Interviews

Part One — The Grapes of Wrath and the Birth of Kindred Spirit (1966)

Peter We're making a website about your old band — Kindred Spirit. Let's talk about it. So tell me how it started.

Greg Well, back in the late '50s, early '60s, I fell in love with music, but I didn't play an instrument. And back then, not playing an instrument was a very serious impediment to trying to get in a band, because you were supposed to be a musician. I sang, but there were exceptions, even locally. There was Chubby Panda — he's no longer with us. There was Charlie Apolito — no longer with us. And then there was me. All the other groups in the area had musicians who sang too, or tried to sing.

So when I flunked 10th grade and had to go back, your dad and I — that would be Gerry, of course — ended up graduating together. We met Dave Abraham and John Hemlock; we were all in 11th grade together. Dave Abraham, John Hemlock, and I started a band with some people Dave knew — Jim Smedow, Tom McCullough. Joe Nemanich wasn't in the band yet, but Dave knew Joe. So we started a band, and we got pretty good. I think our first gig was the can hop for Thanksgiving — you show up with a can and you get to go to a dance. I don't even know if we got paid, but that was 1966.

Peter And that was for the high school?

Greg Yeah. I was in 11th grade — we all were. Gerry wasn't in the band yet. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but somewhere along the line John Hemlock decided he was going to get married, and he left the band. At that point John Galiote was not in the band, nor was Joe Nemanich, nor was your dad Gerry. I think when John Hemlock left the band, your dad joined — or it could be that Gerry and John were there at the same time. My memory is not what it used to be; that was 60 years ago.

Peter But this was still the Grapes of Wrath?

Greg Yes. As a little bit of time went on, it ended up being Dave Abraham on lead guitar, Joe Nemanich on second guitar, Gerry on vocals, me on vocals, Jim Smedow on keyboards and bass, and Tom McCullough on drums. We never had a bass player for the first three years of our existence — whether it was Grapes of Wrath or Kindred Spirit — and Jim was amazing. He played bass with his left hand and keys with the other. He got himself a two-octave bass instead of a one-octave, and that was pig heaven — it really sounded like a bass, because you could go beyond one octave.

Anyway, at that point we were the Grapes of Wrath, and we were starting to play out. Our first job that we got paid for was in Central City — we made eight bucks apiece at a teen nightclub, so to speak. It was actually just some hall; once a week they had dances.

Peter Let's pause there. At the Grapes of Wrath — how did that start for you? Did you join Dave's band, or…?

Greg No, we formed the band together. But Dave was kind of the mad genius. Technically it was his band, although he was not the most reliable band leader in the world. He was a guitar player, and he'd take a solo where he had to play a certain riff to bring the band back in — and he'd maniacally stand there playing ten-minute guitar solos, laughing the whole time, because until he did the riff to get us back into the tune, we were stuck. Him jamming for ten minutes — not a good idea in the '60s. All the songs were three, four minutes and out.

So at some point we had a coup, and the band threw Dave out. He was a good guitar player, but he was not a good band leader.

Peter So he got off on annoying the band and the fans?

Greg Yeah — and there were numerous other things he did that were downright dangerous. One time he got us in a bad wreck. He was going down the bypass — a four-lane highway — in pouring rain, on bald tires, turning the wheel sharply left and right. We crossed the median strip and a Buick hit us, cut us off right behind the back seat, where all our equipment was, because it was a station wagon. He was laughing the whole time. We all ended up going to the hospital in an ambulance — and the ambulance wrecked on the way to the hospital.

Peter Wait — what?

Greg Yeah. John Hemlock's cousin, Bob Seth, was with us — we were coming from practice at the Cage — and the ambulance wrecked, and Bob ended up with a busted leg. I think he ended up suing the ambulance company. Things like that are what caused Dave to have to have a coup.

Peter So the coup happens. Which band members stayed?

Greg Everybody but Dave. Joe Nemanich ended up in the band when it was still the Grapes of Wrath. John Hemlock was eventually gone because he got married, and your dad was in the band at that point.

Peter And what year was this?

Greg '66. So '66 is when we transitioned to the new band name. We had to come up with a new name. I had named the band the Grapes of Wrath — I was into John Steinbeck at the time. The Cage was our spot; we played other places, but the Cage is where we were regulars. They didn't pay much, but they let us rehearse there as much as we wanted, and we got to drink flat, warm Coke as much as we wanted.

We decided to have a contest — our fans would name the band, and whoever picked the name would get a hundred dollars, which was a fortune back then. But nobody was coming up with a name we liked. I know it's going to sound rigged, but it wasn't — my mother said, "Well, you guys all think alike, you're kindred spirits, you should call yourselves Kindred Spirit, because you're all on the same page, you all have the same goals." Okay, Mom, you win. Of course people thought we rigged it. We really didn't. But Kindred Spirit worked, so Kindred Spirit it was.

Peter Did she take the hundred dollars?

Greg No, we didn't give it to her. We didn't have any money. If someone else had won, we'd have paid it — maybe over time. I think the guys who owned the Cage were actually going to kick some of the money in.

Peter So at that point you've got a new band name and you're getting good. Just tell me who was in the band and what they played.

Greg Tom McCullough — nothing but drums, and really good. Jim Smedow — keyboards and bass, no vocals. Joe Nemanich — reluctant vocals and lead guitar. Gerry Falvo — occasional lead vocals, but mostly high harmony; that was his forte. Me — lead and backing vocals. And John Galiote came into the band on rhythm guitar and backing vocals. That was the band, '66 into '67 into '68.

Peter And at this point you're in high school or out?

Greg We were in high school through '67. We started in '66 when we were in 11th grade, but by '67 we were up and running — we were Kindred Spirit. Some of us graduated that June; some guys were still in high school. I was the oldest guy in the band. In 1967 I was 19 going on 20.

Peter What kind of gigs were you getting?

Greg We were regulars at the Cage — we'd do three-nighters, Thursday-Friday-Saturday or Friday-Saturday-Sunday. And there were dozens of teen nightclubs, so we'd travel. I remember going to St. Marys, Pennsylvania, which is way up north — probably closer to the New York border than to Johnstown. We played in Somerset, Central City, Altoona. A few years later we used to play the Penn Alto Hotel in downtown Altoona — they had a big ballroom, and we'd play Sunday nights and pull in 800, a thousand people. It was huge. But that was later, when we were a horn band.

Peter Most of the guys were in high school. How did you hustle these gigs?

Greg I was the booker.

Peter So you were the lead singer and the booker. And you were always doing covers?

Greg Always covers. Whatever was on the radio.

Peter Would you go get sheet music?

Greg 45s, man. 45s. Sheet music wasn't even a thought — it was all memorization. We'd play it over and over. Nobody knew how to play the songs until they heard it, and then they just tried it until they figured out the chords. Some of the guys were really good at figuring out chords — Joe Nemanich especially. I had a basic understanding of piano, so I understood chord structure. We'd all huddle around the little 45 record player at the Cage — no matter the temperature, winter or summer — and listen to it over and over and over again.

Peter Now, this was during the day?

Greg During the day. We had a key to get in, and we could rehearse there whenever we liked.

Peter How did that situation come about?

Greg They saw dollar signs — the Trovato family. We were very popular and we played cheaply, but they helped us out. The hardest thing in the world is to find a place where you can rehearse, and we had a place any time we wanted it. That's how we were able to get good. It wasn't garage-band in the sense of practicing once a week — we'd rehearse two, three, four days a week, and we often did.

Peter So you'd call everybody in advance?

Greg Sure. Somebody had to figure out how everybody got there — not everybody had a vehicle. Jim wasn't even old enough to drive when he started.

Peter And I know at some point you had a van.

Greg Yeah, but that was probably later on — '68. We'll talk about the van later.

Peter So you go into the Cage, you get whoever can get there together —

Greg We didn't rehearse unless everybody was there.

Peter And on a weekly basis, everybody's paying attention to the radio, staying in tune with what's going on. Would you go to other shows to see the competition?

Greg Sometimes. A lot of those bands played the Cage too. We'd very often split a gig with another band — like the Continentals, who were the big band in Johnstown until the Grapes of Wrath came along. There was the Teen Canteen downtown, and that was huge, but as time went on the Cage became more and more of a big deal, plus it was open three or four nights a week. Every little town, every burg, had a teen canteen — that was huge. You could always find a job. You didn't make much money. New Germany church, Grove Hall — I mean, if there was a hall and electricity, you played there. Windber Recreation Park in Windber — that's still there, and they still have dances there occasionally.

Peter So now we're at '67, the band's on its way, you're networking. After shows, are people approaching you?

Greg That didn't happen that often — it was more word of mouth. We used to do a Sunday night gig in Carrolltown at the church hall, and there was one in Hastings on Saturday nights, or maybe vice versa. You'd expand by people hearing you locally, and then you'd get a phone call. We had cards, and you'd give out the cards.

I remember — this would have been '68 or '69 — we were playing a job at the Cage, and some guys from the SDS came in. Do you know what the SDS is? Students for a Democratic Society. The SDS was a national organization to — I don't want to say overthrow the government, but let's say subversive; to change the way things were. I remember the guy followed me into the men's room on a break, saying, "You guys have a lot of influence around here, you can get people to pay attention to what we're doing." I said, "Man, I don't care about any of that, I just want to play in a band. I'm not political." We leaned left, but we weren't political.

Peter So they leaned hard left.

Greg Like Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book. Yeah, he probably started out in the SDS — a subversive hippie type in the late '60s into the early '70s. But we never got involved in any of that.

Peter What did the band want out of the whole experience?

Greg Fame. We wanted people to like us. Girlfriends were nice too. The glory. Money was secondary — you kind of needed it, but we were all living with our parents, so money was almost irrelevant. It was more about just becoming popular. That's what we were interested in.

[Break.]

Part Two — Records, the Horn Band, and the Road (1967–1976)

Peter Okay, we're back. So now we're at '67, and the band's moving up, getting lots of gigs — still in high school.

Greg Yeah, we were playing a good bit. In '67, Gerry and I graduated, and Dave and John Hemlock did. Joe Nemanich was a year or two behind us, as were Tom McCullough and Jim Smedow, so they were still in high school into '68 and '69.

Peter Summer of '67, do you go on the road?

