Buffalo Tom Turns 25. Part 1 of 3: The Initiated

There was a pack of us in high school, in the spring of 1983, who took very little seriously. Except, perhaps, punkish music and what street to fuggin take. Joe had the money and the wheels, since he had already started throwing down rugs for his father. On afternoons he wasn’t working for Joe Sr. or at Randy’s Texaco, we would slide into the cab or hop into the bed of his shiny new red Ford S-10 and set about the streets of Medfield, with open minds and the thrashy chords of The Clash pumping us stupid with some sort of rebellion. We spent our afternoons wending our way around the confining neighborhoods, a serpentine enough route to allow for the entire cassette to play through, and for “White Riot” to stimulate our suburban blood with plebeian rage. Looking back, I can admit that our brand of suburban angst didn’t quite measure up to the racial and economic strife among class relations in England during the late seventies. But it was pretty damn close. Back then, it was enough that Joe Strummer’s lyrics were firing Joe Cafferelli’s cylinders.

A couple years later, Joey traded in his S-10 for a brown Ford van. We named her Wicked Brown, paying mock-homage to WBCN’s Wicked Yellow van, which showed up proudly at the biggest rock shows in Boston during the eighties. A year or two later he traded in Wicked Brown for what would be Wicked Blue. Wicked Blue, like its predecessor Wicked Brown, was a plush den of potential mischief. On wheels. Joey had built a cargo-length bench out of plywood and two-by-fours to box his carpeting tools and to hide other sundries. The three hinged doors opened upward and doubled as seats, upholstered, of course, with a durable commercial carpeting for both seating comfort and added protection for the van’s various inhabitants.

During the daylight hours, Wicked Blue was often stuffed with 2 or 3 rolls of 300 pound shark-skin-backed carpeting, extending from cab to gate. The gate doors usually had to be tied with rope or bungied with cords to restrain the rolls and hinder their jostling. Atop the rolls of carpeting lay as many rolls of padding, encased in plastic wrap to maintain a cylindrical shape.

During the twilight to midnight hours, the cargo’s inhabitants were anything but restrained. We were now twenty-year-olds, who – after clearing carpet remnants for a mosh pit- slam-danced to bands like Flipper and The Sex Pistols and a little-known local band out of Andover called Plate of Mutton (later Schuyler Heinkel), the members of which we met through college. At the helm was Joey, who drove Wicked Blue like a dirt bike. On the dashboard stood several varieties of plastic, glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs. Basically, it was a rock club on wheels.

Phil Retelle, lead singer and guitarist of Plate of Mutton. Party at Joey's Dale Street house. Medfield, Massachusetts. 1984.

There was a tacit understanding between all of us passengers and Joey that at some point during our van residency we would have to pay for our accommodations with initiations, or tests of humility. For instance, since I was Joey’s lackey during the day, he would make me unload bales of carpeting sticks into his father’s supply room. You’ve seen these sticks. The ones with quarter-inch spikes angled forty-five degrees outward that, when nailed to the borders of rooms, grip the shark-skin backing and anchor the rug tight. They came bundled in logrolls, and to carry a bundle from van gate to storage area was crucifying for a college kid with soft palms. So Joe Junior and Joe Senior would jeer me with female monikers, as I shuffled, pierced and wincing, with these malevolent instruments of torture. “C’mon, Sally, hurry up,” said Joe Sr. “Move it, Mary,” said Joe Jr. I was initiated. Bloody as Jesus. But initiated.

Others of us had their own brands of initiation. Sarah, for one, after selflessly offering to be designated driver from a house party in Andover to our homes in Medfield, had to endure mock threats. “Just drive,” said Joe, brandishing a loaded cap gun in the passenger seat of his own van, “and don’t worry your pretty little head about a thing.” Bill Janovitz claims to have introduced this line to the mini-drama, and maybe he did. But whatever its origin, the line was shamelessly repeated over and over, taking on further dimension as the ride wore on, and the scene did its best to approximate the innocent girl taken hostage by evil wrongdoers plot. Or something like that. Even when the gun went off, she took it like a champion, and got us all home safely. She was initiated. Charred along her neck. But initiated.

Bill Janovitz, Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts. 1994.

Speaking of Bill, he was another. Admittedly, my memory is a bit hazy here. But the story is legend, so anything goes. Wherever this happened - it could have been Brattleboro, or it could have been Northampton, or it could have been Vegas (the Medfield Vegas) – it happened at the end of a boozy spiraling night with Billy in a bathtub, faucet running, water rushing up around him, and Joey plunging Billy’s face beneath the surf, pretending to drown him. When motivated, Joey could be quite convincing as a serial killer. It would be wise at these times to avoid his crosshairs. Whatever brought us to that point in the night might have had something to do with Vermont’s then generous drinking age, but I remember a bunch of us clamoring around the bathroom doorway, edging for a glimpse of the mock drowning. The realism was remarkable. Hitchcock meets Tarantino. The menacing laughter from Joey, the blue face and splashy protests from Billy, one would have almost thought a real murder was taking place. In the end Billy escaped alive and we lauded him for his stellar portrayal of a drowning victim. But he stayed in character, serious and shivering under a towel, refusing our praise. He was initiated. Damp in the lungs. But initiated.

Chris "Flippa" McGinley in Slapshot tee, Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts. 1994.

Wicked Blue spent a lot of time on the Pike back in the mid-eighties, racing between eastern and western Massachusetts while we were all out at Umass. Particularly Northhampton, where two Medfield guys and an Andover guy would come together to form a band. Bill Janovitz, guitarist for Rambunctious Llamas; Tom MaGinnis, bass player for Plate of Mutton; and Chris Colburn, guitarist for Watch the Teeth Kate, joined together, shifted instruments, and in 1986 Buffalo Tom was born.

Tom MaGinnis on bass for Plate of Mutton. Party at Joe's Dale Street house, Medfield, Massachusetts. 1984.

Wicked Blue is gone now. And so is its driver. We are left only with memories. I try not to live too much in the past, but I guess hanging out with the same friends over decades requires we do that to a certain extent. Some of my fondest memories have to do with the driver of Wicked Blue torturing his friends as compensation for the accommodations he made for them. There he was, that squirmy little red-head, frequent passenger, begging for breath in a bathtub. Ah memories. Ah friendships.

Buffalo Tom in concert, Paradise Rock Club. Boston, Massachusetts. 1995.

In a couple of weeks, Buffalo Tom will celebrate twenty-five years together by putting on three gigs over the Thanksgiving weekend. Congratulations to them. As is often said about bands that stay together for so long: it has been quite a ride.

One thing I learned from Joey was this: There are no free rides in life; we all must pay for where we go.