Richard

Directly above this blue column is the 10-song MySpace jukebox which includes some of my current favorite songs by Uncle Monk (Tommy Ramone), Smitz, Black Veil Brides, Richie Stringini, Danger Strong Current and several other artists. Please play these tunes because most of the artists featured often play at Haleiwa Gym Rock Shows. Thanks for your support! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~So here now, let me tell you a story about MY FAVORITE ROCK MEMORY NUMBER ONE ~~~~~~ It was in the late 1970s; I and my band Third Rail played THE CLUB in Cambridge M with the original RAMONES who were technically opening for Third Rail ha ha. It was just before Ramones first album release on Seymour Stein's SIRE Records. I remember we shared the cluttered dressing room. Joey, Deedee, Arturo and Tommy Ramone were very easy to gig with. We got along great and later became good friends. Their manager Danny Fields brought in new sneakers for Ramones to wear onstage. We were perhaps a bit jealous but wouldn't show it. It was an awesome gig. The next time I hung loose with RAMONES was a few months later when the band I managed called THE NEIGHBORHOODS (which is still playing out) opened for Ramones in Manhattan. Then after the show, we all wound up as house guests of RAMONES for the weekend and it was lots of low-key fun. Arturo had a spacious Manhattan loft where they practiced and where 3 of them also lived. To get up there, we took an old industrial elevator to a small lobby where Arturo's loft was located. The apartment door which was padlocked had a steel lever you had to lift to unlatch. Arturo, Joey and Deedee jammed with us late into the night then The Neighborhoods and I all crashed in sleeping bags on the living room floor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FAVORITE MEMORIES NUMBER TWO That would be Halloween night at Max's Kansas City on Park Avenue South in the Manhattan section of New York City. There were three bands on the bill and THIRD RAIL was the opening act. We went on around 9 PM and played an un-eventful, well received set which included a one-song encore. After we finished, The Dead Boys from Ohio did their set which was tons of fun to watch. They didn't get an encore however because during the final song lead singer, the late Stiv Bators, grabbed his girlfriend out of the stagefront crowd and the couple engaged in a fake copulation act and then rolled around the floor in an embrace. The crowd went wild. Then finally at midnight the headlining band came onstage and they were like nothing I had ever seen or heard before. They were called Kongress and hailed from New York City. The band got into a rhythmic drone and the lead singer jumped out onstage wearing a fake boars-head and a cape. The crowd went wild again. Then during the final song, the wirery lead singer suddenly brandished a little torch as he danced back and forth across the stage. Unexpectedly, he tossed a sachel into the air and it flared up like a sparkler. Then his cape caught fire and the crowd cheered. A stage hand grabbed the nearby fire extinguisher and put out the fire as the lead singer rolled around, knocking over the drum kit. The crowd thought it was part of the act but I don't think so. Then upstairs in the dressing room area about 10 minutes later, I saw the lead singer cheerefully talking with a few lady fans and he looked like he had been pulled out of a fire. I told him, wow man are you alright? He said heh, heh! oh, yeah man, didja like the show? ~ Richard Nolan of THIRD RAIL +++++++++++++++ FAVORITE MEMORIES NUMBER THREE ~~~~~~ BLACK FLAG was playing The Paradise on Commonwealth Ave in Boston and I was slam-dancing on the packed dance floor right in front of the stage as the band was screamo. Then without warning this heavy, sweating guy in a white leisure suit slammed me hard from stage side. I turned in his face with annoyance...and it was John Belushi! Well, he has an entourage, so I better be cool, I thought to myself and I wiggled off the dance floor to the closest bar setup. As I'm standing there sipping my Smirnoff sonic, the person to my right nudged my shoulder. One again, I turned in his face with annoyance. WTF, it's John Belushi again! This time he was smiling as he slurped down a beer. I said "Hey John, that was quite the surprise being slammed by YOU!" ~ Belushi chuckled and raised his beer, leaned toward me and said softly in a raspy voice "Don't ever be surprised!" and he walked away. Today John Belushi's slate gravestone on the island of Martha's Vineyard is engraved at the bottom "I may be gone but rock and roll lives on." And if you go there to Chilmark, that rock monument engraved BELUSHI near the front of the cemetery is a decoy! John's real grave is near the back with the slate stone engraved with a skull and crossbones ha ha. The cemetery arranged the decoy grave to keep fans from going deeper into the graveyard!!!