Greg No — almost never did we travel, although we did occasionally. I remember we played in Kaiser, West Virginia. It was a long enough hike that we'd stay at a cheap hotel — we called it the Kaiser Hilton. It was a fleabag hotel, long past its glory days. But it was almost always get home at 2, 3, 4 a.m. We also played after-hours clubs, but that was a little later — we'd start at 1:30 a.m. So we'd do two jobs: play a high school gig till 11, pack up the stuff, and haul it up what seemed like 400 steps to the second floor of the S Club and play till 4:30 in the morning.

Peter How many songs would you play in a set?

Greg Even stretched out, a long song was maybe four or five minutes. A set was 45 minutes, so you might do seven, eight, nine songs a set — and you could repeat if you had to. We had a pretty big repertoire, though, and we were always learning new stuff. Probably a working repertoire of 50, 60, 70 at all times. A lot of it was basic stuff — how are you going to forget the chord structure to "Turn On Your Love Light"? The only thing was remembering when to go to the bridge, when to go to the solo.

Peter So you do have some recordings we've already ripped from CDs — one was from '67 to '69, recorded at the Cage.

Greg Almost everything from '67 to '69 was at the Cage. I don't know that anything was recorded anywhere else — almost always during the job, occasionally during a rehearsal, but that was rare.

Peter Anything of significance at the end of '67 into '68?

Greg No, we were pretty stable once John Galiote, Joe Nemanich, and Gerry were in the band — into '69, at which time Gerry got drafted and left for the Marines. He thought he was leaving for the Army, but that's another story. We'd already talked to John George, from George's Song Shop, about making a record. John wanted to put up the money to make it. But Gerry wasn't going to be there, because he was going into the military. This would have been the summer of '69 into the fall. We knew Karl Mundok, a local musician who played guitar, and we hired him to replace Gerry — though in '69 he was simply occasional lead singer and high-harmony backup. That was the band that made "Under My Thumb" and "Blue Avenue." And "Scared."

Peter So John George is going to put up the money to make "Under My Thumb." Summer into fall of 1969.

Greg And John would come to rehearsals and say, "Play it faster. Play it faster." "Under My Thumb." And damn, he was right. What made it so catchy was that we were doing the Stones' live version, which was faster than the original record — where I think Brian Jones was playing a xylophone. That doesn't work when you're playing live; you need something you can dance to. John George just kept saying "faster, faster," and we couldn't play any faster — I couldn't make the tambourine go any faster on my leg. And it worked.

Then we covered "Blue Avenue," by a band from Boston called the Beacon Street Union. Joe Nemanich was really good at finding obscure bands. I think we did it better than they did. We never met any of the guys — we just listened to the record and learned it. But that's the one that seems to be more popular now than "Under My Thumb." Jim Smedow tells me there's some YouTube psychedelic website where "Blue Avenue" is huge, which is crazy.

Peter So John George fronts the money to make this two-sided 45 — "Under My Thumb" and "Blue Avenue." You recorded that in his record shop?

Greg No, no — we recorded it in New York City. We made two records, "Peaceful Man" being the other one. Maybe we went to the same studio twice — I think it was called Groove Sound Studios. I'd need to call John George to be sure.

Peter Wait — is he still around?

Greg Yeah. He's in his 80s, only open a couple of days a week now. I've known him since the '60s. His is the oldest record shop in the country still in operation, and he's known nationally. He knows more about old rock and roll than anybody you'll ever meet. He doesn't know about this website — and John's very much a businessman, so we've got to tread carefully. Only if there's a buck in it for him. But he's a good guy, and I'm sure he'd answer any question you ask.

Peter So "Under My Thumb" did very well.

Greg We'd become buddies with the local radio station, because the one thing in the world that was important to us — besides fame, glory, and girlfriends — was getting a record on the radio. That's like dying and going to rock-and-roll heaven. WCRO picked it up and started playing it; that was the local station everybody listened to. It came out on Moxie Records, which was John's label, and it took off like a rocket. Johnstown, Altoona — locally it was number one for I don't know how many weeks. John George had them printed and copied and sold them; that was all up to John. We had nothing to do with it.

And then somehow somebody heard it, and Mercury Records — which was pretty big — had a subsidiary called Intrepid Records that took on bands like us that nobody knew about, garage bands. Just roll the dice and see if they sell. And it actually caught on in little pockets of the country, and we thought we'd died and gone to heaven.

Peter How did they tell you that you were selling well elsewhere?

Greg There was a very small article in the local paper: "Record to get national airplay." That was when Intrepid picked it up. There was a famous name in the music industry in the '60s who had a column in Billboard, or one of those magazines — an insider thing, for people in the business — and he picked us as up-and-comers, that particular song. All I knew was that our record was being picked up by a national label and they were going to start playing it, and that it became popular in different little pockets of the country. I can't tell you how many.

Peter So this is a thing that was going on — cover bands coming up, maybe with no original music of their own.

Greg There were a million of them. John's making 45s, and eventually maybe you start making your own music — trying to make an album. We were on that cusp, still doing covers. Sometimes we'd add stuff to songs, change the arrangements a little. But whatever was on the radio, that's what we played — could be a schmaltzy love ballad or early psychedelia, all being played at the same time on the same stations. That was the crux of AM radio in the '60s.

Peter With a cover 45, I'd imagine the original band got a cut. Do you remember what your band's cut was?

Greg I haven't the foggiest. But I got a check from Intrepid Records for three dollars and something — and I cashed the damn thing, so I don't have it. It'd be in a place of honor now. That was the only royalty check we ever received, and I did not share it with the other five members of the band.

Peter So John George really was quite shrewd.

Greg That three-dollar check didn't even come from John. We didn't get any money from John — his contribution was putting up the money to make the record. John was in it to make a buck, and he'd be the first to tell you that. But he got the record made, and that led somewhere else.

Greg Around then — I don't remember exactly why — horns were becoming big. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, the Electric Flag. I liked horns. Not long after "Under My Thumb" came out in the fall of '69, that band broke up. It might have been that Tom, the drummer, was going off to college — he was very college-oriented and would have graduated by '69 or '70. So we broke up and reformed. I kept the same name always — there were nine or ten iterations of Kindred Spirit. I formed the second one with Joe Nemanich, Jim Smedow, and five other people we'd never played with. That was 1970, when Kindred Spirit became a nine-piece horn band. The only guys who remained from the original were Joe Nemanich, Jim Smedow, and me.

Peter Did you get recordings with the horn band?

Greg Yes. John George also put up the money for that, and it came out on Intrepid — "Peaceful Man" and "Clown." We wrote "Peaceful Man." We were starting to write a lot of our own stuff and perform it live, but most of it didn't get recorded. We've got really bad recordings of maybe four or five originals — the sound quality is terrible.

Peter So you're still playing locally, still practicing out of the Cage?

Greg Yes and no. Still practicing out of the Cage and playing locally, but we signed with an agency out of Pittsburgh called Go Attractions. Shadyside was the Haight-Ashbury of Pittsburgh. Rich Engler — later of DeCesar Engler fame — and Paul St. John had a little office on Walnut Street in Shadyside, and we signed with those guys. They expanded our horizons; we were playing college gigs, bigger events, making a few bucks. But there were nine guys in a band plus a sound man and a truck, so nobody was getting rich.

Peter Is this still pre-van?

Greg No, we had a Ford Econoline van even back with the original Kindred Spirit — '68, '69. Light blue, with "Kindred Spirit" in Old English printed on the sides. I've got the picture right here. It was a piece of crap, but it ran. It was probably a late-'50s or early-'60s van, used.

Peter So now you're playing colleges, you've got a couple of singles, you're making your own music. Obviously you didn't make it all the way through. What happens?

Greg Half the band wanted to live in Pittsburgh so we could broaden our horizons out of a bigger city. So we rented a house on Shady Avenue — a beautiful old house, eight or nine bedrooms, two or three bathrooms, two kitchens. A mansion. But the whole band didn't want to live there, so half the band was in Johnstown and half in Pittsburgh. And we had our buddy hangers-on who'd come stay for weeks at a time. Bruce Berkeybile was pretty much living there off and on for months — a personal friend, and he actually got a job in Pittsburgh. Bruce and I are still buddies, though I don't see him much; he lives in Columbia.

So the band's split between two towns, the rent and utilities have to be paid every month, and the guys don't want to pay because they're not living there.

Peter Where were you?

Greg I was in Pittsburgh. As far as I was concerned, I was ready to move up the old rock-and-roll ladder. Not everybody shared that enthusiasm.

I should tell you — the band that moved to Pittsburgh was actually the second iteration of the horn band. There were two different horn bands within less than two years. The trombone player got replaced because he was in college and either unable or unwilling to play.

Peter Before we jump ahead — in the second iteration, who were the horn players?

Greg John "Poncho" Garshnick played sax, flute, guitar, occasional keyboards, and sang lead and backup. John Hockycko played trumpet and sang high harmony. Tom Bell played trumpet. Chuck Adkins — not Atkins, Adkins — played trombone, flute, and keyboards. Joe Nemanich left the band, and Bob Gmuca was our new guitar player.

Peter So as the divide happened, who was staying in Johnstown?

Greg The bass player, Paul Lanzendorfer. The keyboard player, Jim Smedow. I believe the guitar player, Bob Gmuca. So maybe half to two-thirds of the band was in Pittsburgh and the rest in Johnstown — an impossible situation. Danny Adams was the drummer in both horn bands.

Peter As the band leader, you had to make the executive decisions.

Greg Yeah, I was the band leader. And the issue was always that everybody had an opinion. When you have nine opinions in one band, and it's the early '70s, where everybody's doing substances that make you not very smart — or stable — it became nearly impossible to keep the band together. Because of money, living constraints, different issues, it just disintegrated, sadly. Because if any band was ever going to make it, it would have been the second iteration — the nine-piece horn band. That was, without a doubt, the best band I was ever part of, as far as everybody being good.

Peter What year was that, when the second iteration fell apart?

Greg '71. That was the height of it, and also the end of it.

Peter And you tried to make a third iteration?

Greg It pretty much disintegrated. The only guys I ended up with in '72 from the original band were Jim Smedow on keyboards, and Joe Nemanich came back on guitar. Everybody else was new — a different drummer. We went through many drummers over the years: Tommy Rochko, Tom McCullough, Danny Adams, Tom Yurochko, Chris Klym did a couple of stints. There had to have been five or six drummers. That's the way it worked.

Peter So all in all, from '66 up until about '71, when the nine-piece horn band broke up — then it became Kindred Spirit No. 4, No. 5, No. 6. How long did you keep going?

