I have a soft spot for Treat Her Right and especially for this, their debut record. It is really impossible to overestimate the importance of this record to the development of Fort Apache, hence to the careers of all of us involved with the Fort. If I had to pick the one point in history when the Fort evolved from a collective "clubhouse" to a viable local business it would be directly following this release. From late 1985 through '86 I'd been working all my established band contacts through constant late night club-crawling, handing out almost five hundred business cards over just three months. The other collective members Paul Kolderie, Sean Slade and Jim Fitting were also going at it full on with their flesh-pressing and schmoozing, and we'd begun to reap the fruits of this networking blitzkrieg. I'd begun negotiating projects with the Turbines and the Neats, Lifeboat had begun over a hundred hours of sessions (albeit for free), and Sean was working with his band Men and Volts. But these were all either our friends, our personal projects or bands. It wasn't until Jim Fitting chose to use the free time he was entitled to (as one of the four original owners) to do some THR sessions (which later blossomed into a paid album project) that local bands unaffiliated with any of us began to call. Treat Her Right was a very highly regarded band at that time. They were getting a lot of attention, both of the mainstream media variety and- more importantly from the Fort's point of view- from other musicians and groups. Those are my personal and professional reasons for loving this record. But had I been a garbageman, the most important reasons for digging both the record and the band would've remained the same: they were a great band, and this was a solid and completely original first outing.

They had seemingly come out of nowhere, fully developed and wholly unique, with a blues-edged rock approach that I described back then as "swampop". There was noone in town that sounded anything like THR. They also filled a niche internationally as evidenced by the three seperate releases enjoyed by this same record- after the local release on Three Color's Soul Select label, Elvis Costello's label Demon Records picked up the LP for European distribution, and finally RCA re-re-released the record after signing the band. Not too shabby for a project recorded on a 1/2" 8-track (Otari 50-50 Mk. III) for a total cost around fifteen hundred dollars!

Below: The UK release by Demon Records

In 1985 music was only just past the lamentable New Wave period and still leaning heavily toward the keyboard driven electronic approach with its drum machines and MIDI sequencers. Fake English accents and red and black outfits were in, and it seemed every movie you went to had a "young rebel" character in it played by Kristy McNichol sporting a bad new wave haircut, or a clone thereof. During this period the revilement of blues that started in the punk era was still going strong. Blues just weren't HIP, especially white blues with their endless guitar solos a-la-Allman Brothers or Alvin Lee and their tendency towards boogie (Humble Pie). They were all about old black guys with square guitars moaning about getting up in the morning or some shit, guys who seemed to want nothing more when they gained success than to buy a closet full of polyester suits and some hideous pimp-mobile. Asthetically blues didn't jibe with New Wave, and since it required a certain degree of skill it was anti-punk.

Dave "Champagne" Alcott had been playing in Boston since '75, when the Shane Champagne Band moved up to Plumb Island from New York. A joint partnership between Alcott and Gary "Shane" Levenson, with Billy Wells on drums and Chip Carter on bass, they remained on Plum Island polishing their act until '77 (photo at left shows Shane and Alcott in the Plum Island period). Boston beckoned, and once there the addition of drummer Ricky "Rocket" Rothchild was a transformative change towards the rockin' side of the street (Rocket later drummed for the Taxi Boys, moved to NYC where he played for Kristy and the Midnight Walkers, and then with MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer before his untimely death). Shane Champagne was a well-organized outfit; I recall my band [the bones] opening a show for them at B.U.'s Sherman Student Union one night in 1980. They really knew how to work a crowd, slotting in their original stuff at the right moments, slipping in a cool old cover tune to keep the spectators interested. They even had a manager and a genuine booking agency, something truly impressive to us in those DIY days of last minute shows and unpaid trips to East Jesus and back. I saw David quite a bit as I worked at the Record Garage [legendary used guitar store in Harvard Square], and he was a fellow guitar junkie- and that's the only kind of junkie he'd ever be. Shane and Alcott's apparently drug-free work ethic was another thing that set the band apart from almost everyone else I knew. It seemed Gary Shane and David were on a constant learning curve when it came to the music business, and David in particular was always onserving, analyzing, and asking questions. He was absorbing all this info and gaining an industry sensibility that was well-honed by the time he began Pink Cadillac, and an eye for the 'big picture' that was even sharper when he disbanded Pink Cadillac and moved on to seek his next project. To his great credit he saw that there was a hole in the fabric of the local rock scene right where the blues should be. Without any stylistic axe to grind he could also see the potential- and the potential fun to be had- in a blues-rock band.

