Actually, I wasn’t educated at Woodstock. I was educated at the Yarmouth Clam Festival.
Something tells me we’ve touched on this already, so I’ll keep it brief: each year, when TGOTS and I were growing up, a nearby town had a summer festival dedicated to the aforementioned bivalve. There weren’t actually too many clams on display, that I ever saw, but there was a lot of good food, music, arts and crafts, and general happy summerness.
One year, my mother and I planted ourselves at the music tent and caught a couple of great acts (“great” being a relative term, since it was Maine and it was the ’80s): There was the Wicked Good Band, an unparalleled novelty group whose 45s and cassettes we owned and whose songs still run through my head (“road kill, road kill, bashing beasties in my Blazer is a wicked decent thrill”). And then there was the group that featured the town’s high-school band conductor on vocals and lead guitar.
I don’t know if this group had a name. And right now I can’t even remember his name, which is driving me nuts. But he was young, and dark-haired, and handsome — leagues away from our school’s conductor, a stout, middle-aged fellow with a perennially red face and a not-unrelated perennial bout with alcoholism.
Anyhow, this young and handsome conductor had a secret life in a rock band, which was so cooooool, and my mother and I got quite a kick out of stumbling upon them. I had my trusty portable tape recorder with me — yes, there was a period of time when I brought that thing everywhere, and as a result I have what I’m sure is a time-capsule-worthy documentation of my young life. Among the evidence is an hour or so of the band conductor’s group reeling off various hits, punctuated by my mother’s and my commentary, and underlain by the ambient noise of — well, a clam festival.
“Soul Man” is what brought me back there today. I remember there were also Beatles tunes. And the rest is lost to history. Well, at least until I find that audio cassette — and some way to play it.
P.S.: I also just recalled that my bootleg Wicked Good Band tape includes a song they were later forced to stop singing by a lawsuit. It demeaned a local businessman for building condos everywhere. Man, I’ve got to find that tape! I could be rich.
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January 28, 2010 at 11:01 am
mamakitt
Oh lord, the Google! Here he is: http://gildonatelli.com/index.php. Like so many of us, he’s aged a tad. Perhaps easier to imagine him the raven-haired clam-festival rock star he once was.
January 28, 2010 at 11:10 am
thegirlontheswing
Clam Festival! Wicked Good Band! Ohhh, too much Maine-y goodness.
Your memories are so much more fun than mine. When I was little, my family would just go to the Clam Festival parade–rarely, or never, the festival itself. We’d park a long-ass way from the action, on some side street only my pa knew, so that we could get right out of there after the show, without getting stuck in traffic. Sigh.
I do remember, one of my camp staff summers, being in the front row for the Wicked Good Band and Tim Sample (TIM SAMPLE!), while one of my coworkers slept (in the front row! so rude!) and another heckled old Tim (so rude! but hilarious!).
Oh, Maine.