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Page 3 of 5
(Contrary to popular myth, Scholz did not invent the SX-70 camera, though he knew its code name, Project Aladdin. "I didn't even like the SX-70.")
When Premier Talent, the prestigious booking agency run by Frank Barsalona, picked up Boston as clients, Scholz still could not listen to the finished album. "I hated it," he says. "Now I listen to it and I think it sounds ... pretty good. Certainly wouldn’t give it a great, though.
We get up to leave the steakhouse and, as Scholz rises to his full height, he is recognized by a young female fan. He lopes out the door in several long strides, with Cindy alongside, but the girl follows and pokes her head out the door.
"You with Boston?"
"Hmmmm ' " Scholz responds. "Yeah."
"When’s the album coming out?"
"Hmmm ... oh, soon:'
She asks for an autograph.
"Make sure it's not a bill or something," says Cindy.
"I already did" says Tom, signing.
Back at his basement studio, he explains the Boston recording process. Like Scholz, it is deceptively simple. Using a click track for drums, Scholz assembles a basic guitar/keyboard/bass track. Then Sib comes in to drum the part, Scholz assembles an arranged track, which the band then learns. They record the demo and Scholz begins overdubbing again. Perhaps it will be used. More likely it will be junked. He uses tough tape.
There are endless nuances in the system. " Now I am at the point of getting the performance down on tape," Scholz explains "The sounds are pretty much cataloged at this point...literally. That guitar you heard when you came in....." His eyes asked, how into this you want to get? Given assurances, he beams and swivels around to rummage through a sack of 3 x 3 , black & white Poloroids laying near the console.
"It's this one here." He hands over a small snap of the, I seismograph like readout of his Frequency Spectrum Analyzer. "These are my ears, to save time. Once I establish sound that I like a lot, I can repeat it pretty closely-"
Out of convenience, Scholz plays most of the guitar bass parts, making it nearly impossible to assign instrument credits on Boston albums-. In fact, the solo in "Long Time" is actually Barry Goudreau. I don't mind," Goudreau says. "I only play on three or four tracks on the album, but it's a group sound." Onstage, that's pretty obvious."
Asked how much he thinks about band politics and hurt feelings, Scholz is anxious to explain. "Everybody is open to everything. I like being in control because it's come this far that way. Not because of my ego. Let's face it, I was thirty-years old when this thing happened. I don't know if people change so much at that age. I'm in a band for the first time. It feels important to me. I don't think much about it. Except, I that I like it better than when I was at Polaroid ... and I wasn't sure on the first tour."
THE FIRST TOUR HAD TURNED INTO A. heavy make-or-break ultimatum from a respectfully skeptical music business. After a short tour of out-of-the-way clubs in the Midwest, they were placed on the 18,000-seat circuit opening for Black Sabbath, Foghat, and Jeff Beck, among others, it was not without problems. Beck, says Scholz, didn't allow them a sound check. Their equipment blew up and misfired ("Their gear," recalls one roadie who worked the tour, "wouldn't have sounded good in the shower"), an accountant lost $40,000, and in Milwaukee, a DJ introduced them as the best rock & roll band in the world. One problem-Foghat was headlining. End of Foghat tour.
But there were encores every night. In six months, they' went from $750 a night to $120,000 for two sold-out shows at Philadelphia's Spectrum Theater. They kept to themselves, mostly. "I didn't want to bother anyone. I felt like a groupie ... gee, I always wanted to meet you," says Scholz.
The lifelong dreams of most musicians with ten albums became commonplace. "Just imagine how nervous we were before Madison Square Garden" says Fran Sheehan, his mouth dropping at the memory. "And it sold out. I could barely breathe ,but once we set foot onstage, it was wild. It was like the whole stage was ready to just take off. I forgot about being nervous and had a great time."
There is another arrival at the doorway to Scholz' basement. "The whole contingent has arrived announces Fran Sheehan. In another moment all of Boston has timidly I packed into the tiny studio. Bleary-eyed and exultant, they have been with the lawyers all afternoon signing contracts that add their name to Scholz and Delp on all of the record company contracts. They are legitimate now. No more people asking if they're still in the band. "Congratulate me," Sheehan tells Scholz, "I'm hitched for life."
"And he's still smiling," says the voice of experience. "Wait till he finds out"
They break for a foosball celebration. Scholz, the retired champ, is coaxed out for one more game. Not a flashy player, he conducts his Foosball shot like his life. He painstakingly set up a sure-fire aim, then, at just the right moment, blasts the helpless wooden ball into the goal, where it pings around for several seconds. Scholz seems transported, grateful to be one of the boys again. "Tom" Sheehan is compelled to interrupt, "Norman and Joics ( the lawyers ) are right here at this moment, right now. Upstairs. They only need a half hour"
Scholz becomes like a child going to the dentist. "No" he quakes. "No-no-no-no-no Aaaaaaaagh! I'm hiding, I'm locking the door. Why can't I just be a musician?"
Cindy eventually retrieves her husband for Norman, an imposing figure who looks like Allen Ginsberg, and his equally imposing wife, Joyce. Just two in a fleet of the lawyers who've been wiping their feet on the doorstep the past year or two. Dutifully, Scholz trudges upstairs to meet them and sign several other sets of papers-the dissolution of the Ahern-McKenzie partnership, record-company re-negotiation papers. All of them, I overhear, are tied into the "lump sum" going to McKenzie as compensation.
The lawyers find a "Snag," naturally, and while they pounce on the phone for a slew of late-night calls ordering new contracts, Scholz slips back downstairs. Trying to say goodbye, I stumble across a definitive picture. Not unlike Brian Wilson writing some desperate surf classic from his room, here is Tom Scholz in his dark basement, back turned again and immersed in capturing two seconds of a screeching guitar solo that will soon sound in the cars of millions of cruising teenagers.
THEY GREW UP ON THAT FIRST TOUR that's when it happened," a longtime local tells me in Fran Sheehan's kitchen one day. "They got back from playing on the road to find all their new houses and shit ... but it was weird. McKenzie must have disappeared and never called them. He lived in town, too. He had it all, a friendship with Tom, the respect of the band, he had the ball ... and he just stood there with it. So this band got tired of managing, their manager. They learned to take care of themselves.
When asked to comment, McKenzie replies-. "When we finished the tour the guys went off in their own direction and bought cars and houses and videotape players-toys. Tom went immediately to work on reconverting a house he bought into the new studio. I felt I did drop out of the picture, knew what was going on. I think certain people misread that as a lack of interest on my part. I was always reachable."
Through everything, the album kept selling, racking up sales figures like the Old Chicago pinball machine Sib is thrashing around in the next room. The tilt mechanism has been long since deadened, so Hashian literally picks the machine up to guide his ball.
"Fireaway,"he addresses me." I used to use Brylocreem ... !" Ahern picks up a guitar and begins to play some blues. Sib wails along-
I just wanna tell you, my mama worked ... my father left home at three...my brother was scrubbing floors...anything he could do for me, so I could play drums at night. My sister didn't get braces so I could play drums. My family never used could buy condiments so I could buy brushes and sticks. What is Mayonnaise?
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