How far back do Goon & I go?
A long way back...
WMCC at Monroe Community College — 1971
Goon and I were at Monroe Community College and both really into radio. The station only broadcasted through the college, but we had a great time sifting through the albums and checking new artists out. I taped a couple of the shows on a reel-to-reel deck. I made up what could be considered almost a "set list", often with some subtle or sometimes not so subtle music commentary on the Viet Nam War or racial strife. Things were quite unsettled then, but may even be worse now, because we don't seem to learn well. It's either that or we have short memory spans.
Goon and I began recording in 1970, but not as Sunup. In fact, we were recording in mono with Mick Guzauski. I borrowed a friend’s electric guitar to record with. It was a Gibson Firebird - a unique sounding and playing instrument and I owned played a horrible old Gibson acoustic. We recorded three of my original songs. The drummer on those tracks was Rob Day and the interesting thing about the link to Rob is that his daughter emailed me this past year asking if she could put a home video together using one of the songs to put up on Facebook. That is something I never expected, but it was fun to go back and listen to those songs once again.
Goon and I did a few gigs as a duo. One gig was to include our good friend, Jim Tomkinson, who also sings on the Woody track. A friend at the college introduced me to Jim and he thought we should get together and play. Jim's style was very much like James Taylor. After all, they were both JT! The original plan was to have Jim join the two of us as part of an "official" group. The first gig at the college Jim showed up when we were half way through the gig. He said he had a flat. Another time, we were rehearsing at my parent's house and when Jim didn't show up Goon and I just rehearsed without him. Well, it turns out he did show up, but we were finished rehearsing and heading out the door. At that point we decided that Jim probably wasn't going to work out; however, we remained great friends until his passing a few years ago. And in fact, Jim often played with his cousin, Brian Soule, and that is how we wound up getting hooked up with Brian playing keyboards with us.
At the Olde Bryan Inn in Saratoga Springs, NY — 2019
Soon after, Goon went to Ithaca College to pursue his degree in communications and gain experience as a broadcaster. Every once in a while I'd drive down to Ithaca when his roommate was going to be gone for the weekend. We'd listen to music and play guitars. You'd have thought we would have gone out somewhere, but neither of us had any money. We were lucky to be able to buy a slice of pizza! I was barely able to scrape together gas money to get there and back. As most of you know, Goon left for a full-time jock gig in Danbury, CT in 1979, where he still works even today. You can hear him in the morning on I-95 (WRKI) or dial in through the internet. He and his radio partner, Lou Milano, go from 6am until 10am during the week. It is a Classic Rock station, so no, you won't hear any Sunup tunes.