Gusto Stories 1978

  A chat with one of Buffalo ’s biggest rock stars during a moment of eclipse.   Jan. 27, 1978  Cory Wells              “I was going to get out of the business a year ago,” Cory Wells says by phone from California . “I was really grossed out by what happened. I figured I’d get into another end of things, like management or production. But with the encouragement of my manager, I finally decided to do it as a solo. I wanted to do it without Three Dog Night.”           After getting caught in the collapse of one of the biggest pop acts of the early ‘70s, Buffalo-born Wells has bounced back with the first album he can call his own, the newly-released “Touch Me” (A&M SP-4673), an agreeable collection of romantic songs that should endear him to dreamers and disco dancers alike.           Though Wells tries to avoid the old Three Dog Night po...

  Back then you saw them. Now you don’t.   Jan. 13, 1978 Gusto cover story Magic: Tricks & Tradition             “I’m no more superstitious than any other person,” says Howard Eldridge as he pours another cup of coffee in the rear of his shop, Howard’s House of Hocus Pocus, 1677 Hertel Ave. , next door to Mulligan’s Café. That’s not to say he’s unaware of the aura surrounding Friday the 13th.           “Sure,” he continues, vanishing the glass coffeepot to an open but not-easily-noticed niche behind the counter, “if you knock over salt or break a mirror, you think, oh-oh, bad luck, but it’s more a habit than anything. How could you say what belief you have in it? If you come across a ladder over a sidewalk, you hesitate before you walk under it. Three on a match? If you don’t say something about it, somebody else does.”         ...

  Out for a ride with the pioneers of punk-rock.   Jan. 20 1978  The Ramones             The Ramones are packed into WGRQ-FM’s tiny broadcast studio, looking strange as missionaries among the non-believers. Except for their T-shirts, they’re all dressed alike – black leather jackets, sneakers and faded jeans torn at the knees. Singer Joey Ramone wears what look like sweater arms to keep his knees warm.           Nobody’s quite sure what to make of this quartet of wayward-looking young men in their 20s. The deliberate imitation of street toughs is enough to place an artistic barrier around them, an image so unbreakable that it transforms any setting. What’s more, none of them professes a last name. It’s simply Joey, Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee.           “Everybody say hello at once,” disc jockey John Velchoff says to start the...

  A topic near and dear to my eternally adolescent heart. Jan. 6, 1978  Nickel City Pinball Epic             INSERT COIN. KA-CHING! It was outgoing North District Councilman Eugene Reville who kicked the pinball controversy back to life. He reached for a proposal, tabled for three years in the Legislative Committee, and brought it before the lame duck Common Council in December.           PUSH BUTTON TO RECEIVE BALLS. Immediate legalization of pinball machines, Reville urged. The other Council members thought it should be studied further. It was sent back to the Legislative Committee. KA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHAKA-CHUNK!           BALL IN PLAY: ONE! The pinball scandal of 1951 is one of the darker, more sensational chapters in Buffalo ’s not-to-distant past. Before it was over, a grand jury indicted four councilmen, three polic...