Nov. 27, 1971: A duo called Armageddon with the first production version of the Sonic V
One of these guys read my story about the Sonic V synthesizer back in March '71 and bought the first one that came off the production line:
Nov. 27,
1971
Electronics Plus Acting Equals a Busy Team
You’d
hardly expect anyone to be happy tucked into a corner of the stage at the
Courtyard Theater on
“We’ve
finally got some place where people can come and see us,” Jim says.
Squeezed
in there with them are a couple of scruffy amplifiers (“This is my Super Duper
Ultra,” Jim says, pointing to an old Silvertone with a fresh 10-inch speaker in
it), a few microphones, a tape player, an RMI electric piano and the first
Sonic V synthesizer to roll off the MuSonics assembly line in Williamsville.
Jerry calls it “the toy.”
They
do the music and a bit of acting for the Courtyard’s production of “The Clever
Else,” a well-staged collection of fairy tales that can teach adults a thing or
two. It runs Fridays and Saturdays through January. Sunday’s too – if someone
wants a theater party.
* * *
JIM AND JERRY also will be on radio tomorrow night. Gus Russo’s
“Extension” show on WBFO-FM at midnight for an hour’s worth of interview and
original songs.
Things,
they feel, are finally looking up. They’re even planning to put in some studio
time at Sound and Stage, Fred Casserta’s newly-assembled eight-track operation
on
Up
until now, however, this year had been mostly a nightmare of frustration for
Jim and Jerry, who go by the name Armageddon.
“If
this show would’ve bombed,” Jim says, “I would’ve flipped.”
The problem
is that they do original songs with electronic effects thrown in. Not that it’s
any harder to understand than, say, The Doors or Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
But
even if they find a receptive audience, that doesn’t guarantee success. Like at
their second outing last spring. They were at a club north of
* * *
“WE EXPLAINED to everybody it was in stereo,” Jim says, “and they
sat down between the speakers. They clapped after each song and some kids came
up after and said it was really nice, but the owner didn’t want us back. I
imagine it’s because the kids were sitting around and not dancing and getting
thirsty.”
They
thought maybe they’d be better suited for coffeehouses. At one, the owner
listened and couldn’t decide. He asked two salesmen for an opinion and got a
favorable one.
“That
wasn’t good enough,” Jim says. “He said he’d have to ask his friends. His
friends weren’t even there. When I called him back, he said he couldn’t use us.
I was disgusted.”
* * *
SO THEY tried the clubs again.
“We’d
get up at 10 a.m.,” Jim says, “borrow Jerry’s mother’s car and come back at 2
or 3 in the morning. We tried to go into places as a second group. Price was no
object – there are just two of us.
“You
know what the owners would say? ‘You don’t have any drums or bass, how’re
people gonna dance?’ Finally we just said forget it and gave up.”
Not
long after that, the theater came along. It was pure accident.
“I
was walking down the street with a guitar,” Jim says, “coming down to Jerry’s
house to practice, and all of a sudden someone says: ‘HEY!’ It scared the life
out of me.
“It
was Rod Griffis (the show’s director) and he asked me if I wanta play for the
Courtyard Theater. Jerry and I couldn’t find work, so I said OK. I was the
sidekick to the hero in ‘The Taming of the Shrew,’ sort of a minstrel.
“So
next Rod wants to know if we wanta come in and do the music for the show. And
Jerry was saying: ‘Oh, man, fairy tales?’”
* * *
“WHAT HAPPENED was Jim calls and says he’s going down to the
theater,” Jerry says, “and I say, OK, I’ll come along. And I’m sittin’ there
and Rod comes over and says: ‘Hey, you wanta help me out?’ And I say sure. I
figure he needs something moved or something.
“And
he says, ‘Well, we need a flounder.’ A flounder? ‘You know, it’s a fish. What
you do is run around flapping your arms like this.’”
