The First Night The Cars Performed at The Rat in Boston ...a Tribute to Ben Twenty-Three Days After His Passing

 Previously  published in Christopher Conville's The Cars' Digital Fanzine magazine

 Memories from Joe Viglione on October 26, 2000, twenty-three days after Ben's passing

Ben Orr LIVE Government Center, Boston   Photos Joe Viglione

Visual Radio - Hosted and Directed by Joe Viglione

https://youtu.be/HWEXiy_XPE0

 

The first night The Cars performed at The Rat there were a handful of Boston musicians - Jon Macey of Fox Pass, Scott Baerenwald of Reddy Teddy and believe it or not, The Archies Live! (later The Modern Lovers and Robin Lane), Aerosmith chick from  "Back in the Saddle" Suky Jones - girlfriend of David Robinson - ex Modern Lovers drummer and now drummer for “the new” Captain Swing known as "the Cars."

We had heard Captain Swing on the DJ named Oedipus’ show on WTBS (now WMBR) and taped the songs. This was a fun night; I remember the band playing “Gimme A Little Sign”, the Brenton Wood song, and “Don’t Worry Baby”, the Beach Boys tune. We were Cars fans from the start, they had something special.

The last time I saw Ben was at The Paradise in March of 1999 when he performed with Brad Delp of the band Boston in a double bill. On the couch were Greg Hawkes, David Robinson and Ben Orr for the first time in years. Someone told me to videotape it, as I was allowed to video the concert, but the moment was special - and why throw a camera in their faces? It was great to see the guys two decades later.

When I found out that Ben had passed away, it was the second time a tragedy came via the internet. The first being the passing of legendary producer Nik Venet, which absolutely stunned me. These people have done more than contribute to music, they are warm human beings who I personally have fond memories of, so one can only imagine the loss when the kind thoughts that follow someone’s death are sincere... and the loss of Nik and Ben Orr are major losses. Then to get the E-mail that Gerard Spring, publicist for Johnny Barnes and Ben Orr died a week

after Ben, indeed sad and tragic.

 

Photograph: Joe Viglione's Varchives

So when we play Ben’s music does he hear us? I don’t know. But I DO know that he knew while he was alive that he was loved for his music. When he saw us show up at show after show it meant something to him. It meant something to us. These are not just good memories, they are GREAT memories of a GREAT performer - and

talking about him is important. It is about keeping the flame alive. It would be easy to go over the videos - we taped four - and there is a show from Illinois which I have on tape too - and talk about the show... I remember the VH1 show in Cleveland Circle where Ken Shelton the WBOS jock there, the band had no keyboard player, so Rich from the Fools and John Kalishes really made it “Led Zeppelin Meets The Cars” which was John Kalishes’ flavor, for sure. A truly interesting performance with Rich playing the keyboard lines. Fun shows. The Beach Club in Salisbury Beach, Government Center, The Paradise, and the tons of Cars shows we saw, from their opening for Brian Ferry and J Geils at the Cape Cod Coliseum, to the headlining gig in Providence when Willie Alexander opened (I took a photo of Ric OCasek backstage that night that is around here somewhere...) - have that on audio tape somewhere around here too. The night in Lynn with Don the soundman playing us all the Cars demos, the night in the suburbs taping the Cars in a gig outside of the Boston scene - Jon Macey talking about how Captain Swing would open for Fox Pass and how he pushed them in a stylistic direction with clothing and ideas that helped mold THE CARS Ben Orr is still alive in the thoughts of his fans, and with the great body of music he created. The Cars Digital Fanzine keeps that music alive... these are just some scattered thoughts, twenty-three days after his passing.

– Joe Viglione

 

JOE V REVIEWS MILKWOOD

https://clubbohemianews.blogspot.com/2022/03/when-greg-ben-and-ric-were-milkwood.html

 

Christopher Conville used to publish all things Cars in the 1990s and 2000s. He sent me this from the Ben Orr Memorial at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nov 10, 2000. Another interesting note: somewhere out there is a tape of the Cars live with guest star Richard Nolan of Third Rail performing Lou Reed's "I'm Waitin for the Man." Richard has passed away but had a copy of the tape, so there may be other copies floating around. My notes from way back when: > Richard Nolan of Third Rail performed  I'M WAITING FOR THE MAN with THE CARS backing him up at THE RAT. He has it on tape. It's a Velvet Underground  song. Ric O'Casek was his producer. I have a 45 of Third Rail produced by> Ocasek" Finding these gems in my e mail account from ...22 years ago now! I wrote a story for Mr. Conville's CARS fanzine. Will try to find it.

