John Hovorka's Test Site

Anything I happen to think of may get posted here. If you have any comments about this page, write to me at hovorka1@netzero.com

8/08: Hovorka - Empire State

released as a "Name your price" downloadable album
One of the best and definitely one of the most rockin' Hovorka albums. Never released, now available. Yeah, party like it's 1988!

6/07: John Hovorka interview. by Dave Bromwich and Rebecca Stimson. SEE BELOW!
Well, a ways below now...

5/07: The 2x4's studio album, recorded in 1980, finally released!
Here is some info about The 2x4's for you to have a look at.

4/6/08

I'm lining up some solo shows and starting to record an "acoustic" album. Also Empire State, the long-awaited Hovorka album recorded back in 1988 - 1989 has finally been released. More on this soon, because it's such a big deal to me that I want to make a big deal about it. But meanwhile, it is available here on this web site by clicking on the usual buttons, Catalog and Orders as can be seen at the top of this page.

3/9/08

The poster shown above was for the show I did last night at Laila in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I used it as a handout, as a poster in various stores and as an attachment for the show email. By the way, if you want to be on my emailing list, write to me at hovorka1@netzero.com and I will send you info about my upcoming shows. The photo used in this poster is of a highway near Provincetown, MA on Cape Cod. It was taken by my brother, George. The show went very well for me. I even got an encore. So I am planning to do more of these, preferably a lot more, all over the place. (The moment I woke up this morning I wished I was doing another one someplace tonight.) Meanwhile, working with The Young Bialys who were also on this bill was great, as usual. I love that band. And it was great to see Joe Marabotto up on stage with them on lead guitar.

Here is list of the songs I did at this show. Usually I don't follow a set list when I do solo shows but this time I did. Colin requested Wilderness Man for an encore song and also Alcohol Beast during the set. Thank you, Colin.

3/8/08 John Hovorka solo show at Laila set list

(the dates these songs were written and which of my albums they can be found are shown in parentheses)

Eyes Shut Tight (1998, Chalk Pyramids)

Greenland (1998, Chalk Pyramids)

In The Long Run (1983, Drive All Night)

The Dawn of Mechanized Farming (2004, will be on my next album)

Machine Beer (2004, will be on my next album)

The Ballad Of Sheriff John Castle (1996, Drive All Night)

Corporations (2002, will be on my next album)

The Red Trucks (1983, will be on my next album)

Bridgeport Lathe (1979, The 2x4's, Drive All Night)

Iron Line (1982, Noise Pencil, Drive All Night)

My True Story (1994, Drive All Night)

Alcohol Beast (1996, Drive All Night)

Wah Hey! (1983, Turbines Last Dance Before Highway, Hovorka Greenland)

Wilderness Man (1994, Hovorka Greenland) (This was the encore song of the set)

3/1/08

Well it's about time I said something here. Ken left the band and we are looking for a new drummer. So if you know of anyone who might be good for that, please let me know. Meanwhile I am looking forward to doing a solo show next Saturday night at Laila Lounge. Also there is some possibility of me doing solo shows in Cambridge, Massachusetts sort of soon, as well as in Buffalo, NY and Cleveland, Ohio in July. And in the Brooklyn, New York area, yeah. So I will have more info about that soon, I hope.

11/3/07

John Hovorka And The Dawn Of Mechanized Farming is fully reorganized at last, the fourth version of the band over the course of nearly 5 years. Joe Kelly who used to do backing vocals, percussion, occasional keyboards and even more occasional guitar in is now working out very well on bass guitar. And Marc Bendian who used to play bass now plays guitar, quite some guitar. And I'm probably going to be putting away my 12-string Rickenbacker guitar and playing my Gibson Firebird guitar instead. And Ken is still on drums. So it sounds different, totally focused on just rock and roll and nothing else at all times. That's what we were about anyhow, so it makes sense. I'm not sure what Bill is doing now but he says he's going to come up to Massachusetts with Colin our first drummer to see us play on November 17th.

Meanwhile, I have managed to finish the CD re-release of The Price Of The Truth, a 7" EP that I did in 1980 - 1981 just after I left The 2x4's. It is stark and bleak and relentless, quite possibly relentlessly awful but nonetheless, relentless.

On a more cheerful note, the first Hovorka album, Empire State (from 1988 - 1990) is ready to be released. I need an OK from the other band members but it's done. And I think I should promote it any way I can think of. Because it's great!

9/13/07

Bill who plays guitar in John Hovorka and the Dawn of Mechanized Farming has left the band. Thus we are in a state of reorganization. I think this is going to go OK and work out just fine. But it's going to slow us down in terms of recording, and I'm not sure when we will be ready to play out again. By November, I hope! Meanwhile The Noise, a magazine in Boston has a very positive review of The 2x4's in it. And the rest continues apace.

8/11/07

The show at The Knitting Factory last night went great. The Hunting Party which featured Colin formerly of Provan and DOMF on drums did a dynamic set of melodic rock and roll. Then The Damned Shames, a new band fronted by fine guitar player Sean Condron did a shamelessly super set of original rock-a-billy tunes. And then John Hovorka And The Dawn Of Mechanized Farming just plain rocked out if I do say so myself, a longer set than usual which featured both old and new songs. Just in case you're interested in exactly what we are doing nowadays, here's the set list which includes the dates of when the songs were written and which other band have done them, where applicable.

8/10/07 DOMF at The Knitting Factory Set List

Don't Stop Now (2001)

In The Long Run (1983)

Rules Of The Road (1985, Turbines, Hovorka1, High Society)

Might Get Shot (1988, Hovorka1)

Corporations (2001)

I Can't Help (2001, Hovorka2)

Imagine The Day (2001, Hovorka2)

War Zone (2003)

Reality (2002, Hovorka2)

Expressway Girl (1990, Hovorka2, Please Release Me)

The Dawn of Mechanized Farming (2004)

Wah Hey! (1983, Turbines, Hovorka1, Hovorka2, Wah Hey!, The A-Bones, Fall Fan Dave, plus a string band from Cambridge, Mass. who did a great version of it a long time ago)

Bridgeport Lathe (1979, The 2x4's, Noise Pencil, Turbines, Hovorka1, Hovorka2, Joe Harvard, Provan, The Infestations and my apologies if I can't remember any others right now on 4 hours of sleep)

I'll Take (1989, Hovorka 1 Hovorka2, Turbines 1994 reunion show)

Drillin' (1990, Hovorka1)


Songs we did not get to included

I Get Excited (1982, Noise Pencil, Turbines)

Blocked (1998, Hovorka2)

Finally Realize (2001, Hovorka2)

Little Cities (1978, The 2x4's, Noise Pencil, Turbines, Hovorka1, Wah Hey!, Hovorka2, The Rox)

Empire State (1988, Hovorka1)

And here's the poster for that show. I figured that Pink Floyd had good luck with including cows in their art so maybe us, too.

(Note: This image was reconfigured from the original for use on this
web site)

OK, so moo-ving right along here... not only does DOMF have more shows coming up in Brooklyn and in Massachusetts but we are developing a serious intention of recording our next CD, preferably during the next few months. Also (while you are waiting for this eventuality), if you would like to hear a different take on Turbines songs, please check out the Fallfandave myspace page for links to his versions of some Turbines songs. I particularly recommend his version of "Wah Hey!" It's practically a different song I think, but I like it a lot. "Stopover at the Turbines Motel" indeed!

Uh, excuse me, I have a bit of Wah-Hey-ing to do myself now... Namely get out the guitar and write some new songs already!

6/9/07

So little to say, and no time! That has been my story. But enough of this dead air space already. Aside from the raw, pulsating excitement of the latest Trash Bar show, not to mention the thrill of playing at The Plough & Stars in Cambridge, Mass., also with Triple Thick a while back, there has also been The 2x4's Studio Album release back last month, AND NOW a John Hovorka magazine interview, which I have reprinted below.

The Pseud Mag John Hovorka Interview. by Dave Bromwich and Rebecca Stimson is contained in The Pseud Mag, Issue 16, June/July 2007. Dave Bromwich who edits this The Fall fanzine asked me if I'd do one, so I did. Plus there is plenty of info on The Fall and Mark E. Smith. The Table of Contents of The Pseud Mag can be found on-line at www.freewebs.com/pseudmag/issues1618.htm and you can order it at: The Pseud Mag, PO Box 2162, Bolton, BL6 9BT, UK. I recommend it.

HAD A RUN IN WITH BOSTON IMMIGRATION...
AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN HOVORKA
by Dave Bromwich and Rebecca Stimson

This interview is justified simply because the editor is a mega fan of Boston band The Turbines [who all love the Fall btw...]

1. THE 2X4s: I was looking at your discography on the Metal Snowball site and I was surprised to see just how long you have been doing music - it says it was late 78 when you began with the 2x4s. What inspired you to start singing and playing the guitar? I have heard a couple of 2x4s tracks ... 'The Spaz' sounds a fun track ... was that the nature of the 2x4s generally ? How much 2x4s stuff did you do?

When I was 14, in 1965, I was sitting in a field in the middle of noplace in upstate New York and "Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones came in on my transistor radio. It sounded cold, mechanistic and monotonous. It excited me. I rapidly became obsessed with the music and have stayed that way ever since. I started playing guitar in bands in 1967. As for singing, the first lead vocal I ever did was the song "Little Girl" by The Syndicate of Sound.

