“So then Craig and I were what I like to call the Ex-Happeners,” laughs Chris. “Or the Mishappeners…”
Although their promising career as television stars had been put on ice, Chris and Craig had bonded musically. Back in Los Angeles they moved into an apartment together and began working up material on acoustic guitars and honing their harmonies. “Basically the writing was mostly separate,” says Chris. “We’d put vocal things together on each other’s songs but not musical things.”
Many of the songs they would later record together in the Penny Arkade were written during this gestation period, including Craig’s “Country Girl” and “Voodoo Spell.” At this stage Smith was the more prolific of the two songwriters, but egged on by his partner, Ducey soon began coming up with some jewels of his own.
Billing themselves as Chris & Craig, in early 1966 they began playing around some of the clubs in Hollywood as an acoustic duo. “We were like Peter & Gordon with a more modern touch,” reckons Chris. “We also had a good sense of humor onstage and we could play off each other’s humor. We were kind of light in that way and could bounce around.” Craig had a comedic persona he’d created called Froggie—an extension of his ‘Lizard Face’ shtick of a few years earlier. A cartoon drawing of Froggie appeared on the Inca album cover with a halo and a joint, suggesting that Craig’s self-deprecating sense of humor was intact even then.
According to Chris though, Craig’s upbeat, outgoing personality was a façade, constructed to hide some deeply troubling issues in his private life. “He had alcoholic parents,” says Chris, “and they caused him deep angst, although he masked it with a joking, light persona. He was deeply embarrassed with his mom, I think. She was like a has-been actress or singer who aged with a bottle in her hand while trying to hold on to her youthful ‘beauty’ with cheap makeup and perfume. She would fawn over him whenever we went over there, but Craig seemed rather dismissive with her. Something went on between them when he grew up, I felt.”
Certainly there was some tension in Craig’s family life, and this would later manifest itself in a more dramatic fashion. In the meantime, though, music consumed most of his waking moments.
Craig had amassed some useful music industry connections in the two years he’d spent with the Good Time Singers, and that’s likely how Chris & Craig landed a management deal with Sal Bonafede and Asher Dann—or Sal and Ash, as they were known in the business. Bonafede was a tough-nosed Italian-American who’d managed Dion & the Belmonts among others, while Dann was Hollywood-slick, a former movie actor, well-connected and with acres of charm. “Dapper Dann, I called him,” says Chris, “very polished and smooth, a handsome dude. He must have had a million ladies in his day.” When I spoke to Dann in January 2015 he didn’t remember much about Chris & Craig: “I’m an old fuck!” he jokes. “I’m 80. I’m lucky to remember my name.” He thinks, though, that it may have been Andy Williams who told him to check them out. “Andy was a friend of mine. I used to play golf with him.” As for Ducey and Smith: “They were nice kids, both of them, and I tried to help them. I thought they were good.”
Their new managers arranged a deal with Capitol Records—who would already have known of Craig from his Good Time Singers days. There were a number of recording sessions during the summer and early autumn of 1966 as they tried out various songs with producer Steve Douglas. Capitol session logs show that Smith’s “I Need You” and “Love Has Come Today” and Ducey’s “I Can’t Go On” were tracked at Western Recorders on June 30th and July 1st with Bones Howe as the engineer. Of these, “I Need You” was deemed to be the strongest track and earmarked for an upcoming single. “I Can’t Go On” was released in 2013 on the compilation CD Book A Trip 2, while the bright, upbeat “Love Has Come Today” survives on a studio acetate.
Meanwhile Ducey had come up with an outstanding, Eastern-flavored number called “Isha,” which had undeniable hit potential. It would become the A-side of Chris & Craig’s debut single—the exact release date of which is subject to speculation. Capitol’s catalog number places the record’s release in July 1966, but session contracts filed with the musician’s union indicate it was recorded over two sessions in September. More puzzle pieces that don’t fit.
