Michael Jacobson
Michael Marc Jacobson is a musician/author who is originally from Northport, Long Island and now lives in the greater Boston area. Michael became interested in music at a young age and would wind up playing the thriving Long Island club circuit starting in his teens. After paying a lot of musical dues, he eventually led a band the ACs, that would back up stars such as: Darlene Love, Freda Payne, Thelma Houston, The Drifters and many, many others. With the experience of traveling the world in support of top Billboard artists, Michael transitioned his career into writing about the world of music. His first book Twilight Time: The rock and roll adventures of Mickey Jake Vol. 1 sold very well. He has just released his second book Mock & Roll which is about a fictitious rock and roll band that stumbles into the world of semi-stardom only to be hounded by the Mock police. I spoke with Michael about his new book and his early days on Long Island.
R.V.B. - How are you doing today Michael? I understand you're from Long Island.
M.J. - I actually grew up in Northport. My best pal in high school was Little Wilson. His real name was Al Santoriello.
R.V.B. - Yeah... I definitely heard the name.
M.J. - He's got an R&B band that plays all the local joints.
R.V.B. - Do you remember Chelsea's in Huntington?
M.J. - Absolutely. I played in Chelsea's in 1979.
R.V.B. - That was my first bar gig. I was underage at 17.
M.J. - My first bar gig was at Henry Africa in Northport. I was 16 and playing a regular Wednesday night. When the high school yearbook came out, and the boss of the place saw it, and realized that we were playing there for two years already, it was really quite a moment.
R.V.B. - Those were the good ole' days.
M.J. - The 18 year old drinking age made a huge difference. I remember playing at Chelsea's until 3:45 in the morning.
R.V.B. - I believe it's still a bar, if I'm not mistaken.
M.J. - In my day you would have been embarrassed to be seen out before 11:30 at night.
R.V.B. - I grew up near you in Smithtown.
M.J. - I used to teach guitar lessons in Smithtown. I was with Tony Tanico's studio for two days a week I would teach at people's homes in Smithtown. I'll never forget one student. She was 16 and wanted to play like Def Leppard. Her mother made us do the lessons in her bedroom with the door closed. I don't know what the hell she was thinking.
R.V.B. - (Hahaha) what part of Northport are you from?
M.J. - I'm a pit kid. If you're driving out towards Asharoken, there's a huge neighborhood that's called "The Pit." It was dredged out in the 1930's and became a huge sand pit. It was actually once a hill and it overlooked Northport bay, towards where the Vanderbilt's had their mansion... where the planetarium is now. So right on Northport Bay, which is made by Eaton's Neck... I lived in that neighborhood. The LILCO stacks were right over my shoulder. What was great about the sand pit was that my house had a huge field behind it. We could play music in the back yard as long and loud as we wanted and nobody cared. We had big padded Kustom amps and we could get loud.
R.V.B. - Did you have the one with the three 15's in it?
M.J. - I actually had one with four 12's. My brother - the bass player - had the 18 folded horn which was like a big padded coffin. You could actually sleep on the thing. I got rid of mine and switched to Acoustic. Acoustic had a deal where they had a lifetime warrantee on the speakers. I had an acoustic with four 12's and they'd blow out like once a month. Once a month I'd take it back to Sam Ash, and I'd get brand new ones for free... it was great. I must of went through five sets of speakers on that amp.
R.V.B. - In my high school days, we used to drive up Pulaski and hit the bars on Larkfield Road.
M.J. - Yes... Larkfield Road. They had Tito's diner that was open all night. The bar Horse Feathers was close to the train station.
R.V.B. - I think the bar is still there but it changed names.
M.J. - The last bar that I played in the area was Sparks. That place had that great in-house sound system. I remember when I was subbing for my friends Little Wilson band. We were in there just setting up and Billy Joel comes walking in. The Little Wilson band played "Memphis Stax" music. After we started playing a few tunes, Billy starts making requests. He was shouting out "Hey... do you guys know Midnight Hour." We ended up doing like five songs for Billy. It was a personal afternoon performance. He had a few beers. It was the famous time when he had the broken hand and still rode around on a motorcycle. He was a very brash kind of guy. He wasn't like "Hey... you guys are great.", it was more like "Hey... do this for me now." It was like being a horse and that guy coming up behind you with a whip. It was pretty cool. Long Island was a great place to grow up, and I have fond memories. There is a Northport 70's site on Facebook. There's thousands of people who post things about growing up in Northport.
R.V.B. - Did you hear that Gunther's Tap Room burned?
M.J. - I did hear that Gunther's burned. I actually posted a picture of the Midway from 1990. Three weeks later there were over 300 comments. The Midway was a head shop. It was on upper Main Street, so it was away from everything. It started out as a candy store that sold newspapers and things. It transformed into a paraphernalia store, and then to a pornography store. All the craziest shit you could ever want. So these people who may have graduated as early as 1970 to people who may have graduated in 1979, had this mass array of different experiences with this place. On top of it all... living upstairs next to this place was Mariah Carey. That's a famous Long Island story. This particular fucking store - the Midway - evokes stories like you can't fucking believe. You could write a book about the Midway with the 385 comments that are on there.