Greg Until 1976. So I kept it going for a decade, and there were many iterations.

Peter But you still had the fever.

Greg I still had the desire. When the band broke up, everybody came back to town or took off in different directions, and I'd build it back again with different guys.

I do recall the summer of '71 — we did a big concert out at Roxbury Park. They used to have Sunday afternoon shows, and there were hundreds and hundreds of people; the place was packed to the rafters. We'd written a song called "You're Going Under." By then we were pretty politically active. It started with the horn section playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" legitimately, and then it morphed into Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock version. There were people from 16 to 80 there, and when they heard the anthem they got up, put their hands on their hearts, saluting — and then it went into the Hendrix version, and people just freaked out. "What are you doing?" And then we went into this subversive song, "You're Going Under." We were hippies. The Vietnam War was at its height of ugliness, and we were stark raving hippies, into that stuff.

There was a big fight back and forth in the Reader's Forum. People wrote in that we were terrible people, a detriment to society, that we'd desecrated the national anthem. And of course I had to write back to the Tribune-Democrat to defend us.

And my dad was at that show — as I recall, the only time my dad ever came to hear us play. We were tearing down after the gig, and my dad walks up. I said, "Dad." And he goes, "You guys are pretty good." It was like telling us we were the Beatles. He was very reluctant to give compliments — he was a Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, big-band type; Al Martino, the Italian crooners, Perry Como, Gerry Vale. He took a boatload of pictures of that show, some of which I have. That was the second iteration of the nine-piece horn band, at Roxbury Park, July of 1971. It's the only time my dad ever commented on my playing, other than to complain about it.

Peter Speaking of family — you have two sisters, Lynn and Diane. What did they think of you guys?

Greg Oh, they thought it was great, and they'd come to the shows. They used to get mad because people would say, "Oh, you're Greg and Gerry Falvo's sister" — they were never just themselves. But it was fun. They weren't musically inclined to join. I took piano lessons; Lynda played violin a couple of years in school. Everybody could sing, but the four of us never formed the Partridge Family.

Peter Your dad didn't really go to the shows, but was your mom more supportive?

Greg Only mildly. She put up with it. We lived with Mom and Dad — Dad was working, and Mom was trying to keep the peace. By then we weren't all sitting at the dinner table together anymore; we were doing our own things. Gerry came back and joined the band again for a little bit when he got out of the military — '71 into '72, I think — and then he left again of his own volition. We went through a whole series of singers. At one point we had three lead singers — Gerry, John Falcho, and me — three singers in a band with four musicians.

Peter Why three singers?

Greg We were doing a lot of Bee Gees, a lot of Three Dog Night — stuff with a lot of vocals.

Most of the other guys had ulterior motives about what they were going to do with their lives. I hadn't the foggiest — I was just playing in a band, trying to make enough money to exist. I wasn't what I'd call ambitious, except when it came to the band. That's what I did. I also waxed cars, sold fireworks in season, booked bands — whatever it took to make money. If my band had a gig Friday night and somebody else needed a band, I'd network with the other bands in town, hook up the right band with the right job, and make 10% of the cut.

Peter That could have been another avenue for you.

Greg Well, that's how Rich Engler became Rich — both his name and financially. He started out as a drummer who was only mediocre; I think they were called the Sands of Time, out of Pittsburgh. He was okay on drums, certainly no Ginger Baker. Rich morphed into being an agent, and eventually it became DeCesar Engler Productions, which for decades was the biggest promoter of huge bands in the Pittsburgh area. Rich is still alive, doing well, married a girl from Bedford. I haven't seen him in 40 years. He wrote a book on his career — I think our name's even mentioned in it somewhere. I liked Rich.

Peter You were struggling to keep the band together and keep gigs. That was very difficult — probably because you had so many people.

Greg Try being the mother hen to eight other musicians. Musicians all think they're right, including me. We were all around the same age, give or take a few years — a bunch of young knuckleheads. But we didn't think we were knuckleheads; we thought we were the smartest people in the world. We knew everything.

Peter Well, that is the definition of a knucklehead.

Greg Yeah. And here I am at almost 78, and I still don't know anything. But it was a lot of fun. I don't regret it. There's a certain segment of people that still remember it, or at least heard of us from back in the olden days, because that was the golden age of local bands. It's not that way anymore — there's no places for bands to play.

Peter The internet broke that.

Greg Yeah.

[Break.]

Part Three — Setting the Record Straight, the Road, Cape Cod, and the Reunions

[The session opens with mic checks and small talk. Peter then reads back the story so far, and they fill in corrections. The lineup and record details below reflect Greg's own corrections on tape.]

Peter So the beginning — Greg falls in love with music but doesn't play, which was a real handicap, since you were expected to be a musician; you became a singer. Out of 10th grade, you eventually graduate with Gerry, but in 11th grade it's you, Dave Abraham, John Hemlock, Jim Smedow, and Tom McCullough who started the Grapes of Wrath. Is that right — or are we leaving somebody out?

Greg John Hemlock was the rhythm guitar player and backup singer in the beginning, before Gerry came on board. So initially it was two guitars, keyboard, bass, drums, and me.

Peter According to this, your first gig was the Thanksgiving can hop in '66.

Greg Yep, the high school can hop — admittance was a can of food. No payment. It all went to the Salvation Army or a food bank.

Peter Shortly after, John Hemlock leaves — he got married.

Greg He married his high school sweetheart, Paulette Schaefer. Let's just say John and Paulette got married at an early age.

Peter I tried to get hold of John about this. He said there's not a whole lot to talk about, that he doesn't remember much. Gerry reminded me it was September — he couldn't remember if '66 or '67.

Greg '67, according to your dad. And we were still in high school then. Joe Nemanich came into the band while it was still the Grapes of Wrath.

Peter So — the coup. Dave Abraham, the mad genius, technically his band, great guitar player, terrible band leader. Stood there laughing through a ten-minute solo while the band was stuck waiting for the riff.

Greg Exactly right. In an era of three-minute songs — or four. We'd stretch them out. And then there was the story of him wrecking the station wagon in pouring rain on bald tires. I remember it like it was yesterday. So shortly after, we had a coup, kicked him out, and renamed the band. I can't recall exactly why we renamed it — Dave never used "Grapes of Wrath" again — maybe we just decided that since we were a different band, we should have a new name.

Peter According to your dad, the renaming took place in September of '66 or '67. He'll tell us — I'm interviewing him Monday. Then the $100 contest. Your mother, Carmela Falvo, won with the suggestion "Kindred Spirit."

Greg Yes — and not "the Kindred Spirit," although everybody called us that. We identified ourselves as Kindred Spirit. Not "the." Like the Beatles — think of a band that doesn't have a "the" in front of them. There are lots of them; you get the idea.

Peter So you set up at the Cage — that's where you played more than anywhere. You had a standing multi-night gig there?

Greg Well, not always a standing thing. There might be a week we played three nights there, a week where we had other jobs that paid better and only played one or two nights, or occasionally a week we didn't play there at all.

Peter What was the name of the family that owned it?

Greg Trovato. T-R-O-V-A-T-O. Totally family-run — three brothers, and Bobby when he was home from college, and a sister, a brother-in-law, and Carm's wife eventually, when Carm got married. Because we had access to the Cage — that constant ability to rehearse when the band came together — that's what really got us successful very quickly. We rehearsed a whole lot, because we could. It was fun for us; that's what we wanted to do, play in a band.

Peter The early Cage lineup was Tom McCullough, Jim Smedow, Joe Nemanich, Gerry Falvo, Greg Falvo, and then John Galiote came in. Then '67 to '69, the grinding circuit — regulars at the Cage multiple nights a week, plus the teen canteens. Central City, Somerset, Altoona…

Greg Penn Alto, Duncansville, Hollidaysburg, St. Marys, Somerset, Berlin — every little town, probably within 50 to 100 miles. If it was a teenage nightclub, or a bar for that matter, we'd play it.

Peter And the whole time you're coordinating with all these venues.

Greg I booked all the jobs. Somebody had to do it.

Peter That has to be a heavy burden. Did you have a little black book?

Greg Yeah, I had a book — a list of every place we played, the name of the person that booked it, and family members if they were involved. For instance, at the Carrolltown church hall, every Saturday night they had a dance run by Bob and Liz Vermette. We became friends over the years. In fact, Liz called me out of the blue about 10 or 15 years ago and we ended up on the phone for an hour. I said, "Why'd you decide to call me, Liz?" She said, "I haven't talked to you in forever, I just wanted to see what you were doing." I said, "I'm happily married, I sell cars, I'm no longer in the rock-and-roll business. How's Bob?" Bob had passed away. I became friends with the people who booked the jobs — and networking pays off. When you get along, they call you back.

Peter Do you still have that book?

Greg Hell no. Long gone. It would have been a treasure to look at now. I still remember some of the names, but no.

Peter So Gerry gets drafted — out of the band.

Greg Gerry left in late May of '69, and by then we'd already drafted Karl Mundok to replace him. And this is all through John George — George's Song Shop, the record store here in Johnstown — where he puts up the money and you get basically nothing but a 45 that gets played.

Greg Yeah, and I'm sure if the record had become a national hit, we'd have probably still made no money, because bands back then notoriously signed away every right they ever had just to make a record. It was well known. And it's still an issue — now with streaming it's even worse. It's going backwards. For many years you made no money on records; you made money touring. Then for many years — the '70s, '80s, into the '90s — record, CD, and tape sales were through the roof and touring was secondary. And then it changed again: now you make a record so you can tour and make money playing the shows.

Peter The first 45 was on Moxie Records — M-O-X-I-E — and was supposedly number one locally for many weeks.

Greg John can probably tell you how many weeks. I have a copy of it somewhere.

Peter Then fall of '69, the original band ends — Tom McCullough goes to college — and you wanted to add horns to follow what was hot. So the nine-piece horn band, 1970. Only Joe Nemanich, Jim Smedow, and you carried over, with five new players.

Greg John "Poncho" Garshnick — sax, guitar, occasional keys, lead and backup. John Hockycko — H-O-C-K-Y-C-K-O — second trumpet and high vocal harmony. Tom Bell — trumpet. Chuck Adkins — A-D-K-I-N-S — trombone, flute, keyboards. Paul Lanzendorfer on bass. Danny Adams on drums — drums only, he didn't play horns.

