Gusto Stories 1978

  “Ring, ring goes the bell” – Chuck Berry Sept. 7, 1979  Back to school with a quiz Here it is – another school year. More teachers, more books, more burning of the midnight oil. Or gasohol, if you will. Your cerebral muscles are obviously all out of shape from the summer, so here’s a chance to start conditioning them back into Olympic form for that first big exam by exercising your rock ‘n roll IQ.          Testing your musical knowledge has got to be easier than a gut class in cinema appreciation, right? First of all, it’s multiple choice, so you’ve already got the right answer. In case that fails, try sneaking a peek at the results on Page 35 without rustling the paper. You never know when a talent like that might come in handy.          So sharpen your phonograph needles, put on your earphones and get ready to give yourself 10 points for each correct answer. If you score 90 or 100, y...

  On the eve of the first-ever World’s Largest Disco in the Buffalo Convention Center, I tracked down some of the main figures in the scene. Sept. 7, 1979  Fever Pitch It’s the height of the night at Buffalo’s leading disco, the Club 747, and from inside the Plexiglas and steel sound booth it’s an incredible sight. There the whole panorama unfolds on all sides. Lights flash down the fuselage over the bobbing heads of the dancers below, the video screens show a jetliner taxiing for takeoff and the speakers whoosh with the roar of jet engines.          The illusion is that this is one big partying night flight, soaring high in the heavens, far from earth. Looking out over it all from behind the turntables, the deejay becomes a pilot by proxy. The evening’s destiny is in his hands. As long as he plays his records right, the passengers are airborne.          The record spinner may get to indu...

  On the 55th anniversary, here’s a look at it from just 10 years away. Aug. 3, 1979 Woodstock Ten Years Later I didn’t go to Woodstock. It wasn’t for lack of opportunities. The News proposed to dispatch me to the Catskills when the Aquarian Exposition began to look like a gargantuan catastrophe the morning of Friday, Aug. 15, 1969. Unfortunately, there was a conflict.          At that time, I was a reporter by day, but by night I was a bass player in a rock ‘n roll band. That Friday and Saturday we had a gig. Shell’s Lounge on Broadway – $85 for five sets a night. During our breaks those hot, humid nights, we sat on the concrete steps out front of the place, drinking beer and wondering what we were missing.          It turned out to be the high-water mark of the youthful counterculture of the ‘60s – a sprawling celebration of music, drugs and free-spiritedness in spite of the Vietnam War and ...

  In the midst of what seemed back then like the most depressing of times, here was the best of times.   Aug. 8, 1979  Kinks Rock with Oldies, New Tunes With a tattered backdrop and a couple of frowsy palm trees, the Kinks showed a frisky sellout crowd in Kleinhans Music Hall Tuesday night that even on a low budget it’s possible to have a high old time.          “Low Budget” is the latest theme to be taken up by this long-lived British band – first as an album, now as a tour – and it ranks with their best. They’ve grabbed onto the things that make modern times what they are: gas shortages, cash shortages and a general decline in the quality of life.          Does this make them downhearted? Not at all. Like the album, the stage show rocked, from its first blast of flash powder to its wild and woolly two-encore finale. It as if the Kinks had turned themselves back to their free-swingi...