The September 3rd session at Capitol’s Vine Street studio—two blocks from where Craig had lived as an infant—utilized the talents of arranger Perry Botkin, Jr., who brought in an array of Wrecking Crew heavyweights, including drummer Hal Blaine, bass players Larry Knechtel and Ray Pohlman, and three guitar players: Glen Campbell, Al Casey and Mike Deasy. Casey also played violin and xylophone on the session, while Campbell shook a tambourine. Two weeks later, on September 21st, more work was done on “Isha,” along with two songs co-written by Ducey and Smith, “Blues #1” and “Ugly Street” (the titles suggest they may have been works in progress). On the union contract, Mike Deasy is listed as band leader and Craig as arranger. The musicians again included Deasy, Campbell, Casey, Knechtel, and Botkin, Jr., along with drummer Jim Gordon, who Craig knew from his Grant High School days, and Lyle Ritz, whose specialty was jazz ukulele, but was also known to play upright bass. Although he’s not listed on the contracts, Chris Ducey also remembers Milt Holland playing percussion on one of the sessions.
The resultant master for “Isha” was truly impressive, a full, vibrant production, alight with swirling, exotic flourishes and topped by Ducey and Smith’s soaring harmonies. With its hooky melody and au courant raga rock flavor, “Isha” undoubtedly had commercial appeal, but with relatively little promotion the radio stations didn’t bite and the single sold relatively poorly. “They threw it against the wall, it didn’t stick and they moved on,” shrugs Chris. Nevertheless, Capitol saw fit to issue it in other territories, including Germany and New Zealand.
Prior to the single’s release, Chris and Craig headed down to Mexico with some friends for the 4th of July weekend. One of Craig’s friends who came along on the trip was Dan Canepa. After they returned to the States, Chris began dating Canepa’s younger sister, Nancy. “Craig already knew Nance as they all went to Grant High School together,” explains Chris. “After that 4th of July trip I went over to get Dan for something we were going to do and Nancy answered the door—love at first sight, I guess! I bumped into her shortly thereafter at a club in the Valley called Pier 7. Though she was only 18 or 19, clubs in those days could let girls in under age but guys had to be 21 at the door. We hit it off big-time there and never parted.” Chris and Nancy married on April 15th, 1967, and were together until she passed in 2010. “So thank you, Craig, wherever you are, for the Nancy connection!” says Chris, raising his wine glass.
Throughout the second half of 1966 and into early 1967, Chris & Craig continued writing songs and playing occasional live gigs around Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Craig later told a Tiger Beat writer that they performed under the name Old Man Time & His Mickey Mouse Watch. He was joking, but Chris does remember two similar characters they invented for Halloween in 1966: Ducor, Duke of Destiny (Chris) and Rondock, Keeper of the Magic Clock (Craig). “Our costumes were cheap black Lone Ranger masks, capes fashioned from an old torn-up sheet and little cheap sparkler toys—the kind that looked like little wheels that you held between your fingers with a little spring-loaded stem that you would push up with your thumb to spin the disc and spit out small sparks,” explains Chris. “We dressed for our Halloween date with two Latvian girls Craig knew at the time. We appeared at their door with bold announcements of our characters in our deepest voices, sparking away. Just silly fun.” Craig’s Rondock character may have been a spin-off of a song he was formulating at the time, “Hands of the Clock.”
November 1966 saw Ducor & Rondock—as Chris & Craig—performing “Isha” at a big concert at UCLA headlined by the Mothers of Invention. The duo was the opening act on a bill that also included Canned Heat and the Factory. For the occasion, Chris & Craig expanded to a full band lineup, both playing electric guitars, backed by Craig’s friend Richie Hayward of the Factory on drums, and most likely the Factory’s Martin Kibbee on bass. “That was our breakthrough event that started getting us wings,” remembers Ducey. “At the end Zappa got everybody back up onstage to do a 15- or 20-minute boogie with all the bands playing simultaneously and Frank conducting. It was in the middle of the hall up on a big 15-foot podium. It was fabulous, absolutely fabulous. That was a big moment—in my life anyway!”