Dave Champagne had left Pink Cadillac right at the point that their own roots-rock, blues and countrybilly sound had begun to jell, and he had definite ideas about where he wanted to take his next band. He took that approach along with a stack of Chess Record albums with him to Mark Sandman's house one day, and as they say the rest is History- or in this case Herstory. The next time I saw David he was smiling like the Cheshire Cat. He told me he'd just started playing with a guy named Mark Sandman, and described Mark as "the Secret Weapon". I'd played with David in the final version of Pink Cadillac and had some expectation of continuing that relationship, so I admit I was a bit jealous hearing David's glowing description of Mark. I thought something along the lines of "well sheee-it I can do anything THAT guy can do". Later after hearing the not-yet Treat Her Right play I pulled Dave aside and said "you weren't kidding!". I most certainly could not do what Mark was doing; he was that rare breed of musician that you recognized instantly as Star Material.

THR started as a fairly "trad" five piece blues outfit with the addition of ex-Sex Execs harp player Jim Fitting and Paul Kolderie on bass, and former Big Sixteen drummer Billy Conway on skins. One afternoon Paul didn't show up for rehearsal and Mark plugged in his Octaver pedal, a device that takes a guitar note and drops it an octave, sounding a lot like the Fender 5 and 6-string bass guitars popular in the 60's. The "Low Guitar" was born. This was a perfect complement to Champagne's atmospheric use of slide guitar a-la Gun Club and Billy's preference for the seldom used cocktail drum, played while standing. The THR sound was further defined with the addition of Jim's baritone sax and chromatic harmonica lines, providing a fresh slant on the usual single-key blues harp sound. The chemistry between the players at this first low-guitar rehearsal made Paul redundant- he had to be content to go on and develop his hugely succesful career as an engineer/producer, first at Fort Apache, and later all over the rest of the country as well. The first THR songs were actually written while David Champagne was still in Pink Cadillac: "Bringin' it All Back Home" and "Home of the Blues" were among these.

Treat Her Right brought the blues back to the Boston rock scene with a fresh new approach, one which rolled back the too-cool veneer to illuminate the blues-based origins of rock. The power and sheer joy in their sets made clear the reasons why Brian Jones and company sought an avenue for young, white class rebellion at the feet of blues revivalists like Alexis Horner- and later at the actual source: Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Robert Johnson, Lightning Hopkins. THR obtained a weekly residency in Cambridge's Plough and Stars, the tiny Irish pub on Mass Ave. The series of shows that they played at the Plough established the band almost immediately as the premier drinking and dancing outfit in the city. David Champagne remembers those shows, as early as they were in the band's history, as their creative high point." We took chances at those shows that we - that I - wouldn't later on, once we were established. Indeed the band would always excel in small club situations. They were just perfectly suited to sweaty, smoky rooms that were packed with bodies crammed against one another. Some of my favorite THR shows aside from the Plough gigs were a Providence R.I. performance that I attended at a sometimes strip club to shoot super-8 footage of the band, and a NYC show at a miniscule dive that featured the Maneaters as the opener. The Maneaters were an all-female blues-rock act I'd worked with at the Fort when their producer, Peter Halsapple of the DB's (later a key touring presence with REM, and Hootie and the Blowfish) brought them to Boston; they were a good match for THR.

After that Manhattan road trip I got a bit closer to Mark Sandman. We got together whenever we could to go candlepin bowling at the alleys underneath the Middle East Restaurant. I liked Mark tremendously right from the start. His philosophy of songwriting was wonderful- less is more would be an understatement to describe it. Mark told me once that the best songs had only one verse and, if necessary, a single chorus. Mark is the kind of guy who always had something to play for you when you came by his house- some wild kind of Brazilian American music or an obscure delta blues tune, or a tape of a song written for one of his many ongoing projects. I remember going by there one day and realizing he was playing in five different bands, all of which with the exception of Treat Her Right he had started himself. It was hard to keep up...Sandman, Candy Bar, Morphine, plus side projects slipped between the regular bands. I thought of Mark as an extremely shrewd musical investor who had diversified his holdings to minimize the risks and maximize the potential for hitting the jackpot.

