I've always had it in my head that it was Simon's idea to form a trio with Eleanor, but he reminds me that that isn't entirely accurate. "I simply inquired as to any musicians you might already know in the New York area. You quickly named the three musical groups of which you had been a member, and then, as an afterthought, you mentioned Eleanor. I then wondered aloud at the feasibility of forming a trio with her. So perhaps we two need to equally share the credit, or blame."

I called up Eleanor and asked if she was interested in perhaps forming a group with us. To my surprise, she sort of squeaked and excitedly said "Yes! Yes! Yes!" She had played it very cool at the fundraiser, but apparently she had really enjoyed playing with us. She in fact admitted to me that "Uh-Oh!" was the very first record she had ever bought, which made me feel honored...and kind of old.

The three of us met for a rehearsal a few days later. We went through the songs from our previous set, then we began chatting about what sort of other material we might play. "I had a very vague concept of what the trio might become," Simon recalls. "Instead of only playing either jazz or rock, I wanted to see if we might do both. I had been purchasing a few jazz fusion albums - Weather Report, and bands of that ilk. And although I generally enjoyed fusion, the albums often were placed exactly halfway between jazz and pop. I wished to endeavor to cover more ground stylistically, by performing straight up rock-and-roll and jazz in addition to a fusion of the two." Both Eleanor and I liked the idea, so we started throwing out ideas.

The rehearsals took a while to really bear fruit. Eleanor was very hesitant - she was scared that we wouldn't like her ideas, or that she'd play something discordant when we were jamming along. "It took a considerable amount of encouragement to get her to really let loose and open up," admits Simon. "But by the fourth or fifth rehearsal, she had begun to come into her own." Simon himself was on a tear - playing bass, guitar, or organ as the whim struck him. "Most likely, I had been playing bass behind Anton for too long. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to stretch out."

We came up with a rock arrangement of "Listen Here", and a jazzy take on "Them Changes". We also worked out an arrangement of the Nutty Squirrels' take of "Bye Bye Birdie". The final addition to our set was a random surprise. We were sort of futzing around near the end of rehearsal, when Eleanor improvised a riff that sounded somewhat familiar. Simon and I stared at each other for a few seconds, trying to recall where we had heard it before. Suddenly, Simon yelled "Spanish Omelets for Breakfast!" That really confused Eleanor, until we explained her riff was reminiscent of a song we had performed years ago. She laughed it off, and we quickly put together a slow version of the song that we called "Spanish Omelet Siesta".

We tossed around a few band names before settling on The Lower Level. Our trio made its debut at Riley's, a bar not far outside of Vermintown, in August of 1974. And that gig ranks right up there with our Little Rocks show at UCLA. There wasn't a huge crowd, but everybody seemed to really get into our set. The owner of Riley's liked it as much as everybody else. He asked us if we could come back to play every Thursday, and we readily agreed.

But the incredible set and great crowd reaction aren't what I remember most about that night. Instead, I remember watching Eleanor from my drum stool through most of the set. I had always sort of looked at her as an insecure but talented kid. And all through rehearsals, that's pretty much how I continued to view her. It wasn't until the actual gig that I saw her differently - as a fun and attractive female rodent.

Simon looks grim as he recounts, "We loaded up the truck, and you said that you would be driving me home first. This seemed counterintuitive, but it wasn't until we had almost arrived there that I wondered if you might be scheming to make a play for Eleanor. I attempted to dismiss the idea, but the more I considered it, the more possible it seemed." He grits his teeth. "I should have said something to you. But I did not. Whether that was due to me not being entirely sure of your plans, or due to some misplaced loyalty on my part. Either way, I regret not speaking out."

I dropped Simon off, and helped get all of his stuff out of the truck and into his apartment. Then I drove back off, chatting with Eleanor about the gig, letting her know how much I enjoyed her contributions. I suggested stopping back at my place for a drink. She sounded a bit unsure at first, but eventually agreed. I showed her my apartment, we split a beer...and a few minutes later, we were making out on the couch.

The morning after, everything seemed great. Eleanor seemed very happy, and I had had a great time, as well. I did have to drive her back home really early so she could get dressed to get to work, though. I came back home to get some HalFlat work done, whistling along to songs on the radio, feeling better than I had in weeks.

"She was twenty years old," emphasizes Simon. "You were in your mid-thirties. You knew she looked up to you as a musician, as you and I were both in essence mentoring her in The Lower Level. And consciously or not, you took complete advantage of that." He sighs. "If you had simply made her your girlfriend, potentially, things might have worked out for all concerned. Or if you had at least told her of your no-girlfriends policy. But you did not. Disaster was inevitable at this point."

Simon's words may seem a bit harsh, but honestly, they probably aren't harsh enough. I had somehow convinced myself that since Eleanor and I had never actually talked about "us", that we weren't really in a "relationship". That things were exactly how I wanted them to be - we were friends, we could fool around sometimes, but there was nothing tying me down. So for the next two weeks or so, I sort of coolly played the role of her not-really-boyfriend. We had dinner a few times, listened to records, spent the night at my place a few times. And if she seemed to be getting too clingy, I'd put her off by saying I was busy. I figured that she'd soon "figure me out".

