Bucks County- 50's- 62 I've only heard stories.Most I believe to be true.Some may be embellished over the years.As Jeffrey says,"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Rube Shot Snock! Rube & Snock are sitting in a cabin in Vermont.Rube had picked up this 38 Service revolver--(Hot???).They're shitfaced;Blotto--Rube is spinning the 38 on the trigger guard--It goes off-Blam!!A red spot appears on Snock's forehead and a trickle of blood rolls into his eye.Snock's eyes roll back in his head-slumps over-slides onto the floor.After a while,he wakes up.The bullet had gone through the ceiling,bounced off one of those big Vermont oak beams,ricochet'd off Snock's thick skull and lodged in the floor. Hurley in Bellview --cockroaches eating his candybars Showed Weber the chewed wrappers. Greased R.R. Tracks- Greenwich Village- 63- 66 Weber sez that Ginsburg's lover's brother told him that"Shit tastes like Gorilla Cocaine".Another time Ginsburg told him to stop taking speed and Weber gave him a Wet Willie. When Weber went for his Draft physical in he had been speeding the streets and he weighed about 120 pounds(6'3").He told them he was taking drugs and how much he was taking. They asked how he could possibly afford that much and he told them that he was dealing them. That was the end of the interview. After a gig, Weber talked for awhile with one of the Weathermen.He was then approached by a F.B.I. agent who wanted to know if he would be interested in being an undercover agent. Weber told him to Fuck Off! Peter had an apartment on Delancey St.-about $35 a month.Richard lived there for awhile.Richard said they used to take speed and play music-they would pull the curtains and the only way they could feel the passage of time was thru the cracks they could see light,then dark,then light, then dark,light,dark,light, faster and faster for a week or so.Then crash. One time Peter had a case of the crabs.Rather than spend money on A200 he would pick them off with tweezers and put them in a vial on the table.He had quite a pile of them.One night one of his friends came over and finding nobody home,started looking for some dope.He found the vial and smoked it. The Summer of '64 was hot and Weber never took his boots off. Peter, Antonia and Weber had a cheap apartment on the lower East Side.and one day he finally took them off. Peter and Antonia were several rooms down the hall and even with the door closed, they smelled this dreadful stench.They made Weber scrub his feet with Comet and put the boots out on the fire escape. It still stank in there. After the Rounders broke up in '65, Peter and Antonia got a job answering fan mail for the Lovin' Spoonfull. Peter would autograph for two of them and Antonia would sign for the other two. LA '67 The Great Dildo Caper N.Y.C.- 67- 71. The Rounders opened for: Pink Floyd: On their way to the show,the Rounders decided that rather than do the" Cool Thing"-which was to smoke pot or drop acid-they got stinking drunk.The audience hated them. Creedence Clearwater Revival For their last song they did "Snappin' Pussy".The college security was offended and pulled the plug. The Grateful Dead's first N.Y.C.gig-at the Cafe au Go Go-'67. Some of my college friends(I hadn't met them yet)brought a BUNCH of Orange Sunshine and dosed everyone.The Rounders got WHACKED.Iv'e heard they don't remember much about the gig. The Byrds-at Carnegie Hall Robin figured that since the Rounders were considered a bunch of"Hicks"that they should play the part.He brought a bunch of chickens-he thought that letting them run around onstage during their set would be a nice touch.The stagehands said it was definitely against Union Rules and they had to keep them in the dressing room.After the Byrd's set Roger McGuinn came back to the dressing room and found that one of the chickens had laid an egg in his Rickenbacker 12 string guitar case. He was NOT pleased. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.-- I was going to Wagner College on Staten Island and I used to take the ferry a lot.Sometimes just for fun.Late at night,I'd take a bunch of acid,ride the ferry to Manhattan and walk the streets,hang around the subway tunnels,etc.It seemed that when you were tuned in, there was always a pot party somewhere on the ferry late at night.Sometimes outside on the upper deck but usually down on the car deck.I had been seeing this guy on the ferry.He obviously wasn't a New Yorker-Long hair,laid back.We would take the same bus from the terminal and he would get off at the stop before mine.One night I was out on the car deck and he came up and asked if I might have a joint to smoke.I said that I did have one.He said he knew that I would have one and I lit one up.We got to talking.His name was Michael,he played in a band in Manhattan,he lived less than a block away.We started hanging out at his his house-A 3 story Victorian with hardwood