The 2x4's Story began with: I saved up enough money to get to England and other parts of Europe for about a month in 1978, and saw some bands, including The Rezillos and Stiff Little Fingers. I liked it there but I was not going to get back again soon because I had spent all my money. So I focused in on the United States and what it consisted of. A lot of fields and a lot of factories, mostly. That gave me something to write songs about.

The 2x4's had three sides to them. Tom (on bass) was a disturbingly quiet electronics technician, Steve (who played drums & devices) was extremely blue collar and not someone you'd want to have a problem with, and I was formerly working in factories but now in libraries. The Spazz was Tom's. It was great fun to do. My songwriting was not much like his. His material had some minimal amount of looseness to it while mine was more tense. But we all worked together well; it was a concept band. We called it "industrial rock". (By the time that meant something else we had already broken up.)

How much 2x4's stuff did I do? Well, we started in 1/79, really got going in 9/79 and broke up in 6/80. We played perhaps 15 shows. We ended up with 25 songs, 16 written by me, 5 by Tom, 1 by John Morrill who played drums with us for about a month, and 3 of which were covers. We did 4 recording sessions then released 2 tapes to radio stations and one single. And The 2x4's songs that I have done fairly often since then are "Bridgeport Lathe" and "Little Cities". We plan to have a studio album out soon.

2. NOISE PENCIL: I see you did a solo album after the 2x4s ended, and that included some of the members of the 2x4s, but then you hooked up with Jack Hickey and became Noise Pencil. Was this band very similar to The Turbines?

Noise Pencil was not much like the Turbines. I had just finished a 7" solo EP called "The Price of the Truth" with a band that included Tom and Cubie from The 2x4's. Although we had a great time recording it, I was somewhat disappointed by the results. So I was looking for an opportunity to do something else. Noise Pencil was it, and working with Jack was great. By the way, the all-night loft parties that we played at inspired me to write "Wah-Hey!"

3. THE TURBINES: I know your Turbines work more than anything thanks to Andy Kershaw playing it on the radio as he was a bit of a fan. But I was totally bowled over by the sound. This was your 2nd LP, and the track was Roy's Motel. I rushed out and tracked down the album in Manchester , and later eventually got hold of the first album. All brilliant stuff I must say. Did The Turbines tour a lot?

Wow, thanks! And many thanks to Andy Kershaw, too. The Turbines toured a fair amount, up and down the East Coast opening for The Blasters, The Hoodoo Gurus, X, The Gun Club, Southern Culture On The Skids, etc. And we did a nationwide tour for a couple of months, to Los Angeles then back.

4. HOW THE TURBINES FORMED: You say that The Turbines formed after seeing The Fall at The Rat in Boston in 83. Was this sheer coincidence or was you actually inspired by The Fall in some way?

It was a coincidence except for the fact that we all went to see them, which surely must indicate something, probably that we were all fans of The Fall.

5. WHY DID THE TURBINES SPLIT: Was it down to musical differences that The Turbines split or was it just lack of motivation or what?

Our tour left us completely burned out. Our record company was obviously about to drop us, our van was falling apart as we drove it, we couldn't afford to eat anything but French Fries if that, and we were barely on speaking terms. What we should have done was taken the summer off, been patient about finding a new label, then organized a European tour. But Jack and Fred became motivated to do something else. Dave wanted to reorganize the Turbines but for a variety of reasons I thought a new version of the band without Jack was not worth doing.

6. 10 YEAR RECORDING GAP: There seems to be a long gap from the late 80s after the end of The Turbines until the late 90s. Although you continued to play live. Was there a specific reason for this?

After the second Turbines album there was the first Hovorka band album (my first New York album) recorded in 1988 - 1989, harder edge than the Turbines and/but rock and roll. I didn't like the contract we were offered, and we had no money to get it done ourselves. I hope to release this one myself later this year. But yes, after we released the Hovorka "Drillin'" single in 1990, there was a 5-year recording gap. The band was doing fine with live shows (soon to be released "Hovorka Live at The Middle East 1993") but band members were either leaving or just joining up, thus we had no chance to record. After we broke up in early 1994 there was my "country music experiment", "Wah-Hey!" which was about as "country" as an industrial New Jersey swamp. In 1995 I did not play music. In 1996 I was sideman in a band called Tandy. A few good things came out of that. It forced me to practice a lot. I got to work with some incredible engineers from whom I got a lot of great ideas, at Willie Nelson's ranch in Texas. And last but not least, it made me realize that I'd better record a John Hovorka solo album ASAP!

7. NEW YORK CITY: So you moved out of Boston in 1990, to go to NYC? Was there any particular reason for this?

I moved to New York in 1987. The economy in Boston was terrible yet I got a job in New York for a higher rate of pay than I had ever gotten before in about two days. The music scene in Boston was not worthwhile to me at that moment, while in New York, I figured, who knows? What I didn't know was how much living in New York would inspire me to write.

8. LYRICS: Do you think your lyrics have become more political?

I always wrote political stuff, from the second song I ever "wrote" back in 1976, a scathing ten-minute version of "Hanky Panky" which was possibly influenced by what Patti Smith was doing at that time. But it has gotten more prevalent in the last uh, 17 years. The first Hovorka band did a song called "Next Alabama", which was against racial violence that was occurring in New York. The second Hovorka band "Greenland" album (Year 2000) had more political content than anything I had done before, mostly social-political like "The Unconcerned" "Answer Is No", "Blocked", and "Social Control", but then there's "Imprisoned Populations". My current band, John Hovorka and the Dawn of Mechanized Farming do "War Zone" which I wrote during the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, "Imagine The Day" which is about 9/11, and newer ones: "The Dawn of Mechanized Farming" which is about agribusiness, and "Corporations" which is about acquisitiveness and greed. "Music For Republican Convention Halls" (2005 solo album) is almost all instrumental because I was too disgusted to say anything coherent about that.

9. LATE 90s SOLO ALBUMS: I've not heard these albums... do you have any favourite tracks from these?

From my point of view, these solo albums, "Drive All Night", "Chalk Pyramids", and the Chalk Pyramids "remix" CD, "State Highway 946" are all basically one long album because there was no significant gap in the recording of them. I started this 3-album project in late 1996 and finished it in early 1998. This is moody and often hypnotic stuff, fairly dark, tends towards minimalism, and some of it gets very personal. Of the lot, I like "Chalk Pyramids" the best. "One I Love", "Blocked", "Angel", "Back On The Grid Parts One And Two" and "Icy River" are my favorite tracks on that. As for "Drive All Night" I like most of it a lot, as well. "Alcohol Beast", "Dirt Road" and "My True Story' are often other people's favorites on that one. As for the somewhat-related "Hovorka - Greenland" album, I like the loud rock ones, "Expressway Girl", "I'll Take" and "Cult of…" the best.

10. DAWN OF MECHANIZED FARMING: How are things going with the current DOMF band that you've had since 2003?

Since 2003, but with some gaps in our existence lasting over a year. The band is going great in terms of the music. And (since our reorganization late last year) we are off to a good start with touring, which is what we want to do; starting with regional shows. Our first out of town show in Cambridge, Massachusetts a few weeks ago went very well. We plan to record our second EP this summer.

11. IGGY: The Turbines covered 1969 on the second album, Mark E Smith is also a big fan. Whose idea was it to cover this song? And are you a big fan of Iggy?

To me The Stooges were the best band ever. As for the rest of Iggy's albums, my favorites are "New Values" and "Zombie Birdhouse", although the songs from "Soldier" get stuck in my head the most. It may have been my idea to cover "1969", but it was not my idea to put it on the album. I just went along with that. In retrospect I think we should have recorded our version of "Boss Hoss" by The Sonics and our fast no-frills version of "Can You See Me?" by Jimi Hendrix for that LP. By the way, many thanks to Joe Harvard for his engineering and production on that "Magic Fingers and Hourly Rates" (second Turbines) album! We could barely stand to be in the same room together by then, but he still managed to capture all that sound.

2/14/06

Happy Valentines Day! AND then there is this. No, not quite.
This show is now on Sunday February 25th.

1/1/07

Happy New Year! My New Years Resolution is to Rock!

Our show on 12/21 at Trash Bar here in Brooklyn, went great. And it was lots of fun. The Hi Way Stars also truly rocked, as did The Live Ones, a band I was waiting to see again for far too long. Here are some photos of the DOMF part of the show. These were taken by Monika Bolino.

John & Bill 12/21

John 12/21

Marc 12/21

Ken 12/21

Joe 12/21

11/18/06

We now have a web site at www.dawnofmechanizedfarming.com And a few weeks ago, our first show (in years) at The Pussycat Lounge (in exciting downtown Manhattan) went very well. From that we got various photos and even a lo-res video (as can be seen on the aforementioned web site) as well as more money than I would have anticipated... The Young Bialys also did a very good set.

10/6/06


John Hovorka, Corlears Hook, Manhattan 9/06
Photo by Monika Bolino

8/20/06

Dawn of Mechanized Farming finaly has a new drummer. His name is Ken. This is going very well. Now we need some shows. Meanwhile I saw the New York Dolls at South Street Seaport last Friday night and that was a lot of fun. Bill and Marc of DOMF made sure the fun continued, with an after-show visit to a rather stark but large bar up near the former site of The World Trade Center, then a late dinner at Union Picnic back in Williamsburg.

