That's a mouthful of a title for you. The New York City Marathon is being run on Sunday, November 4th. For the 14th straight year The Tash Brothers Band will give the 35,000 runners a shot of rock & blues adrenaline right at the beginning of the race course, on 4th Avenue and 88th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, right in front of the Bay Ridge Honda car dealership. We draw quite a crowd, more every year, people who would ordinarily never dream of rising early on a Sunday morning in November to watch thousands of people in speedos and tank tops running 26 miles through the streets of New York City, rain or shine.
Now they enjoy the Marathon and get to catch a very exciting live music show too. I don't know if many people outside of true long-distance running fans know or care about the world class runners who compete for the big dough awarded for winning the Marathon. They root for the everyday Joes and Janes who train for months and months in their spare time to get in marathon shape. Their only goal is to finish the thing, maybe beat their previous best time but not necessarily. It's a huge personal achievement just to make it to the finish line, and these people challenge their bodies and minds to to the utmost in order to conquer this extreme ordeal.
Well, all I can say is, bless their hearts and better them than me. I know for sure I wouldn't want to do it, so instead I volunteer to help them along with the music. Hundreds of others also volunteer, doing stuff like handing the runners cups of water as they go by, working in the many medical stations along the way and who-knows-what else. One year my brother John was visiting from Florida and he got so caught up in the civic minded spirit of the whole thing he offered cigarettes and shots of bourbon to runners. Not exactly what a marathon runner needs but his heart was in the right place, figuring that's what he would want when in distress.
This year once again the NYC marathon has as it's sponsor ING. It's some giant insurance, investment and banking corporation that doesn't make a dime's worth of difference in the Marathon experience. All I know is that when they sponsor the event, as they have several times in the past, they send me some corporate weenie letter instructing us how to behave and to always refer to this year's Marathon as "The ING New York City Marathon." They pay us nothing for our expenses, provide no support or services for the musicians involved and refuse to even consider giving us any publicity for our efforts. So that's the last time you'll hear me refer to them and I've never once announced the title like they instructed me to nor will I. As far as I'm concerned it's The New York City Marathon starring 35,000 regular people runners and The Tash Brother's Band.
We're old hands at New York City Main Events. When the Brooklyn Bridge turned 100 years old back in 1983, the city threw a huge party on the 4th of july for the oldest and still most beautiful suspension bridge in the world. There was to be a huge flotilla of water craft in New York Harbor and a spectacular fireworks show by the Grucci Brothers. Back then we had some friends in the Coast Guard who invited us to a VIP dinner party aboard a Coast Guard Cutter. We had to turn them down because of a previous booking for the day, but a few of our girlfriends and parents got to attend that white glove affair with some government and military luminaries.
Instead, The Tash Brothers Band was booked on a party boat out of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn that day. They loaded a whole bunch of people on board in the late afternoon and proceeded to New York Harbor with the band right on the top deck, a pretty precarious position as our drummer found out when one of his expensive cymbals tipped over into the drink when the seas got a little frisky once we hit open water. I told him to lash the stuff down but he figured the boat would be riding as smooth as it was in the dock when we set up our equipment. Live and learn.
Well, it took a couple of hours to get there with all the water craft out and about that day. There were lots of Navy and Coast Guard ships all decked out in full regalia, other sizable party boats like ours, a bunch of those great New York Harbor tug boats, big old rich guy yachts and thousands of other pleasure craft of every size and description, even a few canoes and kayaks. But our mighty overloaded dreadnought was the only one sporting a live band perched precariously on the prow blaring out some real loud rock and blues.
And let me tell you, sound really carries on the water. We were entertaining a whole lot of people out there under the Brooklyn Bridge, and since there wasn't a hell of a lot to do while waiting for it to get dark and the fireworks to start, hundreds of boats decided to get closer to the music boat. We thought that was pretty cool, what with us being musicians and not seafaring types. Tony B, Bobby D. and I, the three guitarists and singers, figured we'll just turn it up and let everybody out there on the water have a good time.
We had a pretty big band on the prow of that boat that day, with Big Dave on drums, Mike Ice Cream on saxophone, Norman Succotash on harmonica, T.J. on bass and Eddy Fiddle on violin to go along with our three guitars so we made quite a big sound. We were hot that day and got in a good groove in spite of the swaying of the boat in the choppy water. All kinds of boats and small ships made a bee-line for our boat to get in on the party. We were loving it. But as loud as we were, we were no match for the super-loud fog horns that ships blow when a collision is imminent.
