Feb. 13, 1971: Hard Times
Rhythm guitarist Dick Bauerle, in the background in this article, was not the only one who turned out to be a marquee player in this group of young
Feb. 13, 1971
Hard Times May Be Over
It fits into a strategy that Saia has been developing since
he broke into the business some seven or eight years ago and the strategy goes
like this:
Take one young, clean-cut rock band. For seasoning, immerse
them for a year or two in high schools and youth centers. Then start mixing
them into clubs where the same high school kids (now 18 and 19) will recognize
the band’s name and come hear them.
The Saia recipe worked with The Road and The Week-End Trip
and now it looks like it’s working for Hard Times, a band which got together in
This togetherness survived graduations and the general
restlessness which saw a lot of
* * *
HARD TIMES
is cooking away last Saturday in The Gallery on
The group is winding up a three-week stay, extended from the
original two weeks by popular demand. So it seems right to test popular opinion
by asking a few kids in the mostly clean-cut, mostly college-aged crowd just
what they think of Hard Times.
A perky girl with short curly hair says she loves the group.
She was here Friday night, too. Another girl remarks that she likes them, yes.
Why? “They play the right kind of music.”
A burly guy with a dark mustache says he thinks they’re “all
right.” He notes that Hard Times isn’t as good as
Two guys near the stage say cautiously they don’t like the
group. “The songs sound funny,” one says.
* * *
HARD TIMES
has been playing things like Traffic’s “Medicated Goo,” Badfinger’s “No Matter
Where You Are” with a cha-cha-cha on the end, “Make Me Smile,” an original by
singer Jim Kam, a brisk “Ohio” which sounded like “Cry Me a River” with
falsetto harmonies and a Sly & the Family Stone medley which ended with
them dumping a large box of balloons on the dancers, who gleefully popped them.
On the box is a cartoon drawing of a hoot owl – Jim Kam’s
sister drew it – which is part of a joke that developed during the three-week
stand. The balloons make it a “farewell party” (fans had another farewell party
for them early Saturday) and the group spent 25 minutes blowing them all up.
The group will be back at The Gallery again in March.
Meanwhile, tonight they’re at The Lantern on West Ferry. Next Friday it’s St.
Amelia’s in
* * *
MAYBE THE
guys think they sound funny because there’s so much treble in their sound. The
only man on the bottom, bass player Joe Pici, comes through loud and clear, but
everybody else is two octaves above him, it seems.
As a result, guitarists Phil Drum and Dick Bauerle are a
little hard to pick out, except when Phil takes a solo. Vocalists Jim Kam and
Jim Cameron seem almost as well matched as The Road’s
Part of the trebly sound can be blamed on the PA. A 100-watt Fanon
pushing a couple Fender speaker cabinets. And it may be what the group likes.
They started out, after all, in country rock, The Byrds and like that, and
worked from there toward the mainstream.
* * *
“WE’VE ALWAYS
felt we were a little better than our position,” Phil Drum says, “but we
weren’t quite good enough for the big jobs. We’ve been waiting so long to get
this far.”
Saia first heard the group in a club in October 1968, where
they played 10 weeks for next to nothing. He took them on five months later,
working them into high schools.
Over the summer, when jobs were scarce, everybody in the band
talked about giving it up. Phil estimates there must have been 14 talk
sessions, talking to whoever felt like quitting that week.
“Since the summer,” Phil adds, “we’ve started to get happy
with our sound. And we’ve stopped looking at this like it was a hobby.”
* * *
“THE FIRST
thing,” Jim Cameron says, “is to develop our name in the immediate area, then
gradually spread our influence out farther and farther.”
“We oughta be out to
“A lotta friends from Kenmore East come see us and they tell us you guys are a big band now,” Jim Cameron adds. “It’s really incredible. I can’t believe it.”
The box/sidebar:
All From
Pertinent and impertinent
information about Hard Times:
Jim Kam, 19, vocals, Kenmore East graduate, attending
Jim Cameron, 18, vocals, senior at Kenmore East.
Phil Drum, 18, lead guitar, backup vocals, Kenmore East,
attending UB.
Dick Bauerle, 18, rhythm guitar, backup vocals, Kenmore East,
attending
Sal Azzarelli, 18, organ, Kenmore East, attending
Joe Pici, 19, bass, Kenmore East, attending
Gary Deiboldt, 18, drums, senior at Kenmore East.
* * *
ALTHOUGH they
all were going to Kenmore East, not everyone in the group knew each other until
they were in the band together.
Dick and Joe started the band and Dick knew Phil. They became
a five-piece group with the addition of Jim Kam, who played drums, and Jim
Cameron, Sal and
Like most bands, they just sort of happened onto their name.
They had been called Street Rock and Bluebird. Then one day Jim Kam was sitting
around thing of things like sky, grass, rock, times. Hard Times.
Dick Bauerle, in his Buffalo Music Hall of Fame
biography, notes that Hard Times played an incredible 325-plus gigs in 1973.
He adds that organist Sal Azzarelli has become a high-profile
Bauerle himself helped found Select Sound Studios in
He also recorded his own albums with a couple major labels and has been a longtime member of a very successful local nightclub and special event band, Joyryde. Their booking agency's website promises that he'll be with them when they start doing dates again after the pandemic. By the way, the original Joyryde back in the early '80s included another Hard Times alumnus, singer and drummer Jim Kam.
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