BILLY: One of the often underlooked aspects of the THR sound was the profound impact that their drummer Billy Conway had on it (rolling back to 1985, it was Billy Conway who applied his considerable carpentry skills to do most of the framing for the walls when we built the original Fort Apache South out of raw warehouse space in Roxbury, Massachusetts...for his efforts, his tools and a few of his drums were stolen out of the back of his truck, before we even got the first piece of sheetrock up). I first saw Billy play when he was a member of Big 16, the band formed by former Inside Straight lead guitarist/vocalist Joel Gramolini after his teenage Ashbury Jukes stint, recording and touring with Southside Johnny (Big 16 also featured Rhandy Simmons on bass,pianist Jeremy Brown,and Evan Harriman on organ and clavinet...Gramolini himself narrowly missed becoming Springsteen's guitarist when he was edged out by Nils Lofgren). Billy had previously lived on the Left Coast, where he played with San Fran's Dear John. I often wonder if it was having those drums stolen that inspired Billy to move to the cocktail drum, an instrument that was to prove the ideal vehicle for his percussive ideas, beginning with Treat Her Right. In any case, the use of that simple device, designed for the Copacabana-style club orchestras of the mid-20th century, had a profound impact on the sound of THR (and Billy's future band, Morphine). A single drum with the diameter of a snare but the height of a conga, the cocktail drum used a clever reversed kick pedal to strike the bottom head, with snare elements underneath the top head. The snare sound was far more sublimated than in a regular snare drum, sounding more like a high pitched tom-tom with a bit of a rattle, and the kick drum was more ambient than a rock bass drum would be, also of a higher pitch due to the smaller diameter (13 to 15 inches as opposed to between 18 and 30 inches). Billy added a percussion tree with tambourine elements, wood blocks, and undersized cymbals to round out his "kit". Sonically, the effect is somewhat tribal, evocative of the Sun and "race record" days, when the rhythm track might be a suitcase, a leather chair or any other suitably thumping tone in place of a full drum kit. Stylistically, the lack of multiple toms and other gadgetry forces an economy of motion, a simpler playing style that was well suited to the "swampop" of THR, and later to the moodier, open spaces of Morphine. The open spaces, simplicity and cleanliness of Billy's approach defined the THR sound as much as did the Low Guitar, Jim Fitting's chromatic harp, or Dave "Champagne" Alcott's atmospheric slide work.

Treat Her Right got bigger and better as their career continued. Once in a while Dave would invite me up to sing "Home of the Blues", a tune of his we'd played together back in the Pink Cadillac era. It was always a blast to front such a well oiled machine in front of a packed house, however briefly. During the early to late 80's I was lucky to have dozens of similar spur of the moment invitations from friends and from bands I was producing at the time- Lifeboat, the Sex Execs the Neats, Scatterfield, Hovorka, Gordon Gayno -but none surpassed the fun I had singing with THR. The band was even nice enough to let me produce a song for them- "Last Train", the B-side of the cassette single of "I Think She Likes Me" became my first major label credit. I walked around for weeks showing everyone the label: "look, there's my name, and look right next to it- it's the RCA dog listening to His Master's Voice!!!" That recording was one of the very first we did at Fort Apache North in Cambridge when we finished installing the new Neotek Elan board; the actual first was a project I engineered for the Michaels Messina Band that was produced by the immortal Jimmy Miller. We could still smell John Messina's Aramis cologne in the air as THR laid down the tracks, and Dave played an acoustic slide part using the same funky plywood-bodied Astor Studios steel guitar that I'd played on the Throwing Muses Amazing Grace single. Producing THR was quite different from the usual production gig; the band was so very, very much together that you just had to get sounds and get out of the way. I couldn't quite understand why THR chose to record their follow-up in LA, spending a hundred times as much (you do the math) on that record as they had on the first. Of course, I know that a 'star' producer can help out in getting a band's material into the right hands- 'twas ever thus. But the rumored thirty to forty grand (!) that Don Gayman charged the group would have bought the band half a year of recording based on the Fort's rates at that time. When Mark Sandman told me how much they'd spent on the record I told him they could have bought the studio for that much! We were out having a drink, and when I said that he shrugged, clinked my glass and said "well, not so easy come, easy go...."