7/13/06

Maybe my band has finally found a new drummer. But "it ain't over 'til it's over" so please feel free to inquire... We are getting together this coming Tuesday, in any case. Meanwhile my real job is going well, for a change, so that puts me in a slightly more communicative mood. Well, maybe. And maybe because it feels so much like 1961 all over again (it does???), I am listening to Gene Pitney a lot. When I was a kid I found him garish and a bit creepy. Now I'm impressed by the quantity of melodrama involved. I am not quite up to (or down to) liking Bobby Vee (also circa 1961) so much, although his first hit (if indeed it was, it says it was on the back of this album cover I have here) "Suzie Baby" has a plaintive heart-felt-type rock-a-billy thing going on which I like, a lot! (Of course if you know where I can find some more circa 1961 stuff by Billy Storm or Sheila (?) and the Gothics, please let me know!) (Don't even ask if I am trying to recreate a "Cold War mood". That idea crossed my mind, but on further reflection, I have no idea.) Meanwhile, in the world of old but less old, I plan to see Dave Alvin and the Guilty Men at South Street Seaport tomorrow night, and if possible, also Mission of Burma since they are playing a block from my house, and maybe even The Reid Paley Trio at Union Pool. As for what's new, not a heck of a lot if you ask me, or at least not much that qualifies as entertainment. Too much of the collapsing infrastructure as well as various more active forms of trouble, as described in "the news media".

I got very excited by how well my series of "Brooklyn Bands Podcasts" was going but I sure could use more material. Because repeating the same 15 bands over and over again just ain't gonna work. Well, not for me anyway. The next one which I should have out in a few days has mostly new bands from the previous ones, though. And I may stick up an obscure old R&B one just for a change. To start with I have been listening to the "It's Too Late" album by Wilson Pickett (re-released by Upfront Records, originally from 1963) a lot. I have plenty more of stuff like that around here, and maybe people oughtta hear it!

5/25/06

Yet another Brooklyn Bands Podcast put up. Possible DOMF drummer in the near future? And finally the release of the State Highway 946 CD, within a couple of days.

5/19/06

Last Sunday I ran into a guy named Ken over at the bar and he said why don't I do a podcast of Brooklyn bands? That struck me as such a great idea that on Monday I did research to figure out what a podcast is, and much more importantly, how to put one up. So here it is at Brooklyn Bands Podcast 5_18_06 or find it and some brief descriptive writing about this or these at www.metalsnowball.com/podcast.html

Not too long ago I thought you could only hear podcasts on an i-pod while in fact just about any computer with a sound card and speakers will do. Although back when I first heard of podcasts my first thought was that people were using their i-pods to broadcast shows on Wi-fi. (I think that something like that would actually be interesting.)

As for whether an mp3 that does not have RSS feed and is not accessible by using
i-tuner is actually a podcast or not, I have no idea. And I really don't care. Although for the purpose of "getting this out there" of course I will set that stuff up soon. This first one is just 7 songs and includes a "Brooklyn Bands Concert Report". The next one will be at least 10 songs divided into 3 or so sets thus offering "rock & roll", then "other", then "punk-rock". Or at least that's how I see this going right now. "Stay tuned."

5/11/06

The other day I looked myself up on Google (under Hovorka Dawn Mechanized Farming) to see that people have written a bunch of stuff about me that I didn't know about on www.thenoiseboard.com and it is mostly extremely even overwhelmingly complimentary (thank you!!!). But people have questions about "all this", like what they see on this site (I mean overall, like on the Catalog Page, etc.), that I might as well try to answer. For example, someone asked for "a generic description of this stuff". And that sounds like a perfectly reasonable question to me but I'm sure glad to have someone else jump in on trying to answer that first. (Although I find that "generic descriptions" almost always lead me to think "oh no, another one of those..." and sometimes I end up missing out on great music because of that.) So I really appreciate "Castaway Carm"'s part of all this, her answer to that. You can find that under April 4, 2005 www.noiseboard.com, but I will quote one bit, the part about my music being "americana-before-americana-was-called-americana". That sounds about right. And other people have simply said, "It rocks" and I say "Yeah but what about say, the stuff I did on Chalk Pyramids?" and they say, "It rocks even when you don't think it rocks." And some people call my recent stuff "out of category music" but I don't think it's all that esoteric. (Or is it???) Then a question, from someone else, "and maybe his stuff has changed over these 27 years he's been recording?". To which all I can say is, yeah sure, but if I'm still waking up in the morning with Duane Eddy music in my head, then it probably didn't change all that much, well, not from my point of view anyway. But all of this really begs these questions. I guess it all started when I first heard rhythm and blues on the jukebox at Mister Donut at Fresh Pond Circle in Cambridge Mass. back in 1955, and continues straight through my childhood adventures in Buffalo, NY, those steel mills and all, and then (skipping ahead a bit here) rock-a-billy tunes about industry with The 2x4's, new wave rock and roll about industry with Noise Pencil, those rockin' Turbines that some people frame in the context of industrial wastelands ("John Hovorka writes songs about places where no one ever goes and no one wants to be", someone once wrote something like that.) Then there was the Hovorka band that started out kind of like that but included a lot about my impressions of New York City when I first moved here. But after I got all used to that, the band morphed into a straight-out old-school hard rock band that did a lot of songs about "beer drinkin' and hell raisin'". (The "Hovorka Live At The Middle East" CD; I need to get that out already!)

Then that ended and around the end of 1996 or so I got all serious, well depending on what one means by serious. Anyhow I decided to do something different. I was mostly interested in describing the mood of the moment, evoking it, even (if I was making my points the way I intended). So I decided to take a chance on doing what I felt I had to do anyway. My feeling was that "the forces of vacuousness" which probably lead directly to people getting randomly gunned down in convenience stores while Lite FM tinkles in the background were "transpiring" to leave nothing but fake-everything and/or death. So I figured I might as well get real and make music that is about, or more to the point in the context of, "newly renovated" strip malls, new prefabricated slums, dating bars that are actually pool halls and vice versa, recreational drugs that are actually animal tranquilizers, regret that is actually an impetus to do things even worse, the places where factories used to be, the few remaining factories where people slave away for just above minimum wage as Lite FM drones on (I know; I worked there!), and great big fluorescent-lit rooms full of computer terminals and telephones, another increasingly common version of the same thing. And mostly I wanted to get away from making music that is a distraction from these things and other things lots like them, the stuff that I call reality. Because finally if things kept going like this there wasn't going to be anything else and who the heck wants to write still more songs about things that no longer exist? (As soon as the subject turns to sentimentality "John Hovorka has left the building". Some things about my approach to all this never change.) Anyhow this world was not about to change, or at least not in its direction, so I figured I'd better. And did anyone really want my version of "the retro-americana commodity" anyhow? I saw no evidence of it so I decided to "break free" from all that. I asked, What would make me not know what to expect of myself? How could I break out of this cycle of boredom caused by either overly repetitive or annoying "cultural stimuli", wherein supposedly things are interesting even when one knows perfectly well that they aren't? Also the idea of lugging heavy 2" tape into some studio full of bored rock and roll music engineers "on autopilot" appalled me. So to start with, how about recording digitally? I had never even thought of that before. (I bought my first CD player in 1996; maybe that made me think of that then.) So my next question was obviously, how can I make this tinny, smooth as glass new type of media work in my favor? I didn't know so I needed to find some people who did. I asked myself, Who knows the most about digital recording? And is NOT going to try get an "analog sound" by digital means, which is kind of like trying to toast toast in a washing machine if you ask me. Well, techno studio engineers, obviously. So I met some at a party full of club kids and techno music, down in the depths of The World's Greatest City very late at nite, then the rest was history. (Note: I doubt if I would do things this way again, although I have no regrets about it at all.)

Drive All Night and Chalk Pyramids were only limited in their move towards "techno music played on conventional instruments (and "programmed" entirely by hand)" by their tons of lyrics and possibly "folk" influences. (Drive All Night was a mix of bleak and possibly-pop elements, while Chalk Pyramids was just plain dark. By the way it is my favorite of my CDs.) Greenland was somewhat similar in intent, but with musicians from a hardcore punk rock background; in retrospect I love how the hard rock parts of that project (about half of it) came out. And then there was the "rock" version of this project, John Hovorka and the Dawn of Mechanized Farming. But after spending like 8 or so years at this, particularly after I took that all farther than ever with Music For Republican Convention Halls, an anti-everything-like CD, which came down particularly hard on music (not to mention what such a mind-numbing "wall of spite" might not do for my alleged "music career"), I realized that I might as well try to entertain some people for a change. ("Who knows. They might even need it. Maybe it's even a political issue?" "No John, let's not get carried away here...") So then I entered my current phase which is "I stand there with an acoustic guitar and just deliver the goods". Not that I haven't done that before, but this is going really well (with "the goods" REALLY getting "delivered" this time around) so I may be sticking with this approach for a while. Although the end result will probably be me fronting some tear-up rock and roll band. But in answer to your question, "What's it all like?" I can only say, I have no idea. But if it has all been as fascinating to me as it has been, it's gonna interest some people. And it does!

By the way, here is my (if silent) "shout out" to whoever included me as a reference to their article in Wikipedia about Wilmer Alexander & The Dukes. Thanks, but thanks for not quoting me. All I know about him and them is that I was fortunate to be there for their shows at The Teen A Go Go in Geneva, New York back in 1967 because that was life-changing stuff to me. But beyond that I know nothing, really. Although doesn't "Distributed by Master Releasing Inc. 1790 Main Street, Buffalo, New York" just about say it all?

But enough of all this writing about me. (But people had questions so how can I NOT try to answer them?)

