Then life made its own demands. Running a recording studio is not conducive to any kind of regular television viewing. I missed it, missed it again, asked a friend to record it, and then The Legal Diva brought the DVD home. It was like Christmas.

I make no apologies for my unabashed gushing fandom. I love Tom Petty. I believe that he is the greatest American rock artist, and his band, which is very much a band in the truest sense, is the greatest American rock band.

So, what kind of review can I give? Certainly it wont be very objective concerning the subject, but I can be objective about the way the subject is presented, and that is what I’ll try to do…..when I’m not gushing.

Apparently Peter Bogdanovich was supplied with an enormous amount of archival footage, for which I’m truly thankful. As a fan, the first thing on my wish list for this movie was Mudcrutch footage.

Mudcrutch was the Gainesville Florida bar band that contained the nucleus of the Heartbreakers; Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, and Benmont Tench.

I was not disappointed, and was impressed by the editing job done to synch up live footage with studio tracks, a task usually bungled by non-musician editors.

The film tells Tom’s story from his humble roots in Gainesville to the present. It’s a film that could have easily been titled I Wont Back Down (after another single from the record that produced Runnin’ Down A Dream)), because that title sums up Tom’s career better than any other.

Tom possesses a number of talents, but without his single minded determination, his utter commitment to himself, there would be no career to document. From his naïve but successful ‘pack up the van’ approach to conquering Los Angeles, to his not one, but two legal battles with RCA, through his Heartbreaker trying solo album period, Tom managed to always do it on his terms, and managed to churn out the hits. He never compromised, and his results are timeless.

And oh, the stories they can tell. Every question I had was answered, and countless incredible anecdotes are delivered, many by Tom himself with the endearing candor that is such a part of the Petty appeal.

Everybody involved, with the exception of some grudge holding record execs, shows up to tell the tale. Is there bitterness? Yep. Is there drama? Yep. Joy? Uh-huh. Tales of excess and debauchery? Sure. But most of all, there’s greatness.

Four hours is a lot of movie, usually too much – see Branagh’s Hamlet, actually don’t, anyway, as previously stated, I’m a fan; I want as much as I can get. I do think that Tom is one of a small group of his peers that warrants such a lengthy run time, but the casual rock fan who enjoys concise VH1 type rockumentary fare might not want to watch it all in one sitting like I did.

The Legal Diva found the DVD on line at Best Buy for somewhere around thirty bucks. If it was simply a two disc documentary I would have considered it slightly over-priced, but I would have bought it anyway. Pete and Tom thought the same, and they gave us a third DVD disc of the 30th Anniversary Concert in Gainesville (about two hours), and a CD of the soundtrack to the film which is comprised of unreleased rarities and alternate performances.

I listened to the CD in the Mustang on the way to the studio so I could watch the concert DVD and hear it on the Event 20/20 monitors.

Damn……….

The CD is cool, there’s a nice take of Southern Accents on it, but the concert…..

Shit……..

Playing live is what the Heartbreakers have always been about. It’s about making that sound. Tom’s songs are just the vehicle – nice vehicle, but the sound is the thing. The sound comes from the Heartbreakers.

The set list is a very satisfying gamut running well paced seemingly effortless romp through the Petty canon. Surprising omission: The Waiting. Surprising gem: Handle With Care. Added value: three songs with Stevie Nicks. Most stupefying moment: It’s Good To Be King.

It’s all about the Heartbreakers.

My participation in the birth of Slammer! began two years ago when Chan walked into Smoke and Mirrors with a song called ‘Solitary’. Chan became a regular, and in the end Chris and I ended up recording most of the songs for Slammer!, though much of it was recorded by David Murray at Murray Music in Chan and Steve’s hometown, Austin Texas.

In the spring of 2007, we mixed and mastered the demo that Chan and Steve featured as part of a promo package used to generate steam behind a possible production of their musical. To that end, a reading of the play was held in Los Angeles, and graciously hosted by Chan’s sister Kim Chandler and her husband actor Saverio Guerra.

That possibility became a reality soon after when they were accepted to the FringeNYC festival.

It was time to take the play off the paper, out of the studio, and onto a stage.

Egads!

During the summer Chan and Steve called in every chit they had stockpiled over the years. There was a show to do, and there was no money.

The core group who developed the show came together at that time, and has tirelessly donated their services without financial recompense. Director Rod Caspers, Choreographer Ann Presley, Set Designer Kim Chandler, and Producers Scott Ihrig and Elliott Forrest, along with Chan and Steve designed the show, cast it, and somehow found a way to do quite a lot with very little.

The set design, which features rolling beds and grilles that create the prison feel, coupled with the casting of two actor/stage manager/stage hands was a stroke of brilliance, and given the constraints the show had to be able to work within, was a necessary stroke of brilliance.

The show would live or die on the scene changes.

Elliott Forrest donated the Riverspace in Nyack as a rehearsal camp for three weeks, and that’s where the dirty work happened, most of it without yours truly, as I was brought in for the last week of Nyack rehearsals - when the band arrived - to take my self-appointed place as Band Bitch.

It’s one thing to put on a musical, such as West Side Story, or My Fair Lady. They’ve been worked through. We know how they work, and we know what works within them.

It’s quite another story to develop a new one. There is no reference.

That is why it has been amazing for me to see this thing come to life, as it truly has, before my very eyes.

The other core member of the Slammer! creative team is Chip Dolan, Musical Director, and my own personal feudal lord. Chip took Chan’s arrangements and brought them to life – with help from our demo, I’m sure!

