Roger Zee Memoirs
Downtown Rocks 05/15/20
I feel so blessed to have worked and played music in the heart of the late 70s early 80s downtown Manhattan Rock scene. I helped build and lived in Sorcerer Sound recording studio on Mercer and Canal Street in SOHO with owner Alan Feierstein who I grew up with in Great Neck, Long Island. There's nothing like the sound of a beating bass drum on the other side of a very thin wall lulling you to sleep at night! A lot of the downtown bands recorded there. Eventually Norah Jones used the studio to cut her breakout album. Welcome to another chapter of my memoirs, "Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician."
A year or so later I moved out when they converted my bedroom into additional recording space. I rented a studio apartment in Chelsea on 22nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenue, right around the corner from the Chelsea Hotel -- NYC Rock 'n Roll Party Central. I could see the building through the bathroom window while brushing my teeth!
During the day, I worked in a research lab in Bellevue Hospital investigating AIDS and other auto-immune diseases. I rode the elevator with some very scary, sad-looking, purple-lesioned patients. Other times I shared the transport with 15 or so chained prisoners just in from Rikers Island. I also ran into a number of music friends there hospitalized for knife wounds, overdoses, etc. "Livin' La Vida Loca!"
At that time, the Punk Rockers hung out at CBGB's on the Bowery and the Hard Rockers/Bikers hung at Great Gildersleeve's, two blocks up. I always checked both clubs when in the area for the night. At CB's, I witnessed the birth of such bands as the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Mink DeVille, Tuff Darts (who I subbed for on bass on occasion), The Police!
But my biggest surprise occurred one night at Great Gildersleeve's when I walked in and saw a first-time band there called AC/DC. They played some standard, seemingly run-of-the-mill Hard Rock fronted by a frenetic lead guitarist leaping about all over the stage dressed in a British school-boy outfit. At the time, I just dismissed them as another wannabe band that I would probably never see or hear from again. WTF!
So today I dedicate myself to learning all the bass parts to their huge hit record, "Back in Black." Surprisingly easy music to play for the rhythm section. The drummer mostly sticks to four on the floor bass drum while the bassist pumps out root eighth notes to each chord. And so it goes on another long day in the Pandemic with no end in sight for those of us at extreme risk. Let the bells toll loud and clear -- "Hells Bells!" One <3
YouTube - Hell's Bells - AC/DC
©2020 Roger Zee