So how about some pictures of me? I haven't put enough pictures up lately and I have some new ones of me (and hardly any of anything else), actually dozens of them. So here some.

Here I am hanging out with some hunks of granite up on Diamond Hill
in Cumberland, Rhode Island last summer.
Photo by Rolfe Anderson

And here I am playing some songs at Jennifer Gryziec's birthday party at
Grand Press in Brooklyn about a month or so ago. She requested Dirt Road,
The Red Trucks (are on the highway and I got the blues!) and Bridgeport Lathe
so I am probably playing one of those.
Photo by Monika Bolino

5/5/06

Back in the 60's there was a not too exciting song with the lyrics, "and the smell of incense filled the room". Today it's more like "and the smell of burned polyester or else something very much like that filled the room". Actually it has filled all the air outdoors around here, something from that huge Greenpoint Fire that we had here a few days ago, and perhaps it is still burning right now. And although I like industrial New Jersey I'm not thrilled about feeling like I am there right now. The EPA says that this air is safe, while I think that what people regard as a stench is not necessarily a matter of their acculturation, it might have more to do with instincts of self-preservation. And so on, on into the nite. The dark backyards, the distant water tower, the hazy sky, the Empire State Building rising up from behind other buildings, the still and nearly silent air, and you guessed it, The Stench! But I slept well last night anyhow.

Those recording projects are still moving forward. "State Highway 946" actually is done now and I plan to get it out by the end of next week. John Hovorka Live at Zablozki's 2/22/06 still needs some work. I hope to get it out by June anyhow. As for the rest, I'm playing at another birthday party later this month. And I am very busy; I just wish it was busy with playing more music live. So what else is new?

4/6/06

I am doing the final test of the master for State Highway 946 - The Chalk Pyramids Remix CD, right now. (I'm not expecting any surprises here; I have heard this stuff about 10 times in the last week or so.) Back in 1998 when I was mixing the tracks that later became the Chalk Pyramids album I noticed two things, 1) I liked a lot of the ones which have vocals as instrumentals. 2) There were some alternate mixes of tracks that I liked just as much as the ones I included on that CD. (The result is all-instrumental and all-spaced out!!!)

I am also working on turning my tape of me playing live at Zablozki's back in February into an album, solo mostly though various other singers joined me onstage sometimes. My first "multimedia" album, and also my first (and possibly last) acoustic album. It includes 15 tracks of me doing what I do, plus a digital-camera video of one of the songs, a whole bunch of pictures in jpeg format, and all the lyrics that I sang in that set.

2/25/06

The show at Zablozki's (in Brooklyn) last Wednesday went exceptionally well, or at least my part of it did. Solo, theoretically-acoustic, rock and roll thing that it was. And plenty of it, or at least plenty of my part of it. Unfortunately John Berry got ill (just ill, nothing serious) at the last minute so he couldn't do his set, nor could we get together at the end to do a song together like we had planned. The rehearsal for that had gone really well... Sometime we will do that, the only question is when.

2/3/06

Finally we managed to book "The John & John Show" (see above). It will rock. Meanwhile The 2x4's will probably arise from their winter slumbers very soon. And I am traveling to Asbury Park, NJ, hopefully this coming Tuesday to get various master tapes back from Joe Harvard. So more CD releases are likely to be happening soon. Also I am apparently going to be in Buffalo, NY at a funeral soon. I don't think I have been there in the winter since I was a teenager. Sometimes the weather is not so good there. That is why.

1/23/06

All I know is that I must rehearse! Meanwhile, in the old albums category of my life I have taken to listening to "Zombie Birdhouse" by Iggy Pop quite a bit, as well as Chuck Berry's Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2. Also the new Rolling Stones albums is good!

AND I am now on www.myspace.com blatantly listed as john_hovorka, so you can also look for me there. And while you are there, if the music I'm talking about above sounds like it might be just a bit too rustic, if not outright rusty to you, check out Coppermine (pun intended, I guess...) on myspace.com. They sound very current (enough of these metallic puns already?), rather metal, have great vocal harmonies, and if that's not enough, they are from Brooklyn. I'm impressed.

12/29/05

I don't have a lot to say. Maybe these pictures will say something to you. To me they "say" "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas". By the way, these were taken by Monika Bolino.

The wildlife of Providence, Rhode Island prepares for the festivities!
(Actually this one looks like it is preparing to kick your ass!)

The Long Island Railroad "Taking you where you want to go!" Well, maybe...

Ornamental towers which vaguely resemble Christmas trees..
(Baltimore's way of wishing you happy holidays!)

12/17/05

The Turbines short-EP entitled Early Turbines, which includes the 4 songs recorded in late 1983 has just been released. See the Catalog Page and the Order Page for more info on that. I'm planning to go out Sunday (12/18) evening to see what is more or less "The Swans". They will be at 210 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the show starts at 5 p.m. Or at least that is the info that was given to me... As for the rest, I need to get out there to buy some Christmas presents before that transit strike (MTA/New York) might get started on Tuesday. Hey, Happy Holidays!

11/29/05

The 11/25 show at The Abbey Lounge in Somerville, Massachusetts went extremely well. All the bands were great.

The Classic Ruins, John Hovorka (solo), The Black Clouds and Triple Thick.
ALL DELIVERED POWERFUL ROCK AND ROLL THERE!

Special thanks to Dave of The Black Clouds for setting this one up. And for inviting me back up there to do a show with them in February or so. As for the possible hook-up of me with The Classic Ruins "as back-up band", I will keep you posted. I mean, don't I already have 2 bands to be in? On the other hand, what a great idea! This really should happen!

The rest continues apace. Repair the amp, re-string the guitar, learn how to play my new songs, and so on. Get some Brooklyn and NYC shows already! What am I lazy? No, just busy. But, yeah!

"So what else is happening?" (I note that this is "the typical refrain of the booking agent") Uh, Jerry Reed is playing in New York a few days before Christmas. And I'd kind of like to be there!

11/18/05

I have been rehearsing for the show on 11/25 in Massachusetts and look forward to it very much. As my birthday is coming up on 11/22 I decided to buy myself a present, something I hardly ever do but I need it anyway to do the show. Time to retire my 1952 hand-made jazz guitar acoustic guitar, and whip out this 2005 Takamine Dreadnought electric-acoustic guitar I just bought instead! It's pretty terrific, all shiny and black, quite large, not quite up there with the 1952 Rickenbacker acoustic that I most want, on the other hand I don't have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on a guitar just now.

I would like to get the "Early Turbines" e.p. as previously described, out in time for Peter Zollo's radio show in San Franscisco - KUSF, December 11, 2 -4 p.m. PST, including on Internet Radio if you get that. This radio show is going to feature some or all of those songs plus other old Boston area stuff, like Phobia, now that was one heck of a band!

10/21/05 but not put up until 11/18/05

These long unexcused absences of me from here. I think I finally have a lead on an actual place in Manhattan for The 2x4's to play at. And I have at least tentatively decided to release an "extended play" single-like CD with the Turbines 1983 radio airplay tape sessions on it. That's "I Get Excited", "Independence Day", "Whirlpool" and "Final Line". There appears to be some interest in this specific bunch of stuff right now. Then upon playing it a lot over the last few weeks I have found that I really like it. "Early Turbines", as it were. Especially "Final Line". Never before released anywhere. I am amazed by it. It rocks hard and it appears to be about astronauts, like I'd know. Having written it I ought to know, but in regard to that one, I have no idea and I never have. ("Do the right stuff, yeah!") So who knows when that would be out but I figure in about a month. It's not exactly going to take a lot of doing; the material sounds just fine as it is and I plan to keep the cover art very simple since I don't have any, or at least not any that doesn't belong to who knows who, so thin-line jewel case and low price. Then see how that does with ya'll out there. Right now I am listening to the first Procol Harum album. Now that is one weighty artifact of distant days. This was my favorite record back when I was dropping out of B.U. No, really, I was. And it was.

10/8/05

I don't have much to report. Hopefully these pictures will be worth a few words. Mostly I have spent this last chunk of time working, writing and lost in thought, fairly introspective of me, I guess. Also I worked on gathering source material for my next novel. And I am coming up with a set of songs for my upcoming solo show.

A few weeks ago I managed to get as far as The Catskills with Rolfe, Brad and Paul. It was an adventure of sorts. Brad's house up there has water supplied by a cistern. Unfortunately the cistern was dry.

Here is a picture of me in Hudson, New York. "Power to the machines right on!" or what?

Here is a picture of Brad's house. We did no recording at "Big Turquoise" (not much of a color match there, oh well...) but Rolfe almost brought a guitar. Who knows, maybe next time. With the possible exception of Paul, we have all had some experience with that kind of stuff. Rolfe used to play bass for Human Sexual Response and for The Modern Lovers, not to mention that he is now in The 2x4's. Brad had a great band called Alda Reserve a long time ago in New York. He plays keyboards.


Here is a picture of Rolfe, relaxing amidst the splendor of Pratt Rocks, Zadock Pratt's monument to himself.

Oh yeah, the monuments. Go to www.prattmuseum.com for more info on this.
And thanks, Monika for finding this website!

