 Lots of things have changed since the early rough-and-tumble days when we all lived the gritty downtown life, when we were playing clubs that don’t even exist anymore, when we did every crummy wedding reception and bar mitzvah party that came along, and strolled around in bow ties singing barbershop standards for drunks who were busy trying to ignore us, when maitre d’s tortured us and we had to crawl around on our hands and knees to pack up our gear after our sets while wedding bands laughed at us and dancing guests stepped on us, when cops chased us off street corners on the Upper West Side for creating traffic snarls and we would take the change we collected and go to the Hunan Kitchen, when we worked out new material in smoky comedy clubs and dreamed of having a record deal.
Sean now lives in a castle in Northern Manhattan with his gorgeous Russian opera diva. El will soon be moving into his own castle, with his smashing Scottish artist and their two little Adonises. Is that the plural of Adonis? Steve lives in the Midwest with his beautiful, willowy attorney and their lovely daughter. I live on the banks of a river in the idyllic boonies of upstate New York with my retinue of fabulous women.
The one thing that hasn’t changed, I found out last week, was the sound that we make together. It still raises the hairs on my arms and makes me happy that I can sing. We’re still a goofy looking assortment of oddballs – something that central casting wouldn’t put together in a million years – but the sound, the sound is still the same noise that made me sit up in my seat the first time I heard it at a midtown nightclub and say to myself, “Hey, this could go somewhere!”
We gathered in Sean’s grand salon, caught up on the doings of the kids, shared photos and war stories, and then we started to work through our set. Most of the songs we only had to run through once, and it was as though we’d never been apart for seventeen years. All my misgivings over having called us together vanished as body memory took over and songs that we’d labored over for hundreds and hundreds of hours in the past came pouring out with all the polish we’d ever put on them, burnished by years of experience and so many concerts together.
Another thing that has changed is that we all know that it’s not serious, in the sense that building a career is serious. It was a great joy and also a great liberation to take the stage without all the lugubrious encumbrances of business – manager/road manager/business manager/press agent/booking agent/contracts/riders/sound companies/roadies/ - or worrying about having to jet out of town at suck o’clock the next morning for another show in another town and another day away from our families and friends. Singing together is just icing on a big fat rich cake. None of us gave a moment’s thought to the possibility of a bad review or a missed flight or another cold, crappy meal or another anonymous hotel room. All we had to think about was being in the moment and singing our collective guts out. And we did. Heaven.
Now, I know that someone is bound to start – if they haven’t already - making comparisons between us and the group that we used to be called. It’s apples and oranges, or something like that. More like pears and walruses, or skuas and skateboards. We’re not them, and they are definitely not us. It’s a little confusing, since we used to be them. Not them them, you know, but they are what we used to be called, but now we’re us again but we’re not that. We like what we were, and that’s what we are now, just somewhat more, uh, mature. And funner, if that’s even a word. Actually, I know that it’s not, but it fits.
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