(All this writing business started with this essay, and it wasn’t even an essay but a letter to the editor. Back in the days when we really did have daily newspapers I would sometimes have my classes write a letter to the editor on a current news topic. They challenged me to write something so I wrote this. I forgot all about it, and several weeks later the lain Dealer turned it into the lead editorial on their Forum Page. Instead saying that I was a high school teacher, they said I was a freelance writer and I’ve been able to write about music for someone ever since.)
The news of the breakup of the Michael Stanley Band has filled me the last several weeks with a lot of fond memories. Even though I have never met him, Michael Stanley, along with his band and his music, played an important part during the best time of my life.
1975 to 1980 spanned the time in my life, from my junior year in high school to my senior year in college. Good time were abundant, responsibilities were minimal, and new experiences seemed to happen one after another. I was a lot of different things back then, trying to find myself, from a jock to a blue collar man to a beach bum to a frat rat, and through it all the music of Michael Stanley was always playing in the background.
Things were different for Cleveland then, before our city’s current “renaissance.” A certain river did burn, a certain city did go into default, and a lot of people laughed at us. But underneath it all for several reasons a lot of people considered Cleveland a great place to be from.
One of the main reasons was music. Music played an important part in the city just as it does today, but things were not quite the same. Cleveland really did have “America’s Best” radio station as it claims it does today. Back then it was the best because of quality, variety, and the uncanny ability to be on the cutting edge of rock-n-roll, not because of self-promotion and the safe avenue of “playing the hits.” The Michael Stanley Band came across those airways long with hundreds of other artists, many of whom have gone into oblivion on Cleveland radio. MSB would follow something by Andy Pratt and then would be followed by the Outlaws and then the New York Dolls and then some imported Bowie and then some unreleased Springsteen and on and on and on . . .
From this came a knowledge of rock-n-roll that kids from other parts of the country didn’t have. Clevelanders knew Robert Palmer ten years before he became “Addicted to Love,” back when he was “Sneaking Sally Through the Alley.” Although the kids in Michigan also knew about Seger, and everyone from the east coast new about Springsteen, and others knew of the Allman Brothers or Bob Marley or Brian Auger, only those from Northern Ohio knew of Michael Stanley and we were quite proud of it. There was never any doubt that it was just a matter of time because you just knew they were that good.
I think that from now on most people will use Springsteen’s five record live set as a yardstick for live albums. However, there has to be a few people from Cleveland who will still use “Stagepass” to compare live albums. I have heard people ask why wasn’t “Lover” a hit or that “Heartland” is a very good album (which it is), but I could never understand why that first live MSB album didn’t rip things open for them because to everyone I knew who became exposed to it, it became a classic. While the rest of American went from “Frampton Comes Alive” to “Saturday Night Fever”, kids from Cleveland were listening to Midwest Midnight, Nothing’s Gonna Change My Mind, and One Good Reason.
I spent most of that time at a small Ohio liberal arts college for future yuppies in a fraternity house of washed up high school jocks, lost eastern preppie types who didn’t have the grades or the desire for the Ivy League, and expatriates from here and there just putting their time in. The best times we had as a group consisted of getting over served on cheap beer, blasting “Strike Up the Band” on the stereo, and jamming along on lacrosse sticks with everyone on vocals because everyone knew the words.
Also thinking about Michael Stanley lately has reminded me of the ballads on those early albums. Once I was sharing a room with three other guys and we made a tape and labeled it “Mellow MSB.” It opened with “Ladies Choice” and then was followed up by songs such as “Waste a Little Time On Me,” “Dancing in the Dark,” and the acoustical version of “Let’s Get the Show On the Road.” “Ladies Choice” was such a great song because when you were with a girl you didn’t know well yet and it was late at night and the moment of truth it really was a Ladies Choice. When the door was locked and that tape could be heard you had to go find another place to sleep. That tape, the couch we inherited from the guys before us, and an afghan my grandmother made me, played important roles in the beginnings of more than one love affair.
The shows back then were outstanding just as they are today. MSB blew away Loggins and Messina on their farewell tour. In the spring they would tour the Ohio colleges and you would be able to see them for $3 or $4 and they would kick ass and everyone would have a great time. I saw them 20 different times in 20 different places, opening and closing, and they never disappointed me.
There have been three times in my life when I was surrounded by such loud noise that everything suddenly went silent and the sound level reached up into an inaudible range. The first was during a pep rally my freshman year in high school at Padua before a football game against Benedictine. The second was during a Cavs-Bullets game during the Miracle at Richfield. The third was when MSB was introduced at the 1979 concert at the Coliseum. I have a tape of that show and whenever I have played it since, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I hear Jeff Kinzbach’s introduction ( . . . today, six guys from Cleveland . . . )
Today I consider myself very lucky. I have a lot more good days than bad ones, I enjoy my job and the direction my life is going, and have more friends than I deserve who make me laugh a lot. But every so often my mind will slip away back to a time when all I ever had to do was slide through three classes a day, round up some friends and buy some beer, and Strike Up the Band. And then the next day we would do it all over again.
Thanks Michael.