BOSTON

The sun through my office window told me summer was coming, and everything was getting hotter—except business. I sat at my desk and stared at the opaque glass door, reading the peeling lettering—"SNOITAGITSE VNI. " To visitors, it read "INVESTIGATIONS."

I'd begun to enjoy whole days of waiting for nobody to walk through that door, which always seemed to happen. But the woman who ran the agency would call too often from the Michigan home office, badgering me to snag the Boston case. It was the biggest mystery in the record business —unknown band sells six million albums, then disappears. I'd put in enough pitches with the obviously worried record company to choke a

killer whale, trying to convince them, that our agency could solve the case. Now all I could do was wait. But after every call from the gal at the home office, I felt more and more like I was living some twisted spin-off of Charlie's Angels.

Suddenly the phone rang. "Rob..." said a pretty voice, "I've got some good news." It was Lovely Lois, a mol from the Epic mob. "You're on the Boston case!"

After jotting down the details, I grabbedmySony .44 and slipped it into my shoulder holster. Within minutes, I was on my way to the airport.

After landing in Boston, I picked up my rent-a-car and circled the airport twice to make sure I wasn't being followed. I checked into a hotel under a pseudonym—Elvis Chandler—and searched my room for bugs. I found two roaches. I killed one and smoked

the other. Then I called my connection —Joe S.

The mysterious Mr. S. 's gravelly voice rippled with danger as he gave me directions to the home of Tom Scholz, the mastermind behind Boston. "You'll know the place when you see the yellow Datsun sports car" where his parting words, "and be careful." I'd gotten enough guitars in the gut to know what he meant.

Something seemed strange as I rolled down the sunny, bucolic suburban road towards Scholz's house. It all seemed too nice, too ...normal. And much too peaceful for mystery, or rock 'n' roll.

I pulled into the driveway of the onestory ranch house and quietly padded up to the front door. I rang the doorbell and gazed through the storm door into the house. Leaning against the living room wall was a framed set of six silver albums. I knew I was in the right place.

"Nobody got falbulously wealthy off that first album"

After two minutes of waiting, I started to smell foul play. I was about to draw my Sony out and step inside when a lady rushed to the door.

"Hi, I'm Cindy Scholz," said with a flip of head. "Come in, we've been expecting you."

I suspected a trap, but walked in. Around the corner ambled a lanky, long-brown-haired fellow in cut-offs, t-shirt and sneakers. He grasped my hand and flashed a toothy grin. "How you doin' man!"

I was confused. The mad Dr. Scholz —whose electronic alchemy created albums in basements—looked more like a hippie center for the Celtics than a wizard, or a true star. We stepped into the kitchen for a quick cola on the rocks and some small talk, but he soon sensed I meant business. "Why don't we go down into the basement?" he offered. Knowing there was a chance I'd find the missing album, I followed.

Scholz's studio was the size of two large bedrooms, and each room was carpeted, ceiling-to-floor. We walked through the outer room into the control room and sat down. A little nervous about the firepower of his Scullys, I pulled out my Sony and flicked it on.

"Nice place," I commented breezily cigarette dangling from my mouth.

"Yeah...comfortable. Designed to

"We had zero recognition for such a long time... IVegotnuthin' for seven years"

keep everything in reach," said Scholz with a sweep of his arm. "That's kind of backwards from usual studios. Like, most studios have the control board set up so you can look out the window while you're workin' at the thing. I have it so you can look through the window at what's going on in here. Sometimes I'll get stuck out there on an acoustic part or something—can't pick up the machine noise—so I have to go out there but still see the meters.

"This is a big step up from the last place—it didn't have a window and I had to look through a crack in the door.

"For the 24-track, I throw this thing here on the floor," said Scholz, patting a large remote control atop a heap of snaking wires. "You push the little buttons with your tootsies there. It's great! You can punch in all the time, and never worry about the engineer

fucking up...because if he does, it's you!"

While Tom explained the finer points of phlanging and other aspects of recording firepower, I edged my Sony closer to him. "So where's the album?"! blurted out forcefully.

"It's gettin' there!" Tom reassured me. "I just finished off the last lead tracks, haven't done the vocals yet, and there's a long list of things I have to finish up on the wall over there. Last night we completed the percussion tracks, so it's vocals, patch-up and a quick mix and it's done.

"It's coming out real well in my opinion, and I don't want to compromise it or short change it at the last minute."

He explained that the record company was shooting for a June 10 release, "and it's conceivable I could make it." Later I was to learn that late July was more likely. I'd yet to hear a note, so I wasn't taking bets on anything.

"Well," I said, "are you feeling the pressure to get it done?" I wanted to start denting his calm.

"The pressure's been incredible," said Tom. Instead of twitching nervously, he still smiled. "The record company wants us to get it right, but they really want it. The agency wants to get us out on tour. They've all been pretty understanding, but it's gotten to the point where nobody's understanding. They're all on my back a little. Nobody wants to make me more nervous about the thing or cause me trouble, but they all wanted the thing last month—and I'm aware of that.

