I took up the clarinet in the summer of 1987. My reasoning was that John Lurie already played the saxophone. I had visited Paris in 1986 and had a vague plan to move there to play on the street for loose change.
By autumn, my embouchure was pretty good. That is, I could play without air leaking from the mouthpiece, and my fingering was pretty good, too.
My French, on the other hand, not so good. When my teacher spoke, one word raced into the next unintelligibly. My eyes glazed. The Paris plan was looking dubious.
Around this same time I met Bill Ferguson. Not sure why I hadn’t met him earlier, we’d both been knocking around the same circles in Syracuse a couple of years.
Bill had a certain consistent style that I admired. His glasses, his jacket, his shoes, it all just went together. My style was way less consistent, I couldn’t commit to one thing or another. Later, Bill would say he took me to be “sentimental” and that’s why I wore this and that. He was pretty much right.
Bill was into good music. He wrote for the paper. Somewhere in the back of my mind I said to myself, I want to be in a band with this guy.
Come winter, one night I had a premonition. I went outside into the cold, dark backyard behind my apartment and started playing my clarinet. My hands were freezing but I had this feeling if I kept playing, Bill would eventually walk by.
Sure enough, a familiar figure passed underneath the streetlamp. Kept going. Then doubled back. Squinted down the driveway.
“Adam, is that you?”
I stopped playing. Walked toward the street.
“Why, hey there Bill.”
What a coincidence. Shortly after that, now that Bill had it in his head that I was some sort of musician, he hatched a plan. Him, me, Mike Dwyer and Tony Zajkowski went down to Marshall Street one Saturday night.
Bill and Tony played acoustic guitars, Mike played drums, I played the clarinet. We must’ve practiced at least once prior but I can’t remember. All I can remember playing that night was Tequila, over and over again.
Two of our friends, Kristina and Jen, acted as shills. They bopped in front of us, throwing change into Bill and Tony’s guitar cases. Drunken frat boys, wanting to impress the girls, followed suit.
In about an hour we made enough for a case of beer, which we brought to a party.
I don’t recall drinking more than usual, but my lips were lacerated from having played the clarinet vengefully without ceasing. The alcohol went straight into my blood stream. Bill picked me up off the floor, threw me into the back of his Scirocco, and made sure I got home.
Our band had yet to congeal. But I had made a friend.
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Nice. Anybody who drove a Scirocco in those days could be trusted.