And she did. Just not the way I was expecting.

Brenda worked for the subways, and she was one of my "on again off again" female friends. During this particular time, she was mainly off, just because our schedules got a bit too busy. But one night, I went to the Dirty Rat after a long day, and found her there. We got to chatting, had a couple of drinks, then went back to my place. And it was right about when things were getting hottest and heaviest on the couch when we both heard knocking at the front door. There was no question of who it was - only Eleanor would stop by this late. And I couldn't just ignore her knocking. So I stopped, put my pants on, gritted my teeth, and opened the door.

"Hi, TD!" Eleanor said, going in for a hug.

I hugged her back, rather stiffly. "Uh, hi, Eleanor. Um, I've got a friend over..."

Eleanor looked from me over to the couch. Brenda had put her shirt back on, and was leaning over the back of it looking at us.

"Hiya, kid - I'm Brenda."

Eleanor looked back at me, and didn't say a word. She didn't have to. Her eyes said everything. She slapped me, hard, then stormed down the hall. I feebly said "Wait..." but made no real move to stop her. I watched her leave, then sighed and closed the door.

"Another lady friend of yours?" Brenda asked as I got back to the couch. I nodded glumly. "What? She thought you was a one-girl guy?" I nodded again, and Brenda cracked a grin. "She don't know you that good, then. You didn't tell her?"

"Not really..."

"Bet you was thinking with your lower half, huh? That ain't nice, TD. You gotta tell us girls this stuff." She got dressed as I sat there feeling like a heel, then she tousled my head fur a bit. "Don't do that no more, ya hear? We girls got it tough enough as it is without you fellas laying on the bullshit. See ya around." She left, and I thought, wow, two girls walking out on me in three minutes. That's gotta be some kind of record.

It was pretty late, but I called Simon anyway. I have no idea why. Maybe I was hoping for some sympathy. If so, I didn't get any.

"I gave precisely one extended angry lecture to each of my brothers in my life," Simon maintains. "I berated Alvin when he got drunk at Junior's, and I berated you when you jilted Eleanor. It was terrible enough that you broke this young woman's heart, but in addition, she was in a band with us, and we were booked to do a show in five days time. We either had to smooth things over enough that she would consent to play with us again, or else come up with a contingency plan."

We discussed how best to do this, and Simon offered to make the phone call to Eleanor. "Not surprisingly, she wanted nothing more to do with you. Which meant we needed to put together a new group and a new set in four days. A near-impossibility, but it is surprising how positive results can occasionally come from very adverse conditions."

We put out a call to everybody we could think of, and managed to find three musicians who were at least somewhat interested in giving it a go - Kenny, and two colleague of Simon's. The problem was that none of them were available at the same time during the week, in order for us to get together to rehearse. But that's when Simon had a genius flash of insight. "Although there was no time we could all meet collectively, each of them could meet us two at some different point during the week. So rather than form a band with all of them, I decided that you and I could form a base duo, and each of the three could perform a set with us in turn."

For the next three nights, we met at our rehearsal spot with a new musician, starting with Kenny. He recalls, "We decided to stick mainly with older rock and roll instrumentals, since you already knew a lot if them. A few I wasn't very good at. I sort of fumbled my way through 'Wipe Out', but I couldn't get 'Walk Don't Run' down, so we dropped that one." We also tried two vocal numbers with Kenny. I took lead on "Maybe I'm Amazed", and Kenny handled "Ain't No Sunshine". "I wasn't really prepared to sing lead at the first gig," admits Kenny with a grin, "but I muddled through."

We met up with our other two musicians the next two nights, and managed to cobble together a set list. After the last rehearsal, I asked Simon how he thought the gig would go. He said it would either somehow work itself out, or else we'd suddenly find ourselves with Thursdays off again.

From the second we got to Riley's, it wasn't looking good. On the chalkboard out front, it announced that the night's band was going to be "Cemented". "I had telephoned the manager earlier in the week to announce a name change," explains Simon. "We technically were no longer The Lower Level. Since we did not have time to select a new moniker, I decided to cobmine our real names - Simon/Ted. Somehow, the person on the other end of the connection misunderstood, which is how it became corrupted to Cemented." We were a bit upset by that. I mean, what sort of name was "Cemented"? But we didn't have time to argue, as we had a gig to perform.

For a while, it looked like Cemented may not even get off the ground. Kenny had some difficulty setting up. "There was a short in my amp or something. I couldn't get any sound out of it. I tried this and that, and nothing seemed to work." Not only that, but our other two musicians hadn't arrived yet. Simon and I stood there on stage trying not to look too nervous as the gig seemingly fell apart around us. Ten minutes after start time, Simon finally got desperate.

"Play something," he whispered to me.

"Um, what should I play?"

"Anything!" he hissed.