9/18/05

The 2x4's had a great rehearsal with me in it up in Waltham, Mass. a week or so ago. We are starting to book shows now. For example, my solo show on 11/25 was originally supposed to be a 2x4's show. But then familial obligations entered the picture. Who knows what I'll do, except to say that it is going to involve NEW SONGS! I went hiking with Rolfe last Sunday and we had an unexpected photo session of sorts on Diamond Hill in Cumberland, Rhode Island (in our ongoing attempt to get new 2x4's photos for our press kit). There was a water tower up there, and lots of large concrete blocks with huge rusted screws poking out of them, covered with graffiti, left over from the ski lift that was there years ago. Whenever either of us gets this stuff developed I'll post some of it here. Meanwhile, here is a photo of Steve and Tom from 1979.

Steve Donnelly and Tom Martel of The 2x4's, October 1979

The Dawn of Mechanized Farming may still be on hold, but at least we're hanging out, like on Friday before Labor Day some of us went to Coney Island and hung out at Ruby's Bar & Grill, where some denizens of ancient disco danced up a storm. Then later we went to Sonny's in Red Hook, where a guy played Johnny Cash songs on an extremely fuzzed out sounding electric guitar.

How can I even bother to write this stuff when there is so much disaster going on out there? I have no idea.

8/27/05

I've been working too hard for a change. About all I can say is that this can't possibly be good for me. It's definitely not good for this ongoing account of not a heck of a lot going on. I can't even recall the last time I went anywhere outside of the neighborhood. Probably it was to deliver a Fedex for my job a few weekends ago in town. Today I have to go in town to deliver a Fedex, for work, again. I'm putting this off for a while because once I leave my apartment I'm not planning to be back until, say, long after dark, but since I have no plan beyond delivering the Fedex I may be back soon; I would like to avoid that. I read a book last week called The Education Of A Felon by Edward Bunker. It gets pretty serious, and I actually found it inspirational. He's lucky he even survived. Meanwhile what I have not found inspirational is that there's a bar I go to where they have somehow found (who knows how; I don't because to start with, I wouldn't look) a classic rock satellite radio station. And they do not turn it off often. So there it is. It's interminable, well I think... I could see this coming a long ways off. Someday there would be "The Classic Rock Station", "The 80's Station", and so on, just one of each. I guess there are others. I could do with a blues station, although I hate to think of what the programming would actually be like. But it is good that there isn't say, one station that everyone has to listen to all the time whether they wanted to or not and it couldn't ever be turned off. Back in Edward Bunker's day, in one prison they had a station that always seemed to be at least faintly audible. I don't know what they played. It was called "The American Airlines Station", or at least that's what he called it.

At least I went out to see a band a few weeks ago. Thee Eyes. They did a show that I liked a lot at Matchless, a small club here in Greenpoint. Maybe The 2x4's will play there soon. I'm going to look into it.

8/21/05

Suddenly I'm getting a lot more high-level Google placement out of this page than I could have possibly imagined. Just type in "hovorka dawn mechanized farming" and it's number two on the list, and even straight into my favorite subjects of the moment, The Dawn of Mechanized Farming and The 2x4's. So is that great, or is that scary? Now the number of people reading this is probably gonna jump from say 5, to say 10! (Uh oh...) So does that entail a bit more "journalistic" responsibility on my part? Honestly I never expected this. Well, so it's still just me "reporting in" from Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Where it is still too hot and humid. But that was one great barbecue yesterday. Thank you Mark and Shelley!

Also thank you Shemp, whoever you are, for putting that Don't Stop Now song by Dawn of Mechanized Farming on your list of things to listen to on "Last FM". And obviously I cannot convey enough thanks to the folks at WMBR, WZBC, WMFO, and WVKR, as well as whoever else may have played it on their station, for the airplay of that EP. But my most amazed thanks have to go out to Bob Westphal at WFDU for playing Frozen Zone from my "Music For Republican Convention Halls" CD on his Shape Of Things To Come show. The thing about that CD is that I don't have any idea where to send it. I sent a copy of that one Al Franken of Air America, and theoretically one was on its way to Senator John Kerry. But it just doesn't fit in with what I see around in the world of "ambient" nor "techno" and I didn't quite think of "goth" although apparently that is a place to place it, because at heart it's more "garage rock" than anything else, if an extremely cold take on it played on instruments that 98% of those folks hate. Well I guess that if anyone describes their show as "experimental" I should send them a copy , because that one was experimental all right. As in, after I finished it I just wanted to get away from it and back to rock and roll as fast as possible. Not that there isn't going to be a follow-up to it. When I get around to it I plan to do "another one of those" about "The Environment". Imagine the possibilities. Song titles like "Silent Spring", "Ozone Depletion" and my personal favorite, "Coal, Oil, Natural Gas and Uranium".

Well I must have gotten up this early for something. Today's big one is gonna be "work on The 2x4's stuff". And there's plenty to do, that's for sure. The AC is on full blast and the coffee is taking effect! If all goes well we will be doing our first show in Boston in say late September, then Brooklyn in say late October.

Oh yeah, I haven't put up a picture in weeks. So what will that be? Hmm... Here's one of Broz, me and Ramona back in 1997 eating food at Sam Chinita's Restaurant which was 8th Avenue and 18th Street, I think, and was my favorite restaurant ever, though now it is long gone, replaced by some ultra-yuppie commercial establishment, I forget what kind, probably a restaurant/bar. We were working on my "Drive All Night" CD.

And here is another one of those. This one is of me in the basement of a factory in Paterson, New Jersey, next to "the compressors" and the 55 gallon drums of what was alleged to be "elevator oil". (That object at my feet was a vacuum pump.) This one was taken by Alan Chin.

8/14/05

Oh yeah, here are the results of my "Nowheresville's Greatest Hits" project, liner notes for it and for "GUM - The History Of Bubblegum Rock". You are going to have to bear with me here because these liner notes are very lengthy. Obviously this music can't be released by me because that would violate copyright laws. But meanwhile here are the liner notes for this project.

"Nowheresville's Greatest Hits"

This is an album of familiar songs done by unknown bands, a few B-sides of 45's by known bands, and various other stuff that was heard in "Nowheresville" in the sixties. To me, "Nowheresville" was Geneva, New York, a backwater little city in Upstate New York. I had always loved music, but the music that I found during the 4-1/2 years that I lived there changed my life. Although the "normal music" of the day, and the music that would eventually lead to the construction of a large museum also had a big affect on me. But this is a musical journey through a world of also-rans, could-of-beens, commercial-errors that bands that later had hits made, and total unknowns. It starts with a couple of tracks that might be a bit (?) hard to take by one of James Brown's MC's, and also includes what I used to think of as the worst record I had ever heard in my life, except that now I'm starting to like it. I did not include tracks that did absolutely nothing for me. Thus My Generation by The Stumps, and Out Of My Mind (Neil Young song) by The Improper Bostonians were not included, nor anything by The New Colony Six, or Group Therapy, to name a few. Some of what is here is beautiful-if-extremely scratchy, some of it is very ugly.