"I thought there was enormous pressure at this time last summer when I started puttin', the studio together. I could foresee even then, on a rough timetable, what was going to happen.

"I think it'll pay off," said Tom of the wait. "Luckily, it didn't take longer! It could have been a lot worse, and frankly, I wouldn't put it out until I think it's ready. It wouldn't be worth it! We were really lucky to have happen what happened!

"You know," he said with a pause, "we had zero recognition for such a long time from so many people—that's why everyone thought we were an overnight success. We got nuthin' for seven years! A lot of the stuff on the first album was there—in that form— five or six years ago. People heard it... and we got nuthin'l So when it finally happened...

"By that time I was obviously having my doubts. I would think: 'Well, apparently, what I'm into there just aren't many people into.' As it turned out, it wasn't that; it was that the established record business—local and national— didn't know what to do with us."

I asked Scholz what reasons he might see for the ferocity with which their first album happened, zooming up the charts like a .44 magnum slug.

"Apparently the time finally became right for the music, I guess. There wasn't a whole lot of difference in what I was tryin' to peddle six years ago and what I was tryin' to peddle two years ago."

Tom then went on to talk about his

I aatd: 'Let's face facts. We're In a car full of gas, atl we gotta do Is step on the gas pedal.' "Franny

"zillions of demos," which he started recording years ago in studios. "Then I bought this Scully here, and put it in a small demo studio that had some mikes, a mixing console and so forth. They used my deck by day, and I used the place by night.

"They closed down before I finished the last demo, so I borrowed some money and bought a small mixing console and a few other necessities, which is what I ended up doing for the first album on."

Scholz also talked about his background—deceptively normal for a rock 'n' roller or mad scientist. He grew up in Toledo, took piano lessons, played basketball and was a selfdescribed "car freak in high school. I used to do custom body work. I finally got that out of my system recently and did an Austin-Healy, front to back."

Tom came to Boston in 1965, took up the guitar 10 years ago, played in college bands and finally started writing songs near graduation. "I was never thinking of doing music professionally," said the MIT graduate. "Maybe semi-professionally...sure. But hobby.' "

Tom's job as a mechanical engineer for Polaroid after graduation not only helped finance his demo spree, but

And if you boliovo that, wo'd ilko to show you a piece of prim# real estate . . .

taught him about recording as an unexpected by-product. "I learned a great deal about electronics at Polaroid—applied audio electronics. I worked on the instant movie system for a while, which as a matter of fact taught me a lot about recording."

Maybe too much. Tom returned from the road a year and a half ago, his new basement studio wasn't quite up to his specs. He spent a few months working on it himself to get it straight, "and I really couldn't work down here and then go upstairs and write songs," he explained. "I was too exhausted.

"Then writing songs took longer than I anticipated. I had some older songs that were complete, some that I wasn't happy about the arrangements and had to change this or that, and a lot of new ideas that I hadn't had time to work out on the road. I worked on quite a few more songs than appear on the album. Some of them will be on the next album, but they had snags in the arrangements that I didn't want to take the time to iron out."

Tom excused himself for a minute, and in his absence I explored the studio more closely. In the outer room on a cabinet with tapes sat a gold Boy Howdy! award. Suddenly I knew why he was cooperating. He was on our side.

When he returned, Tom offered to play me some songs, sans vocals. Even at a stage Tom would call rough, the tracks sounded better than most anybody's completed record. The first cut was an old tune—"A Man I'll Never Be"—which lifts off with a pretty piano/acoustic guitar passage, then is whipped by electric guitar into a stately, mid-tempo melody that has changes reminiscent of "Long Time." The cut is pure Boston, only more refined and trickier than before.

"Take A Chance" does just that for Boston. A pop-ish tune with crunching Who-like chords and lilting leads, it sounds like a bitch of a live cut and features Barry on some slashing slide guitar—a curious but effective extension of the Boston style. The third cut extends things even more, a very rich, almost limey rolling rocker by Brad— "Used To Bad News." Especially stunning is an effervescent organ solo by Tom.

As Tom shut off the tape, it was clear his recording methodology pays off. By refining and re-recording, "you get it together ahead of time, and then you get the best out of your musicians. Myself, I'd just as soon hear it with the spontaneity and polish.

"But it's been very costly. We lost many times the amount of money we'll gross from this album by doing,what we did. We lost so much money cornin' off the road last spring so I could put this joint together—not playing all the big outdoor dates that we were offered. And this spring and summer we lost so many possible dates. It's very costly. I think it started gettin' to a few people, but the band is completely behind . it. Whatever it takes, the second album is going to be as good or better than the first.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 49

"Nobody got fabulously wealthy~off that first album. A new band doesn't usually have that good a deal, though now we've got a new deal and should make a little more.

"Everyone has felt the cost—and more than just 'Oh gee, that would have been another $100,000 in the bank.' We haven't got five millionaires.But then again, most of the guys in the band weren't making much money anyway, so comparatively speaking, everybody's real happy. We all got a house and a car, and nobody had a house or a car that ran before.

