Making It Happen

As 1977 progressed, the results of months of very hard work were beginning to show. I had written twenty new songs...music and lyrics...and the creative juices were still flowing. With a lot of help from Bruce, and a few other key contacts, I was also doing a really good job of accumulating the funds needed to obtain the equipment that the band would need to be taken seriously. I had already purchased a truck, a 24-track mixing console, dozens of  recording microphones, over twenty PA speaker cabinets, a huge bank of stereo power amplifiers, and very high end  studio effects...unheard of for live bands, unless they had major-label support, and had already achieved high-level success. I bought more British guitar amplifier stacks, and all of them were custom modified in New Jersey, at the same place that the band I had auditioned with in New York, used. Electronics were upgraded and modified. Standard speakers were replaced with extremely high quality speakers. In just the Marshall stacks alone, there were thirty two Altec-Lansing 417-8H Series II  12-inch guitar speakers, and each of them cost $275.00 in 1977 dollars.  Every piece of equipment was protected by custom-made heavy-duty steel flight cases, keeping all the gear new, even with all the rigors of the road. New equipment was being purchased every week, and the store that I was doing business with had never seen anything like what we were attempting, and that convinced me more than ever... that I was doing exactly what I needed to. The rule was...only the very best would do..When I had enough gear to actually begin the rehearsing, the next part of the plan, and a crucial one...became the next priority...selecting the musicians. I knew the job would be easier because I had done all this other work first, because there was no way any player I might approach could ignore just how serious this project was starting to be...and this was only about half of the gear the band  would eventually use every single night it would hit the stage...I intended to leave the choices of bass equipment and drums up to the players who would eventually become band members...as long as the gear they chose to use met the same standards I was setting with mine. If money was required to help them get what they needed, I was prepared to help them with that. And there was a lot of very good music already written and ready to go, too. I had also decided to salary the musicians and crew, as soon as they agreed to come on board, because I knew rehearsing this  band would go on for a very long time, and that would be necessary to attract real professionals, who could be working for good money elsewhere...to get them to commit to the project. It sent a strong signal to everyone that this thing was for real...