History

thee Introduction

thee Begyning

thee Byrth

thee Heyday

thee Declyne

thee End

 

Group Photos

Miscellaneous

 

Music

Album Essay

Tracks

 

Today

Messages

Mail

Copyright (c) 2002

StanRay Entertainment Group

thee Byrth

Eric and Ray both headed off college in Boston; Eric to Harvard and Ray to Boston University. As young college students free of from the glare of a preparatory school and parents, they decided to continue the band. This time as a stripped down unit with a new rhythm section. Lenny Cafazzo, was a cousin of Eric’s. He had been playing bass drum in his high school marching band. He was a natural thumper.

Jeff Michaels met Ray in the Boy Scouts years before. He had studied the accordion much to his dismay. One day he stumbled across Ray in Harvard Square. The next day he bought his first bass and probably never touched the accordion again. The Sand-ells were reborn, albeit for a brief moment. One night, after a practice session, while we were all hanging out at the rehearsal space someone mentioned that they had seen Paul Revere and the Raiders on some TV show. Suddenly Ray got up and said "That’s it…we need a groovy image! Something wild so people will remember us!" Because of Eric and Ray’s fascination with the occult and the Salem witch scene, the band decided that thee Wytches would be cool. (I never understood the spelling…it looked weird on a poster. Eric once told me "…hey man, I never argue with the Oija." There was one strange dude.)

That week we all went out and bought some black turtlenecks and funky medallions, wrap-a-round shades and Beatle boots. Lenny even found a dopey old witch hat! thee Wytches were born. Their first gig as thee Wytches was at this really cool club over in Beverly, which later gained fame as jazz joint called "Sandy’s". I can’t remember what it was called in June of ’66, but the place rocked! It was also the only club we could play at. We were all under 18 but the owner didn’t think to check the band’s I.D.s, so I actually got to buy my first Schlitz in a bar!

The place was packed with college girls from Endicott. An infamous junior college that acted as a dumping ground for screwed up debutantes from Long Island and upper state New York and a couple of cool types up from Boston just looking for fun.

It’s funny, but I had heard the demo The Sand-ells cut a year earlier and was expecting to hear more or less the same thing from thee Wytches.

I could not have been more wrong. Eric, Ray and the band had re-written, rehearsed and re-created the entire set inside of a month. It was the hardest, tightest band I had ever heard…and that club went absolutely nuts! I kept thinking to myself "My God, these guys are gonna be HUGE!" It was a great moment. I suppose I should take a moment to describe the bands style a little bit, since they were a kind of unusual in their approach. What really stood out when they played live was Lenny’s drumming.

He was self-taught, and it showed. This was not a bad thing, either. He didn’t seem to like using cymbals much, favoring a much more bass drum and snare combination. Live, he just attacked his drums. This was cool because the drums never got amplified in those days, and he needed to stay on top of the other instruments. He also reminded me of Keith Moon, the way he flailed about, sometimes standing straight up while in the middle of a tune. I thought he had the most natural talent in the band. A tough Italian kid with a fierce temper who looked like he had full beard at 10.

Jeff, in my opinion, had the best voice in the group. He was just too shy to be a front man, I guess. He was this tall gangly kid with bangs and a real innocent. His best talent was arranging back-up vocals and rhythm parts. He and Eric would go over stuff all the time, trying to come up with interesting twists. He was also a very talented bass player, owing to his years of forced accordion lessons.

An R&B fanatic who worshiped Brian Jones and the Yardbirds, Ray was the emotional driver of the group. A total extrovert, he had absolute confidence in himself and the band. He was the kind of guy that rock and roll was invented for…brash, arrogant, consequences be damned. His forte was cars, girls and 3 loud chords. He would slam the living shit out of that Vox Phantom with total abandon, like he was beating on every asshole he ever met. In spite of that, his rhythm playing was airtight and his leads were explosive.

Eric was in many ways the opposite, both in temperament and in style. He had a highly developed sense of melody, and his leads were very structured and though out. He listened to a lot of classical music, really strange stuff, and his songwriting reflected it. You could hear his influence when the song would unexpectedly twist down some new road, bouncing around like a pinball and then bringing you back again. He loved using minor chords, and this really gave thee Wytches that spooky sound, such as on their one known ballad "Can I Be The Guy". This guy would walk around in all black with a head of croped platnium blond hair. He had this intensity that reminded me of the actor Robert Shaw.

