As Karen and I looked forward to moving up to Connecticut from Delaware in early 1990, people who knew that I was essentially just tagging along with Karen while she went to graduate school would on occasion ask me what I would be doing with myself in New Haven. I had no idea, so my stock answer was always to say, “I’m just going to act like an iron filing, and see which way I get magnetized.”
Imagine my surprise when on my first week in town I looked at the classified ads for musicians in the New Haven Advocate and saw an ad that read, “Magnetics seek bassist and vocalist...”
These guys - Matt Salerno on keyboards, Johnny Memphis on guitar, and Mark Massaro on drums - were always a great joy to play music with. At least half of our gigs were on warm summer nights aboard a boat called the Liberty Belle. The Belle would head out across New Haven’s harbor onto Long Island Sound for dancing and drinks, often with the Magnetics aboard.
One evening we were doing our sound check and this
started up.
Quite the Groove.
There are more...