As
it turned out, Jerry spends most of his time running tapes and sound effects,
coming onstage only as a Draken in the tale of the tailor who killed seven in a
blow.
While
easy-going Jerry shuns the spotlight, Jim turns his extroverted, face-making
talents to a variety of roles – head Draken, a couple male leads.
“It’s
good to be busy on stage,” Jim says, “up to a point. And we’ve never been
nervous. Except once when we were downstairs with the rest of the cast and they
were all nervous.”
* * *
AMONG THEIR background music is an original song called “Pipe
Dream.”
“When
we did the song at that club last spring,” Jim says, “we told the kids to close
their eyes. It really relaxes you. When we finished, one of the guys in front
was asleep.”
“Rehearsing
that thing for the show was terrible,” Jerry adds. “We’d just nod out.”
It
was Jim’s idea, that short musical interlude during intermission. If it doesn’t
seem to fit into the play, that’s all right. Like the coffee in the lobby, it’s
supposed to clear your head for the second half.
They’re
careful in their selections, though. Usually they’ll do “Living Under a Rock,”
a jazz-flavored piece which changes from 5/8 to 3/8 to 6/8 time signature while
Jim noodles guitar lines and Jerry pumps out rhythm on the piano with his left
hand and eerie melodies on the synthesizer with his right.
* * *
THEY AVOID “World War III,” a darkly rhythmic thing complete
with aerial dogfights on the Sonic V. Once Jerry blew the speakers in his Twin
Reverb with it. At a union picnic this summer, it made women cry.
“I’ll
write a song,” Jim says, “and play it for Jerry and it gives him an idea and
he’ll write a song and we just combine them. A lot of our material is
commercial enough to be marketable.”
But
the big problem is money. The Courtyard is good exposure, but it doesn’t pay.
“With
the ideas we have,” Jim says, “we need a studio.”
“I’ve got it all figured out,” Jerry tells him. “All we have to do win the state lottery.”
The
box/sidebar:
Only 2 in the Band
Pertinent information about
Armageddon:
Jim
Kuhns, 21, guitar, flute and vocals, Lafayette High, attended
Jerry
Keating, 20, synthesizer and electric piano, Lafayette High, attended
* * *
IT WAS ONLY
natural that they came together early last spring, Jim and Jerry says. They’d
grown up two blocks from each other, they had similar musical backgrounds
(strong on theory) and they even played together a while in “an unmentionable
group.”
Jerry
also played organ with The Heathens and NYCB. Jim had been with Okra and had
just suffered through the disintegration of Jennifer’s Family, the group with
the $25,000 backing.
A
gift from Jerry’s grandmother bought the Sonic V. When he read about it in The
News last March, he rushed up to Williamsville to put in his order. He spent an
afternoon with the engineers learning the control panel.
* * *
“I BROUGHT it back to my bedroom,” Jerry says, “and spent a
whole night playing with it, going ‘wheeoop’ and all. But it took almost two
months before I was happy with what I was doing with it.
“When
something goes wrong, MuSonics fixes it. That’s the whole reason I got it. It’s
been no hassle at all.
“Armageddon”
is taken from the name of a book by Leon Uris about the four-way struggle for
“We
don’t really think there’s going to be any future thing like that,” Jerry says,
“we don’t think anybody’s that crazy. But there’s enough of a chance so that we
think people ought to be aware of it.”
* * * * *
PHOTO CAPTION:
Jim Kuhns, right, and Jerry Keating. On top of the electric piano, the first
production Sonic V synthesizer.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: I searched in vain for these two on the Internet. Best I could find for Jim Kuhns was a death notice for a James Bert Kuhns, who may or may not be him. Born in Buffalo in 1950, which would make him the right age. Died way too soon in Las Vegas in 1992.
As for Jerry Keating, all that turned up for me was a post on the Memories of McVan’s Facebook page, where someone says he
played with Jerry in 1973 in a band called Bigfoot.
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