Boy, there sure were a lot of those bad boys blowing all of a sudden. A huge Coast Guard cutter pulled up alongside of us, almost capsizing us with the big wake they made and ordered us to cease and desist while they sorted out all the near-collisions at sea we were causing. "We are causing?" Tony answered over the PA system, kind of throwing the Coast Guard guy off his game. He was obviously used to having the loudest voice out there on the waters with his radio amplified rig but it was no match for a rock & roll PA system cranked up to 11.
The captain of our ship was freaking out as boat after boat almost crashed into his bread and butter. He negotiated with the Coast Guard Commander who wanted the music stopped but the amplified conversations drew a lot of boos from the many boats in the vicinity when canceling the show was mentioned. A compromise was reached. We could play but two small coast Guard gunboats would be stationed on either side of us to repel any other craft who got too close, maybe figuring those deck-mounted machine guns and cannons would dissuade further incursions on our water space. We were told that several small boats had already capsized and sunk in the mad dash to get next to the music boat and that some people had to be rescued. A further warning was issued to our boat and many others nearby about the sweet smell of marijuana wafting across the harbor. "Repel all boarders!" joked our captain in his best Pirate Aaarggh, now reassured that his boat would not be visiting Davy Jones' locker,
at least not that night anyway.
"Well, screw that," said Bobby D. as he lit up a joint, "they got their hands pretty full just directing traffic and keeping us afloat." With that we cranked out some more music for a couple of more hours, receiving all kinds of cheers and whistles from the people on hundreds of boats, even the young Coast Guard sailors running interference for us on either side of our boat. By the time it got dark we were sweating and all hoarse. We had just done one of our best shows, and on a dangerously swaying boat in the middle of New York Harbor with boats almost crashing into us every few minutes. When we were done we got a great ovation. Applause and cheers carry pretty well over the water too and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves when we settled in with some food and stiff beverages to watch the fireworks.
Well, as luck would have it, and we seemed to be having ourselves a day to remember, our party boat was floating pretty much in the front row seats to the fireworks show. Now, the Gruccis are world famous for their spectacular fireworks shows all over the world, most notably the Fourth of July shows they do every year along the Hudson River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. That particular year the focus was on The Brooklyn Bridge and we were ringside.
They more than lived up to their reputation that night, doing the old bridge proud with all kinds of state-of-the-art pyrotechnics: beautiful, dramatic and superbly paced for over an hour of real thrills. And we were practically inside this show. We smelled the powder and heard the rocket debris hit the water with a sizzle and we felt as well as heard the full roar of blast after blast. We gave our share of oohs and aahs as they unveiled one gorgeous display after another. Then they built to an incredibly thunderous finale and it was over, the whole world seemingly going dark and whisper quiet in the blink of an eye.
Well Mikey Ice cream, who would become my brother-in-law ten years later when I married one of his kid sisters, the lovely Louise, he was thinking fast that day. He grabbed his sax and stepped up to microphone while it was still so quiet you could hear your own eyes blink. And like it was part of the show, and indeed that's what it was, Mike played Happy Birthday to the Brooklyn Bridge in a slow, sinuous jazzy groove, caressing each note as only a good sax man can, sweet and sad and happy all at once and to this day my favorite rendition of that tune ever. The sound carried forever over the water and nobody made a peep until he faded it out real sweet and soft. Another couple of beats passed in complete silence and then the whole harbor exploded in thunderous applause for The Brooklyn Bridge, the Grucci fireworks, for the birthday of America and for the lone anonymous sax man somewhere out there in the dark who put a poignant period on a day nobody there would ever forget.
It was one of those moments you could never plan for and never top and wouldn't trade for your weight in gold. The applause went on for like ten or fifteen minutes before the harbor started slowly emptying of the thousands of boats who came to the party. It took quite a while and those Coast Guard boys really started to earn their pay in the dark waters, herding the amateur boatmen and professional sailors alike into some orderly semblance as they guided us all out of the harbor. They did a great job that day and no lives were lost and no other boats were sunk or capsized after the first headlong rush on our party boat.
That was just one Tash Brothers gig among thousands we've played over the past 30 years. Not all of them are as dramatic and eventful as that one or our annual NYC Marathon appearances but our shows are definitely not your run-of-the-mill music shows. You never know which songs we're going to pull out of our hat on any given night and something unusual seems to happen wherever we go. So why not join us on the streets of Brooklyn on Sunday morning, November 4th, around 9:30 in the A.M. You won't be lonely since there will be 35,000 screaming maniacs running by and grooving to The Tash Brothers music. Be there. It's free, it's a hell of a lot of fun and it's a very New York thing to do.
