The Sweet Cider Museum

September 1978 brought the changing of the leaves and a new direction for Sweet Cider. Glenn was officially on-board and we were developing a style and “sound”. Glenn played his first gig as a member of the band at the Buckshot on September 3, and with summer winding down we only had the 10th as our last show there. It had been a wild and crazy ride at the Buckshot. We learned that free beer was a fringe benefit, shed a couple of wives (Walt and I) and had picked up a mandolin player. We also realized we needed to book some more jobs.

Tom and his wife came up with the idea of auctioning our services out at the annual WMHT membership drive. A couple from Troy came in with the winning bid and on September 9 we headed over there for a party they were having. We were set up on a hay wagon and it was a real fun day. The next day, Sunday, we played at an Arts Festival in Guilderland. My Aunt was involved in it and asked if we would like to play. We never passed up a chance to play during that time, so even though we weren’t going to be paid we felt it would be good exposure. We also had our last Buckshot Inn job later in the day and we’d be getting paid for that.

We sped from Guilderland up to Mayfield, pulled into the Buckshot parking lot and began to unload our gear. Tom suddenly looked panicked and said “I forgot to pack the mics”. He jumped in his van and flew off back to Rotterdam. Meanwhile Joe, Walt and I began to setup. Not long after Glenn arrived. He had driven up in his own car and said he had seen Tom’s van speeding south. We explained the situation to him as we shrugged our shoulders and laughed. This wouldn’t be the last time Tom forgot to bring something to a gig causing him to speed home and back. Just about 10 minutes before we had to start playing Tom came barreling into the parking lot. He ran in with the mics, we plugged them in and began playing. Tom had made the 70 mile trip in under 45 minutes.

The following weekend was another with one free gig and one paying one. We’d be back in Mechanicville for two nights at the Out of Towner, and on Saturday afternoon we were going to play in front of the Schenectady Public Library.

The Out of Towner was a unique place. All the times we played there it was always a sparse crowd. And of course there was the time when Tom punched a guy through the kitchen doors before we started playing. It never ceased to amaze me that the guy he punched stayed for the next set. Other times there would hardly be anyone there (I guess bluegrass wasn’t a big draw in Mechanicville in 1978), but still the owner always asked us back.

Friday was slow as usual, and when we arrived there Saturday evening it looked like it was going to be more of the same. The afternoon show at the library had been terrific. Glenn’s mother and father both showed up (I think they were there to see the group of degenerates their son had hooked up with) as did Tom’s Mom and lots of our friends.

At the Out of Towner we knew after our first set, when there were only two people at the bar, it was going to be a long night. In the end we just went into the bar and played for that couple the rest of the night. It was the last time we played there. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact Tom had increased the number of chairs in his kitchen by two.

We didn’t play anywhere for the next three weeks, so we decided to record a demo tape to use to get more jobs. Walt brought a stereo tape recorder over to Tom’s and we ended up with a pretty decent tape.

Our first gig after our little hiatus was in Cobleskill at a small bar called Uncle Jacks. Cobleskill had a college and Jacks was one of the bars frequented the the kids. Our first gig there was an accident. Duane Morgan, who we had met in August at the festival in Northville, had planned on playing there. He suggested we take the job instead, but he neglected to tell the owner. Naturally when we arrived Friday night for the show there was some confusion but things worked out fine and we had a great two nights with packed houses and crazy fans. It was the beginning of a fantastic relationship.

The next weekend we were back at our old haunt the Woodstone Inn in Schenectady. We had built up a nice fan base in Schenectady, so when we played there it was always a hootin’ and a hollerin’ wild night. We were also building up the courage to ask for more money since we had added Glenn, but also because we were building a following and the bar owners would almost always have a good night if we were appearing. Amazingly enough we never had a problem getting a “raise”, and as a result had created a nice paying side job.

And now for the Forgotten Road Trip. I’m able to remember a lot of the early places because I never throw anything away. As a result I have a notebook that has 1978-mid 1981 chronicled. Every job with dates and how much I made. Unbeknownst to me Tom did the same and I also use his records as reference. We took a famous road trip in 1979 where we played in Alexandria Bay on Friday and then drove to Potsdam to play there the following night. We would always reference that trip in our reminiscences. I discovered that on October 20-21 1978 we played at the Wild Oat in Potsdam. I don’t remember doing that one iota. I asked Joe if he remembered doing it. He had no recollection. This past October when Glenn was in town for his annual visit I asked if he remembered. Nope. So if anyone reading this was there and remembers it please let me know. Did we have a good time?