Now, I've got to back up. There's one more name. Al O'Donnell was the original trombone player, and Al was on the horn record, before Chuck came on board. The version with Chuck Adkins was the second horn band, where we changed two people. And the last member, Bob DeMufa, was also in the second horn band — he was not on the record.

Peter So we need to adjust that. On the record it was Joe Nemanich and Al O'Donnell on trombone.

Greg Right. And shortly after the 45 was made, Joe Nemanich left and Bob DeMufa left. Let me get this straight, because we're getting it slightly out of kilter: Joe Nemanich and Al O'Donnell were on the record "Peaceful Man." Bob DeMufa and Chuck Adkins were not on the record — they came after it was made.

Peter So the second 45 was "Peaceful Man," your original, with "Clown" on the B-side.

Greg "Clown" was a song we did not write — it was by a band called the Flock, F-L-O-C-K, out of Chicago.

Peter Did you write the lyrics to "Peaceful Man"?

Greg No, it was a three-way collaboration. Paul Lanzendorfer wrote the verse — I mean the chord structure during the verse. Poncho wrote the words. And I wrote the melody, the harmony, the bridge, and the horn arrangement — the notes they played. I kind of arranged the song, as well as writing the harmony parts and vocals. I wrote the melody around the chords Paul had already written.

Peter John George asked you to make it — or did you push for an original?

Greg We had a song we wanted to play, and that was it. I don't recall John giving us any heat over it. We wrote a tune, played it for him, and I guess he liked it, because he said okay. And we went back to New York City and recorded it.

Peter Were you trying to write new songs frequently then?

Greg Yeah, we were writing a lot of our own stuff. But sadly, we did nothing with it — we just played them on the jobs, didn't record anything else. I wish we had. One I do have a copy of — the sound quality is terrible — is a tune I wrote called "Goodbye." There's another called "Lady Joy" that the trombone player wrote. Those are the only two originals I know we have recordings of. But there were more: "The Falling Song," "You're Going Under," and one called "Suite" — S-U-I-T-E — a piece we did but never recorded.

Peter Maybe by luck someone will have a recording to share.

Greg Only if they happened to record it somewhere we played — unlikely. It'd be easy now; everybody's got a recording machine in their pocket. But we're talking 1970, '71.

Peter So '70, '71, the band's split between Pittsburgh and Johnstown, having difficulties. And the summer of '71 — Roxbury Park — that's the rock for many of your critics.

Greg Yeah — still makes me giggle. We did it on purpose. Unfortunately, no recording of it. That would have been a great one. It was a moment in time that's now not captured. But what are you going to do?

Peter From '72 onward, the band forms and reforms. Joe Nemanich returns, you go through many drummers, Gerry comes back from the Marines and rejoins for '71–'72, then leaves again, finally. About nine or ten iterations.

Greg At least nine total. It would be worth mentioning all the guys, but I'd almost have to make a list — too numerous to mention. Drummers: Tommy Yurochko — probably the same as "Tommy Rochko." Tommy Gajewski, who I played with in the road band and in Ruckus. Chris Klym. Danny Adams was back in. Tom McCullough never came back. And there was John Crookston for several years — an excellent drummer. John Falcho — F-A-L-C-H-O — was a singer, lead and backup, and a little flute.

Peter So there's a gap from '72 to '74, but from '74 to '75 is the on-the-road era.

Greg At the end of '74 we put the band together with the intent of going on the road — to play clubs. Back then that was a big deal; there were clubs everywhere and touring bands like us, just out there trying to make a living, traveling city to city. Some nice clubs, some dives. We played a male strip club for two weeks in Milwaukee. We played a place in Milwaukee called Beneath the Streets, because it was basically in a basement. And the Left Guard was real big — a chain started by Max McGee and Fuzzy Thurston, two Green Bay Packers, when the Packers were all the rage. They had clubs all over the upper Midwest — Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, into Minnesota and Michigan — and we played them all, because our agency out of Milwaukee was hooked up with the Left Guard.

I remember we'd play a six-night gig in Milwaukee, then on the seventh night, Sunday, drive down to Madison for a one-nighter, and then have to be somewhere else Monday, a couple hundred miles away. One time we went from Madison on a Sunday night, jumped in our Tastykake step van, and drove to Sioux Falls, South Dakota — and the engine blew up en route. We still made the job. No sleep. I started a half hour late with total laryngitis from not being in bed for two days, and I had to sing my way through it. It was a two-week gig at a place called the Macomba Club in Sioux Falls.

Peter So you guys are just killing yourselves.

Greg Most places it was pretty good — because we were from out of town, we were the hotshots. Not that we were that much better than the local bands, though we were tight as hell, because we played six nights a week, sometimes seven, and almost never had a week off unless it was an accident. One time in Milwaukee our agency couldn't get us a gig for the following week — no job until that Friday. So on Saturday night I jumped in my MGB and drove from Milwaukee to Cape Cod, slept in my car and in roadside rests on the Cape so I wouldn't have to pay for a room, because I didn't have any money. Heading back to the Midwest, the only money I had left was a roll of quarters on the passenger seat, a full tank of gas, and a couple of sandwiches. But I made it. And while I was gone, the other guys went up to Minneapolis-St. Paul and hung out with some girls, so I wasn't with them for that.

Peter We always talk about the gigs and the songs, but there was a lot of time you spent with the band and the people around them.

Greg Hangers-on, roadies, people who showed up at the venues. It was our life. At that point, playing music was what we did. That was it. I wasn't looking to the future, wasn't looking at yesterday — I was only looking at tomorrow. During the day you did what you wanted or rehearsed, and at night you played, hopefully three or four nights a week. Which was the biggest part of our existence — playing locally, or at least area-wise.

Peter And eventually you get a gig at the Golden Key in downtown Johnstown, six nights a week for a whole year — until they tell you they're closing.

Greg The Golden Key was a bar-nightclub, and they were shutting down and leasing it to a Chinese restaurant — the Szechuan Restaurant. The owner called me into his office and said, "I'm going to close down. You guys can play through the end of the month." I said, "We have a contract for two more months." He said, "You can wipe your butt with that Musicians' Union contract" — which was true. So that band broke up. There's still a Szechuan East up in Richland — great Chinese food. And after that, that was the end of Kindred Spirit. But I played on with Ruckus, with a couple of buddies, for two years, until I got a job in the car business.

Peter Ruckus — that's the name of the band?

Greg Mm-hmm. Ed Cominsky — the same guy who was on the road with us in '75. Chuck Pyro on sax. Tommy Gajewski, the drummer who was on the road with us in '75. Tony Page on bass. And me on rhythm piano — I'd learned to play chords on a piano. That's about all I could do. I'm not a musician; I understand music, I just can't play it.

Greg I hadn't planned on continuing, but I'd met Dar. I was thinking about moving to Cape Cod, which I'd fallen in love with. I fell in love with the Cape by getting booked there at an NCO club in 1971. An agency out of Harrisburg — Bruce Rohrbach and Associates — said, "Hey, you guys want to play Cape Cod?" I said, "Yeah, that's New Jersey, right?" He goes, "No, that's Cape May, you idiot. Cape Cod's in New England." I'd never been to New England. He got us a three-nighter at the NCO — non-commissioned officers — club at Otis Air Force Base, and said we'd make enough to have a week's vacation up there. So we rented two cabins. That was my introduction to Cape Cod, and I fell in love with it — I've been going back every year since. Dar and I still go every year.

Peter So — the reunions. Eventually you start doing reunion shows. Tell me how that started.

Greg I don't recall exactly. Chuck Bender was a friend of mine, a DJ here in town — we'd played for Chuck when he held dances, and we've been friends since the '70s. I can't ask him because sadly he died; it still hurts my heart. But probably Chuck, or somebody else in town, put together some sort of oldies reunion — I think they called it the "oldies spring break." It was a huge event: they got every band they could think of that had ever played the Johnstown area from the '50s through the '70s. There might have been 10, 11, 12 bands, all doing sets, and we were the headliners.

And we were so nervous — we'd rehearsed a lot, but we screwed up the first song, and that blew the whole evening for me. My voice quavered like some soprano quivering on a high note. I couldn't sing. Karl wasn't doing too good either — he was the other singer. The band was off its game, and it pretty much sucked. But the people loved us. The place was jammed to the rafters, and they thought we were great. This was at Ace's Lounge in the West End.

So I said, "Well, that's the end of that." But then: wait a minute — we just embarrassed ourselves in front of a couple thousand people. We were too popular, too well-respected in people's memories, to go out like that. So I said, "We've got to do this again. We'll have our own show." We got Freddie Babish, who ran Ace's and was a friend of mine, and booked a Saturday night, I think the end of March. We got Chuck Bender to DJ — he played music on the breaks and introduced the band between sets. We played three sets. We sold tickets at George's Song Shop, at the Music Center in the mall, and at Ace's, and we promoted it ourselves; we paid for radio spots.

Peter How many people could fit in Ace's?

Greg Comfortably, four or five hundred. We didn't have a sellout, but damn close — a really good crowd.

Peter So the first reunion was '91?

Greg '91. Come to think of it, the botched comeback wasn't the oldies spring break the first year — it was in the fall, September or October — and after a couple of months we were back at it. Less than six months.

Peter Did you get those feelings back — like this might work out again?

Greg The guys in the band, that's why they wanted to do it — maybe we could make more money and have fun. I was doing it 100% for pride. I didn't want to be remembered as a schmuck. We were schmucks that night. If there was such a thing as having a legacy in Johnstown, I wasn't going out like that. John Galiote and I sold 90% of the tickets that weren't sold at the venues.

Peter Did the dollars pan out?

Greg No. Radio time isn't free. Chuck Bender wasn't free. Ace's wasn't free. We had to pay for a sound system — we spent a lot of money. I think we made 186 bucks apiece. That was the end of March, '92. It was more than the average band made on a gig — back then, maybe two car payments — but no financial bonanza. Still, I was happy.

Peter So then people wanted a show every once in a while?

Greg They wanted us to play every year. A guy named Dave Kekich, who was in a wheelchair, had them every year. He'd been a power lifter, hurt his back, became paralyzed, and formed something called the Spinal Cord Society to raise money for research — he had a vested interest, being in a wheelchair, and he was a relatively young guy, in his 30s or 40s. They had shows every year, but we only played every two years.

Peter Interesting — your first-ever show was a charity event with canned goods, and now, after trying to make a buck didn't work out, you went back to charity.

