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Making It: Music, Sex & Drugs in the Golden Age of Rock
For those too young to have lived it, or too high to remember it… Turn on, tune in, and ride along in the front car of the rollercoaster life of Ted Myers, as he chases his dreams of rock stardom through the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Although he never quite makes it, he has many wonderful—and not-so-wonderful—adventures, and rubs shoulders with some of the true icons of folk, rock, and pop culture, including Bob Dylan, James Taylor, The Who, Procol Harum, Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Van Morrison, Steely Dan, Chevy Chase, Timothy Leary and even Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
328 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 13, 2017
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About the author
Ted Myers
11 books42 followersABOUT THE AUTHOR
After twenty years trembling on the brink of rock stardom and fifteen years working at record companies, Ted Myers left the music business—or perhaps it was the other way around—and took a job as a copywriter at an advertising agency. This cemented his determination to make his mark as an author.
As a musician, Ted sang, played guitar, and wrote songs for five seminal rock bands between 1964 and 1984. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these was his first, The Lost, based in Boston MA. They were signed to Capitol Records in 1965, and were thought of as big stars in Boston and upstate New York at a time when fans of local bands didn’t know they were only a regional phenomenon. In 1967 Ted started Chamaeleon Church (with Chevy Chase on drums!), and, in the ‘70s, two more bands in California. But, ironically, the most well-known band he played with was Ultimate Spinach, a San Francisco-style Boston band that was founded in 1967. When they lost their founder and lead singer, Ted and his co-writer, Tony Scheuren were tapped to fill in for one last album and tour in 1969. In 1972 he wrote the song “Going in Circles” for the major motion picture “X, Y & Zee” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Caine. It was recorded by Three Dog Night on two of their albums and a top-20 single, selling about 6 million records. As a compilation producer for Rhino Records, his folk box set Washington Square Memoirs earned a Grammy® nomination in 2001.
His short fiction has appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies. His epic and amusing memoir, Making It: Music, Sex & Drugs in the Golden Age of Rock was published in 2017. Fluffy’s Revolution, published in 2019, was his first novel. His second novel, Paris Escapade, was published in December 2020. The forthcoming Tales From the Hereafter is a themed collection of short stories, all first-person accounts of what it’s like to be dead. It is scheduled for publication in August 2023.
Ted lives alone in Santa Monica, CA, a happy recluse.
After twenty years trembling on the brink of rock stardom and fifteen years working at record companies, Ted Myers left the music business—or perhaps it was the other way around—and took a job as a copywriter at an advertising agency. This cemented his determination to make his mark as an author.
As a musician, Ted sang, played guitar, and wrote songs for five seminal rock bands between 1964 and 1984. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these was his first, The Lost, based in Boston MA. They were signed to Capitol Records in 1965, and were thought of as big stars in Boston and upstate New York at a time when fans of local bands didn’t know they were only a regional phenomenon. In 1967 Ted started Chamaeleon Church (with Chevy Chase on drums!), and, in the ‘70s, two more bands in California. But, ironically, the most well-known band he played with was Ultimate Spinach, a San Francisco-style Boston band that was founded in 1967. When they lost their founder and lead singer, Ted and his co-writer, Tony Scheuren were tapped to fill in for one last album and tour in 1969. In 1972 he wrote the song “Going in Circles” for the major motion picture “X, Y & Zee” starring Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Caine. It was recorded by Three Dog Night on two of their albums and a top-20 single, selling about 6 million records. As a compilation producer for Rhino Records, his folk box set Washington Square Memoirs earned a Grammy® nomination in 2001.
His short fiction has appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies. His epic and amusing memoir, Making It: Music, Sex & Drugs in the Golden Age of Rock was published in 2017. Fluffy’s Revolution, published in 2019, was his first novel. His second novel, Paris Escapade, was published in December 2020. The forthcoming Tales From the Hereafter is a themed collection of short stories, all first-person accounts of what it’s like to be dead. It is scheduled for publication in August 2023.
Ted lives alone in Santa Monica, CA, a happy recluse.
