What about that old tape of ours? Dec. 22, 1985

  

Pauly asked about the tape project we did back in the 1970s called “Francis and The Wolf,” a project we had engaged upon as a spoof of Hank but had such a mean streak down its middle other people we played it for cringed asking why we hated Hank so much.

We recorded it for the 1976 Christmas season in my room in the rooming house in Montclair, following up on a similar but less lethal project the previous year recorded at “my fancy apartment” on Paulson Avenue in Passaic which we had simply called “Francis.” Pauly and I overdubbing our voices to sound like choir singing “Francis, Francis, please put on your pantses.”

Included in that recording in 1975, were snippets of a live recording Pauly, Hank and Rob had made during their trip to Nova Scotia in 1971, a tape that served as Pauly’s running documentary of their journey and a tape Hank ached to have a copy of. Giving him so little was a kind of tease. We ended up that recording with a speeded-up version of Bob Dylan’s Positively Fourth Street,” with the operative lyric “You’ve got a lot of nerve calling me your friend.”

I don’t know why we felt such rage towards the poor fool. But Hank actually liked the 1975 version, which I think infuriated Pauly, and was the impetus behind the second project a year later, for us to come up with something so outrageous even Hank would hate it.

With a pile of sound effects records and two tape recorders, Pauly and I decided to do an audio biography of Hank’s life. We even wrote original songs: Hank’s Drinking Song, Hank’s funeral song, and a song about Hank’s then romantic interests called “Rona from Corona (Let’s go all the way,” a girl we had up to that point had yet to meet.

It wound up a major project, a psychological romp at Hank’s expense, exploring our deepest feelings about one of our oldest friends, the rage visible to others at the time if not to us.

Richard Gordy, when we later played it for him, begged us never to do anything like that for him and he was dead serious.

We hand delivered the tape to Hank, meeting up with him about a week before Christmas in Toms River.

A cold spell had set in. But instead of listening to the tape, Hank insisted we go somewhere together, a flash back to those Magical Mystery Tours we all took back when we were younger. We headed south from Toms River and ended up at the Barnegat Light House and wandered the nearly vacant beach there, three strange ghosts from the past, as if there was nothing wrong between us.

I don’t know if he ever listened to the tape. Hank never indicated one way or another.

Why Pauly is interested in the old tape now is a mystery to me. But Pauly has some strange quirks and may actually be nostalgic for a moment we should all just try and forget.

 

  1985 Menu


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