Greg And we did it for fun. Every two years. They gave us a few bucks apiece. It was a level of trouble, but minimal — though we'd have never gone through it for nothing. Even though we'd learn a few new tunes for every show, Karl wouldn't pick up his guitar for a year. One time he had to go out and buy strings because they were all rusty — that's how long it had been. A couple of the guys were still playing in bands, but some of us weren't playing at all, like Karl and me. So we did shows in '94, '96, '98, 2000. We planned on doing it in January of 2002, and we just gave it up. 2000 was the last show. Your dad, Gerry, played the last two — '98 and 2000.

Peter And you have recordings of all of them?

Greg Every one. They came off VHS tape — somebody with a VHS camera across the arena, recording the sound in the room. Not bad at all. There'd be various bands, but not nearly as many as the first show — that first one had way too many bands and was just chaos. After that, maybe three, four, five bands total, from around eight o'clock to one, and we'd headline around 10:30 or 11.

Peter Let's run through the reunion lineup.

Greg Joe Nemanich; Karl Mundok — who started out on the first record as only a singer but was a guitar player, so he played second guitar, occasional lead, and lead and backing vocals; Chris Klym on drums; Gary Frank on bass; Jim Smedow on keyboards; John Galiote on rhythm guitar and backup; and me. That was the same lineup for '91, '92, '94, '96 — same guys, a lot of the same songs, but we always learned a few new ones. Then in '98 Gerry came on. Joe Nemanich didn't want to do the whole show, though we had him come up and play "Under My Thumb" and one more. Your dad played the whole night — he just sang in '98, I believe, and in 2000 he sang and played guitar, though I don't think they had his guitar mic'd, so you barely hear it. He sang mostly backup and lead on at least two or three songs. We have recordings of them.

Peter So 2000 was the last one.

Greg I'm sure we'd have done one in 2002, had Gary not died in early January. And it was getting harder and harder anyway. Guitar players hate changing keys, because it changes the fingering, and chords sound better in certain keys — so nobody ever wanted to lower the key. And here's poor me, every two years trying to sing what I sang when I was 21, only now I'm 46. Not easy.

There were a couple of reasons it fizzled. Number one, Gary dying took the wind out of our sails. But also, Gary's family owned a club where we rehearsed, called This Is It — that was our rehearsal hall, and Gary had all the sound equipment there, so you just showed up, set up your drums and amps, and everything else was there. When Gary died, it wasn't quite as easy.

Peter When you prepared for a show, did you practice a couple weeks before?

Greg Three or four weeks before we'd start. First we'd pick the songs, just over the phone — I don't think texting had even been invented, or you had to pay for every text, and I still don't text. When your dad came on board in '98, we did everything over the phone. We sent him tapes of rehearsals — we'd record a rehearsal, send it down to Florida, where he was living, and tell him, "This is going to be your part, Jer." Often he already knew his part from having done the song way back when. He couldn't come to practice, so we rehearsed minus your pop. I think we had one rehearsal with him actually there, and then we did the show.

Peter How were the rehearsals? Fun to bring the band back together?

Greg Yeah, for the most part. It was a chance for the guys to get back together. You get to know these guys like you know your family — they were your family. We were always working through disagreements, that's a given. If you're going to be in a rock-and-roll band, you're going to argue — it's like being married; it's inevitable. But overall it wasn't bad. We enjoyed it. When things got funky, you'd just say, "All right, that's enough for today." We'd record our rehearsals so we could listen to them on our own — I still have some, haven't played them in forever.

It reminds me of that Beatles album, Live at the BBC, from when they were first coming up — it had the in-between bits where they're correcting each other. Or the movie Let It Be, where they recorded the whole thing as it was happening. There were two versions — one from decades ago that was pretty ugly, showing how much they weren't getting along, and another that came out a few years ago. Same music, same people, painted two very different colors. That's what Hollywood does.

Peter It might be interesting to hear your rehearsals.

Greg It'd be fun, but we'll do that off-mic first, because who knows what the hell we were saying.

Peter We don't need to censor anything, Greg. This is our internet — we're not a media corporation.

Greg There might be some grandmas who don't want to hear f-bombs.

Peter What grandmas, Greg? How old are you? My grandmother's been gone 25 years. We are the grandmothers now.

Greg Perhaps. But that brings up a story worth repeating. Chris Klym, our drummer, had sadly died, and we were devastated. Chris's best friend, Denny Regan, called me up and said, "Greg, do you have a copy of you guys doing 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' at the War Memorial?" I said, "Yeah." He goes, "I want to use it at Chris's memorial." I said, "Are you nuts? Play 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' at a memorial service?" He said, "Yeah." So I gave it to him.

We were all sitting together — Dar, John Galiote, me, and I can't recall who else — and when they were getting ready to play it, I'm hearing the intro chords, and I said to John Galiote, "John, what are the old people going to say?" And he looks me dead in the eyes, dead serious, and goes, "Greg — we are the old people." And we just started cracking up. Holy hell — we're in our 60s and 70s. We are the old people. And it went over like gangbusters. Everybody got up laughing and crying and clapping — a standing ovation for Chris. So I told Denny, "You're a genius." Chris did a hell of a job on drums; he was a terrific rock-and-roll drummer.

Peter A wonderful tribute to Chris. All right — I think we've pretty much wrapped up the story.

Greg I'm sure there are many smaller stories, and more will come to mind when we're all together. Everybody has different memories, so I'm curious what the other guys are going to say.

[End of session.]

Part One — Joining the Grapes of Wrath (1967)

Peter So, Kindred Spirit — that was a band you were in when you were young. I'm speaking with Gerry Falvo today, the brother of Greg, band member. Tell me when you joined and why.

Gerry I got into the band when it was still the Grapes of Wrath. That was in September of 1967. And why — because I wanted to be in a band. I'd been in a band earlier that summer, and that ended for me. Then, some weeks later, John Hemlock got married and left the band, because he needed a job — a real job — he couldn't get by on the little money he made playing. So Greg talked some people into letting me join the band, as a singer only and on percussion, playing tambourine and maracas. And Joe Nemanich came in playing rhythm guitar, because Joe never sang. John Hemlock had both sung and played rhythm guitar, so the two of us took over John's spot.

Peter How old were you? What grade?

Gerry I'd just gotten out of high school. In fact, there were at least five of us in that band who graduated the same year, in 1967. The band was already more than a year old by then — at least a year, maybe a little longer.

They used to rehearse up the street from where Greg and I lived, in Conemaugh borough. We lived on Church Avenue; the next street up was Ridge Avenue, and that's where they practiced for a while, at John Garland's house. That's one thing I don't understand — if they were practicing at John Garland's house, I'd assume John was their bass player, but I really don't know. I never knew John Garland to be in the band. That part I'm not clear on.

But I can remember when we still had the store — the little grocery store that was next door to where we lived. I can still remember different band members coming down the street from Ridge Avenue toward the store with their equipment, because practice was over. Here they come with their amps and their guitars. I don't know how long that went on.

Peter So before you joined, Greg was already making it happen. Did you go to a couple of his shows?

Gerry Honestly, I don't remember going to listen to him. I just don't remember that part.

Peter Do you remember the conversation when you were asked to join?

Gerry No. And I don't recall how I felt before I was asked, either — whether I wanted in. If I had to guess, I'd say yes, obviously, since I joined. But I just don't remember that part.

Part Two — Learning to Sing, and the Musicians Who Carried It

Peter So you joined, and you were harmony.

Gerry Yeah, I usually had the high harmony. Not every song required it, but a lot of songs in the late '60s had two- and three-part harmony — and backup singing too, not just harmony, but backup parts.

Peter You and Greg grew up listening to the Beatles and the other big bands of the time, singing along at the record player.

Gerry Oh yeah, we did that a lot — that's how we learned to sing harmony, singing along. That would've been around '63, '64, because we didn't have any musical training.

Peter So at that time you didn't play an instrument?

Gerry Not exactly. Greg and I both learned some chords on the piano — we had a piano in the house, and we were both self-taught. We just knew basic chords, and a little bit of music theory, but we never took lessons. That came in handy for harmonies. I think on one or two songs I played a little keyboard bass on Jim Smedow's Farfisa organ — the little bit of piano I knew helped with that. I didn't learn guitar until a couple of years after that.

Peter Do you recall whether the other band members — the musicians — learned traditionally?

Gerry Most of them had lessons, if not all of them. They understood basic theory. So when the band was at the Cage in the daytime, trying to learn new radio songs off 45s, it really came down to the musicians to do a lot of the heavy lifting, to decipher the songs. Whereas Greg and I were focused more on the vocals. Joe Nemanich was very good at figuring out the chords that went with each of these songs. Greg was pretty good at it too, but I remember Joe was very good at it.

Peter Tell me more about Joe.

Gerry He was a very good rhythm guitarist, and later he became a lead guitarist, and he got better as the years went by. Like I said, he never sang — he never even seemed to want to sing. Very low-key. He just stood in the background and played. No show-off at all.

Peter But he had guitar solos, right?

Gerry When he played lead, yes. But when he and I both got in the band, he was the rhythm guitarist. Dave Abraham was the lead guitarist. That was somewhat short-lived, though.

Part Three — The Coup and the New Name

Peter How long after you joined did Dave Abraham leave?

Gerry Probably a year or so after I got in. Joe and I got in September of '67, and it was well into '68 when we finally decided he needed to go. Then Joe became the lead guitarist.

Peter Why did Dave need to go?

Gerry Because he'd mess around too much at rehearsals. And Greg reminded me of something I'd forgotten — that sometimes, even during a song, while we were playing and people were listening and dancing, it would come to Dave's solo and he'd prolong it. It was maybe supposed to be thirty seconds or a minute, and he wouldn't stop. He just kept playing the solo, kept playing it. Finally he'd play a little guitar riff that clued the rest of us in that we were going back into the song. He'd be like torturing us — we're watching him, "Come on, Dave, get back into the song" — and he'd just be laughing while he played his little solo over and over.

But I remember his shenanigans at rehearsals more than anything. What I remember most is that we were trying to learn a Bee Gees song — this is before the Bee Gees were disco — a very pretty love song, a slow ballad. We're trying to learn it, and Dave's over there playing "Foxy Lady" by Jimi Hendrix. We're saying, "Come on, Dave, we're trying to learn this slow song," and he'd just laugh and keep messing around. That went on long enough that the rest of us finally said, "This is it, Dave, we're done. We don't want you in the band anymore."

