"Dave called me early on in 1969, to arrange recording dates for the next Chipmunks album," says Alvin. "It was a simple concept this time around - songs from movies. That's actually what the previous album should've been, instead of devoting the whole thing to the Dr. Doolittle film. There were a few recent tunes in the mix, but some of the others stretched back quite a ways - 'We're Off to See the Wizard' was one of the songs I sang. Dave also had us do 'Que Sera Sera' and 'Supercalif-whatever-it-was' again, because apparently the world needed two Chipmunks renditions of those songs. It was just me and Bob on this one, although we overdubbed extra backing vocals here and there. It was kind of assembly-line-like, but it was a bit more enjoyable than doing the previous album."
And the end result? Alvin shrugs. "I was a decade into recording, and I think I had finally come to grips with the fact that The Chipmunks were completely un-hip. We were recording albums for square parents to buy for their children. I mean, look at the track listing. It wasn't that far removed from Mantovani's Film Encores, you know? And once I accepted that, I could say that the album ended up sounding...well, nice. On the cover, cartoon-Dave is taking cartoon-us into a movie theater. We look especially young there, and Dave looks especially dad-like. Dave sings a fair chunk on the album, and there's not much infighting at all. The whole album is wholesome and pleasant...pretty bland, to be honest. But I think that's exactly what Dave was hoping for." The Chipmunks Go To The Movies apparently was not what the public was hoping for, though, as the album didn't chart.
It wasn't long after the album was released that Dave phoned Alvin once again. "Right from the get-go, I could tell something was up," Alvin recalls. "Dave sounded really worn out. I asked what was wrong, and he said that Liberty had decided to drop both him and The Chipmunks from the label. I just said 'so...that's it?' And he said yeah, that's it. We said goodbye...and I never spoke with him again.
"I totally did not see it coming. I mean, I knew The Chipmunks albums weren't selling all that great - my bank account told me that much. But I figured hey, we're a children's act. Surely we were selling enough to keep going. But apparently not. Liberty was cutting their roster, and they were done as a label by '71."
Alvin says he lay awake the next few nights, wondering what to do. "Technically, I could have pushed ahead with the Chipmunks brand. Recorded a single under that name, and shopped it around. I would've needed Dave's approval, because he was part-owner on the brand name. But that wasn't the real problem.
"If somebody watches the old cartoons, or even just listens to the records, they'd assume that I was the leader of the group. That I was the one who would come up with all these huge but ridiculous ideas, and then push things forward. But I wasn't really like that at all. I might have ideas, sure, but that's all they were - ideas. It took someone like Simon to take an idea and make it a reality. To start from square one, find new musicians, come up with a concept, write some songs, get a recording session together, shop it around to labels...that totally wasn't me. It was all I could do to find the Benson brothers to back me on some cover versions a couple times a week.
"I considered calling you two up again, to see if you would want to get on board. Because the opportunity was there. We could've actually take control of our musical careers for once. Dave would've still taken a slice of the profits, of course, but if we had decided to record a rock album, or a psych album, we could've. But..." Alvin shrugs sadly. "I decided not to. You guys had rebuilt your lives three thousand miles away, and you had already flown out twice to record two singles that bombed. You guys had done enough to try to salvage The Chipmunks. I also gave some thought about moving out to New York with you guys, maybe getting a day job, trying to get something going there. But calling you at that point would've felt like begging. And I had too much pride for that. Back then, anyway."
This left Alvin with very few options. "I had to do something. I hadn't ever held a job, and I don't think my ego would just let me work at a grocery store or something. So...well, I did something I'm really not proud of.
"Back when I did my not-really-a-tour with Vince, one of the few towns where we got any traction at all was Boise, Idaho. We ended up staying over a month there, playing a few gigs a week, and actually made a little money. While we were up there,
I met this female squirrel - I'll be nice and not give her name. She was a groupie, really. I spent most of my nights in Boise at her place. When we left town, I gave her my address, and she wrote me a lot. I wrote back to her a couple times, too, but nowhere near as much as she wrote to me.
"Anyway, in '69, I called her up and...well, I lied. A huge, massive lie. Told her I had this prospect for something big in Boise, and could I crash on her couch while I finalized it? She of course said yes, so I ended my lease, packed my stuff up, and headed to Boise. Moved into her place, and stayed there for a couple of years."
How does he feel about that now? "How do you think I feel about it? Like shit is how. It was a really shitty thing to do." Alvin puts his head in his paws. "My therapist suggested I contact her. To apologize, try to make amends, you know. And I tried to, but I couldn't track her down. Probably just as well. I can't imagine she'd want to hear from me again." He sighs. "AL-VIN did this sort of shit all the time, although this was probably the worst of them all. Plus, he sort of buried all the guilt and negative feelings involved with it. He left all that for current-me to deal with. Which, if you had asked AL-VIN back then about it, he would have been totally fine with it. As long as HE didn't have to deal with it, right?" Alvin shakes his head and mutters, "AL-VIN was such an asshole."