Sad Sam Bethlehem (Records) High Fidelity
1.) Advertising Man (G.C. Redd, R. Lenhoff, W. Whisenhunt) 3:03 Dynatone BMI 45-3090 2.) Poverty Stricken (ditto) 2:45 Release date: unknown. Question: Is G.C. Redd, Redd Foxx? On further research, Sad Sam was one of several MC's who introduced James Brown on Live at The Apollo, Volume 2. Also, he is not to be confused with the famous baseball player named Sad Sam. I did not hear this particular record in my youth, but there was a lot of stuff similar to this on the radio.
Ruby and the Party Gang Law-ton Records (distributed by Avco Records Corp, New York, NY) 1554
3.) Hey Ruby (Shut Your Mouth) (R. Martin, J. Mobley, Bessie Martin) 2:55 (Mardix Music, Mable Lawton Music, Bessmar Music) Release date: Unknown. Who knows if I heard this record back then or not. But there was a lot of stuff like this on the air back then. In any case, this is one of my favorite "party music tracks".
Bobby Moore & the Rhythm Aces Checker (Records) 1129, Chevis Music Inc., BMI 2:53
4.) Hey, Mister DJ (Robert Moore)
5.) Searchin' for My Love (Robert Moore) 2:29 Searchin' For My Love was a huge hit in the summer of 1966. For me, it defined the summer of 1966. Meanwhile I started going out to Teen A Go Go, a local teen night club in a bad part of town. I saw some great bands there. The Heard who did Laugh With The Wind b/w Stop It Baby! On Century Records were out of Rochester, NY and so were The Humans who did Take A Taxi, also on Century Records. (If I had these records they would be on here, as well as Do The Hump by The Invictas, I Wanna Do It by Bobby Comstock, and various other stuff, but I don't because all of these Upstate regional records are hard to find.) The Heard (not to be confused with The Herd who were from England and were an early Peter Frampton band). They had long, greasy, dirty hair, and a bad attitude. Their job was to play Top 40, but they didn't do it like anyone else. They were very loud, extremely intense, and their sneering rendition of "Listen People" by Hermans Hermits gave that song a whole different sound. They seemed like they hated playing a lot of the songs that they did, but they did them all with a lot more style than the local bands did. But much I was impressed by The Heard, my favorite band to go see was "Wilmer".
Wilmer and the Dukes (originally known as Wilmer Alexander Junior and the Dukes) Aphrodisiac Records, Distributed by Master Releasing Inc. 1790 Main Street, Buffalo, New York, Produced by Gene Radice. Brass Arrangements by Gap Mangione; Full length album. APH 6001 Stereo released in early 1967.
6.) Get It (Doug Brown) Tupper Publishing, 2:40
7.) Gimme One More Chance (Ditto) 2:40 In Geneva, NY in 1967, there were two kinds of kids, the ones who went to see "Wilmer" and the ones who didn't. R&B was the province of greasers, hoodlums, and everything "cool". Showing up at the Teen A Go Go to see "Wilmer" instantly changed my social life, from almost nonexistent into "in with the in crowd", well, sort of.
The 5 Americans HBR Hanna Barbera Records, Hollywood, CA
8.) I See The Light (Ezon, Robon, Durrill) Produced by Abnak Music HBR 454 A&R Dale Hawkins, Jetstar Music, 2:10, released in late winter 1966. This band was from Chicago and went on to have a Top 40 hit with a song called "Western Union". What was this one about, some sort of religious conversion?
Count Five Double Shot (Records) "every shot counts", Hollywood, CA, Hot Shot Music, Inc. DS-104 I believe they were from Oregon
9.) They're Gonna Get You (J. Byrne) 2:25 The flip side of Psychotic Reaction. Although the A-side was a big hit in 1966, I'd say that this track defines "Nowheresville".
The Byrds Columbia 4-43424
10.) She Don't Care About Time (Gene Clark) 2:28 Produced by Terry Melcher. This is the flip side of Turn! Turn! Turn! Maybe this song is easy to get a copy of, but maybe not.
The Roamers HIT Records, 4 Star Sales Co., BMI, Record No. 140
11.) G.T.O. (no author shown) A cover of the Ronnie & the Daytonas song. I bought this at a flea market in Florida in 1985. I didn't hear this when I was a teenager, but it definitely belongs on this comp, and I seriously doubt if you are gonna find it anyplace else.
The Ohio Express Cameo Records (but with Cameo-Parkway logo)
12.) Beg, Borrow and Steal (J. Day, L. Zerato), Produced by J. Katz and J. Kasenetz. I note that these guys were "the bubblegum- rock production team" slightly later for Kama Sutra Records, including the other records by the Ohio Express. 2:15, Kaskat Music BMI, A Super K Production C-483-B Released in 1967. A band that went on to record some of the great bubblegum hits of 1968, "Yummy Yummy Yummy" and "Chewy Chewy". I was rehearsing with the first band I was ever in, Falik Distortion, in Spring 1967. The guitar player Neil's sister Evelyn brought it downstairs. I can't say that we liked it, except for the guitar solo, which we played over and over and over again. By the way, the actual band playing the instruments was probably The Shadows Of Knight
The Jordan Bros. Phillips (Records)
13.) Gimme Some Lovin' (S. Winwood) Producer Billy Carl & Joe Veneri, Island Music, Ltd., 2:42. I note that the flip side of this record was on Fingerlake Music, Inc. But although I lived in the Finger Lakes at around this time I did not know of this band. I liked the fuzz-tremolo guitar sound.
The Road Kama Sutra Records
14.) She's Not There (Chris White) KA-255, Al Gallico Music, BMI, 3:00 From Buffalo, NY. 1967 Did they actually think that they were improving this song?
SRC a.k.a. The Scott Richardson Connection Capitol Records - from the album SRC-2 15.) No Secret Destination This probably came out in 1968. Early prog rock by a Detroit band. Maybe this was "garage prog-rock".
The Druids of Stonehenge UNI (Records) 55021
16.) Painted Woman (J. Goldstein Jerry Goldstein Music, BMI Same label as The Foundations who did "Build Me Up, Buttercup" From the moment I put this record on my turntable back when I was 16 I hated it. Fortunately I only paid a quarter for it at The Family Bargain Center. But after listening to it a few times over the last few years I'm actually starting to like it.
The Panics
17) The Kangaroo
18) It Ain't What You Got
This record was not on the original version of this compilation because I thought it wasn't quite interesting enough. But on second thought, it's just plain peculiar. When was it recorded? Why was it recorded? Who did they think would buy this record? (No one did. It cost 5 cents as a cut-out.) It's sort of like "Bubblegum R&B" possibly from 1963 is my guess, and my gut feeling is that this is a Midwestern band. Something was run through a Leslie, but the overall recording quality is so bad that I can't tell if the organ or the rhythm guitar was.
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels
19) Jenny Take A Ride
With some regret, it is now time to depart from "Nowheresville", particularly since is has been so long forgotten. But only in a way, as some of its characteristics were absorbed by a bigger, stronger and much more organized musical entity called "Detroit". Which then flung its stuff back into "Nowheresville" come what may.
The Leaves
20) Hey Joe
Presumably from California. Yet another indication that things were very different someplace else. It blasted out of the radios of muscle cars, and was one of the last hits on the radio before I left Geneva, NY and (was) moved to Massachusetts.

"GUM" - The History of Bubblegum Rock

Due to my shortage of material for this one, I'm going to keep this short, but sweet. Without "Simon Says" by The 1910 Fruitgum Company or "Sugar Sugar" by The Archies, this is a seriously abbreviated take on this extremely important music genre, one that affects (or is it afflicts?) popular music to this day. Basically I guess the idea was to come up with a kind of music that incorporated all popular music influences in one place then blend them in such a way that it would appeal to the maximum-size audience possible. Anyhow, here is an essay on this subject that I wrote a few years back. (Note: This is not fully researched so please excuse any factual errors. Also the "music theory" aspect of it may well be completely fatuous. I'm not sure. It's just something that popped into my head from out of noplace, much like this music did back when.)

Bubblegum - A Major Force In Rock! (An essay I wrote in 2003)

Bubblegum Rock probably had its roots in 50's novelty songs, or earlier novelty songs for that matter, but basically it was planned. While songs like Lou Christy's "Lightnin' Strikes" (1966) followed by "Rhapsody in The Rain" (early 1967), and many others, set the groundwork for it, it did not really take off until these guys named Katz and Kasanek decided to do it full on. Evidently, in 1967, they were working in Detroit as a production team for the Cameo/Parkway label (c.f. early Bob Seger System) with a band called The Ohio Express. Others equally down in the trenches of producing rock and roll, for example Bob Crewe, who produced The Four Seasons, and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, all the folks at the Brill Building in New York, Terry Melcher out west with his "folk rock" production team, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, Lou Adler, as well as many other Top 40 producers were having chart success. But Katz and Kasanek's production of Beg, Borrow and Steal by The Ohio Express was (so far as I can recall anyway) barely visible on the charts. I don't know much about the Kama Sutra record label except that they had great success with The Lovin' Spoonful. But when Katz and Kasanek joined the label and it "went bubblegum" it really took off. When The Ohio Express came out with Yummy Yummy Yummy in 1968, that was it. Bubblegum Rock instantaneously arrived. This was soon followed by their next big hit, Chewy Chewy. Meanwhile the same team came up with Simon Says by the 1910 Fruitgum Company. And that was a song you simply could not get rid of. If you turned on a radio, it was just plain there, immediately, in your face, and that was that! Then by mid-year there was The Archie's Sugar Sugar, I'm on not sure what label, and also Green Tambourine by The Lemon Pipers, on Kama Sutra. The 1910 Fruitgum Company quickly followed up with 1 2 3 Red Light, another big hit. (I also note a bit of not-on-Kama Sutra competition from Gimme Gimme Good Lovin' by The Crazy Elephants, although it is not strictly speaking "bubblegum". Also just taking a wild guess here, this song was probably an influence on the Ramones.) But by the end of the year, it was all over. Bubblegum's First Wave had passed.

1969 was a bad year for "First-Wave Bubblegum". But it was a good year for Tony Orlando and Dawn who were if not exactly "bubblegum" not dissimilar from it either. Nor was Lou Christy's comeback hit "I'm Gonna Make You Mine". In 1970 there was a bit of what I would call "second-wave bubblegum" with Kevin McNamara's "Lay A Little Lovin' On Me", and Andy Kim's remake of "Baby I Love You". But the formula was changing. These guys were promoted as solo performers, albeit as ones with no identity in particular, no longer as bands who had no identity at all. (Of course they didn't. Because in reality they were the 60's "garage rock" band The Shadows Of Knight (and who knows who else; I don't; more research is needed) backing unidentified singers.) But the changeover to "post-bubblegum", similarly "manufactured" music that was based on a "star" concept, and which has continued on all the way from 1970 to 2005, was already completed. The first "post-bubblegum star" was Bobby Sherman. 1970 was a big year for Bobby Sherman, a rock and roll guy who started out with a minimal amount of chart success in 1962. His "comeback" was huge. Who can forget "Hey little woman, please make up your mind. Come live in my world and leave your world behind." I can't. I have been waking up every morning with that song in my head for the last 35 years! Anyhow, if not for the work of early pioneers in the "bubblegum field" (now there's a song idea!) would "manufactured" bands as Abba and much later, singers like The Spice Girls and Britney Spears, have been possible? Not to mention The Osmonds, The DiFranco Family, The Cowsills (no wait that was also in 1968), The Partridge Family, every hit song of 1974, and (even) (although more like a "post-garage band" if you ask me) the Ramones? I doubt it. We owe it all to The Ohio Express, 1910 Fruitgum Company and The Lemon Pipers.

So wake up and smell the gum!

