the Martian Entropy Band

It was definitely March tenth. 1974, if recall correctly.  

the Infamous Michigan Theatre gig (fiasco) put on by our "Manager" Dick Reed. Lots of money was spent putting on the gig, and about 40 people showed up. It was exciting during the preparation phase! We did have a recording of it, as well. Don't know where the recording has gotten off to.

I have the poster from that gig somewhere in my attic, one day soon I will dig it out, scan it, and post it here.

 h.

For me that gig was the final injustice.  Dick Reed, if that was really his name, was just slick enough to fool us youngsters into thinking he was genuine.  I don't remember ever agreeing that he would be our manager, but he came across as quite intent on putting together what he represented as a really big show.  I remember at least one band from Chicago (was that Skafish and the Denizens?) in the lineup.  We worked hard to put on our best performance, and I (at least) never noticed that there was practically NO promotion of the event around town or in the media.  When the gig came, there were so few people in the theater it looked *really* empty, and old Dick Reed was nowhere to be found.  We couldn't figure out at first what was going on.  Where was the crowd?  It never showed up.  Somehow I got the impression old Dick had found a way to get some cash out of the deal and was long gone, out of town, before the event even started.  We never saw him again.

The bands and their roadies were hugely frustrated.  We were perplexed at first, and then furious when we realized how badly we had been played.  I heard that a couple of the roadies took some of their frustration out on each other out in the alley, and I know our main roadie, Tom Flook, broke a knuckle punching a brick wall.  It was one of the most discouraging moments of my life, I have to say.

I don't remember if the band ever played together again, but I don't believe we ever played another gig.  I personally had worked on making it in music, putting thousands of long hard hours into my craft, since before I played my first rock gig at 15, and I was crushed.  I'd had plenty of disappointments and let-downs in my music career before that, but this was the worst. 

After that, I took stock of my music "career", and realized I had put 40+ hours per week into music for all those years, and was doing that on top of working a 40+ hour/week day job.  I also figured out that, for all of my work in music, my net financial outcome was about minus a grand/year.  It struck me that music was a mighty expensive hobby, especially in time invested, and I could probably find something I could better control, and that would be more fun and provide more personal growth. I dropped music for electronics, adding ham radio a few years later, and found myself with a lot more discretionary time and a real, steady, paying career before long.  I still jammed at parties,sporadically, over the ensuing years, but it was a long time (including nearly 13 years of marriage, 2 daughters, and a nasty divorce) before I began to think about playing music very seriously again.  It had to come back, though ... and now ... I'm the Mandolin Maniac!   Who woulda thunk it?   (www.mandolinmaniac.com)

Here are my recollections of that whole thing:

One day in rehearsal at the house of madness this guy Dick Reed showed up. Having just listened to the radio interview tape (which is quite cool) I notice Mike making a comment about us needing a manager to go out and get us gigs. Who knows, maybe Dick Reed heard that on the radio and that's how he got the idea to get in touch with us. I don't have any other memory of what the connection was. But, here he was, physically a relatively tall white guy with sort of a freudian beard if I recall correctly, and glasses, and longish (beatle style) haircut. Dressed ok, casually. I remember he started everything out by telling us that he had two children that were in the custody of his divorced, estranged wife, and he desperately wanted to get them back. And to do that, he needed money. And to get the money, he would make the Martian Entropy Band a world famous band. We were like yeah, yeah, sounds great, when do we start? I don't remember if we signed any actual paperwork. But the Michigan theatre gig was Dick Reed's concoction.

 For readers that are not familiar with Ann Arbor, Michigan, there is a very large, very old movie theatre, right on campus near the University of Michigan. I believe the Michigan Theatre dates from the 1940s (or earlier). To be honest I don't know if it even still exists, too lazy to google but it is/was a beautiful old theatre. You enter through 8 glass doors after you buy your ticket from the kiosk in front. After you enter, there is a long lobby, with two double door entrances into the theatre on your left, with a large concession stand in between (I would always get the buttered popcorn, and you could also get hot dogs in those days!) On your right, is a gigantic double stairway that goes up and around to the Balcony area of the theatre, it sort of looked like the grand stairway from the movie Titanic, on steroids. Plus the sumptuous red carpet all around the entire place. The balcony area was huge as well, adorned with statuettes, and after you were upstairs (where the restrooms were) you have an option of four different entrances to the balcony, two going downwards to the front of the balcony and two going up to the very highest, farthest back area.

So this is a very large venue for a gig, I'd say it rivalled the Fillmore East. If the Michigan Theatre had been used for Music gigs by then, the results might have been a lot better. I do remember attending a live concert for British rock group the Jam there, much later, in 1982, and it was a supremely rocking scenario, packed with teenagers, and simply the best acoustics imaginable. But back in 1974 when our gig was put on, I don't believe it had EVER been used for a rock gig. So, unless I'm mistaken, in a way, we broke ground on that. At any rate the reader gets the idea, that this was a big, classy place to play in, with tremendous acoustics, and we were thrilled to be putting on a show there.

