LES VEGAS

Scratch Around - I have played with two guitar masters in my life. One, of course, is Donald Roeser of the Soft White Underbelly and Blue Oyster Cult, and the other is Ted Lewand of the Test Tube Babies.  They both play on this song.  Ted plays the intro and the first lead, and Donald plays the second lead and also punches up the track all along.

 

This is my only blues tune.  It's about the unequal distribution of wealth and its effect on your lovelife.  Recorded - in the early 1990s. and published on Fool's Gold

Also playing are Peter Haviland on guitar,Chris Grassi on drums,  Bill Merchant on bass, Sherryl Marshall and Irene Russel singing back-up, Les Vegas on vocals

(note-  Donald added his guitar after the song had been recorded and instead  of challenging Ted who had already recorded his guitar, intro and first lead, Donald added what I think of as a poultry lead, second lead, filled with chickens, turkeys and geese. Very imaginative.)

​

Coast to Coast- A friend of mine was having a story of his made into a movie so he asked me to write a song for it.  This is it.

​

Critical Mass- This is the opening number of my space/rock musical RINGS.   This is the true story of my life fifty years in the future.  I am an old rocker in space, playing the outer planets.  I am alone in a big transparent dome on Mimas, a moon of Saturn, which hangs in the sky behind me.  There is no live band with me, just my old bandmates on screens playing what they would have played if they’ed ever played these songs.  The dome is filled with miners and techs who work out there.

​

This song was recorded a few years ago in NYC with the new Underbelly band featuring
Albert Bouchard - drums, back-up vocals, sythesizer
David Hirschberg - bass
Adrian Romero - guitar, back-up vocals
Les Vegas - vocals

Arranged and mixed by Albert Bouchard

 

Magdaline - Some of my favorite rock songs are where  a great hard rock band plays a beautiful sweet song.  Magdaline is that hard sweet song for me. 

 

I had a girlfriend once who told me that sex, which made a boy a man, made the girl a whore.

That didn’t seem quite fair to me, so I wrote this song about women’s sin and man’s complicity.

 

This song is entirely the Test Tube Babies.  Howie Also on rhythm guitar,Jon Ossman bass and back-up vocal, Chris Grassi on drums, Craig Thayler on violin, and Les Vegas on vocals and twelve string guitar.

 

I should say here that Ted's guitar lead on this is one of the most beautiful leads I've ever heard.  I hope you love it too.

​

Half a Century Boy-  I wrote this song when I was half a century old.  Unfortunately surprisingly, to me, that was a quarter century ago but, as they say, it’s better than the alternative.

Ted Lewand - guitar
Bill Merchant - bass
Chris Grassi - drums
Andy Real - piano

​

​

Jet Set Cruise by Peter Haviland 

I met Peter Haviland when we were at Hobart College where he had been playing in a band with Eric Bloom.  He also played years before that  in the Thousand Lakes region in a band with Albert Bouchard.  Peter turned me on to the Stones in their earliest years and was always the epitome of the dedicated rock musician. (I put Peter in  song called Geneva Sunrise - Barrel Harold he took his Axe, and spent a winter by the railroad tracks, he lived on tuna fish and Sugar Smacks but he's fine) He also played with my favorite bar band in the Finger Lakes - T-Rocket and the Barking Guitars..  Some years later while I was living in SOHO, Peter also lived there on Prince Street where he set up an office in FInelli's Bar where he could usually be found.  Peter played with me during that City period and is the writer of Jet Set Cruise which I still play today.  Unfortunately Peter has discorperated but his music is great and filled with his character which you can find in the lyrics of songs like Jet Set Cruise and in his particular guitar sounds also represented in that song and others I will add over time.

Haviland/Falck

Peter Haviland Guitar

Ted Lewand Guitar

Bill Merchant Bass

Chris Grassi Drums

Shane Kirsch Sax

Sherryl Marshall - Back-up vocals

Irene Russel Back-up vocals

Les Vegas - Lead vocals

​

Astronomy words by Sandy Pearlman and music by Albert Bouchard- Albert, of course, was the original drummer with both the Soft White Underbelly and Blue Oyster Cult.  In my book A Lucky Monkey and the Soft White Underbelly I say that Albert was the glue of the band, always keeping us working and filled with an indomitable spirit that kept us laughing through the toughest times.  Now he is also on his own and has been working on the songs he wrote with the late Sandy Pearlman, the cycle of songs called Imaginos 

 

This is one of those songs written by Albert and Sandy Pearlman as played by Albert and me,and the new Underbelly band recently..  Astronomy

 Adrian Remero- guitar

David Hirshberg - bass

Albert Bouchard drums

Les Braunstein lead vocals

produced by Albert and Adrian