And here's another thing I recently remembered from us talking about it. He argued with us — "Okay, I'm out of the band, but I'm taking the name, the Grapes of Wrath. It's my name." Now, I honestly don't know if it was his to take, but we actually got the musicians' union involved. We went to at least one meeting, and the union sided with Dave. They said, "You guys can no longer use that name — it belongs to Dave Abraham." So we had to come up with a new name. And as everyone knows, that new name was Kindred Spirit.

Peter How'd you come across that name?

Gerry That's a good story in itself. By this time the Grapes of Wrath were very popular around the Johnstown area, so we had a little contest that offered a cash prize to whoever named the band. I remember one day we were at my house — Greg was there, my parents were there, and there was a small crowd of people throwing out all these different names. My father was here, and he was thinking, "You guys are never going to come up with a name." So he started spitting out names, walking around the dining room, looking around the house: "Why don't you call yourself the Windows? Why not the Floors, or the Lamps, or the Chairs? Hey, how about the Doors?" And I said, "Dad —" He didn't know there was a famous band called the Doors. I always thought that was funny.

But it was actually my mother, Carmela Falvo, who thought of the name Kindred Spirit. I don't even remember if we gave her the prize money — and according to Greg, we did not. Mom, we still owe you that money.

Peter Did you happen to play any of the Doors' songs?

Gerry I'm not sure we did "Light My Fire" — that was their first, and a giant hit, of course — but we used to do one called "Touch Me." Other than that, off the top of my head, I can't recall.

Part Four — John Galiote Joins, and Life at the Cage

Peter So now you've got the new name, Kindred Spirit, and you're moving on from Dave. What happens next?

Gerry Well, that's when John Galiote joined the band.

Peter Right — because you needed a new lead guitar.

Gerry No, Joe got promoted to lead guitar. John came in as rhythm guitar, and he was very good — a very good rhythm guitarist — and he sang, too. He was an asset.

Peter How was John recruited?

Gerry That's one thing I don't know. I don't know who knew John and asked him to join. He was a year or so younger than me. I didn't know if he went to Johnstown High — he may have gone to Bishop McCort, I don't recall. I didn't know him before he joined the band. And I don't remember much about him from then, because the two of us weren't in the band together long. In June of '69 I got drafted and left, so I personally don't remember playing with John all that much.

Peter Do you remember what month Dave was ousted?

Gerry No, I do not. But it was somewhere in '68 or early '69 — not '67 — because I left the band in June of '69, and at that time John was in the band. We were all friends. I can remember being at the Cage rehearsing — the people who owned the Cage let us rehearse up there, which was very convenient — and I remember being there with John at rehearsals.

Peter So you played the Cage. Did you play the Teen Canteen?

Gerry I never played the canteen. The band probably did before I got in. But we played other venues — lots of high schools, proms, post-proms around the area. We played in Carrolltown, and probably in or near Evensburg.

Peter What was the crowd response like at those other venues? Did they know who you were?

Gerry Oh, yeah, they always liked us. But we didn't like a lot of the places, because many times it was in a gymnasium, and the sound just doesn't sound good in a gym — it reverberates. We never liked that. But that's the way it was. I remember playing the Masonic Temple a couple of times, too. I believe that was a radio show, broadcast live over one of the AM stations — probably WCRO — down in Hornerstown, or Moxham, whatever that part's called. Greg was telling me the other day that he recorded that set a long time ago, somehow, back at the house. He wasn't even sure how it happened, and I don't think he has the recording anymore. He said it didn't sound good.

Peter Describe a gig day for the band. Did you rehearse in the daytime?

Gerry No, no, we didn't do that. When it came time to go, we just got our gear and went. But I'll tell you what I do remember about the early days of playing the Cage. Back then the Cage wasn't very big at all, and it had a stage about a foot and a half off the dance floor. The Continentals were the big band there then. When we started getting better, there were certain nights we'd play a set while the Continentals had the whole evening. They actually built a really dinky little stage off to the side, only a few inches off the floor, and it was so cramped. We hated it, but we had no choice. Then eventually — I don't know if the Continentals broke up or just didn't play there much anymore — Kindred Spirit took over the Cage. There was a time we were playing there four nights a week. That was really nice.

Peter How much would you get paid?

Gerry Dirt. I don't even remember, Peter, but I know it wasn't much. Peanuts. I think we used to quibble about it, always thinking we were underpaid.

Peter Would you get a meal?

Gerry No, they didn't serve food — just a little snack bar with pizza, chips, soda, things like that. No alcohol; the Cage served no alcohol. When you walked in, there was a little window, a hole cut in the wall. Carm Trovato — the Trovato family owned it — sold you in. There were no tickets. You gave them a quarter or fifty cents, whatever it cost, got a stamp on the back of your hand, and went in.

Peter Help me understand the money. What was a quarter or fifty cents worth then?

Gerry Let's see. A pack of cigarettes was twenty-seven, thirty cents. A gallon of gas was about a quarter, thirty-five cents.

Peter So in today's money, that's four or five bucks a head — and hundreds of people would go in?

Gerry Hundreds sometimes. Later they almost doubled the size of the place — built an extension onto it. And I remember on holidays, when kids were home from college and high-school kids were off school, it would pack out so heavily that when Greg would call a ten-minute break, I'd look at the crowd and think, "I'm not even going to try to fight through that to get a Coke." I'd just stay on the stage.

Peter Did you have anybody helping you out?

Gerry Not serving us. But the Cage put in some special lights, and a couple of times there were young guys who'd help us out — light men. They'd turn the colored lights on and off to make it more interesting while we played. One guy's name was Charlie Lee, and the other was Kurt James. They helped us lug the equipment around, too. Both very helpful.

Peter Tell me about lugging equipment.

Gerry Hard work. I can hardly believe the stuff I used to lift. Speaker cabinets. And after Jim Smedow stopped playing the Farfisa organ, he advanced to what a lot of the major groups were using — a Hammond B-3 organ. Great sound, but it's the kind of organ you'd have in a church or a house. We had special dollies, and we'd lift this thing up onto the truck or the van — sometimes you had to carry it up and down steps. That was rough work. Of course, we were all young then, so we could do it. But at the Cage, you could leave almost everything there, unless you were playing somewhere else the next day.

Peter Did you help Greg with any of the bookings?

Gerry No, Greg did all of that. No one else did. And how did he do it? Just from the house phone. I can still see him sitting right here — I'm in the house now that we lived in back then — at this little telephone table we had. Back then it was just a dial phone with a wire, a landline. He'd sit there with a pen and a pad, making all these calls to get all these bookings. He was good at it. I suppose that served him well in his next profession — car salesman. That's the only job he ever had after he finally quit playing in bands. He worked briefly at a Volkswagen dealer downtown by the Point Stadium, then moved to Toyota and sold Toyotas the rest of his career. Of course, everybody in the family drove Toyotas.

Part Five — The Draft and the Marines (1969)

Peter So you stay in the band until you get drafted. You obviously wanted to stay.

Gerry Yeah. And I was really sad when somebody wrote me a letter and said the band went up to New York City to record "Under My Thumb." Of course, I would have been on it, but I was in boot camp.

Peter When you got that letter, where were you?

Gerry Boot camp — Parris Island, South Carolina. Marine Corps. I thought I was going to go to Vietnam, but fortunately that never happened; I didn't have to go. That's all I really want to say about that. Two years, draftee.

Peter Did anybody in the service recognize your band?

Gerry Yeah, there were a few guys I got drafted with who were from Johnstown, so they knew me, at least briefly — and of course they knew Kindred Spirit. All the young people around here knew Kindred Spirit. Anybody who listened to live music in the area had to know Kindred Spirit.

Peter During your service, when you came home on leave, did you go see the band?

Gerry Of course. I always went to the Cage. In fact, at least once, maybe more, Greg called me up to the stage and let me sing a song while they played. That was kind of neat. I think it was "I'm a Man" by the Yardbirds.

But here's what happened. The whole time I was in the service, I stayed in touch with my good friend Joe Nemanich, the lead guitar player — and he actually taught me to play guitar through the mail. I did it mostly because there was no piano around for me to work out chords on. So I went to the PX and bought a nylon-string guitar, knowing it was going to hurt my fingers, and started to play. Joe, through the mail, taught me different chords and a basic little blues scale for lead. Eventually I bought a really cheap, junky electric guitar at the PX and kept learning.

Then, right before I got out, Joe wrote and told me he'd left Kindred Spirit to start a new band with some other guys in town, and asked if I wanted to join — because there was no room for me in Kindred Spirit anymore. By then Greg had turned Kindred Spirit into a horn band, sort of like Chicago, and there was no room for me, which was fine. Joe said, "You want to be in this new band?" And of course I said yes.

Part Six — Coming Home, and the Second Kindred Spirit (1971–1972)

Gerry I'll never forget — the literal day after I got out of the service, we were rehearsing with this new band. It was summer, June of '71. We had no name yet. We were just rehearsing, learning songs. We had two other guys who just sang. I came in as singer and rhythm guitar, with Joe on lead, and these two other guys — so we had at least three singers. We were going to learn some Crosby, Stills & Nash, Beatles, that kind of thing. And we started to.

But before we ever went out and played anywhere, Greg got tired of the horn band, and Kindred Spirit dissolved. He said, "Gerry, I want you, Joe, and a new guy I just met, John Falcho, who just sang — I want you three to come and join Kindred Spirit." So we did, and that dissolved the new band we were just starting. I don't know where those other guys went. John Falcho was a really fun guy, a great guy, and a good singer — he also played flute, and we worked that into some of the songs.

Peter But you still played rhythm guitar?

Gerry Yeah, I played rhythm guitar. On one song I played a little bit of a part on the Beatles' "Let It Be" — on piano — that I always messed up. Finally they just had Jim play it. I don't know why; I just never played it right. I guess I didn't try very hard to learn it.

Anyway, I enjoyed playing rhythm guitar. And Joe Nemanich, being a very experienced guitarist, took me to Music Haven — first he got me to buy a really good Fender Twin Reverb amp, and then a nice guitar, because what I had was just that junk electric from the PX. He pointed me to a Gibson SG, which I had for a number of years. Of course, all of us were always buying and selling gear — amps, guitars. I can't even tell you how many guitars I had over the years; at least twenty, maybe more. I lost track. But Joe was a big help to me in playing guitar.

Peter Was it ever a challenge to play rhythm and sing at the same time?

Gerry No, I got onto that really quickly — probably because I already knew how to sing. I think it would be harder to play bass and sing, or lead and sing. Plenty of people are really good at that, but I never had a problem with rhythm and singing.