Despite the undeserved commercial failure of “Isha,” Capitol evidently still held an interest in the duo as they continued to pay for more sessions. On November 7th Chris & Craig recorded an exceptionally catchy new song by Craig called “She Brought Me Something Beautiful,” and in December two more songs were tracked at Capitol with Steve Douglas producing, Chris’ “Cymbals and Bells” and Craig’s “Hold Me Love Me.” In January 1967 Nick Venet took over as producer and two more songs were recorded, “Century of Distance” (written by Craig) and “Wings.” It’s possible that the latter was a cover version of Tim Buckley’s song. Venet produced a version by the Stone Poneys during this same time period, and Craig makes an oblique reference to Buckley’s “Wings” in the liner notes of Apache/Inca. Mono masters were completed for all of these tracks, but they have never been released.
It was in late 1966 or early 1967 that Craig first began spending time with Jason Laskay, a young actor who’d recently relocated to Los Angeles from Miami. “We became instant friends,” remembers Laskay. “Craig was just a really easy guy to get along with.”
Although he has remained active in the entertainment industry as an actor and a screenwriter, Laskay has next to no online presence and it takes me several years to track him down. We eventually connect in early 2015, and arrange to meet for a lunchtime interview at a café in Bel-Air. He turns out to be loquacious and friendly, and our conversations continue by phone in the months that follow.
Jason Laskay, Christmas 1966. (Photo courtesy Jason Laskay)
Laskay was originally from Winnetka, Illinois, an affluent lakeshore village north of Chicago. As a teenager he’d dabbled in music, including playing drums in a high school band with future blues guitar legend Mike Bloomfield, before realizing that acting was his true calling. After graduating high school Laskay relocated to Florida where he attended the University of Miami and began landing acting parts in television commercials. His first movie role came in 1966 when he was cast in Birds Do It, a lightweight comedy starring Soupy Sales and Tab Hunter. He also appeared on TV’s Flipper in a recurring role as student scientist Lloyd Desco. While working as an extra on The Jackie Gleason Show, which filmed in Miami Beach, he met Heather MacRae. Heather had been attending school in Colorado, but was paying an extended visit to her mother, who had separated from husband Gordon and was now living in Golden Beach and playing the role of Alice Kramden on the Gleason show. Jason and Heather hit it off romantically, their relationship providing fodder for the Miami gossip columns: “Newest twosome around town: Gordon and Sheila MacRae’s daughter, Heather, and actor Jay Laskay,” chirped the Miami News on September 9th, 1966. “Spotted listening to Tubby Boots at Place Pigalle for the third time.”
As Laskay’s acting career began to take off, his agent suggested that he move out to L.A. where movie and TV work was more plentiful. Generously, the MacRaes not only helped him out with some contacts, but also offered him the use of their large home in Studio City. It was there that Heather first introduced him to many of her friends, including neighbors Edie and Richie Baskin, whose father had co-founded the Baskin-Robbins ice cream franchise, Chuck Shyer, and Craig Smith. Richie—or Richard—Baskin would later become a film composer and movie producer, Edie an acclaimed photographer and art director, and Shyer a successful screenwriter, director, and producer.
But it was Craig with whom Jason would form the closest friendship. “Craig and I became the kind of friends that every day we’d talk on the phone: ‘Where are we gonna go tonight? What are we gonna do?’” recounts Laskay. “At the time, except for once in a while, neither one of us had girlfriends to speak of. I was with Heather, but Heather was away at school. It was a time for discovery and running around. The Sunset Strip was going on and all that kind of craziness.”
In the mid-‘60s, the Sunset Strip was the epicenter for live music in Los Angeles, and every night the streets were swarming with young people who poured in from all over the city to make the scene. Smith and Laskay headed to the Strip almost every night, either in Jason’s Jaguar drop-head coupe—he’d traded in his GTO—or Craig’s green Volkswagen Beetle (he’d apparently traded in his Porsche). There they would hit the hot spots like the Whisky, Ciro’s, the Sea Witch, and Pandora’s Box, taking in bands like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield—both of which made a huge impression on Craig and his songwriting.
