The New Blueprint

What I was attempting was going to be very difficult. The original band had worked on the material for two years in rehearsal, and had spent another year refining that material in performances. I was now going to have to try to find musicians capable of recreating that very quickly...with no model to work from...since most of the music had never been recorded. I knew that they would have to trust me, and not question my arrangements, and that long periods of rehearsal were not an option, since I had decided that the fastest way to accomplish my plan was to rehearse the band in the studio. Although it would be very expensive, by doing that, I would be able to record and listen to the progress on each song, identify the problems and correct them as they occurred, so that the basic tracks on each song would become the foundation I would need to add the remaining parts, and hopefully, I would end up with the songs and arrangements that the original band had performed. That would not be as easy as it sounds. I would be the only person who would "hear" the final version of the song in my mind...whoever I hired to play the other parts would be clueless as to what the vocals, harmonies, lyrics, and guitar solos would sound like in the finished form...and that's where the trust in me would become crucial. I decided to hire guys who I knew were not only good players, but who would be capable of doing only what they were paid to do. The truth is, all musicians have strong opinions about what they want to hear, especially on an album, which is, in fact, a permanent record of the performances of all who participate in that process. I decided to use musicians who I had worked with in the past, but who had continued on their own musical journey since. I thought that by using musician-friends from my past, there would be some of the tightness and friendship that was such a big part of Avalanche, but I also needed them to be detached enough from the work to be able to just do the job they were asked to...and be able to do it quickly. I knew I was going to have to pay them well, because money and drugs are great persuaders, and so with a blueprint in mind, I began to make phone calls, and get the logistics in place...     

Katherine Again....and "Going For Broke"

After opium had dulled the pain of Avalanche's demise, and my breakup with Patti, some facts had become clear. I was no longer enjoying the company of a woman in my life for the first time in many years. I began to see Katherine again, the female vocalist I had performed with and with whom I had a solid friendship and an occasional but intense sexual relationship with. She was responsible for creating the logo for Avalanche, and was a very talented artist and singer, as well as a person I felt very comfortable spending time with...she was intelligent, articulate, funny, sarcastic, politically aware, spiritual, and loyal...another fellow citizen of Woodstock Nation...and whether we were just talking, or partying, or having sex together...and often, it was all three...she made me feel special. She had witnessed all of the events of the past three years from a close vantage point, and was very sympathetic to my pain...and my need for someone I could count on. I was glad to be able to have her back in my life on a deeper level. Although I think she would have been very receptive to a serious relationship with me, I was too shut down from all the pain that the women in my life had seemingly created over the past few months to have the willingness to go there with anyone...and Katherine was never a person who would push me to do anything I didn't want to, which had a great deal to do with why we were so close.  She was always very understanding, and is still a very close friend of mine today.

I also recognized that I was saving an incredible amount of money...opium was cheap...and although I was still doing cocaine, there was no longer ten people in my life sharing my drugs and being paid salaries...and I still had a lot of money coming in from my business. I also remembered that I had personally written more than half of Avalanche's original music, and had co-authored much of the rest, and that the public had always responded very enthusiastically to all of it. I decided that the songs were just too good to give up on, and that I had the money, the equipment, the material, and the time, to try again...with one difference. This time, it would be an album. A solo album. In the six months since the band split, my relationships with Charles, Mark, and Barry had become distant, even though I had suggested to them many times that we should get back together. With no response from them, I knew that wasn't going to happen...there were still unhealed wounds there. I believed if I could salary studio musicians to play the drums and the bass parts...I could duplicate most of  the other music well enough for the essence of the original band to come through on new recordings. I knew the process would be very time-consuming and expensive, since I would have to lay down the other musical parts in layers, a track at a time, to create a finished product. I knew that the end product wouldn't be exactly the same, but I felt that the window of opportunity for this music would soon close...and that if I didn't act immediately, it would be too late. I would have much preferred to have gone back into the studio with all the original guys, after all, this was exactly what we had been working towards. It would have been better, faster, cheaper, and very healing. Unfortunately, they weren't having any of it...so I decided to try again as a solo artist...doing  Avalanche music. Katherine was very supportive of the whole idea...which I needed to hear from someone other than myself. I really missed playing, and the direction the band had brought to my life, so I began selecting the musicians for the sessions. "Going For Broke" was a lot more than just the name I decided on for the album...with all I had invested in Avalanche, it was exactly how I felt...

Cooking Around The Stove

A few months after Patti and I split, I found out that one of my sources had come into the possession of a few pounds of Opium. I had never tried it, but it was immediately apparent that a few of my other contacts had access to the same supply, because within a few weeks, it had become the new thing to do at parties. The method of ingestion was part of the fad. A group of people would gather around an electric stove and turn all four surface burners to high...and when the burners were red hot, multiple stainless steel knives would be placed into the heating elements until they were also glowing..we would place a small pea of opium on a plate, take the cardboard tube from the center of a roll of paper towels, and then grab the hot knives from the burners and touch them to the opium...which created plumes of pure opium smoke that we would then suck through the tube. "Stove" parties would go on for hours at a time, and because the drug was so potent, it didn't take much to get very high...which made it a very inexpensive way to get totally wasted...in what seemed at the time to be a very social setting. Bruce and I could smoke opium for hours, and only use a few grams...and since I was buying ounces for just over four hundred dollars, $40.00 worth of opium lasted us all night, instead of the $600.00 plus per night we spent on cocaine parties. I liked the high better, too, and by the time I had gone through a few ounces, many of my close friends were getting their own supply from me. I found that smoking it was wasteful, and that nibbling on tiny balls of the stuff got me higher, and I used far less than when I smoked it...but for a couple of months, when the novelty was new...the kitchen became the main room in a lot of the houses I visited. There were a lot of permanently scorched flatware sets in Northeastern Conn. in 1981...and the electric companies must have loved us. I never thought about the fact that heroin is made from opium, or that I'd experience the same withdrawal symptoms when I stopped..the thought of running out never crossed my mind. I just thought that my source would get more...I didn't find out until there was only a few ounces of the supply left that the shipment of opium was a one-shot deal, and there wouldn't be a second batch...and that was after I had been doing it for the better part of a year...