As the date approached, March 10, 1974, we practiced diligently, with Dick Reed frequently in attendance at rehearsals, cheering us on. He asked us to prepare a list of equipment we would need, and I remember we didn't skimp. On the day of the gig we made a trip to Ann Arbor Music Mart owned by Fred and John Flis. I don't know where the money came from or who paid or promised what to whom, but I do remember we had practically carte blanche to rent whatever we wanted, and I ended up getting a gigantic Leslie to run my keyboards through, it was one of those that were built in black naugahyde or something instead of the wood cabinet, with grill coverings on the speakers. And I had fun with it. In fact, my cheesy Farfisa organ actually sounded GOOD through that Leslie -- but I had never really used one before, let alone practice with one -- so it was definitely a luxury. But we picked up all the equipment we needed, and we got ready for a major rock show that day. I remember helping schlepp the rented equipment through the slushy snow in the streets to our cars.

The afternoon of the gig, we had full run of the Michigan Theatre, and someone from the theatre staff actually opened up the old theatre organ, and let me play it for about an hour. Incredible! Now that I recall the organ I'd have to say it places the theatre's age at quite a bit older, as the theatre organ was installed for use with silent movies of the time! The theatre was huge. The organ keyboard was located down front in an orchestra pit, and organ pipes were installed all around the back of the screen area as well as inside the walls going up to the balcony, from the largest of pipes to the smallest of pipettes. It was exactly the same thing you'd have in a large cathedral, with some pluses -- bells that would ring with the pipes on high notes if you activated them, among other things. I'm pretty sure all the pipes had been adjusted to provide a more blaring timbre than would have been wanted in a church scenario. This thing was a real working museum piece, and I got to play around with it for an hour or two while the roadies were setting up the equipment. My immediate impression was how difficult it would be to actually play anything seriously on this organ because there was about a one-second delay in between the time you pressed a key, and the sound was made. So it was tough to stay in any kind of rhythm -- the organist would have to sort of disconnect his internal rhythm from what was actually being played. But it was still fun... this organ had all the bells and whistles, quite literally. In fact I think that's where that expression may have come from, as it fits perfectly with this kind of old-fashioned theatre organ. Again I'm too lazy to google it right now...

So back to our story... my recollection is that there was a nice dressing room in a downstairs basement, where we waited with our guitars, practicing and preening and doing what rock musicians do before a big show. When it was time to play, we ran up the stairs to the backstage entrance, entered with spotlights, perhaps even roadies with flashlights guiding our steps through the smoke-machine generated haze which was being cut by Wayne's lasers. Of course, we started with our trademark "Cheese - the First Frontier!" opening, and when the smoked cleared there were about 27 people in the audience, mainly our core followers. Our following was actually much larger than that, but because Dick Reed could only get the Michigan Theatre on a Tuesday night, and it happened to be a cold slushy Michigan March Tuesday night, most of our people were at home readying for work the next morning. Add that to the fact that apparently the promotion for the event was either non-existent or very badly mismanaged, and you know why the turnout was so poor. I do have an old poster somewhere, so there was some promotion attempted, but, sadly, it had failed to generate much attendance.

I really didn't realise the extent of the bitterness among other members of the group that was caused by this fiasco. I know I was disappointed. I think Tim is probably right, it was a turning point for the group. That's probably why we weren't in the Ozone Parade the next year, and only me and Mike were in it (as I detailed in this article). By then you "older" guys in the group were probably getting to your 23rd or 24th years while I was like 18, and certainly one reaches a different perspective on life at those ages. I think my perspective was that I really wanted to push the limit musically, which is why I thought we should get another bass player. I kind of regret being that way now, because as I listen to these tapes I hear Mike playing, and it sounds just fine, in fact it belongs, and it warms my heart to hear it and know that it's Mike. I think that's why I've said, the music that was in my head was much better than the music that was coming out of my fingers, and unfortunately I applied that to others around me. Now at age 51 I absolutely cherish the work that Mike did and I say hey, one should be proud of what we had, and I wish I'd been more concious of all of that then. But then, that's life, isn't it. Once changes one's perspective when life's milestones are reached. I would also add, so the reader absolutely knows, that Mike did so much more than just play bass. He fronted the band, he sang his ass off, he fulfilled the role of MC, or ringmaster, and -- if I remember correctly he originated the whole concept for the band in the first place. And, I might add, he was the inventor and supervisor of the light show, which was like our "better half" so to speak LOL! So moving to add another bass player was in some ways more about taking some pressure off everyone. I still wish I could relive that, and just focus on the band as it was. Oh well. good times, dudes

 I'd forgotten about Tom Flook punching the wall! I think every man goes through a phase in his life where he thinks his anger has enough momentum to crash through a wall. I know I did! In fact I can't think of anyone I know who hasn't done something like that. Sorry it had to be about the Michigan Theatre gig. I do think we all probably reacted in frustration, in our own ways.