"Everybody's feeling the same way. It's like you're on a basketball team that just won the championship, or was in the play-offs last yeai\ The only thing you care about is being a great team again the next year. We owe it to ourselves and our fans."

But could he explain why they had such championship style?

"I think what happened was that we got ignored for so long that we had a really good set of songs, and got to be pretty decent musicians.

"People bought our record because they liked the songs. The rest of it— the playing and singing—is window dressing. That's for me and the band to get into. That's why we do as good a job as possible.

"You know," said Tom with a grin, "I always thought of it as a long shot. I firmly believed it would never happen. It was like buying a lottery ticket and you think: 'Well, I gotta chance, right?' Then you go look at the winning number and go 'Shit!' And you knew that every week you'd go there and. the same thing would happen."

^'1 guess you won the lottery," I interjected. ^

"Yeah," said Tom with a grin, "I won the lottery!"

As I left him, Tom was tuning the organ in his living room for an overdub. I knew the Boston album was in good hands.

I returned to my hotel and called Mr. S. again. Though I'd contacted Scholz and heard some of the album, I'd yet to see the band itself. "You're in luck," said Joe when I explained my dilemma. "Barry and Sibbie will be up at Fran's house tonight watching the Bruins game. And Brad said he might drop by." I copied down another set of instructions, and was told this time to look for the Lotus out front.

I pulled my car to the side on the dark street where Franny lived, and got out and sniffed the damp, salty night air. Down the hill I could hear the waves crashing on the beach. Again, it was too peaceful, but this time I didn't worry.

Inside, Franny, Barry and friends were rooting on the Bruins, who seemfed to find fights the best way to make up for losing. They welcomed me like another one of the gang over for the game? and offered a sample of' Franny's latest acquisition to his budding wine cellar. After the Bruins took a bag, we began some serious talk.

At first, Franny and Barry investigated me, wondering what kind of cases a gumshoe like me took, and asked me all about the other folks in rock 'n' roll I'd met. "We don't get to

meet a lot of other bands," said Franny, "but since we've really liked a lot of people we met, we are really curious."

The normality stopped confusing me and started to make sense. Like their music, the guys in Boston are very hard to dislike, and very easy to enjoy.

As far as their own success, the guys dismiss any idea of hype, and were careful to nix such silly ad campaigns as a picture of Tom in a space suit or the "Better Music Through Science" kicker. While even Tom was at a loss to explain why six million Americans 'picked up on Boston, Franny had his own ideas.

"I had a pretty good hunch it was gonna go three million. I said: 'Let's face facts. We're in a car full of gas, all we gotta do is step on the gas pedal.' Wg had a full tank—twenty... no, thirty gallons!"

"The most exciting thing was getting the record contract to start," inserted Barry. "That took so long, we didn't care how many records we sold, as long as it was enough to keep the' contract. Within two weeks after the album came out, though, we knew it was gonna do a lot better than that!"

Though I felt I didn't need the heat, I slipped out my Sony and clicked it on. As I left the room, it recorded the conversation.

"I gotta go home and practice acoustic guitar," said Barry quietly. "I gotta play tomorrow. I was gonna do it earlier tonight when I got home, until I heard we had company. I really haven't practiced it at all. I was feeling really guilty about it."

"GOOD!!" says Franny emphatically, making sure the point stuck.

After I returned, Barry bid adieu and Franny and I settled down to watch Johnny Carson tell Johnny Mathis he must have sold "millions and millions and millions and millions" of albums. Mathis hedged a little, and Franny and I looked at each other with a laugh.

Soon Sibbie arrived and his funky energy livened us up. We stepped into the kitchen for some edibles.

"You know, this was gonna be the last band I was gonna try," said Franny, recalling the woes of being broke and trying not to sell out to a tuxedo in a lounge band. "It was that or hang around even though discos are knocking the shit out of musicians.

"After all those club bands, it was hard to find material to get behind. Tom's was just that, so I said 'Great!'"

"If everyone tries to work to achieve a group sound, that's really important," said Sib. "And we got it!"

Did they mind that Tom was the leader when it was still a band?

"Not at all," said Sibbie. "Very capable leader too. If you're gonna have someone at the helm, it might as well be Tom. He's super!

"The thing about Tom is— technically he's a genius, and he has imagination. He's so hep! He could stay in some shop and create inventions all day, but he'd rather rock 'n' roll."

"And that," added Franny, ''was a serious gamble."

As Franny and I wrapped jt up, Sib stepped into the other room to play pinball. Soon the air was filled with clicks, buzzes, bells and Sibbian howls of glee. "I broke the house record on the first ball!!" he exulted. Some guys have all the Tuck.

I left them breaking new pinball records, and quietly drove back to town along the moonlit coast. I had found an album and a band— together and ready to rock 'n' roll— and the case was solved. Something seemed very peaceful in the city of Boston that night.; flMjfo.