WATCH THE TAPES

From a boombox perched on the pebbly black roof of a '73 Maverick we played our songs.

A group of about a dozen kids, a couple of years younger than us, gathered to listen.

“You guys are rock stars!”

No. No, we were not.

We were three bored teenagers killing a couple of early summer afternoons making noise.

And when I say “noise” I am not being immodest.

Mike had been practicing guitar in secret, stealing his little brother's acoustic and trying to recreate the new wave hits of the day.

Larry did not appear to have any ambitions that involved drumming, but he was game to grab a couple of pencils, and sit in front of some empty cassette cases and overturned trash baskets.

I was the most verbally inclined of the three of us, so there was a good chance that I'd find something to say when it came time to sing.

So we sat and improvised, recording four songs one afternoon, and another eight the very next day.

The results were often horrendous. Rhythm, pitch, meter-- we violated just about any organizing principle of music you might care to name.

And yet, there were these rare moments when our streams met, and carried us along for five or seven seconds of something resembling magic. You would not need to listen very hard to hear us smiling.

We were rock stars...