The Move to Boston...

About two months after the Hepatitis incident, The James Montgomery Band, who had been at the club the night after I found my Mom, was back at the club for a return engagement. I had been friends with James for a few years by then, and my experience in Detroit with his friends there, and my year in Chicago had given me real credibility with him...so when I saw him again, he informed me that he was putting together a band to back up his girl friend, Barbara, and asked me if I'd be interested in becoming a member of it. I was invited to live with him and his girlfriend in Cambridge, and it was what I had been hoping for...a new band, with some good players, outside of Conn. Although I didn't think his girlfriend, Barbara, could sing at all...there were some very good musicians that had signed on to do this, including Jeff Golub on guitar, who ended up playing guitar for both Billy Squier and Rod Stewart, and then became a very successful solo performer in his own right...so I said yes, and moved to Boston. That situation turned very bad...very fast. I guess I didn't see "who" these people really were until I lived with them in their house. They used me for loans, for drugs, and for gear. It felt like Detroit again, but it had been so long since I had been in a band....After a few weeks of rehearsal, we got a gig on Boston's South Shore, at a club there. I went back to Conn. to pick up a lot of PA equipment that I owned because we needed it to do the gig. I rented a large truck, provided all the Sound equipment, guitar amps, keyboards, and not only set up all the stuff, but doubled as sound man and keyboardist. That night after the gig, the band checked into a motel. The next morning, when I was getting ready to return the rental truck and my system to Conn, Barbara came in and said that someone had broken into her room, while she was sleeping, and had stolen all the money off her nightstand, so nobody was getting paid. And then it just got worse...one of the roadies came into the room and informed us that my rental truck had been broken into, and some gear was stolen. We all went down to see, and the only stuff missing from the truck was some of my PA, and a Gibson Flying "V" guitar of mine. Nothing else had been touched. In one gig, I had lost nearly $3500.00. I never got paid for the gig, for the PA rental fees, for working sound, or for the truck I had rented. It was a disaster. Worst of all...neither James or Barbara could even look me in the eye...and that went on for many years. I had been set-up...and I had played right into it. As I left Boston that day, and moved back to Conn., I thought to myself that this all felt too familiar, and I'd have been better off if I had never gone to Cambridge at all...