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January 14, 2018
"The long, hard road"
Ted Myers and I share more than a first name. I felt like I'd found a kindred spirit from the other side of the pond. I chronicled my own decade of trying to 'make it' in 2011, with a book of memories from being in bands in the 60's and early 70's. It was my first literary venture, and although I didn't know it at the time, it sparked a torrent of writing that continues to this day.
Only a few months separate Ted and I in age. I too found rock and roll as my earliest musical interest, and when Eddie Cochran died six miles up the road from where I lived it was as if someone had blotted out the sun. When Buddy Holly had died in '59, my schoolmates and I held a minute's silence before the first lesson of the day. The ancient chemistry teacher waited patiently, without a clue as to who we were mourning.
I dabbled with folk, jazz, blues, and even French artists like George Brassens for a short while. as rock and roll seemed to falter in its stride. Then, I found Chuck and Bo, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy and John Lee Hooker. Step by step, I ticked off the common events that Ted encountered in Boston.
Those first few gigs, the ladies, the hassle with agents and promoters. The total lack of appreciation for popular music from those people we met on our first trips to recording studios. Yes, everything was exactly the same on both sides of the Atlantic.
As his story moved west to Laurel Canyon, names from the UK that he mentioned were often people we had played with. Some, we knew better than others. Musicians like Noel Redding, before he joined Hendrix, Phil Collins in the early days of Genesis. Robert Palmer in two of the groups he sang with before going solo. The underrated Terry Reid cropped up too; a great set of pipes. Many were terrific company, and supportive. Others didn't give you the time of day. More ticks beside passages in Ted's book.
Ted's story tells it as it was, warts and all. The girls, the drugs, the never-ending knock-backs. This is where our paths took different directions. I've been married to the same girl for forty-six years. This severely restricted my following Ted's hedonistic lifestyle, for which I have no regrets whatsoever. The drugs which dominated Ted's life for many years left their scars. They were around, throughout the time I was in bands, but I was never tempted. The third theme, from the west coast that Ted battled, were those knock-backs. We share those by the container-load.
'Making It.' is a genuine story of how it was back in the day. It rings true with everything I experienced at the same time, thousands of miles away. Ted moved on to Rhino Records, and came out relatively unscathed at the other end. I found a 'proper' job and promoted gigs, managed a band, and still review bands every week or so. That itch you needed to scratch when you first got up on a stage with a guitar, or a mike, in my case, and tried to make music, never leaves you.
People ask me if I miss the long journeys in clapped-out vans, smelling of stale beer and unwashed colleagues, dressing rooms the size of broom cupboards, and breaking down on the way home. Arguments at venues over how long we were to play, at what volume, and for how much money? Do I miss the performing, and the rehearsing, and the bashing your head against the brick wall around the record companies as you were trying to get that break? Well, now you come to mention it - only every day.
What a time it was to be sharing similar experiences as Ted Myers. They were truly Golden Days. From one Ted to another. Many thanks.
Ted Myers and I share more than a first name. I felt like I'd found a kindred spirit from the other side of the pond. I chronicled my own decade of trying to 'make it' in 2011, with a book of memories from being in bands in the 60's and early 70's. It was my first literary venture, and although I didn't know it at the time, it sparked a torrent of writing that continues to this day.
Only a few months separate Ted and I in age. I too found rock and roll as my earliest musical interest, and when Eddie Cochran died six miles up the road from where I lived it was as if someone had blotted out the sun. When Buddy Holly had died in '59, my schoolmates and I held a minute's silence before the first lesson of the day. The ancient chemistry teacher waited patiently, without a clue as to who we were mourning.
I dabbled with folk, jazz, blues, and even French artists like George Brassens for a short while. as rock and roll seemed to falter in its stride. Then, I found Chuck and Bo, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy and John Lee Hooker. Step by step, I ticked off the common events that Ted encountered in Boston.
Those first few gigs, the ladies, the hassle with agents and promoters. The total lack of appreciation for popular music from those people we met on our first trips to recording studios. Yes, everything was exactly the same on both sides of the Atlantic.
