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Introduction: Looking Back Wow. It's been ten years since the band packed it in. Ten years. Of course, the end was inevitable. We couldn't keep working the same little bars, playing at talent shows, and making little or no (or negative amounts of) money. We had to take it to the next level or... or what? Or quit. We were starting to have actual lives. Soon we wouldn't have time for what amounted to a full-time hobby. I was already married, and Paul was about to be. I was graduating from college. Time to get a real job. But what if we hadn't given up? What if we'd risen above the petty infighting, vowed to practice harder, write more, promote better? What if? You can drive yourself crazy playing that game. Maybe memory plays tricks; perhaps it makes us remember those times as much better than they were. Or just maybe the distance makes us realize in retrospect how unimportant our differences were next to what we were creating. We were making music! Imagine! Well, I'm still making music- not as much, certainly, and not in a full-time band. And *Batteries Not Included is a special memory for me. We were young and we had a lot of fun. Those were the days. And, for you, here are the days... Steve Dockery Part One: The Early Years Although we ended up being a New Jersey band, the story of *Batteries Not Included actually begins in Woodbridge, Virginia. Marc Roulier and I had gone to high school together, and knew each other mostly through mutual friends. When we graduated, someone suggested Marc and I get together to play music. He'd been playing electric bass for a short time (having played double bass in the school orchestra) and I had been learning to play guitar for about a year. Marc was responsible for teaching me my first few rock songs (my repertoire at that point consisting of folk and pop-country). The very first was , if I remember correctly, "Clock Strikes Ten" by Cheap Trick(!). I could never actually play the song properly, but Marc had (and still has) boundless patience. As we practiced together, we imagined forming a band called the "Alienz", even going so far as to sketch some album cover ideas! I have in my possession a guitar pick with the band's proposed logo on it. We had all the trappings, now all we needed was talent, experience, and an actual band... By the following summer, we'd formed a band, fittingly named "Prelude", just to play at our friend Kevin Kurtz's birthday party. We drafted my brother to play some borrowed drums (he'd never touched them before), and joining us were Marc's brother Chris, and our friends Joe Hoffmaster and John Manderfield. After a while, B.J. McLanahan (a friend of mine from the community college) was added to the lineup on "female vocals", and we found an actual drummer, Steve Parks. Along with the additional personnel, we also changed the name. I can't recall if the name came first or not (it probably did), and as I recall it was thought up over Key Lime Pie at the local Lums restaurant in Woodbridge, VA. Marc and I, along with some friends, all worked at Pizza Hut, and we had gone over to Lums after work. We had recently become fans of the local band "Four Out Of Five Doctors", and were looking for a name like that; something you see all the time, something like a catchphrase, like "Some Assembly Required." Somebody suggested "Batteries Not Included," and it was like "Bingo!" We had our name. Marc and I began to write songs. The first song I wrote by myself, "Camera Lies", is still one of my favorites, but the first song we actually finished and performed was a group effort. I, along with my friend Joe Ficklin (who supplied the titular lyric for *BNI's popular song, "Political Statement"), were jamming and came up with a basic rhythm and two-chord verse. I added a long decending chord progression (which I intended as a chorus, but which later became the bridge). Meanwhile, B.J. had written down some lyrics based on a dream she'd had, and given them to Marc. Marc went away on a family trip and returned with a finished song: B.J.'s words, my music, and the addition of a two-chord chorus section. The song was "There Will Be Noise". We continued to play and add cover songs and a few originals to our set. We played at our parties, and even had a gig at the local Mormon church (owing to the fact that the aforementioned Joe Ficklin and our freind Alan Lickiss were both Mormons). However, we'd never had a paying gig. Some members of the band decided it was time to remedy that situation, and if we were to play in the local establishments (of which I, at least, knew nothing), there were a couple of songs we would have to add to our repertoire. One of which (this being the South and all) would be the country standby "Rocky Top", and the other being "Stairway to Heaven." I wanted no part of that. I detested Led Zepplin, and there was no way I was going to have to learn to play and perform songs I didn't like just so we could get gigs. I got into this thing in order to play songs I liked! I gave them an ultimatum: They could play with me or they