Show postponed

The performance at Dairy Queen Greece set initially for Sunday, July 5, is cancelled. The Town of Greece is not issuing entertainment permits at this time. Both the owner of Dairy Queen and I are hoping to reschedule this event sometime in August when restrictions may relax. It appears that the group will not be performing at all this July.

Group look-back: 1987

1987 was both a transitional and successful year for the band. The following recollections come from the recently-discovered wall calendar for It’s My Party 1987, and the elephant memory of Paul Kanack, whom I leaned on more than once to create this article.

At the turn of the new year, the members of the band included Kelly, Patty, and Charlene on vocals, along with musicians Ken, Paul, Terry, and myself. This formation of the group had yet to perform and included newcomers Patty, Charlene, Terry, and Paul. An interesting note on the calendar from January 15 states, “20 songs.”  I’m not sure if that stood for a goal or an achievement, but to play bars, a band needed in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 tunes. Our first show was on January 24 at Short’s Bar, and here Paul reminded me that we shared the night with the house-band, the Earthlings since we did not have enough songs to cover a full night. Short’s was always welcoming to us, and we would end up performing five more times there in 1987.

In March, we performed for the first time at Rumours in Rochester’s South Wedge neighborhood, an area known for its Bohemian flavor. This show, on March 7, also featured the band Slightly Psychedelic, a great group of guys with whom we formed long-lasting friendships. Bob, Tom, and George were undoubtedly talented. George, the bassist, made a guest appearance with It’s My Party on trumpet that night. We performed four more times at Rumours throughout 1987.

Paul, Charlene (in motion), Patty, Terry, Kelly, and Ken at Rumours

George looks on as Paul takes a rare vocal at Rumours. From L-R: George, Paul, Charlene, John, Patty & Terry

The next venue we returned to often was Shnozz’s in the East Avenue & Goodman area of Rochester. On April 18, we shared the stage with The Swingset, a group featuring Walt O’Brien, who could play British Invasion like it was nobody’s business. We were invited back on May 1, this time performing with The Earthlings in what was billed as “All ’50s & ’60s” night. Schnozz’s guaranteed us an astonishing $115 versus the door! The following video is Patty singing at one of our Schnozz’s shows in 1987.

Well, in between the two shows at Schnozz’s was the infamous show at Scoops on Lyell Ave, directly across the street from the old AC Delco plant. With some performances under our belts and feeling confident, we decided to invite Jerry Falzone, former bassist with the successful band Pearl and now a talent agent to watch us. While Jerry had plenty of positive reflections, let’s say his revue was mixed. Jerry knew what it took to get to the level Pearl had accomplished, and yes, we were far from that point. Regarding our cover of The Shirelles’ classic, he stated, “Baby, it’s not you.” This critique marked a turning point, up until this gig the band had always been about fun, now I started to question whether this formation was a step back from the successful original group. Paul and I were driven by the thought that we could not only make music our vocation but that eventually our group could make waves in the industry. To a lesser degree, perhaps Ken held those dreams too. I can not speak for the others, but I would think they had more sense than Paul and I had. For one guy fresh out of college and another working at a pizza parlor, what would you expect?

One of the best memories of being a part of It’s My Party was our May 22 performance at the Renaissance Theater Club on Liberty Pole Way as part of the Lilac Festival. It’s My Party, and two other local groups opened for Danny and the Juniors and The Regents. If you are not familiar with these acts, Danny and the Juniors are famous for “At the Hop,” which was the name the Lilac Festival used to bill the event. The Regents performed the original version of “Barbara Ann,” which earned a spot on the soundtrack of American Grafitti. These groups were consummate professionals and lent us some good advice. Joe Terry, then lead singer for Danny and the Juniors, wondered why we played “The Boy Next Door” sung by The Secrets and co-written by David White, an original member of Danny and the Juniors. Terry called it a good tune, but a marginal hit. The way he saw it, our road to success was playing recognizable hits exclusively. My thought at the time, and by now Paul had also become a ’60s girl group enthusiast, was that there were so many great songs that didn’t necessarily break the top 20, why not play them as well? Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the band has never supported a principal ’60s act since in the Rochester area. Sad, so sad, we have so much to give!