~ You heard it here first, my friend :) ~~~~~~~~~~~ FAVORITE MEMORIES NUMBER FOUR ~~~~~ LOU REED was playing The Paradise Rock Club in Boston so I went to the show with the punk trio Neighborhoods which I managed at the time. After the show, a bouncer told me Lou Reed wanted to meet me upstairs in the dressing room. Lou greeted me and said he admired a cover version of his song "Sweet Jane" which my band THIRD RAIL had released a few years earlier. ~ So then Lou invited me and the Neighborhoods plus his Boston buddies Peter Wolfe and Harvard Professor Ed Hood up to Lou's penthouse suite at the Hyatt on Memorial Drive in Cambridge. Ed was a THIRD RAIL fan and was also Andy Warhol's confidant and literary consultant ~ I so enjoyed sitting for hours on the carpet with Lou Reed, both of us in our socks while the others sat around on a sofa and chairs. We watched a videotape of the Paradise show while Lou's hot band members blurted out comic pleasantries. I think that was the last time Lou Reed played in Boston. His band that night was the same lineup as on Lou's video album "Live at The Bitter End" which was excellent. If you don't know who Lou Reed is, I can tell you he is the godfather of punk rock, period ~ and he is alive and well! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ FAVORITE MEMORIES NUMBER FIVE ~~~~~~~~ It was six weeks before the start of The Rolling Stones "American Tour 1981" and my band THIRD RAIL was recording a vinyl single at Long View Farm Studios in North Brookfield, Massachusetts. Without warning, onto the property roared a state police cruiser followed by a big R-V and a local police car following that. Out came The Rolling Stones and walked into the farmhouse. Naturally I worked my way in there a short time later. There on the sofa watching TV with his teenage son was Keith Richards. They saw me coming up from behind the sofa as both glared at me over their right shoulders, having no clue who I was. I reached out my right hand, smiled and said "Hi, Richard Nolan, Third Rail!" Keith looked at me as his white wiskers glistened in the light "Oh, yeah!" Keith said with a grin and he and the kid returned their attention to the TV. I did an about-face and left quietly the way I came in. ~ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ~~~ FAVORITE MEMORIES NUMBER SIX ~~ This was the time my band and I played The Rat in Boston with TALKING HEADS. I had met them a few months earlier when we played together at CBGB, 315 Bowery in Manhattan. Back then they were a trio but now at The Rat, a new keyboard player named Jerry had joined Talking Heads. It was shortly before their first album on Sire Records and we had just finished our sound checks at The Rat. Bassist Tina Weymouth asked me about going out to eat before showtime, and drummer Chris Frantz wanted to do that as well. So the three of us left singer David Byrnes and keyboardist Jerry then we hopped into my van and cruised across town over to La Trattoria, a small storefront gourmet Italian restaurant on Main Street in Cambridge. We dined well on primo shrimp alfredo ~ and did the gig on a full stomach in spite of the usual rule ha ha. That's decedant rock and roll for ya :) +++++++++~~~~~~~~~~~~~~FAVORITE MEMORIES NUMBER SEVEN ~~~~~~~~~Another Halloween story for ya~~THE CARS were one of the top 4 rock bands in the world when singer/songwriter RIC OCASEK invited me to be his guest at the Portland Civic Center in Maine for their Halloween concert ha ha. The opening act for the show was my buddies the DEAD BOYS from Cleveland, with whom I had gigged in New York City a few years earlier. It was a great show of course, and after it ended I made my way backstage with the pass Ric had given me the day before. After a few drinks, the late Ben Orr, whom I admired dearly, picked up a piece of decorated Halloween pan-cake that was on display on a table in the dressing room. Ben turned to Ric and yelled "Hey Ric!" and Ric Ocasek turned around from chatting with me and SPLAT! he got hit in the face with a big piece of Halloween cake. Well, I'll tell you the room erupted into a frenzy of like 15 people grabbing pieces of cake and throwing them at each other and the big cake fight ensued! It was like SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT when I quickly slid out the door to the parking garage since I was sober and it was a two-hour ride home late at night ha ha. And in closing, Ric Ocasek had sponsored me into membership in ASCAP a couple of years earlier, so I will always have very fond memories of my 4-year friendship with Ric Ocasek and THE CARS. ~+++++++++++++++++++++++++FAVORITE MEMORIES NUMBER EIGHT ~ This is one of my most recent favorite rock and roll memories. THIRD RAIL hooked up on MySpace with this radical young Hawaiian punk rock/ska band SMITZ from Oahu which hosted us for 4 shows in key venues all over the island of Oahu in the State of Hawaii. SMITZ let us use their back-line gear and we opened for them at Detox Lounge in downtown Honolulu, Kainoa's Sports Bar in Haleiwa on the North Shore of Oahu, Boardriders Bar and Grill which is a big rock surfers hangout in Kailua, and finally at the open-air Bikini Cantina at Aloha Tower Marketplace, directly on the Honolulu Harbor waterfront. Aloha :)