Chip in turn hired the band: his brother, drummer Bob Dolan, guitarist Gabriel Rhodes, and bassist Mark Spencer.

These guys are seasoned, quality musicians, and they bring the whole show a sense of authenticity rarely heard in musical theater, as well as providing the melodious glue, and thru line during the set changes and fight sequences.

So I spent that week buying guitar strings, batteries, and picks. I set up and broke down the band gear a dozen times, and generally hung around backstage like a real rock n’ roller.

I enjoy that part. It’s familiar. Just another gig, how’s the sound, we need more vocal in the monitor – next?

I can’t say I enjoy the waiting around bit. Never could stand it. I guess that’s another reason I gave up acting. I have no patience for those who don’t ‘get it’ quickly.

Working on the other side, however, has made me see it was I who wasn’t getting it; some shit just takes time to work through, like lighting……

The cast is great, at any rate, and they have been putting in many more hours than I have.

We moved to the venue, the Skirball Theater at NYU (LaGuardia and 3rd), on Friday the 17th of August, and that’s when things got nutty.

The FringeNYC folks do things a bit differently. Slammer! shares a stage with three other productions, and each gets the exact same amount of limited time to tech the show and rehearse on the stage - about six hours. Each production is only given fifteen minutes prior to each performance to set up, and fifteen minutes to strike after the show.

What?

Yep.

So, in fifteen minutes we have to get fifteen people into costume, set the stage, set up the band, mic the band, and mic the actors.

There is no sound check, just a line check – “okay, everything seems to be okay….”

Well it can be done, and it was done in rehearsal, and it was done again on opening night, much to the relief of Stage Manager Chris Munnell, who gets the Tire Tracks Across the Back Award for his work on Slammer!, and Sound Designer Thomas Bergeron, who seems to have kept his hairline intact throughout some hairy moments.

But that’s not the end of my duties. No sir, one must wear a number of hats on the Slammer! gig, and I got appointed to Spot Light #1. My counterpart, Steve Barcus, also known as Spot Light #2, and I jump on a spotlight for the run of the show and listen to Casey McClellan, Lighting Designer, whisper cues in our ears that we haven’t yet heard.

With the first show under our belts, the cast is confident, the crew is relieved, and we anxiously await our next three shows.

And then it will be over………

……for now.

This is just the beginning.

The day started badly and then it got worse. It was a bad day for a great many New Yorkers. I was blessed, however, to be one of a select group of Gotham residents - those who were going to see the Beasties at Summer Stage that night.

The Beasties opened up with the live band thing. Developing that part of their act has added much longevity to their career. The Beastie Boys aren’t the greatest band, but they are a band, and that’s enough to set them apart from most of their peers.

But just who are their peers?

The Beastie Boys are three acts. They are a Rap group, for which they are most well known, but they are a sleazy 70’s porn style funk band and a Hardcore band as well.

Their peers are Murphy’s Law and Run-DMC. An interesting demographic; certainly it was back in the late eighties.

The Beastie Boys were a Hardcore Punk band before they got involved with Hip Hop, and to their credit, they have not forgotten that fact. Their set was peppered with songs from their un-glorious youth, short fast bursts of angst driven energy.

The Summer Stage was populated with my peers - forty-ish white folk who still like to party.

Just like the Beastie Boys.

I think that was, and still is, a large part of their appeal. They are us, and we are them, and we are all together, as exemplified by Mike D’s assertion that he took a ‘very hot’ A train to the show.

After three band numbers, including Gratitude, they put down the guitars and picked up the microphones. Root Down was followed by Shake Your Rump, and people were doing just that despite the not great sound.

It’s hard to sound amazing at an outdoor gig, even more so if you are currently touring small halls where it’s much easier to get decent sound. I’d say, overall, nobody cared too much about the sound. They were there for the party, not to be dazzled by soundscapes.

The Beastie Boys are not, and never will be Pink Floyd. We can all rest assured of that one fact.

Before long they picked up the instruments again, and I realized that the band numbers actually provided a break of sorts – a breather. That’s smart. Two hours is a long time to be running around the stage jumping up and down and rapping.

The sound was much better during the instrumental jam numbers, which I very much enjoyed despite the fact that my drug intake for the night was limited to beer - sweet, sweet beer.

Their new record, The Mix Up is an instrumental album, and if the few tunes they played off that record are any indication, I’d say it’s the best instrumental record since Jeff Beck’s Blow By Blow.

Of course I don’t buy a lot of instrumental records.

So that’s how it went for the rest of the show, back and forth between the MC thing and the band thing. They dropped a number of crowd favorites: Time To Get Ill, So What’cha Want, Pass The Mic, Brass Monkey, Sure Shot, Sabotage – the show closer, but the highlight of the evening for everyone was An Open Letter To NYC.

I’m a proud New Yorker, as I think we all are, and An Open Letter To NYC perfectly sums up what I’m so proud about.

Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten
From the Battery to the top of Manhattan
Asian, Middle-Eastern and Latin
Black, White, New York you make it happen

The Beasties aren’t gonna spend a lot of time tugging at your emotions, and that’s just as well. There’s room, a need even, for music that doesn’t require much thought to enjoy. The Beastie Boys have always provided that. Not that they aren’t intelligent in their approach, their craft – they are, but they don’t lose sight of what it is they are doing.

They are making party.

The Beastie Boys, making party since 1982.