Band History

Benjamin's Lights

In the summer of 1967, when I was 15 years old, my first band was formed.  We started out playing instrumentals -- songs like "Wipe Out", and "Walk, Don't Run".  After a few weeks, we located a vocalist, and were able to expand our playlist to such classics as "Gloria".  Our first public performance was a free show for the girls at the North Jersey Training School (now the North Jersey Developmental Center), in Totowa, N.J.  The band was called Benjamin's Lights, and featured Steve Thornton (bass guitar), Hadley Lubin (rhythm guitar), Glenn Parian (vocals), Bill Ford (drums), and me (lead guitar).  This photo was taken for the local newspaper, as publicity for the show:

After a few months, the band added Jack McMillan (another guitarist).  We started to play a lot of songs that had been recorded by the Rascals.  These included "Mickey's Monkey", "Love Is A Beautiful Thing", "Sueno", "Mustang Sally", and "Find Somebody".  In February of 1968 we performed at the Packanack Lake Community Church.  It was the first time we were paid for performing -- $2 each.  We were the second band that night -- the first band played for an hour, then took a one hour break while the second band played, and then returned for a final hour.  A few weeks later, we returned for another show, and this time we were the first band.  Since we didn't have two hours worth of songs, we had to repeat a few, but we did get a 50% increase to $3 each.  (Of course, we worked 100% more than the first show, so maybe that wasn't all that great.)

Also in February, for my 16th birthday, I obtained a Sony reel-to-reel tape deck, and we immediately set out to record the band.  We recorded a dozen or so songs, over two separate days, and also filmed the sessions with an 8mm movie camera.  We used two microphones (for stereo), although one of the two was defective, and had a very poor frequency response.  The vocalists sang directly into the microphones, which also picked up the guitars and drums.  Despite the lack of quality equipment and recording experience, the tapes turned out well.

Inside Contingency

Conflicts within the band caused a break-up a few months later, with Hadley and Steve leaving.  Kevin Quigley took over on bass guitar, despite a lack of experience with the instrument.  The band was renamed -- we were now "Inside Contingency".  In the fall of 1968 we went to the WABC radio studios in New York City to record a song for their "Big Break" competition, which was a nightly segment on the Bruce "Cousin Brucie" Morrow show.  The Beatles were about to release the "White Album", and WABC had been playing tracks from the album, including "Birthday".  We decided we could impress the contest judges by playing such a new (and as yet unreleased) song, so we quickly learned it in time for the WABC session.  They set us up in a recording studio, and spent a couple of hours recording the song.  A few weeks later it was played on the Big Break segment.  We didn't make the finals, but it was an interesting experience -- we met many of the DJs we listened to, as well as sportscaster Howard Cosell.

This band lasted for about a year.  We played a few shows around town, but were never able to get into a Battle of the Bands, which would have given us more exposure.  Glenn Parian added a Farfisa organ to the band, and we attempted some Vanilla Fudge songs, notably "You Keep Me Hangin' On".  We played at a few house parties, and one event which featured another local band, "Ivory Castle", which included Hadley Lubin on bass guitar.  In the summer of 1969, we had a jam session with some of the members of both bands -- Bill Ford and me from Inside Contingency, and Hadley Lubin and Joel Weingarten (keyboards)  from Ivory Castle.  The sessions went so well that we decided to form a new band with that lineup.

Benjamin

Before we could get that band together, Bill Ford moved away, so we had to find a new drummer.  We eventually found Ron Yanni, whose older brother was in a band that had actually released an album, so that gave him some extra credibility.  We also added Joel's sister Robyn Weingarten as the vocalist.  This band was known as "Benjamin".

Benjamin performed at a number of local events, including a couple of dances at my high school (DePaul, in Wayne, NJ).  We were also regulars at Temple Beth Tikvah, in Wayne, where they had dances once a month or so.  Eventually we auditioned to played at one of the clubs in Greenwood Lake, NY.  These clubs were just across the border from New Jersey, to take advantage of the lower drinking age in New York.  Unfortunately for us, they were unable to hire us since our vocalist was underage.

During this period we were recording most of our live performances, but few of those recordings were judged good enough to keep.  We also did a few "studio" recordings during our practice sessions.  Joel had started writing songs, so we recorded a few of those also.  Despite trying a series of more sophisticated recording techniques, we were never able to achieve results as good as in our first attempt with Benjamin's Lights.

There were more personnel changes -- Hadley left again and was replaced by Marty Bykowsky, and then Marty Becker.  Ron also left, and we brought in Chris Mauriello to play drums.  At one point, Carmen Cosentino was added as a second guitarist.  None of these changes really improved the band, which had gone just about as far as it was going to go.  I had become less interested as the music focus changed direction to become more jazz-oriented.  But what eventually broke up the band for good was the departure of Joel to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston in the fall of 1971.

We did get together for one more set of recording sessions, in January of 1972, during Joel's semester break from MIT.  He had a few new songs, so we started working on them.  We completed the music for several, but didn't have time to do the vocals.

Afterwards

After Benjamin broke up, I was never able to get another band together.  I moved to Dutchess County, NY, in 1974 to start my career with IBM, and bought an acoustic guitar to play in my apartment.  After I bought my first house, I was able to get my guitar and amp that I used with the bands, and play at the house.  But gradually other things took priority -- without a band to practice for there didn't seem to be much point in playing.  I did eventually pick up an electronic keyboard which I do play once in a while.

Benjamin's Anthology

In December of 1998, I discovered the Sony tape deck that I had received for my 16th birthday, in a cabinet in my garage, along with a number of tapes.  The tape deck didn't work, but I was able to get it running again, at least long enough to transfer the music on the tapes to my computer.  These tapes included the original Benjamin's Lights sessions from February 1968, the Big Break performance on WABC, some live recordings of Benjamin, and the final sessions from January 1972.  Once the music was in digital form, I brought the computer to work at 5 AM one morning and transferred the music files to our server, then used the CD burner to create two master discs.  With the help of my son Kevin, I made jewel box inserts and disc labels for a two-CD set and called it "Benjamin's Anthology".  I was able to locate many of my former band members via the internet, and sent them copies of the CDs.

In 2005 I had my old 8mm and Super-8 movies converted to digital format on a DVD.  One of these was the video of the original Benjamin's Lights recording sessions from 1968.