“The Strip was really cool then,” remembers Laskay. “Craig and I used to go down there every night. That was where we lived, on the Strip. We used to go to Pandora’s Box and see all kinds of bands—even Dick & Dee Dee were there; I loved their records. We saw the Byrds, the Buffalo Springfield—and we knew all those people. In that time all of us were coming up. Neil Young had a real cool ’40s Lincoln Continental, and I had my Jag. We used to all go to Ben Frank’s on Sunset and we’d hang out with him there a lot. We knew Neil and the rest of the Buffalo Springfield from clubs and hanging around. We used to play and sing with Richie Furay and those guys at their place in Laurel Canyon.” Craig later name-checked Neil Young prominently on the Inca album cover.
Another band they socialized with was the Beach Boys. Craig’s high school friend Suzanne Belcher was now married to Mike Love, and he and Craig soon became friends. “We used to go to Mike Love’s house all the time,” recounts Jason, “especially when the Beach Boys were out on the road, and hang out with Suzanne and a girl named Teri, who was Bruce Johnston’s girlfriend. The four of us used to go out—nothing ever involved dating, they were just like two guys to us. We used to get stoned and drive around. Mike used to call me ‘Birdman,’ and that became my nickname. People called me Jay back then, which I didn’t like for some reason, and I really didn’t like Birdman or Jaybird. Maybe Craig laid that on me, too.”
While a lot this activity appeared, on the surface, to be stoned fun and games, Craig was actively networking with people in the music industry, pushing Chris & Craig, or trying to place his songs with other artists. “Craig got invited to a lot of music industry events,” remembers Jason. “He had a good in-road with a lot of people in the music business—managers and label people and things like that. Craig was very gregarious in that way and was not afraid to go up and introduce himself and do all that. I was still a little introverted about things like that, but he was very, very outgoing. He was extremely self-confident about his talents—not to the point of being arrogant, just to the point of not caring what anybody thought. If they didn’t like it, it was no big deal to him: ‘That’s cool.’ He would network, too. That was one of the good things about him was that he wasn’t afraid to tell people what he was doing. He wasn’t afraid to pick up the phone and call and do things himself if he couldn’t get his managers or whoever to do it for him.”
Even though Craig was aware that the Beach Boys were equipped with a perfectly capable in-house songwriting genius in the shape of Brian Wilson, he had no qualms in pitching his own songs to Mike Love. “Craig was always trying to get a song placed with them,” remembers Jason. “He would play stuff for Mike whenever Mike was home. They might have even tried to do one of Craig’s songs, I just don’t remember for sure. But Mike knew Craig as a songwriter.”
Love may have just been humoring Craig by listening to his songs, but by most accounts the two of them shared a genuine friendship that lasted for several years. Over the next few years Smith and Laskay added some of the other Beach Boys to their circle of acquaintances. Dennis Wilson’s house would become a regular hangout, and they would also drop in to visit Brian Wilson on occasion. “Craig and I went to his house in Bel-Air, when it was the purple mansion with the sand on the floor and all that,” remembers Laskay, “but Brian was pretty unavailable. Carl Wilson became a really good friend of mine later. We were into some of the same spiritual things together. I knew him up to when he died. Carl was a great guy.”
Another acquaintance of Craig’s during this period was the Hungarian-born jazz guitarist, Gabor Szabo. Szabo had fled his native country for the States in 1956, and after attending the Berklee College of Music had gone on to join the Chico Hamilton Quintet. By the time he met Craig, Gabor had embarked on a solo career, recording a series of albums for the Impulse! label that blended his gypsy jazz style with modern pop and rock influences. Along with Gary McFarland, Szabo was one of the first serious jazz musicians to embrace the new rock music, recording innovative arrangements of songs by writers like Lennon-McCartney, Donovan, Jagger-Richard, and John Phillips, and developing a technique of rich sustain and controlled feedback that would in turn influence rock musicians such as Carlos Santana and Steve Howe. On his 1967 album Wind, Sky and Diamonds, Gabor collaborated with a nine-piece harmony vocal ensemble, the California Dreamers, a combination that would have been especially appealing to Craig. In fact two of the singers, Tom and John Bahler, had briefly been Good Time Singers (replacing Smith and Michael Storm), and had since teamed up with Marilyn Miller to form a new harmony group called the Love Generation. Jim Gordon was the drummer on that album, and others by Szabo.