21. Yummy Yummy Yummy - The Ohio Express
22. Chewy Chewy - The Ohio Express
23. 1-2-3 Red Light - The 1910 Fruitgum Company I note in passing that the back-up singers sound exactly like Lou Christie's, as do a lot of other things about this production. So does that mean that Katz and Kasanek produced him, too? I'll have to look this up.
24. Green Tambourine - The Lemon Pipers
25. Orange Marmalade - The Lemon Pipers
26. Gimme Good Lovin' - The Crazy Elephants

8/13/05

Is this the hottest day of the year? It sure feels like it and that's what my air conditioner is telling me, too. It's going up to 98 or at least that's what they said on the radio. So due to lack of motivation to do anything else I got on www.weather.com and looked up weather in other places. Places with much nicer weather right now include not only Kansas City, Cleveland and San Diego, but also Sao Paulo, Veracruz Mexico, and even Monrovia in Liberia where today's expected high is 83. But the best weather for me that I found was in Rapid City South Dakota where it is going up to 57 today, down to 42 tonight and up to 70 tomorrow.

But the facts of what I need to do today and tomorrow remain. From my gigantic list of possible projects to work on, the things I really need to do include: 1) I have to track down a drummer who expressed an interest in joining DOMF a few months ago. 2) The 2x4's need to start doing shows soon but first I have to write to them about that so that "we're all on the same page" with that. 3) I have to get those 2x4's masters from the guy who has them so I'd better write him an email, and 4) I need to finish up the next draft of The 2x4's album cover art. 5) Also I could work because there's no shortage of that, but that's what I did last weekend and I didn't like it much. Things that I don't need to do today include 1) finding out about new bands that sound sort of like New Order like The Killers and The Bravery, 2) compulsively check www.weather.com every ten minutes to find out what the temperature is, 3) continue to work on an essay entitled "Why Kid Rock Is The Next Bob Dylan" even if it is true (well at least I think) that Bob Dylan is doing such a boring job of it these days that..., 4) and also I don't need to recompile the CDROM compilation that I put together a couple of years ago entitled "Nowheresville's Greatest Hits". Its subject is "bands and entertainers from the 60's that (almost) no one has ever heard of". But maybe I will do that. Well, maybe. (Note: I did that. And it is going very well.)

Meanwhile I have received a few comments about this blog. One is that I should be updating it more often (even if it does lead to posting boring paragraphs like the above is what I say). Another is that if I put the names of other bands on this page I will get more "hits". (I say that if I go in that direction much, sooner than not I'll end up turning this into a "Page 6" gossip column type thing and then everybody's gonna hate me. But I decided to start to do that anyway. [Talk about trouble brewing!] But there is a limit. If I start writing about hanging out with so and so who runs the such and such studio where blah blah blah was produced, it's gonna get ridiculous really fast. What I mean is that personally I'm totally against "name dropping INC." If you can't make it by your own merits then I say fuck it.) But Kevin Eleven asked me an entirely reasonable question, why did I suddenly redesign this blog, aren't they supposed to be like you leave everything up on it no matter what it is? Well that's a valid point. The answer is that a few days after I started it I didn't like the direction it was going in. But OK. So if I'm gonna go around "altering my blog", then why don't I put all that stuff back? (CLUNK!) There it is, put back. (It is after the picture of a Jackman, Maine.)

8/8/05

Just so ya know, there is a show coming up on TV about why people don't have sex anymore. The first time I ever heard of this trend was when I read George Orwell's "1984". As a sixteen year old kid it was difficult for me to comprehend that anyone would put up with "no sex".

I guess you can't see her pin clearly but the
writing on it says "Anti-Sex League". This is an
illustration of an "anti-sex rally". As the story
line goes, they are about to hook up. Well I
figure, so much for the anti-sex concept.
On the other hand, he is gonna be punished
for this, that's for sure! And as for her,
well I guess she was just "part of the system"
as if that wasn't punishment enough. (There,
that's the plot, so you don't have to read this.)

Meanwhile for lack of a better idea, here is a band that I used to like a lot when I was a teenager, and I still do. Can you name this band?

8/5/05

I has a dream the other night about swimming around in dirty water under a bridge. It would have been a good photo but I don't have one of that. So here is a picture of a power plant on the shores of The Ohio River instead.

8/3/05

I finally got to rehearse with those 2x4's again, up in Waltham, Mass. That stuff is really starting to rock! We need to play out soon. Also I went camping in northern Maine by myself. That went well. I pitched a tent then sat at a picnic table in the dark for hours. I was waiting for interesting animals to show up. It sure was quiet out there! And cold. It went down to 51 degrees. Also I went swimming in a beautiful lake, about a mile wide and four miles long, which turned out to have quite a current for such a small lake, and I climbed a mountain. Well, so much for that. It's hot here in Brooklyn and not exciting. Oh yeah, I forgot, blogs are supposed to be political aren't they? Yeah, well how about John Bolton? Yeah well how about him. I didn't think much of Michael Bolton either.

7/16/05

Today I continued my efforts to learn The 2x4's material for our rehearsal this coming week. Not only is it strange to come back to this music 25 years later, just in general, but it's also strange, for all of us, just how convoluted some of it is. I have joked that some of it is like "math rock using irrational numbers" but as I study such songs as "Guitar", "Aluminum", my ode to the strong possibility of a large-scale military conflict in Iran back in 1980 "Draft Registration Time", and the first song I wrote that was called "Iron Line" (a distant ancestor of my more current song "Iron Line") I am finding all of these music structures (songs) have a rather intensely applied logic to them throughout. Much like worn down obelisks poking out of barren rock fields in long-abandoned lands, there is scarcely a clue as to why anyone would write songs with structures like these, and yet the structures themselves are in fact decode-able. And I find that really heartening! Especially Tom's song, Guitar. I despaired of ever getting a grip on what that arrangement was about. But it's not all that complex. The stanzas are in pairs. The second pair of stanzas (4 per verse, usually but not always) is always with the chords reversed. Which only leaves about 5 other strange things about the arrangement, and that's not so bad. Well that's a real kick in the head. That's actually sort of easy! Or at least if it wasn't blasting along at 120 beats per minute or so, it would be.

But I can think of one reason why we all wrote and arranged stuff the way we did. We all worked in factories. So we were into precision, plus it was also a requirement of that line of business. Of course that kind of atmosphere is bound to make one feel "like a robot" to some extent, which of course meant that we needed to be able to "operate" both forward and in reverse. (A fact lost on many wannabe robotic bands but that's not our problem!) Sometimes this robotic-ness brought us happiness of a sort, like in my song "Bridgeport Lathe", boredom like in Tom's song "another day, another 8 hours, of boredom. I don't look up. From my work. "Cause it makes it worse", seriously frustrated like in my song "Recombinant Phase", or just plain fed up, like Tom's song about "put your finger in your eye while you're doing up your fly do the spazz. Spit up. Fall down. And do the spazz".

I guess it's a way of life that's fading into the past these days. Work in the factory during the week, go bowling at night, and work on your car (whether for basic transportation needs or classic-car-obsession needs we all did it) during the weekend. Then for summer vacation I usually went to Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and of course Industrial New Jersey.

Should I be giving The Dawn of Mechanized Farming equal time here or what? Yeah, obviously, but what can I say? Where we last left of we seemed to be moving in some new directions. Here's the lyrics to a new one that is starting to sound to me more than a bit like Public Image of all things.

The Dawn of Mechanized Farming

When your meat is someone else's poison
And the rains have flooded in
Your wasted time continues
But all you ever do is win
All you ever do is win
Residual benefits are there
As if in proof that you care
You live your life in suspense
As vegetation grows dense
Vegetation grows dense

It's the dawn of mechanized farming
A tractor showing up in every yard
It's the dawn of mechanized farming
Why did life used to be so hard?

When your poison is someone else's meat
Please do take a seat
You're nearly as untouched as a god
Until you feel that cattle prod
Until you feel that cattle prod
In a field where your seed has spilled
Whole continents and countries populate
Uh no, try to keep your head straight
Try to keep your head straight.

It's the dawn of mechanized farming
A combine parked on every blade of grass
It's the dawn of mechanized farming
Why does that make me want to kick some ass?

It's the dawn of mechanized farming
Silos popping up on every street
It's the dawn of mechanized farming
Why does that put me off my feed?

Copyright 2004, John Hovorka, Jr.

Meanwhile back in the past...

Local Boston bass player, feels alienated, writes some
songs about lathes and drill presses, needs to start band
(John Hovorka in his apartment, a.k.a.
"Eraserhead Villa", October 1978)

Scene from a typical 2x4's rehearsal
(Steve Donnelly, Tom Martel, September 1979)

7/15/05

Today's activities include getting ready for The 2x4's rehearsals in Massachusetts next week. The 2x4's were my first "original music" band back in 1978 - 1980. We intend to perform historical re-enactments of those events with original members of the band, myself and Steve, plus Rolfe Anderson who used to produce the 2x4's sessions on bass, and Matt LeBlanc on guitar. What I need to do this weekend is continue to re-learn this material.

Here is a picture of The 2x4's from back in 1979, relaxing in an abandoned factory in Lynn, Massachusetts during our photo session for the Bridgeport Lathe b/w Little Cities single.

The 2x4's John, Steve and Tom.

7/14/05

Here are some illustrations of things I thought about a lot when I was a kid.

The Snow Queen by
Hans Christian Anderson
("be the passenger" indeed)

Night in the city looks pretty to me?
Cracking towers. For all you aficionados of
industrial distillation processes out there.

