathan Richmond. You're wearing a Martin Loves t
Shirts T shirt And it was Jonathan that suggested Richard
and the Rabbits.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Right, Yeah, Rick rickle Casslick went to him, UH named
Richard and uh and and said I'm forming a new
Benny and and Jonathan just instantly said, well, you have
to call it Richard and the Rabbits. And he said, okay,
I guess I guess I do, and he did, Yeah,
and they were they they gigged around town a lot
and and uh with a guy named Fusby.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Moorse band names are really important, and I think that
was not a I was a loser.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Well, you know who was in that band was Greg
was Greg Hawks, Greg Hawks name the name how far
can You Go?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
It was once stold to me by a famous DJ
that your band name has to be something that will
sound right in the Boston garden, you know, the crowd roaring,
and you have to get it over there over the
microphone to the asses. And you can say a c
D right right right. But you can't say Richard and
(36:07):
the Rabbit.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Red Chard, no, you exactly. You can say Boston, Welcome Boston.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
And so that list was with that litmus test. Richard
and the Rabbit is a fail in mind?
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that led to you, well, Greg,
eventually that that bands that There's some funny stories about
how that band broke up. They came close to getting
record deals because at this point Susanne Ocassik and krist
and Chris Orr are both working at WEA. Warner's Records, uh,
and they had some sway at least to get the
tapes to the right people, but they just couldn't. They
(36:45):
were just star cross. They just couldn't get this thing
to happen. There's some funny anecdotes about that. They kind
of came back to a duo band and just okassick
and or just gigging around Harvard Square and then formed
a new band and it was called Cap and Swing.
And this is basically the real predecessor of the Cars.
Elliot Easton went to go see them, Richard Rabbits, and
(37:07):
he eventually joins this new boot group called capin Swing,
which is also a horrible name. I think by any measures,
it's not Captain, it's.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I just wish people would check with me before they
d exactly.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, well he checked with Max answered Tory. Okay, yeah, no, no, no,
she said, she said she went to go see them
because now Rick really so Max answer Tory came to.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
She was a DJ at WBCN.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yeah early on Your Your Home, Yeah, your previous home.
She came out all of the age of I think
she was twenty when they when they brought her out
from Seattle, Charles Lockwadera and those guys, they really looked
up to her. She was breaking band. She broke Aerosmith
on on BCN. She really supported Bruce Springsteen before a
lot of the mail jocks were, and she helped break
(37:53):
Queen in America, and she definitely broke the cars playing
their demo of just what I Needed before they even
were the cars. Really, I think, well, you know, let's
say it was around the time of the Cars. But
she went to go see Rich. She went to go
see capin Swing do a showcase. Elliott Easton's on guitar
and Greg wasn't in the band yet. They had some
(38:16):
different guys, and she said, you look like you met
at a bus stop first of all, and said, let's
form a band. You did like, there's no cohesive look
to you. Guys, the name is stupid.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
She did that. Yeah, she was acting as a manager.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah after the showcase, well, no, as an advisor, as
a friend to.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, we're not done. You have to stay, Okay, okay,
I'd love to have your call six one, seven, two, five, four,
ten thirty. You heard that. It's easy. I know how
stressful it can feel like potentially calling that, but I
trust me, I will make it a fun experience for you,
and and Bill will too. More with Bill Jenevitch, author
(38:54):
of the New Cars book, coming up on WBC News
Radio ten thirty. Once again, write this down. The number
six one, seven, two, five, four, ten three O
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