After we did as much local and industry promotion as we could for the release of our album, it was time to go nationwide. But first, we launched our album at the Troubadour for a week… and got paid.
We opened for Cannonball Adderley, an iconic jazz sax player, and his group, which included Airto Moreira, a phenomenal Brazilian percussionist with whom we would have a lot of interaction in the coming years. Because of the overwhelming support of KMET, we drew as many fans as Cannonball.
Next stop, New York City.
All my life I’ve had a fascination with New York. As a kid I watched any movie that was set in Manhattan. It was the height of sophistication. I expected to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing down the middle of Broadway when I arrived.
The first thing I saw when we drove into the city was a bum that looked like Emmett Kelly, the clown, walking down the middle of the street in rush hour traffic like he was walking a tightrope with an umbrella in his hand. People paid no attention to him, like it was a common occurrence… which I guess it was.
Tommy and I dropped our bags in our room at the City Squire Hotel in Midtown and didn’t come back for two days. We walked all the way to Greenwich Village.
It was 1971, and a great change was sweeping across America. What was interesting was that the sixties were really played out in the seventies. It was Us against Them, and marijuana was still illegal and hush-hush, but still the most blatant fact of youth culture. That was part of the appeal of Cheech and Chong. We were blatantly out in the open and talking about it. People thought that the cops would always be on us, but the exact opposite was true. The cops always loved us. They could see the humor in the characters we portrayed, because they saw the real ones every day.
We made it down to the Bitter End, the club we would be playing. It was the most famous club in the Village in the folk days. Everybody’s live album was recorded there, and if you didn’t have a picture taken in front of their famous brick wall, you weren’t anybody yet.
We arrived at the club around noon to drop off our stuff, and as I opened the door, my first reaction was Who peed in the Bitter End? It was a tiny club with nails all over the stage… but it was still a classic venue for us to play. The owner, Paul Colby, who didn’t even look up when we approached him about playing the Bitter End West in LA, would soon become our buddy.
OK, here goes nothing. We played our first set opening up for the Flying Burrito Brothers. Mike Clarke, the drummer, who was also the drummer for The Byrds, and I would become friendly and go looking for action in the Big Apple. It was the first time we played anywhere other than the West Coast. The first set had gone relatively well. Nowhere near the reception as the black clubs in LA, but not bad. The Chicano element was missing. They didn’t have “Low Riders” in Manhattan. We couldn’t count on that boisterous recognition factor that usually propelled our act.
We had two A&M Records company guys in New York who were our constant companions. Jerry Love, the Jewish pimp daddy. He had a big, white Cadillac convertible, and he took us to every cool restaurant that was happening in the city, and we took him to Chinatown. The other guy was “Heavy Lenny” Bronstein, who was really the college rep, but he did a lot of the radio work, and he was very hip and loved comedy. After the first show he came up to us and said, “Why didn’t you guys do ‘Dave’? That’s the big hit here.”
We didn’t know you could have a “hit here” so quickly. The record had only been out a week. We looked at each other, befuddled. Heavy Lenny told us, “All the radio guys, the guys who get the albums first, talk amongst themselves. If there’s anything they like, they tell each other about it.”
“I don’t know. We don’t have a way to do it,” I said.
He stared at us for a minute and then said, “Do it in the dark. Open up with it, but in the dark, and then go into your routine.”
Chicano humor didn’t work so well in New York, but paranoia did. No wonder “Dave” was a big hit there. We tried it the next set and it went over great. We were always attuned to the slightest tweak that would help a recorded bit go over in the live act.
We had taken the first step in building the “Comedy Omni Burger.” The show that had just the right kind of ingredients in just the right proportions. Not too many dick jokes… but not too few. A show that would work in Boston and then the next night in New Jersey and then the next night in Atlanta and then… San Antonio, Tejas homeboy!
The day before we finished at the Bitter End, we got a call from Lou, who told us that the record was going crazy in San Antonio and he’d booked us a gig there. It was at the last minute, so the only flight we could get put us in “San Anto” an hour before the gig. We had to go straight from the plane to the job. We hardly slept at all, as we had stayed up all night trying to squeeze the last few drops out of New York City.
We collapsed into our airplane seats and woke up five hours later, two sweaty, wet, hair balls with cement in their eyes in San Antonio, Texas. We drove for a little while, and as we slowly woke up, I realized we were in a field and it looked like a county fair but Mexican style. There were folkloric dancers, charros, mariachis, and a couple of rock bands. We figured out that it was some radio station gig. OK, cool.
We stumble out of the car and they show us to a low, small stage right next to where they were grilling carne asada. The announcer introduces us, and we walk on, say hi, and start making jokes about where we were. I look out on the audience, and it’s all Latino. “The Low Rider and the Red Freak.” Let’s go.
We settle into the routine and people are laughing and smiling and shaking each other… and coming from all over the lot. We were just up high enough to see them flowing like streams into a lake; a pretty sight. They crowded around close to the stage. They wanted to hear every word. They loved everything we did with an intensity that screamed… finally! After the show I remember thinking, We should just live here—we could be gods.
For some perspective, that San Antonio show was within six months of Tommy and I still collecting returnable bottles to scrounge up enough money for a daily meal. While we were on a seeming rocket to fame, we had put in the time and paid our dues. Which made the success all the sweeter.
We arrived back in LA, and as soon as we hit home, there was a package waiting at each of our houses. It was an itinerary that started in three days and ran for two months and would later be lengthened to three months.
The next four years were a blur. We worked an average of 250 to 300 dates a year and got to see the country up close and personal. We played with everybody from B. B. King to Alice Cooper, the Allman Brothers, Muddy Waters, Bill Withers, and even Harry Chapin. What a time to be out on the road! I was in my early twenties and I was single and ready to mingle. My guy friends have always shaken their heads and marveled when they ask me about those days. Did you guys get all the pussy in the world? That’s the one thing they all want to know.
Well, I can only speak for myself when I say, Yes, I did!
I mean, the world is a big place, but I tried my best. I met some wonderful, beautiful, funny, and sweet young ladies in my travels. Some for just one night and others every time I was in their town.
People also ask, Didn’t you ever get sick of meaningless sex with new girls every day?
The answer is yes, but then I would lay down and the feeling would pass and I was right back at it.
You have to realize that I was a late bloomer. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was almost twenty-one. So for me it was all making up for lost time. Throw in the travel, the money, the fact that we were a new breed of comedy rock stars, and the free love ethic of the day, and it was about as much fun as a young man could have.
Youth is fleeting and I certainly couldn’t do it again. But I did it when I could. I was young, dumb, and full of you-know-what at a pretty great time in American history. So sue me.