Howard Rodman Interview

sees Eno ejected from venue prior to gig

While talking with Howard Rodman, his well chosen words and confident delivery point directly to his long career as a writer and professor. So, it was a bit surprising when he said his career started with 4 failed unpublished novels. This resulted in some soul searching that would land him in a band smack in the heart of New York City's No Wave scene in 1978.

What would be called No Wave applied to much more than just rock bands forging outrageous sounds and doing performances with instruments they’d only recently picked up for the first time.  Lower Manhattan was full of artists, poets, filmmakers and other creative people that were forming this community.  Many were grabbing at the energy created by the seemingly imploding punk scene, wanting to push it much further in the direction of upsetting the status quo.  All were pursuing the same make-it-there/make-it-anywhere fantasy of NYC that still exists. But, there was one thing that brought them together in SOHO and The Lower East Side:   cheap rent.

Throughout the 1970’s, major urban centers all over America were in rapid decline.  By the mid 70’s, NYC was going bankrupt.  Landlords were torching their buildings for the insurance payout.  Whole neighborhoods were turning into rubble.  Rodman fondly recalls the Daily News headline paraphrasing the attitude coming from the White House regarding a bailout in 1975:   “Ford to City: Drop Dead”.  It would just get worse … a lot worse.  1977 saw a major power blackout turn NYC into a war zone.  

The end of 1977 would see the Sex Pistols begin a tour of the USA.  They skipped NY knowing they would stir up more controversy in the south.  After 8 gigs in a little more than 2 weeks, Johnny Rotten was done with them and they parted ways in San Francisco in mid January 1978.  Sid Vicious found his way back to NYC, and at the end of September he did his last shows at Max’s Kansas City.  That club, along with CBGB’s, would be a frequent venue for the newly forming No Wave bands.

In early 1978, two music producers relocated to NYC attracted to the collision of creativity that was now reaching a critical mass.  Both of these men were steeped in the progressive directions that rock music had evolved from in the early 70’s.  

Giorgio Gomelsky and Brian Eno had come to NYC looking for talent.

At 44, Gomelsky was much older than most of the musicians he would find himself now working with.  He almost became famous in the early 60’s as the first manager of the Rolling Stones.  It was his work with the Yardbirds that would cement his name into the rock history books.  Prior to his NYC move he was working in France with the bands Magma and Gong.  Gong founder Daevid Allen also started the English band Soft Machine.  Gomelsky produced recordings of all these bands and many more, cutting a path through the psychedelic 60’s to the avant-rock 70’s, along with some free-jazz excursions for good measure.

Eno was not only much younger than Gomelsky, he was also much more famous; at least within the scene they were both now exploring.  Rodman recalls seeing him often at coffee shops.  His glam image from the Roxy Music days was well behind him.  Now he was well known for his more experimental recordings with kraut rockers, his Berlin sessions with David Bowie, and his work with Robert Fripp’s “Frippertronics” (the tape loop technique which Eno first introduced to Fripp).  

Fripp had arrived in NYC before Eno, and after touring with Peter Gabriel he found an apartment very close to CBGB’s.  His proximity at this time would hook him up with Blondie, and although he would not produce their recordings, he would play guitar with them in between work on his own first and only solo studio album “Exposure” which would take all of 1978 to complete.

Along with Blondie, another band would launch a major label career out of CBGB’s:  Talking Heads.  Eno had seen them play in London in ‘77 and soon struck up a friendship that would bring him to NYC in the new year.  He would produce their 2nd album at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas.  This would be the first of three Eno produced Talking Heads albums that would point a new direction for rock music to explore.  I feel compelled to point out that just a couple of months later, at this same studio in the Bahamas, another album would be recorded that would put the final nail in the coffin of the classic prog era.  That album was ELP’s “Love Beach”.  I’m a huge ELP fan, so I couldn’t resist this point of context:  out with the old and in with the new.

While Eno was back in NYC in 1978 to complete work on the Talking Heads album, he caught wind of this new collection of artists that, like him, considered themselves non-musicians but took up instruments anyway and imposed their will on the club/loft scene near were Eno was living.   Made In USA was one of these bands and Howard Rodman was their guitarist.  His experience on guitar up to that point consisted mainly of strumming an acoustic during his dorm days at school.  He needed an electric guitar.  The shop that he went to showed him this clear, plastic body guitar.  He took a liking to it, especially after they informed him it was Tom Verlaine’s guitar from the band Television.  Eno had done some demo recording with Television well prior to this.  Maybe he was using this guitar at those sessions.

Rodman was using it now, and Made In USA was soon rehearsing and gigging.  Someone in the band had met Gomelsky who was now living in a 3 story quasi-industrial building in the Chelsea district.  He was offering rehearsal space there, and if he liked what you were doing it was free!  It’s not entirely clear when Giorgio took a liking to Made In USA, but they took full advantage of the space.