Peter So you stick with the band from '71 —

Gerry Yeah, but not very long, honestly. After a year or so, I was just losing interest in being in a band. One of the key factors was that we played and rehearsed a lot — every day, usually loud, hard rock at band volume. Then a friend of mine, Barry Robson, had to drive his mom and his aunt down to Florida to visit relatives, and he said, "Gerry, I don't want to be stuck in a car with my aunt and my mother — will you come with me?" I didn't have a job at the time, other than the band, if you could call it a job. So I said okay. Greg said, "Make sure you're back by Friday, we've got to play." I said, "Okay, Greg, I'll be back."

We went down to the Jacksonville area for a short week — first time I was ever in Florida. And the thing that struck me most was the absence of all that loud rock music every day. I kind of liked it. While I was there, I bought an acoustic guitar. It wasn't very good, but I brought it back and started playing more acoustic. Around then, some friends of ours in town, Fran and Donna Pyro — Donna had learned to play some chords, and somehow she knew fingerstyle, and she taught me fingerstyle. I absolutely loved it. And I thought, you know, I don't even want to be in the band anymore. So I told Greg I was leaving. I believe it was the early or middle part of the summer of '72.

Peter Now — you wanted to tell the "one, two, I'm the leader" story.

Gerry Right. During my last few weeks in the band, I wasn't learning any new songs, obviously, because I was leaving. So one day we were playing over at a Holiday Inn in Ligonier — beautiful summer night — and Greg says, "Okay, Jer, we're going to do one of the new songs." I said okay. Well, I smoked cigarettes back then, so I went outside to sit on a bench and have one. It was a nice night, and the door was open right by where the band was set up, so I could hear them talking. They were arguing about what song to do, or how to do it. And when they finally settled and started to play, Greg counted it off the way he always did: "One, two, I'm the leader." Then they played the song, and I was standing outside just laughing to myself, thinking, "I'm not going to miss that — the little stupid arguments." Years later I told that story to Greg, and he said he didn't even remember doing it. Maybe he's trying to block it out. "One, two, I'm the leader." I'll never forget it.

And that was it — the last time I really played in any band. Not long after, I started playing Christian music, and I sang around town in churches and places like that, but I never played in a rock band again, in bars.

Part Seven — The Reunions and Final Reflections

Gerry Well — let me say this, though. In 1998, when Kindred Spirit and other bands started doing all those reunion concerts in town, I flew up from Florida twice to do it with Kindred Spirit, in '98 and 2000. The only other thing close to that is that while I was in Florida, there was a Barnes & Noble bookstore that had people perform in the little café corner — sometimes for free, sometimes for a couple of bucks. I'd sing a few songs of my own that I'd written, or some folk songs. I did that once or twice. In fact, you, Peter, helped me set up one time. I don't know if you remember that.

Peter When you did the reunions, you were living in Florida, so you flew up. Did you get to practice with the band?

Gerry I think we had at least one practice, maybe two. What happened was Greg would mail me a tape or a CD, and I'd learn the songs on my own — the singing parts and the rhythm guitar. Then when I came up, we'd have a rehearsal. Gary Frank's father owned a little club called This Is It, and that's where we rehearsed. Both engagements were at the War Memorial Arena in downtown Johnstown. I enjoyed it, and I think a lot of the people who took part — and a lot of the fans who came — enjoyed it too.

Peter What was the fan reception like at the reunions?

Gerry Very warm and friendly. Most of those people were our age or a bit younger. It was always a big crowd, which was really nice. And I got to catch up with old friends I hadn't seen in a long time — the band members too, since I wasn't in touch much while I lived out of state. It was nice seeing them all.

I remember, back when I was in the band before I was drafted, we did the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," and I got to sing lead on that. It was really nice that at the two reunion concerts they let me do it again. That was fun.

Peter Any final thoughts or reflections on your experience with Kindred Spirit?

Gerry I enjoyed it. When I think about it, 1968 was a fun year for me, because all I did the whole year was play — in the Grapes of Wrath, or Kindred Spirit, whenever the transition was; I don't recall exactly.

One of my fondest memories, even from when Dave Abraham was in the band, is when we did the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends." We let Dave sing lead, because that song has two-part harmony backup, which Greg and I did. Dave didn't play guitar on that one — he let the other guys do the music — and I can still see him standing on the stage. If the mic was on a stand, he was forever looking to the left and to the right, not singing into it, and we're forever telling him, "Dave — in the mic, in the mic." He'd be laughing; he seemed a little nervous, too. But he did an okay job on it. And of course Greg and I loved doing that, the Lennon–McCartney backup harmony.

I can't really say there were songs I never liked doing. There may have been, but I don't recall any. All in all, it was a pretty fun experience. Then, like I said, I went into the service, came out, and I was only about twenty-two when I stopped playing altogether. I just lost interest. But I have fond memories of it, and we were all friends — that part was nice.

And now the final part is, we're here making a website about it — which my son, Peter, built. We're all excited about it. I think it's going to be really nice. A lot of friends and fans can reminisce when they see the site, and who knows what stories they'll come up with — memories of us playing at the Cage and the other places around the area. It'll be good.

Peter I'm trying to create a fan portal on the website, so they can share in an open kind of way. But that's really all we need to talk about today. Thank you.

[End of session.]

Part One — A Lifetime of Bands, Before Kindred Spirit

Peter All right, we're here with John Galiote, former band member of Kindred Spirit. Good evening, John.

John Good evening, Peter.

Peter You were in Kindred Spirit, but before that — tell me your music history.

John It goes way back to about 7th and 8th grade. I had a band called the Fairlanes, and that band turned into — later, in high school — a band called the Echoes. After the Echoes, I was in a band called the Attraction and Company, and then a band called Purple Glass. Purple Glass was the last band I was in before Kindred Spirit. Then I graduated from high school, and I was out about a month or two, thinking about going to college, when Greg called me up and said, "Hey, John, would you like to come up to the Cage? We can interview you for a possibility of joining our band." Kindred Spirit was really hot, and I thought, "You know what, I think I'll put college off and do this." So I went up, auditioned, and got the job right away.

I played with Kindred Spirit for almost two years. Then I left, went to college, and became a teacher — a teacher of the hearing impaired, actually, and I did that for thirty years. And then in 1991, Greg called me up and, like the Blues Brothers, said, "Hey, John, we're getting the band back together. Are you in?" And I said, "Sure, I'm in." So we did. We played our first gig at the War Memorial for spinal cord injuries, and it was a success. After that we did a show at Ace's, and that went well, and then one or two more War Memorial benefit shows.

I'll never forget that first show at the War Memorial in '91 — I'm pretty sure we had close to 1,800 people show up. It did really well financially for spinal cord injuries. And we had a lot of fun.

Peter Let's go back a bit. How old were you when you joined the band?

John Eighteen. Right out of high school — the summer after I graduated.

Peter And which high school?

John Bishop McCort.

Peter So how did you know Greg?

John I didn't. I never actually knew any of the guys in Kindred Spirit — well, they were the Grapes of Wrath. Although I knew about them, because I was playing. I always tell Greg this story: the Grapes of Wrath were in a Battle of the Bands at the War Memorial — this was, I believe, when I was in 11th or 12th grade — and at that time I was in the Attraction and Company. We were actually one of the bands in competition with the Grapes of Wrath. And the Grapes of Wrath won. The reason they won is because they did "Under My Thumb" — well, among other reasons; they were a good band, of course. But I'll never forget the kids all jumping up and down when they played "Under My Thumb." The Attraction and Company was a good band too, but the Grapes of Wrath were so popular that they took the prize.

Peter So when you lost to the Grapes of Wrath, were you thinking, "Maybe I'll join that band"? Or revenge and retribution?

John No, not at all. I had no idea they'd ever call me. I was just thinking, "Yeah, they're pretty good." I enjoyed being in competition with them. But the Attraction and Company was a great band — a soul band. We had some really good musicians, some fabulous singers. It was well put together. A guy named Carl Hasselrig put the band together for us.

Peter This Battle of the Bands — that's around '68?

John That would be '68, yeah. Pretty sure around '68. I didn't join Kindred Spirit until a little later.

Right after high school I played with Purple Glass, and from Purple Glass I went to Kindred Spirit. Purple Glass is a bit of a blur — I forget how many months I was in it, or how long it was even together. But it was a move from Purple Glass to Kindred Spirit. The funny thing about Purple Glass is that it was a little bit of a mess. If I remember correctly, I was the lead singer in Purple Glass, along with John Garshnick — his stage name was Poncho — who later became a singer and horn player in Kindred Spirit.

Peter His name has come up quite a bit. Poncho.

John Poncho became quite a good musician. He's really, really good — he has a couple of his own CDs, and I think he was involved in a radio talk show out in Boston somewhere, where he introduced his music over the air many times. He was in Kindred Spirit when I was off at college, so I never really got to hear the band after I left. I hardly ever got back home for a good two, almost three years — I'd come in once in a while, but not often.

Part Two — Growing Up Playing

Peter Let's slow down. You played with the Attraction and Company until when?

John I think I was about in 10th grade.

Peter How did you play in a band in 10th grade? How did your parents allow it?

John My parents were very encouraging about my music. We spent a lot of time in my basement with bands, practicing, and my mom and dad enjoyed it.

Peter So this goes back to your childhood — you were playing music at a very early age.

John Yeah. I actually started playing guitar down the street. We had a barber — his name was Bill Lent — who was in a pretty good country band. In fact, the lead fiddle player, Shorty Eicher, won the best-fiddle-player award for the state of Pennsylvania. The barber taught me to play guitar; I'd go into his shop between customers. You've got to realize, this is around 1957, '58. We didn't have phones, we didn't have computers — we had nothing, just a few toys, and I had a guitar. So I'd go in there and he'd teach me chords, and I'd play. They invited me to sit in with the band, so I was playing with this country band every once in a while when I was about eight or nine years old.

Peter On a children's guitar?

John No, it was a Kay acoustic — a pretty nice guitar, actually, for the time. By today's standards it wasn't that great, but it was nice.

Peter So your parents saw you had talent and let you do your thing.

John Yeah, they did. My dad was a chaperone. When we played — and I played in a lot of bars in high school, of course, being underage — my dad would come, or we'd have other parents chaperone. That's how we did it. And it was interesting: I'd bring home the money, like it was a job.

Peter What were you getting paid on those gigs?