Asshole or no, AL-VIN did at least call to let me know he was heading up to Idaho "for the time being". And once more, Alvin more or less dropped off the face of the earth. I'd occasionally get a postcard in the mail, with no return address, but that was it. The Chipmunks were officially scattered to the winds.
My drum set was something of a constant reminder of this. I'd pass by it every day in my living room, usually with a tarp across it to keep the dust and sawdust off. It acted as a continuous reminder that I was no longer performing music. Occasionally, I'd sit down and smack them around a bit, just to keep in practice. At first, that was something like twice a week, but it slowly became closer to once a month.
It's not that I wasn't happy - I was. I loved my job, even when it kept me in my work room most days. I'd meet friends at the bar or at a restaurant a couple nights a week, and occasionally head out to see a band or a show. Robert came to visit once, and we took in a Mets game, even though they weren't playing the Dodgers that night. And I managed to get a couple of girlfriends, albeit not very serious ones. But as great as all of this was, I did miss playing music. Not enough to actively do anything about it, but enough to make me feel a bit down in the dumps from time to time. The only performing I did at all during this stretch of time was, bizarrely enough, in Simon's classes.
Simon had begun teaching a few courses in the autumn of 1968. "I had given a great deal of thought to overcoming all the obstacles I would encounter as a rodent professor. I lectured classes while positioned on top of a large table at the front of the classroom. I spoke into a microphone which I had plugged into my amplifier, so as to more easily reach the back rows. I made heavy use of an overhead projector, and often switched the sheets out with my feet. It was unusual - perhaps studiously so. But these maneuvers appeared to hold the students' attention. I presumably was not the highlight of their academic days, but I believed they enjoyed as well as learned from my instruction."
Simon goes on, "In 1969, I had an Introduction To Music History class scheduled the day before the Christmas holiday break commenced. Most students have trouble focusing on any academic subject on that day. I had been mulling over a way to keep the students engaged, or just entertained, even at the cost of a day of instruction."
Eventually, Simon came up with this idea. I set up my drum kit set to the side of his desk, and he announced that I was there to play some of the rhythms from the ancient cultures that they had been studying. Simon described two or three of them, which I played snippets of. But then I interrupted his next introduction, saying, "Wait, wait, wait, hold it. This is interesting and all, but don't you think the students here might want to hear something a bit more...current?" He asked what I meant, and in response, I walked over behind his desk and lifted his guitar up onto the table next to him. Then I sat back down at the drum set and launched into the Ventures' version of "Sleigh Ride", with Simon plugging his guitar into his amp and joining in a few measures later.
"The most common reaction was shock," Simon admits. "At that time, it was not that common to find professors that expressed any affinity at all for rock and roll music. And of course, having a professor actually play rock and roll in the classroom was unheard of. After the first song, I would always tell the students that they were permitted to leave if they so desired, but most of the students would remain to hear what else their instructor and his brother would perform. We were constrained by the simple guitar-drum dynamic, but we managed to locate a few semi-current songs that we could adapt." I remember doing both "Get Together" (by the Youngbloods) and "Come Together" (by the Beatles) that year. And the final song was no surprise - "Salt Peanuts". It went over really well, so Simon and I began doing it the last regular day of classes in the spring, as well. Not exactly a huge gig, but it was a lot of fun, and it eventually led to me getting back into a band.
Kenny was a student in Simon's class during the fall of 1971. And, as such, he witnessed us do our little end-of-semester performance. "That was really unexpected," he recalls. "And it must have stayed in the back of my mind. Because a few months later, I was putting a band together with two of my friends - Anton and Julian. We still needed a bass player and a drummer. I told them I didn't know a bassist, but I had seen a pretty good drummer recently."
Not knowing how to get in touch with me, he did the obvious thing - he approached Simon. "When Kenny explained to me why he wished to contact you, I inquired as to what sort of band they were forming. And his description - 'psychedelic pop rock' - intrigued me. I let him know that I played bass as well as guitar - in fact, bass was my primary instrument. He then extended the invitation to both of us, requesting that we stop by to audition in a few days."
Simon called me up, expecting me to eagerly jump aboard with the idea. But I surprised him, and maybe myself, by not sounding all that excited about the prospect. "You were surprisingly apathetic. You were adamant that your drumming skills had atrophied significantly, and that you were insufficiently skilled to even attempt the audition."
After hearing me deride my own drumming skills for a while, Simon had finally had enough. "Theodore, listen," he told me on the phone. "I would not have recommended you to the band if I felt you were not adequately skilled. And I would not have agreed to audition myself if I believed that my brother would not have the self-esteem to do likewise. So I would strongly suggest that you obtain a copy of The Yes Album, prepare the song 'I've Seen All Good People' for audition, and I shall see you here at six o'clock in three days time."
I wasn't about to disagree with Simon. Besides, despite what I had told him, the idea of getting back into a band really did interest me. I thought back to when I had started HalFlat, and came to the same conclusion that I had back then: if Simon thought I could do it, then damnit, I could do it. So I took a day off, bought a copy of the album, and set it up in my "music room". I had a record player with some headphones there, so I could listen obsessively to records without annoying the neighbors. I hated wearing headphones - the ones back then were huge and clunky, and they basically covered my entire head. But you do what you gotta do sometimes.