And what happened to Dick Reed? My understanding was that he had obligated himself to pay for the theatre, the equipment rentals, what meager publicity there was (I have an actual poster from this event somewhere that I will dig out) and whatever else, dinner for the band at Burger King, whatever. But we never saw him again, after that night at the Michigan Theatre. So what I thought had happened was that he was just completely naive, got some weird idea that he'd make a mint off the Martian Entropy Band, but instead, ended up deeply in debt, and could not save face (or anything else) so he just took off, never to be seen again. I had never factored in any sort of wrong-doing on his part other than fatal mis-management. But then, I really wasn't paying any attention to the business, as I said, what got paid to whom for what and when, was outside of my purview so I have no idea if he absconded with anyone's funds, or not

that's my story :)

H.

Oh yeah, I remembered something else. I'd sort of quit school to do that gig, or to throw my lot in completely with the whole idea of making it big in professional music as opposed to academic music. (I'd been a composition major at the University of Michigan School of Music). So after this gig turned out to be such an ill-conceived affair, I think we all started re-assessing what we were doing. I know that right around then I probably just started saying hey, now that I quit school for this sh*t, I better make sure I'm doing something. So I started taking outside gigs. One of the next gigs I got was this Michigan road gig with Roger C. Miller where he played bass and I played keyboards. Made some money that summer... I had moved out of the H.O.M just prior to the Michigan Theatre fiasco to move into an apartment with my violinist girlfriend, Debbie. But I still hung tough at the H.O.M. for a good year after that, until I met Wendell Bigelow, and we started doing the really outside jazz stuff that ended up being called Tantra (was first facetiously titled the Nepalese Liberation Orchestra LOL)

I think the Michigan Theater gig must have been in March of '75, at least (maybe '76?), since we have the Free Concert tape from August 11, 1974, and it the music was more developed by the time we played at the Michigan Theater (now that we have the audio).  We played an encore there, and at least one other tune, that weren't on the Free Concert tape at all. 

Hugh - you should compose some more MEB-styled music and make it happen.  It was demanding stuff, but way cool, and extremely musical.  Your composition skills were/are second to none, and you should give them free rein.  I'm willing to help if I can ...

Martian greetings to all - Mumbles

Of course ... I looked at the program cover (or poster, or flyer) and it says 1975.  Gee, I hadn't even bought my first car yet ... I am so glad to have this site to bring back the memories and remind us of what we did, and what we can still do if we want to ...

thanks to Hugh Hitchcock, Steve Wild, Mike Gould, and Wayne Gillis for saving so much of the band's history and doing so much to pull it back together here.  It is big fun AND way cool!

- Mumbles, the mandolin maniac

Hi Mumbles,

 yes you are correct! I had the wrong date above, Mich Theatre gig was actually March 10 1975.

I thank you for your kind comments. I have been listening to that tape too, and I am definitely amazed at the level of musicianship we had attained as a group by the time we got to that gig. And yes, some of my "newer" compositions were included on that gig, and I think they were pretty good! I can definitely tell that I'd been in music school for three years studying composition by the time we got that far. As I listen to that tape I am rather regretful that we stopped at that point, it seems as if our music was just reaching a new level of maturity. But as we all know, society doesn't exactly reward creativity sometimes, so we all had to move on to more economically feasible projects.

I have a number of plans to "refurbish" these recordings... words really can't express what a treasure it is to me to be able to hear these and to have them at my disposal again. A real feather in our musical caps, so to speak. I have some ideas germinating for doing exactly what you recommend, Mumbles, and I would love to have you be a part of it, your stalwart support made that thing happen in the first place. In fact I would love to see a resurrection of the band if it's at all possible sometime in the future. Barring that we will do some remote collaborations, I haven't forgotten about that, just a bit tied up trying to stay on the cutting edge of web development to keep my clients happy :) expect the wheel to turn back around after I get that boat steadied.

 there is one more tape that has not surfaced, so we should all keep an eye out for it: the infamous "Basement Tape", which I think may have the best recorded versions of some of our "classics" like the calypso and Warp Factor 217. I thought maybe I'd lost it, but the more I think about it, the more I think that is unlikely because I actually made my own copy of it and my recollection is I gave the original back to Mike. Maybe it will turn up at some point.

at any rate I have lots of MEB plans on the drawing board! at this point just a matter of juggling all other responsibilities. thanks for your post dude, keep 'em coming :)