Our next gig was a direct result of having played at Uncle Jacks in October. The folks who ran the coffee house on the Cobleskill college campus booked us for two nights in November. This was exactly the kind of gig we were looking for, playing colleges etc. It was a step up from playing in bars, and although we’d been together for only a year we could see the difference. Playing at the Brickyard Pointe Coffee House on the Cobleskill campus paid much better. We had begun to build a following in Cobleskill also.

After another weekend at the Woodstone Inn our next show was at a place new for us. The Johnstown Hotel had a bar/restaurant called The Hungry Horse where they would have entertainment on the weekends. It seemed like a good fit for us since we had fans from all our time playing at the Buckshot that summer. We played consecutive Sundays there. Glenn had a commitment the second Sunday, so we did that gig as a quartet. That was also the night that Joe acquired a bicycle.

We played one more weekend in December at the Woodstone Inn and then didn’t play out again until the new year. We rehearsed and jammed over the holidays, and 1979 was shaping up to be a wild and eventful year. We were becoming very comfortable playing music with each other, and were looking forward to getting out again in the new year.

I wanted to make sure I got a post in for December so I have a few pictures to share. The first four photos were taken at a show we did in the ski lodge at Scotch Valley Ski Area on February 28, 1982. You may notice that Walt’s not in the pictures. The previous week Walt was offered the opportunity to go to Mardi Gras and he jumped at it. We were all happy for him, but were left with the job of finding someone to fill in on bass. We had a full weekend booked, Friday and Saturday night at the Grog Shoppe in Schenectady and Sunday afternoon at Scotch Valley.

We somehow got Cherry Schacher from Aged in the Hills to fill in. We had never played with Cherry, and as far as I know she had never seen us play either. It was going to be a strange situation to be sure. Friday night about an hour before we were to play Cherry met us at the bar and we gave her a crash course in “Cider”. Any songs that Walt sang lead on, Joe or I would sing and instead of three part harmony we would just have two. Cherry was able to pick up on what we were doing, and the two nights at the Grog Shoppe came off much better than we expected.

Sunday Cherry met us at Tom’s and along with Al Zubal who was going to drive we set off for Scotch Valley. We set up in front of the windows that faced the slopes and it was very cool to turn around occasionally and see the people skiing down. Al Zubal took the photos after we were finished playing and we were all joking around with different instruments. You can see a white van outside the windows, which was Tom’s. The bright light above Cherry is a skiier with a torch coming down the hill. They had what they called a “torch run” at the end of the day, with a bunch of skiers coming down the slope with torches. It was quite a spectacle. If you view the slideshow full-screen, you can see a bunch of smaller lights behind the real bright one, and those are the other skiers. In the picture with the four of us at the bar, there’s a Moosehead Beer advertisement on the wall. Any time we would see Cherry we would joke that “we have picture of you with Moose” in our best Boris Badenov voices.

Picture #5 was taken at an Adirondack Bluegrass League show in Corinth in either January or early February of 1982. The featured band was going to be Country Gazette, one of our favorite bands, and we certainly didn’t want to miss it. It snowed all day the day of the show but we weren’t going to be deterred. There were quite a few of our friends going to the show, there may have been ten of us total, and we all piled into Tom’s van and headed up to Corinth.

It was a great show, and we decided to buy the latest Country Gazette album, have them all autograph it, and then raffle it off at an upcoming OTB show. The picture was taken after the show, and Roland White suggested that we look like we were fighting over it. That’s Alan Munde and Roland White pulling at the album with Tom. The ride home was another boozy one as we seemed to stop and have a drink at every bar between Corinth and home. It also continued to snow the entire night.

Footnote: In a real bit of irony, Joe won the County Gazette album that we raffled at the OTB show.

