We must have been about 17
years of age. Dating, and both drummers,
we had not yet figured out a way
to make our own music, outside
of her on the drum kit and me on
lead vocals in our very first
garage band. I had found a couple
of seasoned (24 year old) musicians,
a bass player and keyboardist
who were in a relationship,
to form my first somewhat serious
band, a thing called Incognation,
while René, my then steady girlfriend
who would later become my wife,
was looking for projects on which
she could drum. She auditioned
for a band that called themselves
Ed and the Boats. Everything could
have changed in our lives from
that moment forward. I don’t know
if she was not ready for them
or if they were not ready for her,
but René did not end up drumming
for Ed and the Boats. But Incognation,
my first experience playing somewhat
“professionally,” ended up befriending
and doing a lot of shows with
Ed and the Boats. My musical life
with Incognation lasted just a few
years, until the couple that formed
the writing nucleus of that band
broke up, and, as one would expect,
the band broke up too. By that time,
we were, say, 19 or 20, and René
started taking music classes at CCC,
bought a Roland JX-3P, learned enough
about the piano to make her dangerous,
as they say, and we started writing songs.
At 21, then engaged to be married,
we called ourselves Here Comes Everybody
and started to play live as a three
piece, keyboards, bass guitar, drum
machine, and me as a lead singer.
Over the next several years, our
paths would cross again and again
with Ed and the Boats. Even into the
nineties, when the synthesizers were
squeezed out to make room for guitar,
we were still doing shows and getting
along swimmingly with our friends
in this other band. We sounded almost
nothing like each other, but nevertheless
both bands still fit into that ever-broadening
category of alternative rock, new wave,
power pop, eclectic enough to be squarely
outside of the mainstream. Both bands
were weird. Not inaccessible, just weird.
I must have attended the record release
show for their EP Go Fish and got a copy
of it there, but over this period between
1984 and 1987, I had played with and seen
Ed and the Boats so many times, that
the experience of seeing them play is
still pretty vivid in my memory, while
individual shows are not. I vividly remember
Dan Haley’s explosive and jangly guitar,
and the way he appeared to be kind
of wrestling with his instrument, all
upper body stuff, and his confident and
active backing vocals. I remember Greg
Newman’s precise bass playing, how
he wore his bass way up high, and was
always locked in to the drums. Even if
those drums were sometimes loose in
the pocket, Greg was right there, while
also providing more layers of backing
vocal. And I remember Dennis Kenny,
the lead singer, with his big pipes and
articulated dance moves, no signs of
self-consciousness, the consummate
showman, and by far the most handsome
boat. I always loved this band name.
There’s no Ed. Or everyone is Ed. And
everyone is also a boat.
This Go Fish EP kicks ass. All six of these
songs are fantastic, hooky, cleverly arranged,
full of vocal candy and fun lyrics. The songs
do not sound dated. The Boats were, after all,
a rock band–there were no drum machines
or synthesizers, nothing in the mix to pin
this record down to its time, and Dennis
avoided any stylistic vocal trappings that
would have made this record sound like
the 80’s. His vocals are distinctly his and unique.
Ed and the Boats may have the distinction
as being one of the only local rock bands
whose songs I remember, songs to which
I could sing along at any moment, at the drop
of a hat, songs that I’ve internalized, songs
that have become a central part of my life’s
soundtrack. Along with the other greats of
my young adulthood, XTC, The Police, The
Boomtown Rats–they have every bit of that
same kind of rock star status in my imagination.
It thrills me and fills me with gratitude to know
that these guys are also my friends.
Notes on the vinyl edition: Go Fish, Sara Productions, 1987, black vinyl. I can’t find this EP streaming anywhere. There are a few YouTube videos of Ed and the Boats, but I don’t know where their music might be procured. If I find out, I’ll come back to amend this entry. If you can find Go Fish or the 1991 full length album on CD, Live The Dream, you must get yourself copies. This is the best I could do: DISCOGS
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 