7/12/05 Dream

I just woke up from a dream where I was sitting on the bench in front of The Brooklyn Ale House. A tiny, three foot high, shiny black, new VW pulled up at the stop sign on North 8th Street. There was a small, pretty woman sitting in the driver's seat. A little boy, maybe four years old, ran up to her and her car. He stood right next to the car, less than an inch away from touching it. Then he stayed there perfectly still for minutes on end. She didn't notice that he was there. I was afraid that if he didn't back away from the car that he would get his feet run over. Then I realized that the kid had something in common with me. When I was little the same thing happened to me, though with a few differences. When this happened to me the car was big, it was moving, and it ran over one of my feet. So I actually know what that feels like, to try to get close to a woman who is oblivious to the fact that I am there. It's not as bad as one might think, oh, I mean getting one's two biggest toes run over, by a huge yellow Fort Fairlane Station Wagon, although the woman did have to take me to the hospital and I was not walking so well for about a week. Also I was a bit older when that happened to me, almost six years old. Anyhow, in the dream, I wanted to yell at the kid to tell him to get away from the small black car with the woman in it, or to get up and do something about this. I tried to yell but no voice came out. This was just as well because while I was sleeping the window was open and people were in the courtyard below, about fifteen feet away. Then I tried to get up from the bench but I couldn't move. Then the whole scene of the kid, the woman, the street and the car looked like an illustration except moving. It turned out to be odd shaped cards being shuffled. I could see this from the point of view of the person or being that was shuffling the cards. I had a vague impression that it was a fairly old woman wearing a red kerchief who was doing this. Anyhow, what I had seen turned out to be one possibility among many. Who knows what sort of imagery that was, the black, relatively egg-shaped car, and a woman ignoring a child, because she was unable to sense that he was there. I note in passing that she also was not turning her head to check for any fast moving traffic coming up Berry Street before she went through the stop sign. And why didn't the child call out to her? Why did he just stand close to the black car and her in silence?

Jackman, Maine. 1980. My brother and I took a drive up there, climbed some mountains, and made my 1969 Chevy Nova (not pictured here) climb a mountain. That was a bad idea.

As promised, here is the stuff from my first draft of this blog, put back, just in case you're interested. This is from the 7/12/05 - 7/14/05 time period.

"Beautiful Field" Dream (2003)

I had a dream that I was waiting for a bus in the suburban looking part of "Generic American City". My dilemma was that the bus was not showing up. I had to get from one OK part of town to another quickly. But if I walked I would have to go through a bad area for about half a mile. It was the middle of the day so I figured it would be OK. I walked about two blocks down a street that I thought went to where I needed to go, but it ended. I was on top of a large hill. There was an incredibly beautiful vista of hills and lakes in front of me. In the far in the hazy distance I could see power lines and some skyscraper towers on the horizon. I had been in a different version of this place in other dreams. This landscape was more beautiful, yet it looked very dangerous. There was no evidence that people had ever been there except for one dirt road that ended at the end of a point of land that went out into the lakes. This road was fairly wide, had very neat edges and tire or bulldozer tracks on it. The entire landscape was way too neat. Its lines were way too clean. It was mostly hills covered with short grass or dirt, and not many trees. It was obvious to me that if I went down there it would be extremely difficult to get back. But I couldn't see anything obviously dangerous about it, so I walked down the hill and started across it. A woman appeared. I didn't know how I could have missed seeing her down there. She had tawny skin, long messy light brown hair, large breasts, large teeth, and eyes like those of a wild animal. I avoided her. Then an animal approached. It looked like a Chihuahua dog only much larger, about four feet in height. It began to speak to me in a nearly human voice. It said, "Ba ba wa wa, ba ba wa, wa" over and over again. It came closer. I was afraid of it. At this point I realized that I was in a dream, either that or Saturday Night Live. Nevertheless, it had me cornered on the descending ridge of this point of land. Then it began to bite me, over and over again. It had pointed teeth that were as sharp as glass. Then I woke up. It was six in the morning, and just barely light out.

It's not time for me to go to sleep yet, so check this out. I like this one. It is entirely factual from beginning to end. I wrote it about a year ago about my life in 1962 when I was eleven years old.

Johnny, Those Are Cracking Towers

Visiting my Grandma in Buffalo, New York was a regular part of my life. We drove there from Boston at least once a year. She had a Cocker Spaniel dog named Ebbie because he was black. I liked Ebbie. We went down into the basement to the "fruit cellar" together. There was no fruit, maybe a few canning jars, but there was a very old refrigerator full of RC soda pop. It was kind of dim and it smelled funny down there. I knew it was not an ancient Egyptian tomb, of course, but I liked to imagine that it was. My grandpa was there in Buffalo, too, but somehow he made a bit less of an impression on me. He was very serious and he seemed to keep to himself as much as he could. (Actually from what I've heard since, he was very sociable, but evidently, not around us.) I was impressed by the machine Shop where he was a vice president.

I can barely remember my early visits there, maybe a few glimpses of the highway there, or something. By the time I was six to ten these started to come into focus as a current memory. I looked at the trucks as we rode out, and the names of the truck companies, Spector, which was spelled sort of like an apparition, and CF which meant Continental Freightways, yet their logo looked sort of like CCCP, which might not be good advertising unless they were so far ahead of everyone else that they were preparing themselves for Life Under Communism. There were constantly more and more CF trucks.

After we got there, there was a billboard just a block away from my grandma's house, which I couldn't see from there, but I could see the light it made over the houses. It had an elf on it and it advertised a soft drink. I thought that it looked creepy when I saw it, but seeing it in my mind even though it was actually hidden from view gave me some sort of comfort, the idea that there might be something out there besides that which is kind of dull. I knew the elf was just a picture, but I felt like he was watching over us, for better or worse. The house was dimly lit on the inside, mostly by flame shaped bulbs in sconce-type fixtures, and there was more dark-stained woodwork there than I have ever seen anyplace else. When I learned how to read I read a huge series of little red books of stories with child characters with names like Corey and Nedrow. They had adventures that started in suburban backyards from the twenties, much like my Grandma's backyard but years before, then ended up in fantastic places. But these "fantastic places" began to fall flat of my expectations after the first few books. What I really liked reading was The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. She filled bad kid's eyes with bits of broken frozen ice, then they had to go through what I guess would amount to a repentance or realization to get back to the way they were to begin with. This sounded a bit threatening to me, and perhaps like it wasn't worthwhile to do anything really worth doing, like go off to ride with her on her sleigh, since it would make things worse. Still I hoped to somehow ride with her, and get out of the place where I always was.

The trip from Boston to Buffalo took about a day. First there were mileage markers that went from 138 to 1. Then there were markers that went from B-1 to B-37. And finally there were markers that went from 143 to 423. I didn't like the way the longest bunch of mileage markers came last. There was a black paved highway. Then there were concrete highways. My parent's 1955 Olds 98, a gift to them from my grandfather, made a clunk every time it hit the edge of yet one more concrete pavement slab. Who knows how many slabs there were. My dad turned on the radio to get in the classical music station out of Schenectady. That lasted a little while. Then we listened to a station out of Amsterdam, NY. They played "Just A Little Bit Of Luck" by Mitch Miller and His Orchestra. The constant repeating echoing chorus of this song was "Just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit of luck". I thought about luck for a minute. I guess I was not brought up to think much about luck. Still, I liked that song. Then that station got faint, too. My dad turned the radio off. I stared out of the back seat's right hand side window looking for something to look at. The flat part of the Mohawk Valley continued. I looked at the Thruway map. It said on the back that if you got tired of driving at 60 you could slow down to 50 for a while for a change of pace. That sounded like a bad idea so I didn't say anything about it. We passed the Gerber Baby Food factory in Herkimer, the LifeSavers candy factory in Canajoharie, and the typerwriter factory in Ilion. Eventually we would pass the Sylvania factory in Syracuse. I looked forward to that. It was huge and had a giant neon sign on top.

The only thing I didn't like about my grandparent's house in Buffalo was that there was almost nothing to read there. But it was full of dark paneled room, alcoves, and stairways. There were candle-shaped light bulbs that were ensconced in peaked-capped dark copper holders that looked like they had something to do with elves, and wall sconces with flame shaped bulbs in them that looked like they might have something to do with mummies. Of course these were perfectly ordinary art deco furnishings when the house was built in 1921. It was all quite cozy, albeit in an odd way. Yet when I looked beyond their yard, I wondered what the city might contain. I was at an age when I was just beginning to wonder. Breakfast was corn flakes with milk and sugar, and orange juice. I would get up early to sit with my grandma and look at the birds that were out in the yard. Mostly there were robins and sparrows. But often there were cardinals and blue jays, as well. Their stove was new and fancy, a huge GE. It had a long row of not very reassuring looking rectangular buttons that lit up in different colors, blue, green, orange, and red. These did not look like normal colors. They looked like sleek, cold, artificial colors that had just been invented. My mom told me that the stove was dangerous. I believed her. When the red button was lit the electric stove burners glowed red hot. But no matter what colored light was on, or even if there was no light on at all, the stove could still burn you. So I didn't trust those buttons, I stayed away. Early in the morning my grandma always had the radio on. It played music that I neither understood nor cared about, on and on. It sounded to me like it was always the same song. It was sort of soothing. It was hard to concentrate on. As soon as breakfast was done she would start preparing dinner and making a cake. Usually dinner was a pot roast and the cake was either a sponge cake or an angel food cake. The main course always included peas in butter, lots of mashed potatoes, and Jello off to the side. After dinner, if I wasn't too stuffed to even move I would go out and play. But there wasn't anything to do out there so I just walked around the outside of the house and looked at things. I saved going over a block to watch the cars and trucks going down the brick-paved Niagara Falls Boulevard for last. I wanted to leave something to look forward to. Their driveway was paved in concrete, just like The Thruway except smaller