Eno, Gomelsky, and almost all of these artists and bands that were creating this scene lived in a fairly small area in lower Manhattan around the venues that would support the scene.  It was a fairly tight-knit community.  Some would say even tribal.  They would run into each other a lot, not just at gigs but on the street or in cafes.  Given all that, in my research and many interviews with the participants, I was a bit surprised that I have not been able to find anyone who witnessed Eno and Gomelsky together.  Until now.

Howard Rodman was preparing for a gig with Made In USA.  This time they weren’t playing at a club, or one of the regular artist loft spaces.  This time they were setting up at Gomelsky’s Zu Haus, which was their rehearsal space most of the time, and performance/party space for many bands some of the time.  Through this arrangement, Giorgio had come to know a long list of bands and he had a plan.  The Zu plan.  

Part of the plan included the Zu Records label.  To launch Zu Records Gomelsky would create a day long music event called the Zu Manifestival.  The recordings from the festival were supposed to be the first release by Zu Records.  He would then take the Zu plan on the road.  Soon every household in America with a thinking music fan inside would be gobbling up avant progressive music produced and presented by Zu.  Made In USA could be part of this plan.

As Rodman set up to play the Zu Haus gig, I don’t know if he was thinking much about the Zu plan, although his band Made In USA would play the Manifestival.  Rodman was more likely thinking about the setlist he was about to perform, when Eno enters the room.  Had he come to check out his band?  Would Made In USA be auditioning for Brian Eno in a matter of seconds?  After all, around this same time Eno would recruit a handful of bands to document this scene before it flamed-out, which he was certain it would do, such was the intensity of the personalities and the music.  He would record four bands on the “No New York” album.  Now the scene had a name.  No Wave.

For Rodman and his band mates, this just turned into no ordinary gig.  Just as the nervous tension began to ooze through his body, he heard a loud low voice bellowing from the other side of the room.  It was Gomelsky.  He saw Eno enter his Zu Haus, and he was apparently NOT happy about it.  He directed a few choice words right at Eno which ended with “GET OUT!”.    No more words were exchanged.  That was it.  End of non-conversation.  Eno silently left.

Wow.  What just happened?  I don’t know if Rodman was thinking that, but that’s what I was thinking when he told me this.  Why would Gomelsky seem to lash out at Eno like that?  I have zero accounts of their paths crossing previous to this.  But I do know a few things about Gomelsky.

Early in his music career he was the first manager of the Rolling Stones.  He hired them as the house band for his new Crawdaddy Club in London.  After a few months of building an audience and getting a lot of attention, Gomelsky was called away to attend to his father’s funeral in Europe.  He returned to discover the Stones had hired a new manager.  His agreement with the Stones was not in writing.  There was no contract, so there was little he could do about these new circumstances except find another band, which he soon did.  His new house band would be the Yardbirds with Eric Clapton.  With this band he made sure he had an ironclad contract.  But even with that, after a few successful years together the band would fire him.

With the backing of Polydor Records records, Gomelsky was able to start his own record label called Marmalade.  An amazing stable of musicians recorded some of their earliest work with Gomelsky, including John McLaughlin,  Keith Tippett, Rod Stewart, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger, Soft Machine, and Frabjoy and the Runcible Spoon, better know as Godley and Creme.  Some of these recordings would not get released because Marmalade eventually went bankrupt.  Some have actually been released recently in nicely remastered editions.

Gomelsky had a talent for finding talent.  He did not have a talent for making money.  On the brink of success the talent would move on.

Now he was in NYC with his Zu vision.  The talent he soon found was a young Bill Laswell.  He gave him a place to live and rehearse.  He asked him to put a band together.  They would be Gomelsky’s latest house band, and would be called … wait for it … Zu Band.  

Rodman remembers seeing Zu Band rehearse at Zu Haus.  They were already miles ahead in talent to whatever Made In USA was able to do.  Rodman would say “we were chopped liver” compared to them.

So, Gomelsky finds himself in the same position he’s been in many times during his career.  He’s discovered Bill Laswell and he knows they can have success.

And then Eno walks into the room.

How well Laswell may have known Eno at this time in unclear.  Probably not very well.  That would change.  At some point in 1978 Eno and David Byrne would start work on “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts”, and Laswell would play bass on the albums first cut.  In 1979 the Zu Band would record an EP, rename themselves Material, and release it first on Zu Records.  It may be the only release on Zu Records.  Members of Material would begin to form a production team that would do some of its first work with Brian Eno for the album “On Land”.  Not long after that Material would have major success – as in Grammy Award success – helping Herbie Hancock make the hit record “Future Shock”.

Exactly what was going through Gomelsky’s mind when he saw Eno enter the Zu Haus that night will probably never be known.  Perhaps just prior to bellowing out the words “GET OUT” he was having a premonition.  Afterall, he’d seen this happen before.

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