I had a recurrent dream, as a teenager. I find myself backstage in a crowded theatre. There is a blur of activity, stage hands and musicians rushing to and fro, frantically carrying out instructions. There is the loud hum of anxious excitement coming from the audience. Eventually, I am led by flashlight through the chaos, to my place… seated on a riser onstage, behind a drum kit. The lights go down – the curtains start to rise - the crowd noise slowly grows to a roar - I pick up my drum sticks and count down the first song…

I grew up on Long Island, a middle-class suburb of New York City, the youngest of three brothers. We lived in Levittown, a famous prototype for modern suburbia. Cookie-cutter, inexpensive homes built for returning soldiers from World War II. My dad is a former major-league baseball player and my mom, an ex-dancer with the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.

To truly understand my Mump’s story, you must first go back to a time when knowing someone who had a record out was a bizarrely rare occurrence. My friends and I played in cover bands, choosing our favorite Beatles, Who, Hollies and Beach Boys songs and occasionally playing them in bars. I remember how it rocked our world one day, when we were spending an afternoon at Roosevelt Field, our local mall, and saw Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson!!!! MICK FUCKING RONSON, an actual SPIDER FROM MARS!!! He even spoke to us.

Anyhoo.., as I was saying, I was knocking around playing in cover bands when one of the guys in the band, Jimmy Distefano, introduced me to a friend of his, Ian North. Ian was in Milk ‘n’ Cookies and THEY HAD A RECORD OUT! Furthermore, their bass player was Sal Maida, who I had seen just a few months earlier PLAYING WITH ROXY MUSIC! YIPES! I eventually got to know Sal (a big thrill for me) and found out that we liked a lot of the same bands. He even listened to the same obscure bands that I loved, the Move, the Idle Race and lots more. Ian was looking to start a new band and he enlisted me to play the drums. It was to be called Ian’s Radio. We rehearsed and recorded some home demos on his four track with Jeff Weis, now married to Kathleen Turner(!?). Suddenly, Milk and Cookies had their record released in England and Ian disappeared to support the release. I was left high and dry. So much for rock stardom. BUMMER!

A few days later, my phone rang and it was Joseph Fleury. Joseph was the manager of Milk and Cookies and the Mumps (and Sparks and, later, the Dickies). The Mumps had been looking for a replacement drummer since Jay Daugherty had left the band to go play for Patti Smith. Ian, unbeknownst to me, had been telling the Mumps that he had a drummer for them, but that he was keeping him (me) for his band. When he left town, Joseph got Ian to give him my number. The rest, as they say, is history.

Auditioning… – We set an audition date and I drove in from Long Island to the Mumps rehearsal loft on 20th Street and 10th Avenue. Ian told me that the Mumps were big Kinks fans, so I wore an “Everybody’s in Showbiz” T-shirt. I sat down and they showed me some of their songs. I played along. Well enough, apparently, so that they asked me to join. I was in!

They quickly informed me that we were playing in two weeks at Max’s Kansas City, with ex-Bowie scenester, Cherry Vanilla. I was given a cassette tape of about a dozen Mumps songs that they had done homemade demos for (they are all on the CD).

THESE ARE NOT EASY SONGS TO LEARN! …really ambitious compositions, different time signatures, lots of alternate bridges, very specific arrangements.… I was going crazy trying to learn these songs in time for playing at MAX’S KANSAS CITY! I remember, literally, falling asleep and DREAMING of these songs.

The day of the show came. We all met at Max’s for soundcheck and Lance introduced me to Cherry Vanilla as "their new drummer”. She was really sweet and acted excited. I was nervous as hell. I had only even been to Max’s a couple of times before and had, for years, heard that it was the foremost bastion of underground New York hipness and decadence. For a middle-class suburban kid, visions of the Velvet Underground, heroin, and people much, much cooler than I flooded my mind. I was a long way from Levittown.

After soundcheck we all went over to Lance’s apartment on 23rd Street and got ready. I remember that Lance had all these amazing clothes strewn all over the floor and I could just pick something I wanted to wear, get the nod from Lance, and it was mine, at least for the night and, usually, forever after. And Lance had the greatest clothes. He always did. I would learn, in later years, as a Mump, that Lance would be brutally competitive at thrift stores, making no secret that he was going to run ahead of you and find all the best stuff. No pretenses. None at all….

Back to the show…- We played two sets. It was all a blur. I seem to remember wearing some leopard skin shirt of Lance’s (I was a big Roxy Music fan, let’s not forget). We played well enough, I did not make any major fuck ups that were noticed and PEOPLE LOVED IT! AMAZING!

This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. To be continued ----