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 Riverside Resort by George Ziemann The first time I encountered Sha Na Na was as a small-town reporter. The casino where they were performing was holding a press conference of sorts to promote their two-night stand. This was a semi-regular occurance, which involved a live local radio broadcast. So all of the local press were called to send someone to ask questions. There were probably 9 or 10 of us and we were seated in a straight line facing the stage, where the band was seated in a similar manner. I was at one end of the line; after his intro and some comments from the band, Mr. Radio Guy started at the other end.
Our first questioner gave the microphone back to Mr. Radio. The next person in line waved it off, as did each and every other intrepid, yet clueless reporter in the room. "Where's Bowser" was the only question that anyone in the line had. By the time Mr Radio Guy got to me, he was visibly relieved that I had another question to ask. I asked about Columbia University, Woodstock and Michael Gross, their original guitarist. Figuring that three questions were sufficient, I turned to give the mic back to Mr. Radio Guy, but this time he was the one waving it off. So I did about 20 minutes of interview. Had questions for every member of the band, including Pam, a blonde female that added a little diversity, but there had never been a female in the band before (and there isn't one now). I also knew that Bowser's replacement, Reggie (who is still with the band), has been in the BusBoys and several other facts that I had looked up in my Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll the night before. Later that night, I was coming out of one of the casino's restaurant/bars and ran into Scott Simon (cowboy hat guy, lower right photo), who plays keyboards guitar and bass, as the need arises. Actually, he saw me first and stopped me because he had been impressed that I knew so much about the band. "I love music. You guys were at Woodstock. And it's my job to know something about you if I interview you." "Well, your competition doesn't seem to have the same job description." Then he invited me to play softball with them the next day. They were scheduled to play the local girl's team, which is another ritual photo opportunity the casino likes to do. Most of the acts take part when they can. In addition to the fun of the game itself (we played two games -- the girl's team destroyed us both times), it gave me more time to talk to the band members one-on-one. At a later date, I mixed monitors for them. Mixing monitors can be boring sometimes. You might spend some intense time during set-up, but for a lot of acts, once they're set, they're set. ShaNaNa was a challenging monitor gig (and fun) because ShaNaNa can get confusing. During set-up, after the basic EQ is done, there's going to be a big concern for what's in what monitor, with everyone acting like they have a slightly different preference. In retrospect, I wonder if that's all kind of a joke. You've got four or five potential singers upfront at any time. The mics are all color-coded with tape. Everyone continuously moves around, either singing into different microphones, or sometimes wandering the stage with a mic and not necessarily putting it back on the same stand that it came from. And they stick vocal mics in a saxophone, which can be startling if you don't know it's coming. After every couple of songs, I'm going down the list of colors to make sure I'm still on track. Anyway, ShaNaNa was a pleasure to work for and their show is pure fun. No real pretensions, on or off stage, as far as I could ever tell. Just some college kids that still wanted to sing 50s "greaser" doo-wop in the 60s.
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The
first person asked the inevitable question. "Where's Bowser?"
This is a reference to Jon Bauman, the earlier bass singer known
for his mugging and antics. He was an audience favorite, but
by the time our interview was taking place, Bauman had been gone
for some time, in favor of gigs like Hollywood Squares.