John Not much. But by today's standards you'd say, "Oh, wow."

Peter So by the time you joined Kindred Spirit in '68 —

John More like '69. About half and half, '68 into '69. By that time I'd had — well, since I was a kid — at least ten years of playing in a band.

Part Three — The Audition at the Cage

Peter So you didn't go to school with Greg. How did you meet him?

John I never really met him. He called me up. He found me — I never asked him how. One of these days I'm going to ask him. I guess it was word of mouth: people saying, "Hey, there's this guy named John Galiote, look him up, see what you think."

Peter Say the name for me.

John Galiote. And that was one of those name changes that we didn't make — my dad didn't do it, his dad did. When they came over to this country, the family didn't know how to read or write, and the officials said, "Well, make it Galiote." So that's what happened. It's not the only name that's happened to.

Peter So he calls you up. What does he say?

John He said, "Would you like to try out for Kindred Spirit?" And I said, "Yeah, sure."

Peter Wait — there was a tryout?

John Yeah, there was a tryout. It wasn't that they didn't think I was capable — they just wanted to make sure I could play. And a really neat thing about it is that Joe Nemanich — a fabulous guitar player — played lead, and I played rhythm. One of the best compliments I ever got was Joe saying, "You could back me up anytime." He had two Rickenbackers; I played Joe's six-string Rickenbacker, and he played the twelve-string. So I not only got to join the band, I got to play a Rickenbacker. That's me in the photo you see on the website, with Joe's six-string Rickenbacker. And by the way, Joe Turpak — a fabulous guitar player here in Johnstown, in Three of Hearts — has that guitar now. One of these days I've got to get him to let me play it, because I still play out.

Peter So you go for the tryout — do you remember it?

John I remember going up to the Cage, where we practiced. Kindred Spirit played every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the Cage, because we were the house band, and we'd practice one or two other days a week, so we were always up there. I brought my guitar — I had a really nice one, a '65 Jazzmaster — and Joe Nemanich said, "Yeah, that's all right, but I want you to play the Rickenbacker." So I did.

Peter Did they take you right away?

John Greg called and said, "We want you." Then I went to Joe's house and we went through all the songs. I was young, and I could remember them all — now I need everything in front of me. Some of them I already knew, because they were popular on the radio at the time, but I had to learn them all, and I learned them rather quickly. It was great. Within a week or two, I was playing gigs.

Peter What was it like playing at the Cage?

John Very enjoyable. It was always packed. It was neat, because kids would be trying to get in, and I could just walk in — full access, didn't get carded or anything. It was fun. I enjoyed every job up there, and we played a lot of jobs. I always talk about the night we did four or five jobs. You'd say, "How's that possible?" Well, we played an afternoon wedding, then a dance up at Richland Middle School, then we went to the Cage and played our house-band job, and then a post-prom — we played from about one to 3:30 or four in the morning. I'll never forget everybody ending up sitting on benches, or whatever we could find, at the end. Exhausted.

Peter How much do you think you made on a four-gig day?

John Not much. We only started making some money after the record came out — then we raised our price.

Part Four — The New York Recording (1969)

Peter You came into the band while Gerry was still there, right?

John Yes, I was in the band with Gerry. He left in the summer of '69 for the Marines, and I'd joined earlier that year, so there was a little overlap. At that time he was doing high harmony, and I was on rhythm guitar.

Peter Did you do vocals too?

John Yes, I did vocals. Gerry and I did the backup vocals. I was never a lead singer in Kindred Spirit — you had Greg there, and he sang lead.

Peter So after Gerry left, with the help of John George at George's record store, who funded it, you recorded — in '69?

John Correct. We got the opportunity to make a record. We went to New York. I remember them picking me up in the van — John George picked me up, it was like four o'clock in the morning — and we drove to New York and got to the studio. It was very interesting, because here we are from a small town, going to a major studio in New York. One thing that surprised me was that they had to put the drummer in his own little room — so there's Tom McCullough over there in his little room. They set us up, and they had the big reel-to-reels. It was very interesting.

One of the funniest things about that session: there was a band called Spirit — the band that did "I Got a Line on You," the actual band that wrote and performed it — and they were on the marquee, and we were Kindred Spirit, recording "Under My Thumb." When we were leaving that day, people thought we were Spirit and wanted autographs. We're thinking, "What's going on here? Who knows Kindred Spirit?" We said, "No, no, we're Kindred Spirit." "What do you mean? You're Spirit." "No, no." "You said you're Spirit." "Yeah, we said you're Spirit."

Peter Do you remember the name of the studio?

John No. I know it was on Broadway. It was the first time I'd ever been to New York City. We were there just that day, for the recording. When they were mixing, Greg stayed to do the mix, and the rest of us took off and started walking around New York. We went into a taping of The Price Is Right — it was me, Jimmy Smedow, and Joey Nemanich, and I don't know if Tom was with us or not. This was the host before Bob Barker — neither of us can remember his name. He was doing the show, and we were like, "Yeah, okay." It was cool. We just went in and looked; we didn't get in the seats. Then we went back to the studio, and they said, "That was a take. You're good." And John George said, "Get in the van, we're not staying for a hotel." So we got home, and the record came out a couple of weeks or a month later. Everyone's all excited when you hear it on the radio. It's a pretty neat thing.

Peter How far did the record spread?

John It was played mostly locally — Johnstown, Altoona — but I know it was big in Savannah, Georgia, for some reason, and it got big in a couple of other areas and states. We didn't have the money to really go and promote it. After that, we played more jobs and got more money.

Part Five — Leaving, and a Career

Peter How did it play out when you decided to leave?

John I didn't leave because I really wanted to. I just thought, "It's almost two years, and I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, and I'm not sure being in the band is going to cut it." So I went off to college. I'll never forget — when I first met my wife, who I've been married to for 51 years come this September — when we were in college, we'd go hear a band, and I'd tell her, "I was in a pretty good band." And she'd say, "Oh, really?" — like I'd just been in some mediocre band. I guess she pictured me playing "Kumbaya" by the fireside. But then in 1991, when we played the War Memorial and she heard the band for the first time, she got pretty excited and said, "Oh, now I know what you mean." It was a good band.

Peter So you only stayed for the one recording — "Under My Thumb" and "Blue Avenue."

John Yeah. "Peaceful Man" was next, and I wasn't there — I was in college by then.

Peter How did that play out when you decided to leave?

John They were thinking of transitioning into more of a Chicago-style horn band. They made a quick transition, and that's where Poncho came in. Like I said, I never really saw them play again. When I was in school, I always thought to myself, "Gee, I hope those guys don't make it" — but I really didn't mean it, because in my heart I'd want them to make it. I'd think, "Dang gone it, that could've been you."

Peter So you didn't have the aspirations Greg and some of the others had to be famous.

John I think the potential was there — but it's all about the breaks. What made me think about a legitimate career instead was that playing every night, into the wee hours, and sleeping till noon — it just wasn't me. I was more of a get-up-early, get-to-work, get-it-done kind of guy. Even if you don't make it big, there are guys who make a decent living at it, but they're out every night. And then there's the starving musician. At that time, most kids graduating from high school would go directly to college or something like that.

Part Six — The Reunions (1991 and On)

Peter So after you leave, you get your degree, get married, have children. Then in '91 you get called back.

John Yeah, from Greg. "Hey, John, let's get the band back together." I didn't think about it long. I'd been in the Johnstown area the whole time, so I said sure, right away.

Peter I know Greg wasn't too fond of the first show's performance, and he's told me that fueled him to do a second show quickly, to improve the band's legacy.

John We had a little trouble on that first show, on the first song. I always kick myself, because instead of doing "Pictures of Matchstick Men" — a great song, but we had a bit of a train wreck on it — I think we should have opened with "Gimme Some Lovin'." We always started every show with "Gimme Some Lovin'," no matter where we were. That was Kindred Spirit starting the night. We wanted a big bang at the beginning — the first time Kindred Spirit had ever been back. We corrected the song and it came together, but still. On the second show we fixed it up.

Peter Then you had the '92 show at Ace's, which you self-promoted.

John Yeah, we self-promoted it, and it did well.

Peter Was there any real aspiration to push the band further, or was it just fun and a little money?

John No. It was just, "Bring the band back, because we can." We had the members. Let's do it. So we did.

Peter And as you went through the next reunions, you just said yes every time?

John Yeah. There were some changes. I know one reunion Joey didn't play lead — I played lead, and Karl and I shared lead. That was one of the War Memorial shows. Joey came up at the end and played a tune, because he was with Stillwater at the time, which was a really good band. I miss Joey, I miss Karl. Gary Frank on bass, and Paul Lanzendorfer — our bass player, who was in Kindred Spirit when I was in Kindred Spirit — Paul passed away too. I miss those guys. All really good musicians, good guys.

Peter I don't really have much else.

John No, I think we've covered it, Peter. Kindred Spirit. What I'd like to say is: I hope people enjoy the website, enjoy listening to the music, listening to our comments. Johnstown had a lot of good musicians come out of it, and a lot of good athletes — it's an area that produces some interesting people.

Peter Thanks, John.

John Okay.

A Side Story — The Night We Couldn't Play

Peter All right, go ahead and tell me the missing power-pack story.

John Okay, here's the thing. We were playing for a fraternity party out at — it may have been Penn State. I think it was Penn State, State College. Jim played a Farfisa; his keyboard was a Farfisa, and a Farfisa uses a power pack — like a lot of keyboards, you can't turn it on without it.

We had practiced in my basement, which was rare. We hardly ever practiced there; we always practiced at the Cage. I don't know if they were doing something up at the Cage or whatever, but we were at my place. So we're leaving for the job, and we pack up everything — and we leave Jim's power pack back at my house. We get out to the job, and we didn't play.

Peter How far was it?

John State College — I believe it was in State College. So we get out there, and we couldn't play, because we didn't have Jim's keyboard. And Jim played not only a lot of lead and chords on the keyboard, he was also our bass guitar player — he was left-handed and played bass until we got Paul Lanzendorfer.

Peter So you were down two instruments.

John We were down two instruments. So we said, "No, we can't play." Can you imagine? A fraternity, the whole place packed, and we're like, "Sorry, we can't do the gig." They played whatever you did back then — probably records, I don't know. It was a miserable night. It was horrible. I don't even know why we stayed, but we stuck around, and then we finally got out of there. That was a really crazy, crazy night with Kindred Spirit.

[End of session.]