R.V.B. - Interesting... Long Island was a great place to grow up. It has changed a lot and it's getting very crowded with all the people who moved out here. It's very, very crowded and very, very expensive.
M.J. - My last address was in Coram. I lived there briefly in 1981. It was like a field at the time. I started out in Hicksville as a little kid. The first time I went to Northport, there were horses and cows. There was nothing there. So you're doing a Deep Purple tribute thing? I saw Deep Purple with Savoy Brown at the Nassau Coliseum in 1976.
R.V.B. - I was at that show also.
M.J. - Kim Simmons really mopped that place up. He was most awesome player you ever heard. Deep Purple could loud you to death. It didn't matter who else was on the bill... they were going to be loud.
R.V.B. - That was the Burn tour. It had just come out and a lot of people didn't know that Coverdale and Hughes were in the band. For some Purple fans, that show was a surprise.
M.J. - I used to go see certain people when they came around... Ten Years After, Led Zeppelin... a couple of times. I ran into Ten Years After recently and part of what my book is about is who the hell are these bands now? Some of them are great still, but that's not the point. If I'm paying for Ten Years After, and I'm not going to get Alvin Lee, what's the point. I actually did some touring with Mark Farner. I know at the same time, Grand Funk is doing their thing. I'm saying to myself "What would I feel like if I went to see Grand Funk, and Mark Farner wasn't there?" This stuff goes back to the 60s, when Brian Jones died.
R.V.B. - Only the real good bands can withstand a major shakeup, and still carry on.
M.J. - It varies tremendously. I think the extreme is something like Journey. One guy changes and they haven't had a hit song since. In another situation - Blood, Sweat and Tears - Three different lead singers and all of the have had big hits. My first real gig in the music business was with The Platters. The very first song we do, the place is going bananas. The original bass singer who was the only original guy in the group says,“They like him - no!!! - they like the song.” When you play Smoke on the Water, it doesn't matter who it was. When those drunken people get in the mood, it's gonna go. But me or you, as an aficionado, who grew up in love with this music... who we actually see is important.
R.V.B. - Ritchie Blackmore lives around the corner from me and I see him every now and then on the soccer field. We're not allowed to talk shop because he wants to play soccer.
M.J. - My day gig, I direct a television show on the Red Sox network about hot rods and car collectors. I got to spend a little time with Jeff Beck, and he loved his muscle cars. As soon as I brought that up, we could talk! He don't want to talk about Strats. He don't want to talk about what you want to talk about. He'll want to talk forever about a 69 Chevelle. But that's cool. Did you go to any of the Zappa shows over the years?
R.V.B. - I went to one at the Stony Brook gym in 1984.
M.J. - The last time I went to a show in Stony Brook, I went to see Elvin Jones in the student union. His Japanese wife set up the drums. The show was unbelievable.
R.V.B. - He's legendary.
M.J. - To see him in that intimate setting with the lights up... it was pretty cool. I used to go see Zappa at the Felt Forum every Halloween. There's actually a shot of me in the movie Baby Snakes. I'm dressed up as Zappa. It wasn't hard to do. You just had to put the mustache on.
R.V.B. - I recently saw the Zappa tribute band Project Object in Brooklyn with Ike Willis and Denny Walley. It was a good show.
M.J. - I saw them up in Rochester when Don Preston was in the group. It was unbelievable. When I was rolling with Darlene Love, the fucking Springsteen groupies and all those people, were always all over the place. You get a taste of what these people's lives are like. I was doing this stuff with Steven Van Zant... you see the bad side of them when you finally deal with them.
R.V.B. - That's their outlet. They want to get away from it. Tell me about your book "Mock & Roll."
M.J. - "Mock & Roll" is a fantasy... farce, comedy. A band down on their luck. When you meet them, They're actually playing in rest homes for people with tubes running out of them on a Wednesday afternoon. They get a break. An agent from far away, hires them to back up a Marvelettes show. It turns out... who the hell are these girls? They get into this whole thing where they're backing up these different groups... The Platters... Drifters... The Marvelettes... whatever. After a while, none of them have any original people left. None of them care to talk about who they really are. In the context of all of this, the press starts to get interested in this. People like Hard Copy and there's an expose on ABC news... Prime Time Live called "Rock and Roll's dirty little secret.” This is actually true. Diane Sawyer do a story about these acts like the Vogues - who had their name bought out by the record companies and different people become The Vogues over time. It was a real poop job on a lot of different old groups. But instead of hurting these group, they had more gigs right away. It didn't affect anything. We started joking around that the evil guy that we were working for at the time bought up the name and suddenly we would be that band. Suddenly our little farce group is the main group. They're suddenly in a situation where they're getting a lot of money and girls. It's a whole wild adventure. At the same time, there are the oldies police... people who don't like this shit going on. They're caught between a rock and a hard place. The more they get caught, the further out they take it. To the point where their final act is -they're Ramatam. The real group included April Lawton... the girl guitar player and Mitch Mitchell. It ended up in a sting on television. It has a very bizarre twist at the end. Basically it's about people who start out to do something very harmless and then get sucked into it with broads and money, and before you know it, they're doing these unbelievably big shows of people they're not, and nobody notices... and nobody cares, because they're good.