As his story moved west to Laurel Canyon, names from the UK that he mentioned were often people we had played with. Some, we knew better than others. Musicians like Noel Redding, before he joined Hendrix, Phil Collins in the early days of Genesis. Robert Palmer in two of the groups he sang with before going solo. The underrated Terry Reid cropped up too; a great set of pipes. Many were terrific company, and supportive. Others didn't give you the time of day. More ticks beside passages in Ted's book.
Ted's story tells it as it was, warts and all. The girls, the drugs, the never-ending knock-backs. This is where our paths took different directions. I've been married to the same girl for forty-six years. This severely restricted my following Ted's hedonistic lifestyle, for which I have no regrets whatsoever. The drugs which dominated Ted's life for many years left their scars. They were around, throughout the time I was in bands, but I was never tempted. The third theme, from the west coast that Ted battled, were those knock-backs. We share those by the container-load.
'Making It.' is a genuine story of how it was back in the day. It rings true with everything I experienced at the same time, thousands of miles away. Ted moved on to Rhino Records, and came out relatively unscathed at the other end. I found a 'proper' job and promoted gigs, managed a band, and still review bands every week or so. That itch you needed to scratch when you first got up on a stage with a guitar, or a mike, in my case, and tried to make music, never leaves you.
People ask me if I miss the long journeys in clapped-out vans, smelling of stale beer and unwashed colleagues, dressing rooms the size of broom cupboards, and breaking down on the way home. Arguments at venues over how long we were to play, at what volume, and for how much money? Do I miss the performing, and the rehearsing, and the bashing your head against the brick wall around the record companies as you were trying to get that break? Well, now you come to mention it - only every day.
What a time it was to be sharing similar experiences as Ted Myers. They were truly Golden Days. From one Ted to another. Many thanks.
February 11, 2022
There’s a touching innocence and hopeful naïveté to this often clinically gritty four-decade romp through the American music scene, a Greenwich Village to Laurel Canyon trip (sometimes of the Timothy Leary variety) that includes anecdotes about everyone from Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell to a Taco Bell lunch with Linda Ronstadt and the day the author handed an unknown folkie named James Taylor his first joint to smoke. Even classic Hollywood crooner Rudy Vallee, dressed in silk pajamas, makes an appearance.
Unlike many rock & roll memoirs that seem scribbled by committee and edited by a PR team, this raw and candid roller coaster ride sometimes feels more like a personal diary narrative nobody was ever expected to find and read.
The author, a Grammy nominee songwriter with a million selling #12 single under his belt, is an excellent memoirist whose honest prose gave me an enjoyable and very human look into the life of a rocker with a penchant for near misses in an industry where making music “…like all art, is a crap shoot.”
“Van Gogh,” he explains while recollecting his years of ups and downs as a musician, record company A&R man and record label and concert promoter, “…only sold one painting.”
There’s more than celebrity elbow-rubbing going on here. This isn’t a cheap tell-all, and though you’ll need a math spread sheet to keep track of the variously undressed women in “Making It,” the author is a fine writer whose breezy, comfortable manner often rises to the poetic, as in: “Her long neck made her look like a painting by Modigliani.”
Or, when describing someone with “…a beehive that could hold up the Chrystler Building.”
Myers seems to have lived the life of an over-sugared and musical Forrest Gump as he parties, sings, smokes and strums his way through a Who’s Who list of friends and acquaintances: Graham Nash, Jose Feliciano, Peter Tork, Chevy Chase, Sonny & Cher, Roger Daltrey, Van Morrison…on and on. He often marvels at and appreciates his proximity to the famous, though they don’t always return the favor.
I’m guessing, and as you’ll read, in some cases these celebs may have been luckier to meet Ted Myers than he was to hobnob with them.
In the end, this is a book about durability and not bitterness or apology; it’s about humanity, about stumbling and regaining your balance, and about aspiration and the realization that failure often brings insight and opportunity.
I recommend hopping aboard the Myers Magical Musical Bus. It’s a big fat five stars for this one.
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