NEW ORDER PART 3: DENNIS THOMPSON


Well, we are moving along with the work, and have settled into a very comfortable groove. Wasn’t many gigs in LA as Ron tells in the liner notes of the New Order album. So we decided to head back to Michigan and attempted to play the Second Chance ballroom in Ann Arbor. The owner almost did not book us as he was worried if anyone would show up. So like in the old days we flyered the whole city. “The New Order Returns to Play Michigan One Time” kind of wordage. Well, we packed the joint.


There was a cue around the block and many people couldn’t get in. Bravo! We then played some other less noteworthy gigs in Michigan and went back to LA with slick guitarist Ray Gunn. Ray was into King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and David Bowie among many other eccentric type bands. Hell he had an echoplex. He added another dimension to our musicianship. He was an eccentric lead guitar player with tons of energy and loaded with enthusiasm. Ray rounded out the band just fine thank you.


We had already recorded the first half of the New Order album. Ray contributed “Never Be the Same Again”, a love song, and a good one at that.

We head back to LA and we play the Starwood club, did some performance art onstage (tell ya later) the Troubadour, and some clubs out at Redondo beach.

We don’t have many venues to play as LA was into disco music then. Hard rock was like us, Van Halen and a few other brave bands. We needed a record deal in the worst way.

Enter Kim Fowley and he hooks us up with Mercury records. We now have enough songs to record the second half of our first record. Bud Latisitch, our rehearsal room proprietor, used to be the director of the NBC house orchestra, and he went to them and snagged a horn section. They appear on “Lucky Strike”, and “Sidewinder”.

I pretty much wrote Sidewinder with Ronny. The tempo is in 7/4 which bands didn’t attempt to play very often . Tricky time to play in. The added depth of the horns was trick and we now had the record.


Mercury records had pretty much agreed to sign the band and all they needed to do was to see us perform live one time and the deal would be sealed. A debut showcase gig was booked at the Starwood Club. If ever we needed to shine on stage this was it. Stay tuned to the next post as it will be a blockbuster.

MGT
As we were getting ready to do this post we ran into a post about Ron on the Bonfide Records Blog. Go check it out HERE


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