Continuing on from Pt. 9 and Payne St…So Bob, in his infinite wisdom, or perhaps just to get me the hell off his couch, found me a place to live with his Thanatopsis Throne bandmate Jonathan Torn,who needed a roommate. This was pre-ST 37. I was still an Elegant Doormat with Leigh Newsom and John Foxworth.
Jon-Leon Torn is the son of Rip Torn and Geraldine Page, two of the finest actors of the 20th century. Jon’s twin brother Tony still acts regularly in various NYC productions. Jon and I hit it off right away. He was the first person I knew with an actual 4-track cassette recorder, a Tascam Porta One. Magnificent machine! We started collaborating and recording various things on it. Jon had a keyboard and a bass.
Jon had a second floor two bedroom apartment in West Campus in a dingy little building called the DeLerma Apartments, at 1907 Robbins Place. Well, the name has changed, but little else had.
The ride was pretty uneventful. I took my usual route through the park and up Lavaca to MLK. It was a pleasure to sit in the shady courtyard and reminisce. Bob Schneider lived in a ground floor apartment on the opposite side of the building and was always bugging us for weed and wanting to record stuff with us on the four track. It seems a little bizarre today, but back then having a home recording rig like the Tascam was a Holy Grail for musicians. And they were not cheap!
Here’s one of the later things we did on Jon’s 4-track that actually turned out pretty good. Turkey Larceny, Thanksgiving 1987:
https://themorayeeels.bandcamp.com/track/the-occasional-cripple
That’s my ex June on the hysterical vocal bits. Not bad! So, eventually our sojourn on Robbins Place came to an end as Jon wanted to return to the Torn family townhouse in NYC for summer 1988. Off I went to lean on another bandmate for shelter.
st37.com 