As it turned out it was Morphine that Mark Sandman would take to the bank when THR became insolvent, and Morphine within which he would develop his songwriting formula to its' logical, hypnotic end. The Morphine article isn't too long, but there are a large number of Morphine pages on the web, both official and unofficial, so I know you won't starve for lack of data. There is also a page on this site dealing with harp player Jim Fittin's new band, the Coots. Very different stuff, a combination of blues, country swing and New Orleans-style funk and rock. Just take this link to the Coots page to check them out.

As for Dave Champagne, he started a very cool band after THR called the Jazz Popes. I think Dave wrote some of his best material for that band. Although David's post-THR refinement of his songwriting style didn't meet with the immediate commercial success of Mark's Morphine catalogue, I felt the material was just as interesting and unique as the latter's... but with a few more lyrics thrown in. Dave and his wife Katie played the ocassional show together when they could get a good babysitter under the name the Heygoods. Their performances at Billy Ruane's Valentine's Day '98 show at Green St, Grill and at Skeggie's Spring '98 Plough and Stars gig were thouroughly enjoyable, and shows at the Toad in summer '98, and in September at Green Street Grille revealed an act that just kept getting better. Here's a few pictures, and the Heygoods article has a lot more. You can also find a link there to the new Heygoods web site.

UPDATE:As I write this short addendum (July 19, 1999) it is just over two weeks since the untimely death of Mark Sandman, who passed on as a result of a heart attack while playing a show in Palestrina, Italy on July 3rd. Sandman was 46 years old. Mark was a much-loved guy, and there have already been a slew of tribute radio shows, newspaper articles and the like, so I won't attempt to add yet another paean to "the Man of Sand" to the pile, just share a few memories of good times. On Sunday the 25th of July there will be a memorial show outside the Middle East Restaurant, one of Mark's regular hangouts, featuring performances by a number of friends and former musical associates; this could become an annual event. There is also a music scholarship fund has been started in Mark's name. My own recollections of Mark are uniformly fond ones- you can read them on the Morphine page.

UPDATE, July 2001: Two years to the day since the update above, much has happened in the THR circles. For one thing, the Heygoods must have found that dependable babysitter they were seeking, because they shifted gears from infrequent, informal shows to a far more active schedule. Seems not a week goes by that I don't open my email box to find a notice for a Heygoods show, always featuring one of Dave's way-cool digital photos. I told him he should consider a gallery show for his photographs, a number of which use the Alcott's kids for models; they're often funny, always compositionally interesting and visually compelling. The Heygoods utilize rotating members for their rhythm sections; this makes the bass players really dizzy and their chords get wrapped around their legs a lot. Just kidding. But they do shift members in the bass and drums department, a well as doing shows sans drums, and with/without a lap steel player. No matter, the shows are uniformly excellent. The early performances sounded like a hubby and the missus havin' a bit of fun; the recent shows sound like a soulful, country blues band with a pair of strong frontpersons, a knack for rocking as well as keeping things sweet and mournful, and a seemingly never-ending cast of excellent supporting players. Even better, they still look and sound like they are having an absolute ball up on stage (I know what you're thinking...you just stop right there, wise guy).

The missus plays a mean Gibson steel string acoustic, a beaut too as you can see in the photo adjacent. She also sings the Western Swing, country and blues numbers with sass, verve and none of the premeditated, phony accent nonsense that many local vocalists seem to think makes them convincing when approaching those particular musical styles. Katie's harmonies are also natural and unstrained- all in all in keeping with the vibe of the original Nashville and Appalachian singers whose work defined the genres. Recalling the background vocals on the first THR album, which were done by arts potentate Connie White (Brattle Theater, now Mrs. Greg "Skeggie" Kendall) and artist Toni Elka (Mark's extremely significant other at the time), I wonder what it would've been like had Katie been around then. I have a feeling they would have added female b/u vocals on a lot more than just "Bringin It All Back Home". One thing is for sure: just like the couple themselves, Katie and Dave's voices were made for one another.