As some of you know I’ve had a few brushes with the “big
break” that many in my line of work crave. I was signed to a major label in the
early 1990s, and the record I turned in was shelved. The label wanted me to be
the “next Michael Penn” and by that point not even Mr. Penn was interested in
that, let alone me. I had three songs picked up for a movie, which was never
released. I got out of my record contract and signed with another label,
releasing an album that included 5 songs from the one that was shelved. The
label put no money behind it. I had a big hit in 2009 and signed a European
distribution deal, which fell apart when the married couple who ran the
business fell into a messy divorce. I sold thousands and thousands of records
in Eastern Europe – which were being sold by pirates. It took several years to
get that fixed.
I had an audition that everyone felt I was a lock for to
play keyboards for a Japanese band that had a huge following. My flight to the
audition was supposed to be September 12, 2001. I actually watched the plane I was supposed to board land as it was the last flight grounded. I’ve done some engineering and
performing I don’t get to tell anyone about – the NDA’s are pretty strong. One
of my songs became the theme to a German Television show.
But let me tell you the story of a relationship I almost had
with a multi-Grammy-winning star who soared high and made it further than I
have, whose song I have made a cover of and released as a single today.
So where to begin. First of all, yes, I knew Kevin Gilbert.
No, we weren’t friends, but we were colleagues and classmates. We performed
together a few times – all of if school related. That’s it. Oh, and he invited
me to a jam session he was going to have once and I turned him down. I’ll get
to that.
Believe it or not, I have to tell this story starting in the
middle. There was once a band called Toy Matinee. I loved that band. Clever
songs, well written melodies, a sense of darkness and a sense of fun. It was a
band that me and my roommate Max could agree on and we cranked that album loud
and often. We went and saw them live at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, and were
about 10 feet from the stage. This is NOT the live album released in 1999, but
I can tell you they rocked the place that night. Played almost every song from
the album, and did an encore of Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies
Bleeding” that smoked.
A great night.
Now I jump into the past, to tell the tale of the UCLA
Synthesizer Ensemble. It was the brainchild of Professor Roger Bourland, who at
the time was only in his 2nd year as a professor at the school and
would later become dean of the department. He searched out the most rock and
roll musicians in what was mostly a stuffy classical music department. Me. Dave
Koz. Joel Harnel. And this kid named Kevin. The five of us took another
student’s source material and arranged up a musical. Straight musical theater and full of schlock, and all
performed on synthesizers. We eventually put on four shows, with the five of us
in the orchestra pit. I wrote the show-stopper ballad and a Latin inspired
piece. I hate to say it, but I no longer remember what everyone else did,
although I remember Dave mostly for his EWI playing and Joel for multiple
reasons – including the fact that he wrote and arranged all of the drum parts.
I knew Joel fairly well – we had played together a few times
and he was even more rock and roll than me, with more experience. Dave Koz was,
even then, Dave Koz. The only saxophonist I had met up to that point in my life
who was better than me. We had played in jazz bands together but he was already
a rising star. When he beat me for the gig with Richard Marx’s touring band his
career just took off – but all this was before then. I was one of Roger
Bourland’s students – in fact, I had been in the “test” classroom when he had
auditioned for his job.
I barely knew this Kevin kid. I was constantly getting his
name wrong – for whatever reason my brain had him wired as Kevin Anderson.
My only real interaction with him outside of this 12-week
experiment was down in the practice rooms. Many of these rooms had pianos in
them and on any given day you could hear Mozart, Brahms, Chopin and all of the
other usual suspects. I would go and write my own material and be pounding out
rock and roll. Kevin did that too. Once while in the middle of the writing
process for the musical he came into my practice room while I was working on a
song in the style of Elton John. He invited me to a jam session the next
Tuesday he was going to, and I declined. Tuesday was when MY band practiced,
and as their lead guitarist I needed the practice.
That was the end of it. After the musical was over we all
drifted our separate ways and for the most part didn’t run into each other
again. I ran into Dave once at a music festival in San Francisco and he
introduced me to Clarence Clemmons, which was pretty damned cool.
By now you’ve figured out that Kevin was Kevin Gilbert.
Congratulations. I hadn’t. For many years to follow I would remember him as
Kevin Anderson.
Now I’ve told you all of this so that you understand that
this is long BEFORE Max and I went to see Toy Matinee in concert. I became a
fan of the band without knowing that Kevin was its leader. I was ten feet away
from him, performing for an hour. I had performed with him myself.
