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I have to digress briefly here, to provide a little history about how Pete and I started playing music together.
In July of 1967 (a few days after Pete's 11th birthday) I was walking down the street to his house, and heard a snare drum and cymbal. I soon saw him sitting in his yard, banging away "Wipeout"on a red "metal-flaked" plastic drum with a cheap tin cymbal attached to it. His grandmother had given it to him for his birthday ... and he was actually pretty good already!
We had both been pestering our folks for instruments since we had gotten the playing bug in 1965/66 seeing live bands at The Empire Room -- "teen" dances held in the upstairs community hall of the Massapequa bowling alley. I wanted to play bass. Pete beat me to it (pun intended).
For the next five months I didn't give my parents any peace; and sure enough on x-mass morning I got my first bass and amp (Tempo bass and a Paris "Bass boom" amp.
We both didn't leave our houses and practiced constantly. I don't remember when Pete's cousin gave him his first real drum set, but it had to have been sometime in 1969, because that was when we formed our first "band" together and played in Pete's basement. It included a guitarist from school (Albany Avenue Elementary) who's name escapes me, and who kept bragging that the ovation amp he had was used by Glen Campbel. But I do remember the four songs we played ... poorly --- "Mississippi Queen", "Hey Joe", "Spoonfull" and "Red House".
By 1970 we had both progressed rapidly, improved our instruments dramatically (Pete had combined two drum sets and I got a Fender Precission Bass and Traynor amp) and moved into the attic above seperate garage of Pete's house. Eliot Jacobs had switched from drums to guitar a year before and along with other musicians from Junior High, we started jamming regularly almost every night after school and all day on weekends and before long "Morning Glory" was formed -- Pete, Eliot (Elmo) and me. For more on this see my favorite Pete story.
We have been blessed with many recordings Pete made, by himself and with others. I will post what I have here, and I have posted them on www.acidplanet.com, as well.
One of the biggest regrets of my life is not having any recordings with me and Pete playing together. He said there was a cassette somewhere made in 1977, but he never got around to finding it. Joe Cattano said he may have it somewhere, too. Joey, if you ever find it, I will be eternally gratefull.
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