Read Online Shut Up and Give Me the Mic by Dee Snider - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dee Snider
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Tobia and I weren’t welcome in This anymore. I wonder what laboratory the former members of This are working in?
BY MID-JANUARY OF 1976 , I had been let go from Korvette’s department store and started work at Double B Records & Tapes in Freeport, Long Island. Double B was a local distribution company, acting as a middleman between the record labels and stores. I was hired to man the 8-track section (remember those? Anyone? Anyone? ) of the warehouse—not a very big department—filling store orders, then bringing them to shipping to be packed up and sent out.
I was being trained to replace the guy currently filling the orders. Once I was ready, he was going to leave, and my boss, Zeke, was set to go on a long-overdue vacation. As I filled the orders, I imagined how cool it would be when one day some kid was pulling orders for my albums.
Zeke was a complete asshole (as opposed to the partial assholes I had worked for before) with a squeaky high voice to match. He was a yeller and dogged my ass relentlessly.
One day I was on the pay phone just outside Zeke’s office, and he overheard me talking to my This band members about rehearsal that night.
When I hung up, Zeke called me in. “What’s this about a rehearsal?”
“Yeah, after work. It’s with my band.”
Zeke moved in for the kill. “Work comes first; your band is second. I need you to work late tonight. You can’t rehearse with your band.”
Can’t rehearse? I never worked overtime. The prick had given me overtime just to fuck with me. I said nothing and left his office. Nothing was more important to me than my music. I knew my days at Double B Records & Tapes were numbered.
WITHIN A WEEK, AT the end of January 1976, I received invitations to audition for two bands. Man, I’d love to see my horoscope for that week. One was my old high school buddies’ fifties band the Dukes. They had become quite a club staple, working regularly with a big following. I had sung in choir with the vocalists in the Dukes, so they knew I had the chops for the doo-wop that was the cornerstone of their show. I love fifties music, so I was pretty excited to get the call.
The second call was from . . . Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister! After several months of going it on his own (and the breakup and reformation of the band for a third time), Jay Jay had been convinced by numerous people that the band really needed a singer/front man.
Remember why I said I left my killer band Harlequin to join the lesser band Peacock? To develop my performing and singing chops and be seen by people. Well, it worked.
Peacock’s club booking agent, Kevin Brenner of Creative Talent Associates (CTA), whom I virtually never saw, had noticed me. As the longtime agent for Twisted Sister, he not only told Jay Jay the band needed a front man, he suggested Jay check out “Danny Snider.”
“Danny Snider?” Jay Jay replied. “That guy approached me to join the band months ago.”
You know how when you have never heard a certain word or seen a certain thing before, and after you do, it seems as if you’re hearing or seeing it everywhere? That’s kind of what it was like with Jay Jay and me. After I introduced myself at the club that night, it seemed Jay was constantly hearing my name.
Long before Kevin Brenner brought me up to Jay, a barkeep named Phil Zozzaro, whom everyone called Wha, 1 from one of the clubs both Twisted Sister and Peacock played, was constantly telling Jay Jay about this kid who sang for Peacock. “You gotta check him out, Jay Jay! The kid’s amazing!” Thanks for that, Wha.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT LSD is? No, not the hallucinogen. Lead Singer Disease. Oh, it’s real, and all front men have it. I won’t deny it. Of course we do. Front men have chosen a profession where we are expected to stand in front of a crowd with only our voice and personality to entertain with. We have no guitar or drums between us and the audience, no buttons, knobs, pedals, or screws to futz with
BY MID-JANUARY OF 1976 , I had been let go from Korvette’s department store and started work at Double B Records & Tapes in Freeport, Long Island. Double B was a local distribution company, acting as a middleman between the record labels and stores. I was hired to man the 8-track section (remember those? Anyone? Anyone? ) of the warehouse—not a very big department—filling store orders, then bringing them to shipping to be packed up and sent out.
I was being trained to replace the guy currently filling the orders. Once I was ready, he was going to leave, and my boss, Zeke, was set to go on a long-overdue vacation. As I filled the orders, I imagined how cool it would be when one day some kid was pulling orders for my albums.
Zeke was a complete asshole (as opposed to the partial assholes I had worked for before) with a squeaky high voice to match. He was a yeller and dogged my ass relentlessly.
One day I was on the pay phone just outside Zeke’s office, and he overheard me talking to my This band members about rehearsal that night.
When I hung up, Zeke called me in. “What’s this about a rehearsal?”
“Yeah, after work. It’s with my band.”
Zeke moved in for the kill. “Work comes first; your band is second. I need you to work late tonight. You can’t rehearse with your band.”
Can’t rehearse? I never worked overtime. The prick had given me overtime just to fuck with me. I said nothing and left his office. Nothing was more important to me than my music. I knew my days at Double B Records & Tapes were numbered.
WITHIN A WEEK, AT the end of January 1976, I received invitations to audition for two bands. Man, I’d love to see my horoscope for that week. One was my old high school buddies’ fifties band the Dukes. They had become quite a club staple, working regularly with a big following. I had sung in choir with the vocalists in the Dukes, so they knew I had the chops for the doo-wop that was the cornerstone of their show. I love fifties music, so I was pretty excited to get the call.
The second call was from . . . Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister! After several months of going it on his own (and the breakup and reformation of the band for a third time), Jay Jay had been convinced by numerous people that the band really needed a singer/front man.
Remember why I said I left my killer band Harlequin to join the lesser band Peacock? To develop my performing and singing chops and be seen by people. Well, it worked.
Peacock’s club booking agent, Kevin Brenner of Creative Talent Associates (CTA), whom I virtually never saw, had noticed me. As the longtime agent for Twisted Sister, he not only told Jay Jay the band needed a front man, he suggested Jay check out “Danny Snider.”
“Danny Snider?” Jay Jay replied. “That guy approached me to join the band months ago.”
You know how when you have never heard a certain word or seen a certain thing before, and after you do, it seems as if you’re hearing or seeing it everywhere? That’s kind of what it was like with Jay Jay and me. After I introduced myself at the club that night, it seemed Jay was constantly hearing my name.
Long before Kevin Brenner brought me up to Jay, a barkeep named Phil Zozzaro, whom everyone called Wha, 1 from one of the clubs both Twisted Sister and Peacock played, was constantly telling Jay Jay about this kid who sang for Peacock. “You gotta check him out, Jay Jay! The kid’s amazing!” Thanks for that, Wha.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT LSD is? No, not the hallucinogen. Lead Singer Disease. Oh, it’s real, and all front men have it. I won’t deny it. Of course we do. Front men have chosen a profession where we are expected to stand in front of a crowd with only our voice and personality to entertain with. We have no guitar or drums between us and the audience, no buttons, knobs, pedals, or screws to futz with