The Last Gig... an outdoor performance the day after the Arts Center Recording.  From left to right, Anthony Hardwick, Kewsong Lee (obscured), Lauren Buono, Bettina Slusar, Pam Gorrell, Gary Laben (almost totally obscured), Tony Lovell and Mike McGarry.  I seem to recall that Andy Hyra was AWOL.

OTR was still in the process of being formed, and I recall a few rough practice sessions where it was not obvious that anything worth listening to was ever going to result from the team.  But things picked up speed when Mike McGarry brought Andy Hyra in to try out as vocalist and broke into a sprint when Lauren Buono, Pam Gorrell and Bettina Slusar came in to belt out some Go-Gos songs.  We started to feel pretty good about things at that point.

The line-up came out as Gary Laben on drums, Kewsong "Kew" Lee on keyboards, Anthony Hardwick on rhythm guitar, Tony Lovell on lead guitar, Andrew "Andy" Hyra on vocals, and Michael "Mike" McGarry on bass.  We regarded the girls as special guests, and only occasionally prodded them to come to a practice.

The band practiced in a large storage room high atop the architecturally exotic Paul Mellon Arts Center.  The heavy concrete construction permitted a fairly loud volume to be reached without disturbing students playing their wankish orchestral instruments in the nearby practice rooms, though complaints sometimes did arise.

Like most bands on campus, we played only covers.  The J Geils Band was big at the time, and we also liked Joe Jackson, The Police, The Beatles and The Cars.

I recall one practice where we were going to pick up David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel".  Andy had written out the lyrics and structure of the song, and we started it up.  It sounded just like the original, but after 2 or 3 verses, true boredom was taking hold.  I mean, when you think about this song, it is stultifying in its repetition.  I stopped playing, walked over to Andy and scrunched up the papers and threw them in the corner.  This uncharacteristic veto was immediately seconded.  It's amazing what some glitter and a blow dryer did for David Bowie.

There was a background hum of interpersonal tension in this band.  Gary, Kew and Andy did not always get along so well.  Anthony, as a fourth former (sophomore), was sometimes an odd fit as everyone else was in the sixth form (i.e., we were seniors).  Mike and Andy were inseparable, and I pretty much got along with everyone, which prompted Gary to dub me "the human step-ladder".  Ahh, politics.

"Playing a Dance" was the aspiration of any band at Choate.  To do so, however, required assembling a sizable repetoire (we thought 25 songs or so), and this was a bit of a stretch in most cases.  As a result, the more common practice was for 2 or 3 bands to share the limelight at a dance or for the bands to go head to head at an open-mike event at the Student Activity Center.

I vaguely recall our first gig was in the SAC as one of several bands, and that we rocked hard.  "Let the Good Times Roll" was one of our strong numbers at the beginning (even though we later forgot the rhythm).  "What I Like About You" was another strong number for us.  Sadly, we repeatedly proved ourselves able to reduce Beatles songs to steaming piles of mess.

I only have 2 tapes of the band performing, but perhaps other band members will be able to contribute others.  Near the end of the school year, we took a gamble and did something sort of against the rules and played a rooftop concert at the fourth form dorms deep within the woods.  A tape was made of this using a boombox.  Later yet, we decided to create a final document of the band, and got permission to go a little past curfew to tape ourselves on the stage of the Arts Center.  This tape was made in stereo on a proper tape deck.

I recall that the band's last performance was made the day after the Arts Center recording, when we played on an open air stage near the hockey rink as part of some festival or other.  A photo of this performance made it into the yearbook (see above).  I recall thinking that we sounded amazing during this last gig, but a friend came up to me later and told me it was not very good at all.  Oh well!

In the Practice Room

A few recordings exist of us learning songs in the practice room.  They're not bad.  Especially fun is the girls are on hand to hammer out a Go-Gos number.  They added a LOT to the fun.

Just Can't Wait (3:47, 4 MB)

Love Stinks (3:34, 4 MB)

Our Lips are Sealed (2:41, 3 MB)

The Rooftop Concert

I will digitize some songs from this when I get the chance.  I recall that it was pretty cold and that the girls may have been unable to join us for it.  Kew was a resident adviser to the fourth formers, and Anthony was a fourth former, and so this was sort of their baby.  I recall Andy being a little upset at Kew's presumptuous posturing  ("This is for YOU guys!" and horning in on the prized "Jenny" guitar part), but what can you do?

The dorm complex where this concert was held, though fairly modern, was demolished some time in the 1990s when it seemed it required substantial repair and the school was trying to revert to a smaller student enrollment.

Dance the Night Away (2:42, 3 MB)

The Greeks Don't Want no Freaks (3:22, 4 MB)

Jenny (4:07, 5 MB)

We Got the Beat (2:44, 3 MB)

What I Like About You (3:25, 4 MB)

The Arts Center Recording

We had a great stage, a good tape recorder, being fed by a pair of SM-57s, 5 hours or so and a prized metal cassette to capture our best final effort for posterity.   I recall being incredibly proud of the result, but listening to it now it is hard to see why I thought it was so exceptional. 

Kew had somehow borrowed a much nicer keyboard (a Prophet V synth -- pretty much top of the line in those days) than the simple Korg electric keyboard (4 preset sounds) he normally relied upon.  He had some fun with it and didn't ham it up too badly in his exhuberance.

At some point in the evening, Andy's sister Annie popped in.  She listened to a song, and then Andy insisted she sing with him on "Heat of the Moment" (to good effect on an otherwise faltering number).

Centerfold (3:27, 3 MB)

Heat of the Moment (3:58, 4 MB)

Jenny (3:50, 4 MB)

What I Like About You (2:55, 3 MB)

Where Did Our Love Go? (5:35, 5 MB)

Anthony's Farewell (0:37, 1 MB)

Memories and Stories

Gary Laben reminds me of a story he told me when we were in college or shortly afterward.

Here's one of my more interesting memories of the band...

One of the funnier stories I recollect from the band actually occurred
shortly after we disbanded the group to go our separate ways to college,
in my case, Johns Hopkins.

It was freshman orientation week at JHU and hundreds of students were
outside in the freshman quadrangle socializing. One of the dorms in the
quadrangle was having a party, and you could hear them turn up the
stereo. The song they were playing was, "What I like about You" by the
Romantics. I turned to my new friends and casually started up a
conversation about being in a band in high school and that we covered
that song. Several people said they liked The Romantics and started
singing along. We decided to walk on over to the party and on the way,
it became clear to me that this particular version was also done by a
cover band - OUR BAND. We got inside and there were a hundred guy/girls
drinking and dancing to Off the Record's cover of "What I Like About
You!" I said that I was actually the drummer on this recording and that
my high school buddies played with me. Anyone who heard me replied,
"yeah...right" in disbelief. It was at that moment, that Ken Gutierrez
(Johns Hopkins classmate and Choate '82) came across the room, said hi
to me (we hadn't seen each other since we got to JHU), and introduced
himself to my friends as the host of the party, and confirmed my
statement. He said he recorded the tape from one of our gigs and hoped
I didn't mind him playing it. People drank and danced to the rest of
the tape and I made a lot of new (girl) friends that night, proving that
sometimes having been in a band can be as good as or better than
actually being in a band...

 

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