What they played that night was more or less their first album. Ray had mentioned that they were going to do some ‘wax’ soon, and I assumed a single would be forthcoming. I learned later that they had decided to create an entire LP! That was unheard of in those days, mostly due to the great expense involved. I guess that since money was no obstacle the guys figured to put together a complete package and shop it to labels and promoters. It might sound commonplace today, but in ’66 it was…I dunno…visionary.

After the show was over and we were packing up, some of the Endicott girls invited us to party with them out at a place called Brackenberry Beach. It was located right up near the college and was a favorite spot to sit in the sand, light bonfires and drink wine. What occurred that night would be the first instance where I suspected that I was either smoking too much pot or thee Wytches were into something weird. There were about 15 of us sitting in a circle around this bonfire, drinking some cheap wine and getting high.

It was late, sometime around 2:30, when a few of the participants kind of wandered off to either go home or make out behind the trees. Anyway, I was staring into the fire when I heard a voice whisper in my ear, saying something that sounded like Spanish. I turned to look but there was no one there, just a couple sitting and talking about eight feet away. I turned back toward the fire and saw Eric and Ray staring at me with these amused looks on their faces. Nikki was laughing and Pamela was taking a pull off the wine bottle, her eyes fixed on me. "Franky…look! Your making friends." said Ray, and right in front of me was the word "BOO!" written in the sand. "Oh man, I’m stoned…" I thought to myself. Eric just winked at me from across the fire and said, "As are we all."

I don’t know how, but when Eric, Ray, Nikki and Pamela got together, really spooky shit would happen. Ray had this run down third floor apartment over in Salem, and one night we were all hanging out listening to 45s and getting high. Without warning, the lights went out and we could hear the stereo wind down. Suddenly the record began to reverse and play backward by itself, making the scariest fuckin’ sounds I’d ever heard. Nikki said something like "…knock it OFF!" The lights came on instantly. Ray and Eric were laughing so hard tears were coming out of there eyes. Nikki was pissed. "I TOLD you Audrey HATES those guys!" She went over to the record player and lifted the stack of unplayed singles. She picked up the last played record off the turntable and flung it at Ray. "SEE?" The 45 was as warped as a potato chip. It was "Wild Thing" by The Troggs. Ray picked it up and started complaining, "What the…That bitch Audrey broke my record!?" Eric was pissing himself he was laughing so hard. "Who’s Audrey?" I asked. Eric stopped laughing long enough to say, "That’s Nikki’s invisible friend. Not a big Trogg fan, I’m guessing!" "Screw you, Eric!" she countered.

Over the next few weeks the guys had begun recording over in Eric’s parent’s attic, which was as big as my whole house! They needed to have a quiet place to work, so it was the logical choice. It was also suitably creepy up there, which fit in with the band persona. The original idea was to do it at their rehearsal space, but it was very crowded and the heating ducts would vibrate when the drums and bass started in. The band had rented some of what seemed to be professional recording equipment and also had access to Eric’s father’s 4-track, which was state of the art in those days. They had redone a large section of the attic to use as a studio, including building some make shift booths, putting up some old mattresses and blankets to isolate the instruments from the drums. Another guy named Jeff (not to be confused with the bass player) was going to do most of the engineering with the band helping out as needed. I really don’t know much about Jeff except that he was about 25 years old and had supposedly something to do with recording at Fleetwood Studios in Revere.

I assume he was getting paid but it was really none of my business…I just lugged shit around and got drunk. I wish I got the chance to see how this whole thing was done, but I had a summer job working at a local drug store in Beverly. This kept me out of the loop for a good portion of that July, and since I didn’t have wheels it was tough to drop in on the band. All I know is that by the end of the month they were all through.

Ray called and told me that the band was planning a party at Eric’s to celebrate the project’s completion, and to invite me and a bunch of my friends up for the event. They were going to introduce the album and pretty much just get blasted. Now, Eric’s parties were unique in the respect that the location was eerie. His family’s house was a spooky old place that looked like something out of The Munsters. His dad’s family owned the house since it was built back at the turn of the century.

It was this gigantic thing made out of stone that resembled a castle, and it suited Eric fine. He usually had the place to himself because his dad was always on the road and his mom lived in California. It was built on 6 or 7 acres of property and was as secluded a place as one could find in that area of Massachusetts. It even had a swimming pool carved out of the ledge in the backyard.