Somewhere along the way Craig and Gabor became friends. Laskay remembers he and Craig went out to dinner with Gabor and his wife Alicia after a show at Shelly’s Manne Hole. On another occasion they attended a Szabo recording session. Craig would continue to cite Gabor as an influence; his name crops up several times among the cryptic notations on the Inca and Apache albums.
Craig’s focus during this period was music and songwriting. Any aspirations he might have once had to pursue a career in acting were behind him. When the subject of The Happeners came up in a conversation with Laskay, he dismissed the experience out of hand. “He said it was horrible,” remembers Jason. “He said he was not an actor. He didn’t like the experience, I guess. He was at a place where everything he had done before—the TV pilot, the Andy Williams show—was like ‘ah!’” he waves his hand dismissively, “trash, you know. He didn’t like it.”
This may have been one of the reasons Smith and Laskay were so comfortable around one another: there was no sense of competition. Jason, though he also did some singing and songwriting, was more fully committed to a career in acting, while Craig was completely wrapped up in his music. Craig encouraged Jason’s musical endeavors, and the two of them would sometimes sing together at parties. Smith later helped Laskay record some demos, including a song written by Michael Martin Murphey called “(I Prithee) Do Not Ask For Love,” which the Monkees also recorded on several occasions but never released.
Jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo.
In 1967 Laskay was cast in The Graduate in the role of a college student. Although most of his scene ultimately wound up on the cutting room floor, the shoot in San Francisco lasted a couple weeks. One of the passengers in the car he rode up in was an unassuming young man who introduced himself as Dusty. It wasn’t until later that day that he realized it was the movie’s lead actor, Dustin Hoffman.
As his acting career gained traction, Laskay moved out of the MacRaes’ house and into a large two-story stilt house on Lookout Mountain. Craig would crash there sometimes. After Chris Ducey got married, he and Craig no longer lived together, so Craig had returned to his parents’ house, just a short distance down the hill from Laskay’s place. Like Chris, Laskay observed that Craig had an uneasy relationship with his parents, especially his mother. He rarely mentioned them, but when he did it was with disdain. “It seemed like mostly it was his mother that he was angry about,” recalls Laskay. “But he talked about his dad sometimes, too. It was funny, we’d be driving or something and then he would start talking about his mom and how shitty she was. It would just come out of nowhere, and then he would offer up some story and be off of it. Maybe they discouraged his creativity or something like that.”
Jason only visited Craig’s house on one or two occasions, but usually opted to wait in the car while Craig ran inside to get something he needed. On the one occasion he does remember going inside, Craig’s parents seemed perfectly normal, and the only tension in the room seemed to be emanating from Craig himself. “I was on guard,” recounts Jason, “because I didn’t know what Craig was going to do or what was going on. But everything was fine. His mom said hi to me. No big deal. Craig looked like he would rip her head off if she embarrassed him—but you know how people get with their parents when they have their own thing going on.”
“There was nothing out of the ordinary about them,” he adds. “The only thing I remember is that they were Craig’s parents and they were a little more normal than he was. But all of our parents were normal in terms of what we were doing.”
While it would be easy to attribute the family divide to something as simple as “the generation gap,” there were undoubtedly much deeper and more complex issues involved. Laskay remembers that the subject of money often came up when Craig complained about his parents. It’s only speculation, but perhaps Chuck Smith’s bartending job wasn’t bringing in enough to cover the family’s bills so Craig had to help them out financially. Although Craig no longer had any income from the Good Time Singers, presumably he had stashed some of that money away, and he would also be receiving royalties from “Christmas Holiday.” “I remember him talking about having to give money to his parents,” confirms Laskay. “He would bitch about that. It just seemed to be one of those themes. He would say that he didn’t have any money because he was having to give it to his mom.”
Craig’s money problems would soon be behind him, but they would return in the future with devastating results.