July 21, 1973: A band transplanted to Grand Island called Whitehaven

 

Your reporter ventures into one of those musical scenes that’s in a world of its own. 

July 21, 1973

There’s Softer Sound Brewing in Cellar 

          It’s a big German shepherd and it’s at the end of its chain, barking and straining, until a blond guy pops out of the house, yells “Baron!” and holds the dog back.

          “Hi, I’m Kerry McNamara,” he says after he releases the animal and follows the visitor through the kitchen door. “We got Baron because we got so much equipment here.”

          The house is post-World War II funky, its once-sparkling utilitarianism as tired as the glue under its loose linoleum tiles.

          Posters paper the living room – Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, the June calendar picture of Alice Cooper from Circus magazine.

          Kerry is concert coordinator for the band Whitehaven, formerly Messiah, and he was social life director at Niagara University last year, putting on nine major concerts. He’s lived here with the group and its manager, Fred Teranos, since a week before his graduation.

* * *

WHITEHAVEN founded this musical commune in the middle of Grand Island more than a year ago after complaints made it impossible to work out their heavy music in parental basements in Niagara Falls. Here the neighbors are far away.

          They live by a strict, single-minded musical regimen. They keep day jobs for money to live on and buy equipment, then practice at night in the cellar until maybe 2 a.m.

          It’s an easier compromise, they feel, than having to bend their ambitions to play club dates.

          A shot of feedback sounds from the cellar. That’s Pete Strager, the main soundman down there (there’s three other sound technicians) wrestling with connections on the substitute PA console they’re using until their own giant board is fixed.

* * *

WHITEHAVEN WILL have it back for the concert tonight at 8 in LaSalle High School auditorium in Niagara Falls, a benefit for the Young Audiences program that brings members of the Buffalo Philharmonic into Falls grade schools to widen kids’ appreciation of music. The band is donating its fee too.

          “We’d like to go into the schools ourselves and demonstrate what we do,” the group’s manager, Fred Tesanos, says, “show them the PA and show ‘em how it works. If they see what’s involved with our music, they’ll become more appreciative audiences.”

* * *

IT’LL BE THEIR first concert as Whitehaven, and their first appearance anywhere since last March when they led off the Guess Who show at Niagara University.

          “They’d already learned the things we’re learning now,” bass guitarist Greg DeDario says. “We shoulda made a few accommodations for the crowd. And the sound board couldn’t handle us. From now on, we’re working with our own sound system.”

          Their big-voiced singer, Jim Vaccarella, quit not long after that, a victim of the regimen. “He was into poetry, art, classical music,” guitarist John Mameli says. “He needed more time to spend on it. The band was just too demanding.”

          But instead of finding a successor, Whitehaven tore up its old original-song repertoire and created a new one around John, Greg and Greg’s brother, drummer Bill DeDario, all of them sharing the vocals.

* * *

FOR TONIGHT, the band has built a 2½-hour show that’s designed to avoid the mistakes of the Guess Who concert. For one thing, it won’t be heavy music all the way through.

          “Can you imagine 2½ hours of amps turned up to 10?” Greg asks. “They’d get up and their heads would be swimming.”

          “If you think about it,” John says, “a lotta people aren’t into hard rock any more. We decided to do something the other people like too.

          “For the first part, we’ll be giving them songs that are easy to listen to. We have some acoustic things. Then we’ll build it up into a climax. What we’re trying to do is create an effect for the whole concert.”

          John and Greg dig up a couple acoustic guitars to show what those soft numbers are like. The song, a political number called “White Mouse,” drives along with quiet insistence.

          “We kinda mellowed out a bit,” Fred explains when it’s over.

“We’re still a rock group and we still play hard, but it’s tasty. The changes we’ve been going through might seem abrupt to the public, but it’s been evolving with us day by day.”

* * *

BECAUSE Whitehaven, and Messiah before it, has made few appearances, most of the band’s evolution has been private.

          “There’s so much that never gets out,” Bill says. “When we first started, we were in a Black Sabbath stage, but nobody ever heard it outside the basement.”

          When John replaced the group’s first guitarist last year, they evolved from that early evil sound to something nearer Uriah Heep and Deep Purple, three-part high harmony and overwhelming sound.

          “Rather than looking for appreciation,” Fred says, “we were blowing people’s heads off.”

          Also pushing the change to their present modified heaviness were the compliments they got on an old acoustic set and the drift of bands like Led Zeppelin to softer and more subtle techniques.

* * *

SOMEONE PUTS on the new Joe Walsh album while the group talks about its instruments – John’s vintage Les Paul guitar for which he searched half the country, the Fender bass with just the right sound that Greg discovered in New York City, Bill’s massive drum set, 13 drums plus a bank of cymbals, as big as Carmine Appice’s.

          That kind of talk makes the three of them want to play and a couple minutes later they’re down in the cool darkness of the cellar.

          “We’ll do a soft one and a loud one,” John says.

          The soft one’s called “Hunt,” with Greg at the piano (he’ll play piano in concert for the first time tonight). It starts eerily and has a chorus as haunting as a November dream. John adds to the effect by using a violin bow on his guitar.

          “Behind Closed Doors” is a classic heavy, much fury packed into its two-chord framework. Attention goes to each instrument in turn until it’s riveted on the subtleties of Bill’s energetic drumming.

* * *

“AS SOON AS this concert is over,” Fred says, “we’re going to collect our thoughts for a couple days.

          “It would be easier if we had an album. We have to remember any audience we face is hearing this stuff for the first time.

          “We have to be diversified and sophisticated enough to get their respect. Once we gain their respect, then we can take them where we want to take them.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: From left, Bill DeDario, John Mameli and Greg DeDario.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Oddly, no background info on the band. The box on the page is a wire service story about how hit record albums like Carole King’s “Tapestry” are pulling in more money than blockbuster films.

          For details about Greg DeDario, one has to go to his Niagara Falls Music Hall of Fame biography. It turns out his father, Bill DeDario, was a trumpet player and owner of a restaurant on Falls Street which featured local musicians.

          Greg started playing piano at age 8 and was self-taught. At 16, he and other teen musicians started a band called The Swanks. His NFMHOF bio says he influenced many young musicians, including his brothers Billy and Kevin, both of whom gained some renown as drummers.  

          The better-known one is Kevin, who is a longtime member of the heavy metal band Gothic Knights in New York City and has worked as an equipment manager, audio-visual technician and stage manager for movies, network TV shows and concerts.

          Meanwhile, Whitehaven was gone by 1977, when Greg and guitarist John Mameli went back to LaSalle High School to perform as The Wind and Rain.

Greg moved to Florida in 1985 and continued to play and compose music. Beginning in 2010, he recorded four solo albums of love songs he wrote in the 1980s and 1990s. He died in 2018, shortly before he was inducted into the NFMHOF.

          As for John Mameli, a Niagara Gazette story about his return for an appearance at Water Street Landing in Lewiston in 2010 says that he was 2005 North American Rock Guitar Champion and has mastered “the mystical illusion of guitar levitation.” The story notes that he’s shared the stage with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Paul Stanley of Kiss and Bret Michaels of Poison.

          The article also tells us he was a 1967 LaSalle High School grad, left Western New York around 1980 and has been living in Naples, Fla., touring with his band Mameli and making guest appearances with big-name metal bands. His website reports that he released a self-titled CD in 2005 in conjunction with his appearance as a featured performer at the Buffalo Niagara Guitar Festival.