Today is my brother Frank’s birthday. He’s about 11 or 12 years older than me and we both have a lot in common. We like a lot of the same music, we have similar teeth and we also look alike somewhat. Ok, we look a lot like each other. I remember a few years ago I was walking down St. Mark’s Place past Coney Island High, a rock and roll club that one of the Smithereens was performing at. Dennis Diken, from the Smithereens is friends with my brother Frank, both big Beach Boys/Brian Wilson fans. I know what Dennis looks like and he’s giving me this look that shows how dumbstruck he is, trying to figure out who I am, this guy that looks like Frank. I go right up to him and say, ‘I’m Frank’s brother.’
‘Damn you look just like him.’ ‘Nah, Frank’s better looking’ I say and keep walking. Frank is a good friend and a great brother. He’s been on the radio, WFMU for years. Now he does web casts on WFMU, not broadcasting on the air. That’s a shame, he was one of the last of Mohicans. He used to play back in the seventies, Grateful Dead and Bruce and Steely Dan and all that sort of thing. I was into Punk and New Wave which he was slightly interested in. We made a plan where he would borrow some of my records that I had recently bought and he would play them on a segment of his show called ‘My Brother’s Records’.
The segment grew from 15 minutes at the end of his show to gradually encompassing the whole show, with Frank buying his own damn records, or getting them for free since he was a DJ at a radio station and record companies send them out all the time. We saw a lot of shows together throughout the years, Peter Frampton, The Who, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Devo and many others. Frank was the one I went to see the B-52’s and then two nights later, Talking Heads at the Dr. Pepper Music Festival at Wollman Rink in Central Park in 1980.
That was a fun night. Afterwards we were walking down to the car and the Winter Garden theatre, when the new smash Broadway musical ’42nd Street’ had just opened. People were streaming outside after the performance, crying and dabbing at their eyes. Frank and I stood across the street laughing thinking that it must have been a terrible show with so many people crying. Frank and I found out the next day that after the opening night performance it was announced from the stage by the producer David Merrick that Gower Champion, the show’s director died that afternoon. The show must go on indeed and it was that announcement that caused so many bereaved people to file out into the streets.
Like I said we didn’t know. What would you think if you’re walking by an opening night show and everyone is leaving the theatre in tears? I just called Frank up to wish him a Happy Birthday. I mistakenly called him during one of his shows. Whatevs, I’ll be seeing him on Sunday for cake.