The last picture holds a little mystery. I think it was taken at Walt’s apartment on the corner of Perry St. and Campbell Ave. in Schenectady. That’s Walt’s son Mike and Joe’s daughter Megan with Tom. In the background is Tom’s first wife Deb. This was taken sometime between the fall of 1981 and the winter of 1982, I’m not sure exactly when.

So a little slideshow for the end of 2011. There’s plenty more to come in 2012.

Happy New Year!!

We’ll try and tie up some more loose ends in this post. Most of the photos were taken at Tom’s cousin’s place in Mariaville. We were playing more and looking to book more jobs, so publicity photos were definitely needed. Tom’s cousin’s wife Sherry offered to take some pictures for us and their farm was the most logical place to do it. Tom had Sweet Cider T-shirts made up and it was decided that’s what we’d wear for the “photo shoot”. The dressing alike thing was something that Tom was always trying to push. He felt it looked more professional, since that was how most bluegrass bands of the day were dressing. Matching outfits it turned out were not really our style.

Individually our appearances were changing too. I was the only one that still wore a beard, although I had cut my very long hair. By the end of the year the beard had disappeared from my face also.

I’ve included the only picture I have of us performing at the Royal Mountain Bluegrass Festival in August of 1978. The following week we’d meet Glenn and become a five piece band. The bass Walt played that day was a Rickenbacker stereo bass that he had borrowed from our friend Ron Frank. This was our first “high profile” gig, and Walt was concerned his gear wasn’t up to snuff. Another recurring theme for the next thirty plus years.

The next set of photos are related to the The Sweet Cider Bluegrass Festival Experience – Part 2 post. These are the pictures of us performing on stage at the Berkshire Mountains Bluegrass Festival band contest. If you look closely at the first photo, you can see some folks standing to the left of the stage getting ready to perform. Those are the members of a band called The Bluegrass Samurai, and the bass player in the photo is our friend Nick Barr.

I also talked to Glenn recently, and he said that he still regrets not taking the fiddle contest more seriously. He thinks he may have been able to place second to the eventual winner Mark Oconner. I was mistaken in the original post about that, as I had thought he had finished second, when he actually placed third.

So that should tidy things up for the time being although I’m sure I’ll run into more loose ends along the way.

I can finally start tying up some loose ends. I started this using the materials I’ve kept over the years, but I knew that Tom had saved nearly everything related to Sweet Cider. A couple of weeks ago I received all that Tom had accumulated, so now I can go back to some of the earlier posts and add more photos, newspaper articles and ads that appeared in the newspapers.

The first set of photos are actually before Sweet Cider came into being. There’re a few of Tom and I at my house in Burtonsville. I’m assuming these are early 1977 since there’s quite a bit of snow on the ground. There are a couple of “Schoharie Turnpike” with Chris Schultz on the banjo (I think those two may have been taken at the Lost Valley Inn, but I’m not certain), and there’s one photo of Tom and Chris at what I think may be The 1976 Corinth Bluegrass Festival. If you look close you can see the guitar Joe’s playing is an Ovation, by the end of the year he had purchased a Gurian guitar.

The next set of photos are from early 1978. There are three photos from our first gig at the Quaker Inn, and I’ve also included some of the newspaper ads for some of the places we were playing at the time. The rest of the photos were taken at Tom’s house on Argo Boulevard in Rotterdam. These were the first publicity photos we took, although I don’t think we ever used them. It was early spring (March) in 1978 and some of the photos were taken on the steps leading to Tom’s attic, while others were taken outside.

I’ve included the “infamous” ad for our performance in Gloversville during the weekend of the 1978 Corinth Bluegrass Festival, in which it appeared we were opening for Selima the belly dancer. There’s also a letter of congratulations from the Mayfield Business Association, informing us of our 2nd place showing at their bluegrass festival, and assuring us that our winnings were in the mail. There’s also a picture of Joe at the Gurian guitar factory in this set.

So that’s the first of the “loose ends”, I’ll be adding more very soon.

July 26, 1979

Having already won First Place at the Mayfield Bluegrass band contest and fresh from the Corinth Bluegrass Festival, we decided our next stop would be the 4th Annual Berkshire Mountains Bluegrass Festival down in Hillsdale, NY. The Berkshire Festival was gaining popularity as one of the top bluegrass festivals in the country and the top acts were showing up every year, so it was natural for us to want to be there. We were also anxious to enter the band and fiddle contests.