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I didn't actually know the song back then. I started listening, and thought "hey, there's almost no drums in this song at all! This is gonna be a snap!" Ends up that that was just the opening part (which is called "Your Move"). Then suddenly this complex rock freak-out kicks in. I listened to it a few times, a little in awe at Bill Bruford's drumming. But I started playing along, and eventually found the groove. It was tough to pin down a few of the more complex drum fills, but I figured I could just create my own fills in those spaces, and that would be acceptable.
But then I had a thought. Simon hadn't told me if I would need to sing vocals for this band. I mulled it over a bit, and decided it'd be better to be safe than sorry. There was no lyric sheet with the album, so I sat on the floor of the music room and started playing the record over and over once again, trying to scribble down the lyrics. That wasn't easy, either, as there were several lyrics like "cause it's time and time is time" that didn't really make much sense to me. I'm guessing they made sense to Yes, though.
A couple of days later, just before six, I picked up Simon at his apartment. He tossed his gear in the back of the truck with my drums (including his organ, to my surprise), and I drove us to the audition. Kenny introduced us to Anton and Julian, then we began setting up.
"I noticed Anton looking quite uncertain as you prepared your drum set," Simon remembers. "It was rather apparent that he was reconsidering having rodents audition. But as I was worrying about this, you piped up confidently. 'Did you need me to take vocals on this?' And when Anton asked 'lead or harmony', you shrugged and said 'either'. It had not occurred to me that you would take the initiative to learn the vocals. But given the song's high-pitched lead line, it was a very prescient decision on your part."
Anton decided to let me try taking lead vocals on the song, so they set up a mic for me, and away we went. The run-through of the song went pretty well, although I did botch one of the lines. Either the guys didn't notice, or my drumming (and singing) made up for it. Simon tossed in his own curveball by playing the recorder bits from the original on his little organ. The band seemed quite happy with the way it sounded.
Anton explained that, although they'd like to have the Yes song as part of the set, the group would mainly be performing his original songs. He mentioned that he had started working on a lengthy piece called "The Last Rays of a Dying Sun", which was about aliens on a planet experiencing night for the very first time. I said, "Oh, like in 'Nightfall'? The Asimov story?"
"I believe we were sufficiently skilled to pass the audition," Simon says. "But it was perhaps your knowledge of the science-fiction realm that solidified Anton's decision to officially accept us into the group."
Anton named the band The Plains Of Io, which he apparently got from some science fiction book I hadn't read. I thought the name was pretty keen, although Simon and I did jokingly refer to the band as "poi" when Anton wasn't around. We began meeting every Tuesday night for rehearsals, and we slowly began learning Anton's songs. They all had some sort of sci-fi aspect to them, so we at least fit the band name well.
The Plains of Io had their first gig about two months later, opening for three other similar ensembles. The early seventies had a fair number of groups looking to sort of nudge rock and roll outwards, and it was exciting to be exploring new terrain, as it were. Not all of the experiments worked, of course - I ended up sitting through more than my share of failed "concept bands" - but sometimes the search itself could be pretty interesting. Our set was only half an hour, which for POI meant five songs. We closed with "I've Seen All Good People", and not surprisingly, that was the one that the crowd liked the most. But I think we held our own for our first gig.
As I was loading out, Anton asked if he could talk with me for a minute. I was worried he was going to take me to task for my performing, even though I thought I had played pretty well. As it ended up, he wanted to talk to me about something else - my clothes.
Every other band I had been in, I'd worn a suit of some sort (except for the Little Rocks, where we had those varsity jackets). But rock bands dressing alike had sort of gone by the wayside by that point. For example, look at the Beatles album covers. On their first few albums, the Beatles had worn identical suits. By Abbey Road, it looked like the four Beatles might not gave even known each other. So for my first POI gig, I had just worn a plain white T-shirt and blue jeans. And Anton found that a bit unhip. Did I have something else I could wear to the gigs? The funny thing is - I didn't. I had my suits, my work shirts, and some plain T-shirts, and that was it. I promised Anton I'd find something cooler to wear in time for our next gig.
My search for cool clothes wasn't an easy one. As always, I was stuck shopping in children's shops and departments, and most of the clothes there didn't exactly seem ideal for a prog rock drummer to wear on stage. (Rust-colored overalls? Ick.) But eventually, I got lucky and found a few things. One was a long-sleeved black-and-white shirt with a spacey pattern. The other was a blue shirt with a complex Capricorn design. Astrology was pretty big at the time, and some stores had zodiac shirts in children's sizes. I'm actually a Sagittarius, but I remember the Sagittarius shirt looked pretty dumb. Plus, I don't think they had it in my size.
POI was my first band that really felt more like a hobby than a job. With every other ensemble I had been in, the band had been my primary focus, as well as my main source of income. But now, it was just a fun thing I was doing on occasion. We rehearsed once a week, played a gig maybe once a month, I pocketed a bit of money, and that was it. And I was totally fine with that. I had my regular job, which I loved. POI was just an interesting and fun way to continue on with music.
At least, it was at the start.