June 5, 1971: The (Real) New Breed

 

How many bands out there call themselves The New Breed? How many stars are there in the sky? How many New Breeders have kept on playing for 50 years? More than you’d think. See the footnote. 

June 5, 1971

‘New Breed’ Strikes Right Music Vein

Group Stays Strong Despite Changes 

For a musician, there’s only one thing harder than playing to an unfriendly audience. That’s playing to no audience at all.

A few hostile faces? They only bring out the kind of zeal that missionaries generally save for the naked heathen. And if they don’t come around, they’re probably part of that same conspiracy that flattens your car tires and anything less than Chinese water torture is too good for them.

But an empty room can gnaw away at the soul. When there’s nothing but walls, when there’s no place to go and nothing to win, that’s when the old futility comes creeping in.

* * *

SO THIS particular Tuesday, at a club north of Buffalo which shall go unnamed, they’re having their first ladies’ night. Which means there’s a band and every girl gets a red ticket she can trade for a little bottle of champagne.

They aren’t exactly running short of bubbly as The New Breed climbs onto the tiny stage, peers into the general loneliness and prepares to sock it to what one of them calls “the immense crowd of four.”

There’s a moment of tuning and shuffling around, the way there always is when there’s no crowd, then they plunge into a proper Santana “Oye Como Va,” vocalist Craig Mangus on tymbali.

* * *

APPLAUSE (applause?) moves them to do an unexpected “Lovely to See You” from the Moody Blues’ “Threshold of a Dream,” which gets more applause.

“Maybe we can hire them on contract,” says bass guitarist Rick D’Amato, staring quizzically into the darkness before they start an old Knickerbockers thing called “One Track Mind.”

Next surprise comes as guitarist Doug Fisher apologizes for his bronchitis and gamely tackles the old Raven single, “In Love,” which sounds as good as ever. The group gives it plenty of bounce.

For closers, there’s the Matthews Southern Comfort version of “Woodstock,” the James Gang’s “Funk 49,” which comes on like a bath in rubbing alcohol; “Green-Eyed Lady,” which frustrates every band that tries it, including this one; and “Proud Mary.”

“If you have any friends out yonder,” guitarist Mark Pfonner tells the tiny audience, “go out and bring them in.”

* * *

“YOU KNOW,” Rick says later, “I think they were expecting us to come up with our own crowd.”

Sometimes they actually have. When they’ve played The Beacon in Hornell, they’ve loaded up cars and trucks with student fans from both colleges in Alfred and taken them along.

“It’s like one big family down there,” drummer Mark Menge says. “They really love us. We never have to worry about a place to stay when we’re there.”

Another pack of New Breed fans has sprung up in East Aurora after the group’s eight months of Sunday night appearances at the Old Barn. Crowds there sing along to “Downward Bound,” a song Mark Pfonner wrote. Some of the group doesn’t even know all the words.

“They know everything we do,” Mark Menge puts in. “There’s one place where I count off one, two, three, four, and they’re out there counting with me.”

“One Sunday night,” Rick adds, “we weren’t there and the kids all turned around and walked out. After that I got three phone calls asking if we broke up.”

* * *

ACTUALLY, the group has proven pretty durable. The instrumental set-up is the same as it was five years ago, although none of the present members was among the New Breed that won the KB Fun-A-Fair Battle of the Bands in 1968.

Last of the original members to go was a dictatorial lead singer who insisted on doing bubblegum music and who, the present band charges, was booking jobs for $250, telling the group they were getting $180 and keeping the difference.

“Whenever somebody disagreed with him,” Mark Pfonner recalls, “he’d turn to the other guys and ask for a vote on whether to kick him out. We were always trying to avoid a showdown with him. Finally, he didn’t show up for a month and when he did, we told him he was through.”

* * *

“THAT WAS last summer and it was tough,” Mark Menge says. “At that time we had no lead singer, our material was bad and we were starting to get into places where we had to play things right.”

“We were putting so much into it then,” Rick says, “just out of sheer want to do good. We had to do our best to put on a show and make it sound decent.”

* * *

AFTER Craig started singing, the group spent a couple months working up new material at a club in Clarence, where they shared the stage with the owner’s hunting dog. Rick emerged as the group’s booking agent. Craig became the “holder-together.”

“We got just the vein of music we were looking for,” Mark Menge says. “There’s always at least one song a night that’ll get to somebody. I like The Byrds and Poco myself, but even when we do the stuff I don’t like, it makes the stuff I like seem so much better.”