The band and fiddle contests attracted first rate amateur and semi-professional participants, and we felt we were ready to try our hand at them. The winners of both contests would be awarded a monetary prize, and a chance to perform the following day (Friday) as part of the entertainment.

The contests themselves took place during the day on Thursday. This was a great opportunity for us to play in front of a really large crowd, through a top notch sound system, on what was becoming a renowned stage. We were psyched.

We left Schenectady early Thursday morning. Tom, Joe and Walt were planning on staying the entire weekend, and Glenn and I would be heading home after the show, so I rode with him. I wasn’t going to be able to stay for the whole weekend as I had other commitments and Glenn was going to go back on Saturday. We needed to get to festival site before noon so we could sign up and find out when we’d be going on…..

The Berkshire festival was held on the Rothvoss farm close to the hamlet of Ancramdale in
Columbia county. The festival site with the stage, concessions and camping areas was located on top of an enormous hill. Most of the year it was farm pasture and a hay field, but for a few weeks in July it became a small town filled with bluegrass fans.

As you drove up a mile or two from the site, you could see brightly colored tents dotting the landscape.

Festival Rules

The beginnings of a small city. When you arrived at the entrance you would exchange your tickets for a wristband, color coded to denote who were day visitors and who would be camping. Next you’d be directed to a dirt road leading to the top of the hill. Who knew what adventures were waiting.

When we got to the top of the hill we parked near the stage and went to sign in for the two contests. For the band contest one of us was going to have to pick a number out of a hat to decide the order the bands were going to appear. There was no way that we wanted to go on first. It was always awkward to be the first contestant in a band contest. The sound folks hadn’t really dialed in yet, and the first band was more or less a guinea pig. We did not in any way want to go on first. With 12 or 13 bands signed up to play, we felt we had a pretty good chance of doing well if we played no earlier than fifth, but there was no way we wanted to go on first.

Glenn was chosen to draw for position since he was going to be picking for his spot in the fiddle contest too. As he went off to pick from the hat we told him to make sure he didn’t pick number one. He assured us he wouldn’t. Fifteen minutes Glenn came back grinning. “Hey guys I got number three for the fiddle contest” and then he started laughing “and number one in the band contest.” We were doomed.

The band contest began at noon and due to Glenn’s great luck we kicked things off. Now I can’t tell you what songs we played or how well we played them, but I’m sure we gave it our best shot. We did not sound like any of the other bands, they all had that high lonesome pure bluegrass sound, and I’m sure that had something to do with our not making the finals. Still it was a fun experience.

The fiddle contest was a different story. There were only five entries. Walt and I were going to accompany Glenn on the three songs he had picked. Once again I don’t remember the songs, although I’m pretty sure that Glenn being Glenn, played two songs he had written. These were not your typical fiddle songs. Another case of going against the grain.

Now apparently we did a pretty good job with the fiddles tunes, because Glenn was chosen as one of the finalists. There was one problem though. We had played all the songs we rehearsed, so we had to hastily practice one song for the finals. Our confidence was rather low for that last shot at “stardom”, but we did our best and hiked up the hill to sit and watch the other two contestants. After hearing the next contestant we felt we had a chance to win but there was a buzz going on about the next fiddler to play. He had been given a bye in the preliminary’s so we didn’t know if he was any good or not, but word had it he had been traveling to bluegrass festivals around the country entering and winning fiddle contests along the way.

When this person began to play, it was apparent that he was a ringer. He played some of the most amazing fiddle we’d ever heard. Note after note soared through the mountain air that evening bringing the crowd to their feet in thunderous applause. Third place was announced and it was neither Glenn nor the amazing fiddler. We waited with great anticipation as the winner was announced. “And the winner is….Mark O’connor.” And that’s who Glenn placed second to at the 4th Annual Berkshire Mountains Bluegrass Festival.

After we had listened to the show that evening, Glenn and I headed back home. Joe, Walt and Tom spent the weekend at the festival and had a great time. We decided after that weekend that we’d be going back for the 5th annual festival the following year, and we’d make it an even bigger event. We started making plans the following week.