floors,etc.He and his wife were paying only $60 a month because it was a couple of blocks from Jersey St.It wasn't the best part of Staten Island but it was a lot nicer than the East Village for an Okie.He said his band,the Rounders,was playing at Lincoln Center backing up some play and I should stop on down sometime.At that time Lincoln Center was a little bit uptown for me.I knew what went on up there so I never made it.After awhile I noticed that this guy would be sleeping on the couch.He would always be in the same position and wouldn't move for several days.No matter how loud we played music or how late,he never moved.Then he was gone.Several weeks later,he's back onthe couch,in the same position.Michael sez"That's Weber,our guitar player."He gets a guitar and shakes him."Weber!Wake up!" "What the Fuck!!Stop It!!!Whaddya want!!!"Weber yells. "Here,Play a song." Michael hands him the guitar. "Allright,Dammit!allright!!"and he whips the guitar into some wierd tuning and plays "My Mind's Capsized",Note perfect!He shoves the guitar back at Michael. "Allright??That good enough??" and he lays back down-same position- doesn't move for another two days.Then he's gone again. I did make it into Manhattan to see them a couple of times-Once at the Band Shell in Central Park and once at the Village Gate-I thought they were OK-I liked the energy,but they didn't Rock Out. Michael left for Nashville with the band for a month or so and when they got back,he told me that their bass player had stayed in Nashville and the Rounders needed a replacement.I knew nothing about the Rounders except that I recognized the name from Easy Rider.I heard they already had a new bass player-He had played with Lothar and the Hand People(Lothar was a theramin-), but he had just checked into the hospital with Mononucleosis for 6 weeks and they had an audition for a gig.Would I fill in? Sure! We had a rehearsal at Michael's. I thought it was pretty strange.I had always been the youngest in all the bands that I had been in but these guys were 8, 10, 12 years older.I had known speed freaks in Queens,but these guys were on another level.Peter seemed fairly stable in a strange sort of way-Richard appeared to be a street drug fiend and Weber was ,,, well , a Mess.--Didn't want to practice,wouldn't get off the couch.Nobody knew how to set up the P.A.. John used to do it and he was in Nashville.It was really basic-a Bogen Challenger and a couple of Altec Lansing A-7 speakers.I hooked it up and we ran thru some stuff -it was really different than anything I had played before,but nothing really hard.We all agreed that it could be better but What the Hell,it's only an audition. A few days later we go to the audition.It's a bar Uptown.Nothing special,a stage,dancefloor,a bar.The owner is an older gentleman from Eastern Europe.He hired us because "The fiddles remind me of the Gypsies when I was young in the old country.".The next weekend we show up at the gig.It's a Disco!! Lights in the dancefloor,Jive threads,platform shoes,etc.We set up.The music stops.Everybody stands and stares.We play.They Hate us. We get fired. It seems that Weber would hang on the Lower East Side where he would shoot massive quantities of amphetamines and run the streets playing guitar for days on end until he would crash where he fell.After awhile he would have to make it to Michaels to sleep and devour all the dairy products in the refrigerator. There's a verse in "Low de Low" "Face down on the East Side in the drizzlin'rain-Low,Low de Low. I thought I heard an angel calling my name.How could I ever get so low?" He had been on a run for quite a while and landed in the gutter on E.4th St. This was the Hell's Angel's block and he remembers waking in an amphetamine crash fog with a big Hell's Angel shaking him-- "Hey,Weber!!Wake up!!You'll freeze to death down there." All the street folks knew Weber.Some called him the "Fool Killer"because he would shoot several grams of crystal meth at a time and play amazing guitar all day and night.The kids from Jersey and Long Island would see that and try to do the same thing and die. The next gig I remember was at the opening festival for the South Street Pier under the Brooklyn Bridge.Big crowd,big stage.We're all set u p-We're on-- Where's Weber??We start playing.There's a commotion out in the crowd.It's Weber elbowing his way thru.He climbs on the stage.He's stinking drunk.He grabs the guitar,cranks it all the way up-Way out of tune-He yells "Allright!! Snappin' Pussy!!" and tries to slam a few chords-he stops,leans over the front of the stage and barfs into the crowd. We make it thru the set.I change my shirt and melt into the crowd,trying to be invisible.There's two guys in front of me,talking. "Did you see that??Weber barfed off the stage!!" Yeah! Did you see everybody run??That was Great!!!" I think that was when it dawned on me that this was going to be interesting.