In the last issue of the Confetti Clatter, I mentioned that Kelly discussed joining the group with her husband in 1986; looking over the 1987 calendar, I was wrong. Kelly went on her honeymoon from June 10 to June 20 in 1987. After Kelly came home, we returned to Rumours, Schnozz’z, and Shorts in July, all successful shows.

With seeds of doubt sewn in my mind, I reached out to our then manager, Ron Stein, and asked him what the band was missing. Ron replied, “To make this sound work correctly, you need teenaged singers interpreting the music. The women on your band are not living the lyrics like the teenagers who sang them in the sixties. Teenaged singers would give the group the ring of authenticity.” To which I replied, “Where do we find teenaged singers?” Ron’s response was to go to the local high school musicals.  It just so happened that the Irondequoit Summer Theatre was putting on Leader of the Pack, the Ellie Greenwich Musical from August 6 through 8 – perfect! Ron and I made a point of attending one of those shows. Irondequoit Summer Theatre was a vehicle for high school students to perform over the summer, and at this show, we heard one girl group song after another sung by some very talented teens. When the play broke into “Wait ’til My Bobby Comes Home,” Ron turned to me and said, “There’s your singer!”

Going through the proper channels, we spoke to both that girl, Tricia, and her mother after the performance. She seemed both flattered and interested in seeing our group, so we invited her to attend our afternoon Panorama Plaza show on August 15.

On August 7, we performed at Idols, one of downtown Rochester’s college radio clubs. This show turned out to be a disaster. The crowd was not into our music, and we received a cold reception. I was volunteering as a DJ at RIT’s WITR radio and this time, and that is how most likely we got the show. There was, frankly, a ton of college radio snobbery at that time. DJs and listeners tended to look down on any music that didn’t fit their mold. Not to lump everyone into that category, there were many great and open-minded DJs at WITR, and I enjoyed my time there. I would like to especially like to recognize Bart, the program director at the time, for his open-mindedness and how he smoothly ran that station. Back to the story, enter Terry with some quick thinking to cut the tension of the night. Reaching into one of our gig bags, Terry found a beachball, inflated it, and tossed it out into the audience. People started punching it around and having a good time, so we were able to leave with some sense of dignity. As a Parthian shot, the house DJ played a song I believe by the Cure that had something to the effect of “Never again” in the lyrics as we exited with our gear, touche!

Tricia and her mother attended the Panorama show, a beautiful day for an outside event, as I recall. She was very impressed and expressed her interest in joining the group. On August 25, Kelly parted ways with the band, and two days later, Tricia joined.

Tricia’s first gig with the band was on October 3 at Schnozz’s. Her energy was palpable, everything that Ron said we needed. Some of Tricia’s signature songs were “Kids in America” by Kim Wilde, the aforementioned “The Boy Next Door,” and her lead from the musical “Wait ‘Til My Bobby Comes Home.” However, Halloween night ended up being our second and final performance for this lineup at Short’s bar. Terry moved to New York City, and Patty decided to leave the band.  She spoke with me soon after that show and said, “I see where you are taking this band, and I don’t feel I fit in.” Her words were a crushing blow to me; I wanted her to stay so badly. We all liked Patty very much and loved what she brought to the table. She was referring to Tricia and a younger look and sound.

By November 17, we recruited two new members to replace Terry and Patty. Josh Winston was a friend of Paul Kanack’s. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Josh played not only keyboards but brought the saxophone to the table, something ubiquitous to the ’60s sound. Jennie was a high school friend of Tricia’s. A talented singer who could cover the middle and low parts of the vocal ensemble, Jennie’s sound was complementary to Tricia and Charlene’s voices. 

This new lineup would not perform until early 1988. There were some cool events in store for It’s My Party in that year. I will reminisce about 1988 in the August edition of the Confetti Clatter.