By the time organist Bob Baldwin quit to follow the group’s first organist into the Air Force, everyone was strong enough to take it. They met Walt at a Blasdell Fire Hall gig and a week later he had learned 42 of their songs.

“I’ve been amazed at this group,” Mark Menge says. “One day two guys quit and it looks like it’s going to fall apart and everybody’s really depressed. Then two months later it’s back again.”

* * *

NOW, IN addition to Sundays at the Old Barn, they’re at Wellsville High School tonight, at the Beacon in Hornell next Friday, at Youngstown’s Club Lakewood June 19, at Holland’s Red Barn Lodge June 25 and 26 and at Nativity CYO in Clarence June 29.

It’s gotten so they can shrug off a night like that lonely Tuesday, even though it brought them down, the way lonely nights do. Mark didn’t like his drum solos, half the band couldn’t hear the other half and the owner made them play a final set to an empty bar.

“We jammed for an hour and a half,” Rick says, “worked some things out and finally he said you win and let us go. Yeah, and he tried to tell me that our music doesn’t draw any people.” 

The box/sidebar: 

The Changing Breed 

Pertinent and impertinent information about The New Breed:

Craig Mangus, 21, vocals and tymbali, Cardinal O’Hara High School, prospective August graduate of Erie Community College (mechanical technology), single.

Mark Pfonner, 22, guitar and vocals, Kenmore West High, attended Buffalo State, single.

Doug Fisher, 20, guitar and vocals, Clarence High, married (“The night after my wedding we played the Keystone 90. I needed the money for the honeymoon”), a son.

Rick D’Amato, 20, bass guitar and vocals, Cardinal O’Hara and Kenmore West High, attended Buffalo State, single.

Walt Sirotich, 18, organ, senior at West Seneca West High, single.

Mark Menge, 19, drums, Kenmore West High, single.

* * *

A GROUP that has survived its original members. The New Breed was three years old when the present crew began arriving in 1969.

Longest-term member is Mark Pfonner, a former folksinger at Fantasy Island, who borrowed Rick’s bass and amp and came in as a bass player. Newest is Walt, who joined about three months ago, replacing an organist who was drafted. He had played with The Thymes.

Doug, who dropped from the original group after three months, returned with Rick, after both had done a stint with The Roadrunners. Previously, Rick was with Statutory Grape. Doug, with Sir Winston and The Commons.

It’s the first group for Mark Menge, who spent three years practicing in his basement. And the first for Craig, the group’s former equipment man, who stepped in when the former lead singer left last summer.

* * *

“THE FIRST bass player was in a group called The New Breed in Batavia,” Rick says. “There’s at least one other group around here with the same name and there’s a soul band downtown called the Nu Breeds.”

“We tried to change our name to Enterprise,” Mark Pfonner explains, “but our booking agent couldn’t remember it. So now we’ve started telling people we’re the REAL New Breed.”

* * * * *

PHOTO CAPTION: The real New Breed around drummer Mark Menge’s motorcycle, from left, guitarists Doug Fisher and Mark Pfonner, Mark Menge, organist Walt Sirotich, vocalist Craig Mangus and bass guitarist Rick D’Amato.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: The name that immediately rang a bell here is keyboardist Wally Sirotich. He was runner-up for a Buffalo Music Award as Rock Keyboardist in 1991 with the group Tight Grip, but he’s gone a long way since then. His Facebook page identifies him as a “pro pianist, composer, singer/songwriter, film score producer” now living in Venice, Fla., and performing at venues in that neighborhood.

On a site called soundclick.com, there’s his nickname, Gator, MP3s you can download for a buck and an impressive resume. He played five years with the Toler Brothers Band, spent a bunch of time with Moonshine Express, the house band at the Lone Star Café in New York City, and shared the stage with a lot of other folks we know, including Robert Plant (to which he notes, “One MAGIC night, just Him and Me”). Search Google a little further and you’ll find YouTube videos of him doing his songs.

      Meanwhile, singer Craig Mangus and guitarist Mark Pfonner show up in a picture page photo in June 2011 in The Buffalo News, performing with a group called the Reminders in the M&T Bank Plaza Event series.

      The Reminders have a website, which tells us they won a Buffalo Music Award in 2001 for Best Acoustic Trio. Rounding out the trio is another New Breed bandmate, Doug Fisher.

        Craig’s wife is Pamela Rose Mangus, an actress who works extensively in theater locally and has won multiple Artie Awards. We’ve seen her a lot.

        Drummer Mark Menge has kept playing, as well. In recent years, he’s been drumming and singing with the Speedy Parker Blues Band.