could learn songs that they were required to learn in order to get gigs. They chose the latter and I quit. It was the only time I have ever been angry at Marc in the almost 20 years that I've known him. Ultimately, they didn't play out and eventually disbanded, and Marc and I got back together again, no hard feelings. We re-adopted the *BNI name, but didn't form a band again until we moved to NJ in the spring of 1984 so I could go to Rutgers... Part Two: New Jersey - First Lineup Marc Roulier and I moved to New Jersey in the spring of 1984 so I could attend Rutgers University in the fall. He wasn't going to go to school there (although he eventually did); he just went along for the change of scenery and because NJ was Springsteen land (him being a big fan of the "boss"). We practiced in a spare room and put out flyers for musicians to join us. At first we were contacted by two women; a drummer and a keyboardist. Marc and I jammed with them, and soon found another guitarist. The drummer didn't really work out- her playing was too timid and tentative. We needed someone with experience to give us a steady backing. The guitarist said he knew a drummer, who came over and jammed with us and things really clicked. So it fell on me to tell our erstwhile drummer she was ousted. It was a very difficult thing. It felt like breaking up with a girlfriend. I swore to the others if anyone else was going to be let go, I wasn't going to do the dirty work next time. When the smoke cleared, we had the original New Jersey *BNI lineup:
We played around
campus in this lineup, performing at student centers, fairs, even on
the back of a flatbed truck. We even started getting paying gigs at
the local bars (and no "Stairway to Heaven" in sight). Sure,
we weren't making much money, but we were playing for audiences! Part Three: New Jersey - Second Lineup The departure of Karthik and Steve B. was a major setback. Minus half a band, it could take *BNI a long time to get our act back together. I put flyers up around campus, and in no time at all, Paul Bergen (Drums) and Jeff Ganis (Guitar) answered the ad. Not only were the two excellent musicians, but they came as a unit- they had already been playing together for some time, so establishing the group's chemistry would be much easier. After only a few months of rehearsing, the new lineup was ready to perform. With Jeff (a marketing major in college) acting as our manager and calling area clubs to get us gigs, we played a lot. I was surprised at the number of shows on a "tour schedule" I found recently in the *BNI archives. For a while, we were playing one or two gigs every week. We became a tight unit, and I'm frankly surprised (and grateful, I guess) that the boys allowed me to play any of the guitar solos, since my playing was so dismal compared to Jeff's! Eventually, John Kuzel was added to the lineup on keyboards. Although he was proficient, and many songs benefitted from the addition of his keyboard parts, he felt (probably rightly) that *BNI was so guitar-driven that he was extraneous (shades of Laurie Stier). He stepped down as keyboardist and was not replaced. (In fact, he rejoined the band for our "Farewell-Reunion" show at the Corner Tavern, intended to be our final performance.) We were interviewed on air at WRSU-FM (the Rutgers radio station where I was a DJ), and got several mentions and an interview in a local music paper (The Splatter Effect) We also had a write-up in the Rutgers Review, Rutgers College's weekly newspaper. That article was written by our friend Evan Hansen, and his edits made us sound much cleverer than we really were. At one point, we opened for local favorites "Crossfire Choir". The "Choir" had been signed to a record deal by Geffen, and were flown to England to make a record with Steve Lillywhite, only to have the record rejected. They were dropped by Geffen and after some haggling got their tapes, which were released on vinyl by a smaller record company. Unfortunately, they never achieved the fame they seemed so close to reaching. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, we split up because Paul decided he didn't have time to be in band anymore, now that he was married, and I felt like our music wasn't evolving enough, so I needed a change as well. A while later, I formed a band called "Gangster Clairvoyants" with some friends, and we played a free gig or two. It was fun and experimental, but it never felt like it clicked like *BNI did in our heyday. A year later, the band reformed again, sans keyboards, for our actual final performance, the "2nd Farewell-Reunion" show at The Corner Tavern. I hadn't been feeling well, and we had accepted the gig chiefly because we were offerred money, so my heart wasn't in it. Consequently, I didn't bother to contact John Kuzel. I hope he didn't find out about the show and felt left out. And that was that. Will *BNI rise again? Perhaps. Marc and I still play together. Perhaps *BNI has really been just Marc and me all along, and the other musicians were just there to lend a hand... |
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