I picked up my sticks, tapped out a tempo, then started into a midtempo groove. I think I had an Al Green song in mind - "Tired of Being Alone", maybe. Simon nodded along with the beat for a bit, then began improvising on his bass along with me. He added some runs, I tossed in a few fills, and we just stood there grinning at each other, letting the groove run on.

Suddenly, we heard a loud "squawk" - Kenny had finally gotten his amp working. Simon gave me a nod, and we wrapped up our little improv piece, to modest but pleasant applause. "Thank you," said Simon into his mic. "He is TD, I am Thomas...and apparently, we are Cemented." He then introduced Kenny, and the set went rather smoothly from that point on. Simon's colleagues - a violinist and a trumpeter - both did well in their sets, and they both joined Kenny, Simon and I on stage for a finale.

Simon admits, "I do not believe anybody present would have said the premiere Cemented gig was exemplary. Not everything we attempted was successful. Most notably, on a whim, we decided to play 'Band on the Run' as a finale, and that is not the sort of song one should attempt without a good deal of rehearsal. But the show was enjoyable. It was something out of the ordinary."

The owners liked it enough to have us back the next week. Unfortunately, Kenny wasn't available that particular night. "But I thought, hey, I know somebody who might like to try this sort of thing. I called up my friend Walter, and he said sure, it sounded like fun. So he took part in the second Cemented gig." This substitution set the stage for what followed. Every week would be Simon and me...and a combination of some other folks. And each week, we did well enough that we got asked back the following week...and then the week after that.

Simon and I spent about a month trying to come up with a better name for this not-really-a-band, but we didn't really come up with anything. So we decided, what the heck, we'd just stick with Cemented. We also decided to keep doing an improvised piece as a duo for our opening number. Simon explains, "It was happenstance the first time, but in retrospect, it was an ideal introduction to a Cemented performance. It presented us with an opportunity to demonstrate what our roles would be. With that completed, we could turn the spotlight over to our guests."

At first, Simon and I would just take turns starting off our opening improvised number. But eventually, we took to each flipping a nickel on stage. If they turned up the same (both heads or both tails), I started the piece. If we got one heads and one tails, Simon started.

A few months after we began the Cemented gigs, I decided that I didn't really like where I was situated. When our guests would be playing, it was tough to see around them. Finally, I got smart and built a collapsable riser. It put Simon stage left and me stage right at the rear, leaving the center front for our guests. "The riser was very welcome," agrees Simon. "Now both the performers and the audience were visible to us, and we in turn could be seen by the crowd. But with the lights kept low on us, we wouldn't overshadow the guests."

The coin flip and riser eventually led to a more stylized opening for the Cemented gigs. Simon and I would enter the stage from opposite sides (usually to a modest amount of applause) and shake paws at the center. Then we'd climb the steps onto the riser, and take our places at opposite sides. We'd flip our coins, give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down depending on the result, then launch into our little jam. Once we finished that, I'd get on the mike to thank everybody for coming, and to introduce the first guest.

We made sure everybody knew that we were on the lookout for more musicians who might like to be a part of a Cemented gig. Our first musical guests told their musician friends, some of whom came to take part...who then in turn told their friends. On occasion, if they asked, we'd meet up beforehand to hash through some songs, but more often than not, we'd just wing it. A couple of our musical guests weren't very good. Others were mind-blowing. Some came by, did one song at one gig, and never came back. Others would do several songs with us once or twice each month. We might play tight versions of rock and roll numbers, or fumble through a first-take cover, or do some bop-style-jazz, or something more free-form. And that was sort of the appeal of Cemented - nobody really knowing what was going to happen next.

One question we get asked a lot - who was your favorite Cemented guest? Simon diplomatically says, "It is impossible to choose one. Over the years, it has been the sheer variety of the acts that has made Cemented special, not any one performance." But he does mention one act that did stand out for both of us. "We once had an African drum ensemble take the stage with us, although if memory serves, it was only part of the full group. But you played your percussion instruments, and I improvised a percussive bass part while they performed. It was truly a transcendent performance."

One other performer who stands out was Blind Squirrel Jones. The name was sort of a joke, since he wasn't actually blind. He was a squirrel, though. He just showed up one Thursday and asked if he could do a number with us. We decided, sure, why not, and put him on at the end of the night. He had Simon and me play a slow blues-y stomp, and he played guitar and howled a self-penned number called "Hidden Nut Blues", playing a bit of harmonica here and there. It was borderline insane, but the crowd loved it. He'd show up maybe once a year just to do that one song.

In a sense, Cemented was an ideal forum for me to scratch my musical itch. It was always exciting and different, but it didn't take up much time from my daily life. Occasionally, we might meet up with a musician early in the week, if they wanted to run through some material. And from time to time, Simon would have us pose for some promo photos. But otherwise, it was just three hours out of every Thursday, for almost six years. And it looked like this would be the modest but enjoyable coda to my music career.

But it just goes to show that you never know what you final act will be...and when it will begin.