R.V.B. - That's an interesting concept. It sounds like it could actually happen.
M.J. - It happens every day. It's very real. I've written it as a farce... and fiction... but I've lived it also. I've been on both sides. I've performed all over the world with people like Darlene Love, when you are the man. The other side of her is, when her records were coming out, Phil Spector was releasing them under the name of the Crystals. All this shit goes back to the beginning of time. The record producers have been manipulating this reality for years. I spent three years on the road with what's left of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. At the time I was with them, that movie came out "Why Do Fools Fall In Love." It's all about how Morris Levy stole the record from him by just sticking his name on the record. In other words, It wasn't Frankie Lymon and Herman Santiago who wrote it, It was Frankie Lymon and Morris Levy. He took all the royalties away for 50 years. By the time he was nailed for it, he was dead. Rock and roll is filled with people who had their birthright taken from them and their dues taken from them. There is so many sides to it and it's such a farce. I was doing some stuff with Steven Van Zant, and you just see the bad side of them sometimes... when you deal with them. The week I spent with Mark Farner was unbelievable... "The butter's too hard!" ... give me a fucking break. These guys look good from a distance. Eric Clapton has never fucked me up the ass. Alvin Lee will never fuck me up the ass. But If I met Mark Farner, he would tell me to drop them without even blinking an eye.
R.V.B. - When I interviewed Don Brewer, he wasn't very happy with Mark Farner.
M.J. - They really hate his guts. You did a nice piece on Johnny Gale. He's quite a guy.
R.V.B. - He got a tremendous response with his story. He's very popular in the local music community.
M.J. - Johnny is the ultimate niche guitar player. He does this one thing and the people who really dig that, really dig him. He's also the anthesis to mock and roll. Kenny Vance didn't come out and say "Hey, we're The New Americans." He came out and said "Hey, I'm Kenny Vance. I'll build the thing up the way it's supposed to be." They put quite a shtick together. It's very refreshing. The jerk off on PBS who puts on all the doo wop stuff... he put on one recently where there is all these handoffs. There's young groups who were matched up with the guys who originally recorded stuff. None of the young groups pretend to be like the new Coasters or the new Platters. They all the silver jacketed Joes. I find that really kind of refreshing. I think everybody's got to go out there and cultivate their audience, and they got to do it the hard way... there's no short cuts. That's what Mock &Roll is about... short cuts. They're awful attractive. It's sort of like music with steroids.
R.V.B. - They're taking the easy way out.
M.J. - You want to know something, ask yourself this "Here's a pill... take it once... and you will be one of the hundred best guitarists in the world." You wouldn't hesitate to take it... would you?
R.V.B. - Well, not after the dues that I paid.
M.J. - Yeah. At this point it's like what the fuck???
R.V.B. - I'm actually proud of the way that I stuck with music through the years and grinded it out. I'm sure you feel the same way.
M.J. - I feel like I'm so close to the end because of certain business changes. I had some clients that made my gig very financially lucrative that aren't there right now. So I can play my ass off and there's nobody there to pay me. What the fuck good is it. Once you get used to getting paid for it, it's very difficult to stop.
R.V.B. - Tell me about the band the AC's
M.J. - The ACs were backing up dozens of groups at one point, over 125 charting artists over the years. We would go out on the road for anybody who needed us for a week or two... or a month. That's when we ran into Darlene Love. My Darlene Love experience was a dream come true, She came to The Big E in Massachusetts to play a few days with my band my band for a few days and ended up keeping us with her for about two years. We were just four anonymous musicians... all from Long Island. Sometimes we'd have a horn section... Darlene would carry horns. For a while, we also carried a second keyboard player. We would scale up and scale down. I was with her when she won her Oscar and she took me to Australia. While I was with her we got to rub elbows with the likes of Dionne Warwick, Roger Daltry, and Toni Braxton.
R.V.B. - Good luck with your book and congratulations on your career.
M.J. - Thanks Rob. Please show your readers the links to my books!
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
This interview may not be reproduced in any part or form without permission from this site.
For information on how to obtain Michael Jacobson's book visit this link. Mock & Roll by Michael Jacobson.
For more information on this site contact Robvonb247(at)gmail(dot)com