 

An anonymous source sent us the tracking for SEND ME which was on The Demo That Got The Deal Vol 1 ...Adrian Medeiros of Tangerine Zoo and John Kalishes of Susan/Ben Orr Band were the driving forces behind THE BLACK. They did a previous song that I also put out, "We're Still Standing" featuring Charlie Farren. I remember being at Christina's Nightclub in Scituate which Mr. Kalishes booked. He had a battle of the bands and we were judges (Harvey Wharfield of 93.7 FM WCGY and yours truly.) In the car they played us "We're Still Standing" and it was amazing hearing it for the first time. Then Adrian and John came to me with "Send Me." Since these golden days we've lost Adrian, John Kalishes, his brother Vinnie Kalishes, Vinnie's son "little Vinny." Ben Orr, our audio engineer Matt ....it is both sad and surreal. The music, however, lives on. Here are the liner notes from an anonymous source on the old Deja Newsgroup: Group: alt.music.thecars Date: Tue, Feb 18, 2003, 12:21am (EST-1)....nineteen years ago. Demo That Got The Deal Vol 1 was released in 1997, though the show started Oct 6, 1991 on 93.7 FM WCGY Adrian Medeiros was on a major label in the 1960s with his Tangerine Zoo.

Ben Orr and The Black: SEND ME

 

Here are some side notes about "Send Me" : It was written as an

*answer* to the Cars' "Drive" and the lyrical bridge was written in the studio. (Good story behind that)

The players on "Send Me" were:

Benjamin Orr- vocals, bass, and some drum sampling

John Kalishes- rhythm guitar and some licks here and there plus, some drum fills.

Greg Hawkes- played some keys and did background vocals

Barry Goudreau (Boston)- played slide-guitar

Adrian Medeiros- played some keys, and did background vocals

David Stefanelli- did some drum sampling, and background vocals

Barbara Muir- is the female voice saying "send me" at the end

A guy named Steve (a friend of Adrian's who's last name escapes me, did some background vocals too.)

It was recorded in 1994 at Tranquility Base, Prophet and Longview

Studios in MA.

 

The engineers were Andre Kolavarik, Chris Lannon and Jesse Henderson. Personal assistance for Ben and John was provided by David Tedeschi.

It was the beginning of the concept for the Orr Band.

Stephen Paul Perry of Rick Berlin The Movie mastered the CD in 1997. Adrian Medeiros and John Kalishes did the contract negotiations again, and it was a deep honor to work with these brilliant, highly creative friends of mine - genuine people we all miss terribly. 

https://demothatgotthedeal.blogspot.com/

 

 

The Demos that got the Deal for the Cars Starting October 6, 1991 with David Minehan of The Neighborhoods, my Demo That Got The Deal (TM) show was launched on 93.7 WCGY. Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, RTZ (Brian Maes, Barry Goudreau, Tim Archibald, Brad Delp,) Letters to Cleo, Peter Wolf of J Geils, Barry Tashian of The Remains all graced our #1 Sunday night show. The RTZ track of "Dreams" live was our #1 request ...I asked Greg Hawkes to appear on the show. We went into Dave Frangioni's studio on Rawson Road in Arlington, MA and cleaned up Greg's cassette tape to play on the air. About 7 years later 1999 Elektra put out The Cars Deluxe with most of the demos I heard at their engineer's home back in the 1970s on the disc. WBCN DJ Maxanne Sartori who really discovered the Cars (via their manager at the time, Fred Lewis, former Atlantic or Elektra promo man in New England) was kind enough to reference the show in her liner notes to this 1999 release almost 24 years ago....how time flies! JV We have a full interview with Greg on DAT tape, and he appeared on my television show two additional times thus far.