I didn’t recognize him. Nothing clicked in my brain that
this was the same guy. I didn’t put two and two together. I rolled for my
intelligence check and got a one.
Kevin Gilbert would go on to a solo career, win seven Grammys
for his work with Madonna, be part of the driving musical force behind Sheryl
Crow’s first album, become one of the founders of the Tuesday Night Music Club,
and become one of my songwriting heroes. The man could paint a picture with
very few words and his musical ability was enviable.
And then he died; a victim of his own vices. I’m not going
to go into that here – I know nothing at all and can shed no light on the
subject.
Several years later I relocated to San Francisco with my
family. I discovered the band Giraffe once I was on their home turf, and of
course discovered the fact that Kevin Gilbert had been their leader when he was
a teenager. BEFORE I knew him. Giraffe was a pretty damned good band that had
come so startlingly close to making it big – their albums are worth hunting
down and they did a fantastic live rendition of Genesis’ “Lamb Lies Down on
Broadway” (the full album mind you) that is lots of fun.
I was looking for a recording studio for my second album
when I ran across a man named Steve Smith who owned a recording studio down the
peninsula from where I was living. In his bio, he briefly mentioned that he was
the drummer for Giraffe. Awesome. On his web site of the time if you dug in a
little bit there was a bio of Kevin Gilbert, and he talked about the brief time
he spent at UCLA.
Parts of the story looked and felt awfully familiar to me.
Smith talked about the musical without mentioning the name, and again, it felt
familiar. Me being slightly brave, I wrote an e-mail to him to ask what was the
title of that musical and that I might have been involved in it. He confirmed
it for me.
Holy crap.
All of the pieces started falling into place then. The
rehearsals, our discussions about piano playing, that I went to one of his shows and failed to
recognize him? The fact that I think he invited me to come join the FUCKING
TUESDAY NIGHT MUSIC CLUB and I didn’t even fucking notice!?!!?!!?!!?
I’m an idiot.
Actually, in looking back at the timeline I don’t think he
invited me to join TNMC. That came a couple of years later – I think. I’m never
going to know for certain. If he had told any of the other members I don’t know
about it. I’ve exchanged about a dozen words with one of the other members over
social media but we certainly don’t know one another.
I wonder if he saw me in the audience that night and
laughed. I will never know. I can tell you there is an album version of that
night you can listen to and/or buy. A then-unknown Sheryl Crow played keyboards
in the band, dressed up like a dominatrix biker chick. When I found out about
that later I was amazed – I didn’t recognize her either.
I’m an idiot.
Nick D’Virgilio of Spock’s Beard played drums. I don’t
remember the name of the bass player but what I remember is this man with the
thickest eyebrows I have ever seen in my life. Marc Bonilla played lead guitar.
Oh, the people I could have met.
I never did work in Steve Smith’s studio. I no longer
remember why.
When I was working on my third album in my newly built home
studio I recorded a number of covers and one of those was Kevin Gilbert’s “Tea
For One”. It’s a fantastic song of unrequited love and missed chances told from
start to finish in only a few dozen words. I have no idea if he would have
liked what I did to his song – he had a wicked sense of humor that I can recall
now but I never got to know him on a personal level as a songwriter, which was
my mistake. I could have but I was so focused on myself in those days that even
if the overtures were made I probably didn’t even notice.
I recorded the song in what I called "Garage Pop" during those days. A bit uneven, imperfect vocals - what you might get from a band practicing in their garage instead of a polished studio version. If you want that, I recommend hunting down his version.
But I recorded “Tea for One” just the same – it’s a great
song and I’d like to think I gave it some justice – even if it doesn’t come
close his version. It was on the original version of my third album "The Long Goodbye", which I released
myself, but was cut when the album was moved to digital streaming services (In
all fairness, I cut 21 songs from the original release – which was a 2 CD set).
My music career has been dark for several years, but it got
jump started in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic and I’ve been revisiting a
lot of my unreleased work since, and of all the covers I did this is still my
favorite. I am releasing it now, in tribute to a musician I admire and could
have called friend if I had just paid a bit of attention.
The guy holding the roses was me, as it turns out. I had no
idea.
+++++++++++++++++
For those of you with very long memories you should listen
to the full single on Spotify, because I’ve thrown in a little bonus for people
who remember the 1980’s band ASK. Just a little piece of a little ditty written
by me, Kevin Donville and Ed Lee.
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