2023-10-09 SiriusXM Studio, New York City, NY

Scheduled: 10:00 Local Start Time ??:?? / End Time ??:??

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The 'From My Home To Yours' series returns for the first time since 2021, with Episode 30, featuring Bruce and high school friends/surviving members of the early Freehold rock and roll scene Craig Caprioni, Mike Domanski, Donnie Powell, and Mike Wilson discussing the music they listened to in those mid-'60s days.

E Street Radio

The ’60s Music That Influenced All of Them

— Favorite Bands —

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Greetings, greetings, greetings, from your favorite rock star with a BITCH of a belly ache. I am here with some old friends, to discuss the beginning of the rock ‘n’ roll high school in Freehold, N.J. We will be discussing that today on E Street Radio. I am here with surviving members of the early local rock ‘n’ roll scene in our town. I want them to introduce themselves. Mike, start with you.

MIKE WILSON: Mike Wilson, Freehold Borough.

SPRINGSTEEN: And what was your instrument?

WILSON: Lead singer.

SPRINGSTEEN: In the band …?

WILSON: Legend

SPRINGSTEEN: All right. Donnie?

POWELL: Hi, I’m Donnie Powell, drummer, singer in the band The Merchants, The Rogues, The Rising Suns, Licks, Dr. Beat. Still playing to this day.

SPRINGSTEEN: Ah, sounds great, man! Mike?

MIKE DOMANSKI: Mike Domanski, bass player, The Legend. 1968, Freehold Borough.

SPRINGSTEEN: Craig?

CRAIG CAPRIONI: Craig Caprioni, The Rogues, Rising Suns, bass player and vocals.

SPRINGSTEEN: All right. Those are our players. And here is the record that blew our minds, and started it all.

SPRINGSTEEN: All right, guys, tell me: Where were you the first time you heard that record? Mike

WILSON: “I Want to Hold Your Hand?” Sitting in my living room, at 8 o’clock on a Sunday evening, on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh, so you first heard it on TV?

WILSON: First time, on TV.

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh, my God!

WILSON: I was a latecomer.

SPRINGSTEEN: And your thoughts?

WILSON: Blown away.

SPRINGSTEEN: (laughs)

WILSON: Sums it up.

SPRINGSTEEN: Donnie, first time you heard “I Want to Hold Your Hand”?

POWELL: I don’t remember the first time I heard it. But definitely that beginning, with that song … and when we used to get together, just you and me …

SPRINGSTEEN: Right

POWELL: … at my house, that was the first time I ever interacted with another person, doing music.

SPRINGSTEEN: (laughs) The same with me!

POWELL: I think we had a study hall … at that time, everybody kind of was in their own little burrow, and this music thing was blowing up. I think we had a study hall, and I had The Rolling Stones, Now!, and we were talking. I said, “Why don’t we play music?” And you used to come over. And we were horrible.

SPRINGSTEEN: The funny thing is, what Donnie is explaining is that he and I were the first humans in Freehold to interact with instruments, side by side.

POWELL: Right?

SPRINGSTEEN: We were a two-piece band like The White Stripes, except we sucked. (everyone laughs) But the first night I came over, the thing I remember the most was YOU taught ME … he’s the drummer, but you taught me “Honky Tonk” on the guitar. It was the first thing every guitar player learned to play. Let’s hear a little bit of Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk.”

SPRINGSTEEN: “Honky Tonk,” Bill Doggett. Beginners, get out there and learn that song! Mike, what about you? What’s the beginning of your musical experience?

DOMANSKI: Well, when you talk about “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” that was probably either WABC or WNEW, the first time I heard it on my transistor radio, up in my bedroom with a little earpiece in so that my mom and dad didn’t hear me. That’s when I said, “Wow, I want to play music.” Even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I wanted to play music somewhere, because those guys were just taking over the world.

SPRINGSTEEN: Right, right. Craig?

CAPRIONI: My first experience with The Beatles, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” … I don’t remember the first time. I know I bought the album at Diskay in Freehold. And I remember seeing them on Ed Sullivan, as Mike said.

SPRINGSTEEN: Now Craig and I, we were in the same first band.

CAPRIONI: First band, The Rogues.

SPRINGSTEEN: The Rogues. Yeah, that’s right. It was me, you, Jay Gibson, Donnie Powell, right? …

CAPRIONI: And Jim McGuire.

POWELL: And you’re forgetting, because Jimmy had an amp …

SPRINGSTEEN: He got in.

POWELL: He was in. He bought …

SPRINGSTEEN: He became the manager.

POWELL: … John Batleschmit’s Gibson.

SPRINGSTEEN: That’s right. John Batleschmit, with his lessons and his 335, blew our minds back in the day. But Craig played bass, and you had a Danelectro amp, or something?

CAPRIONI: Danelectro bass and a little Fender box amp.

SPRINGSTEEN: Right. Now Craig, I and Donnie experienced the raw humiliation of playing at our Freehold Hight School dance, and totally sucking. We went down to Mike Diehl’s music store, rented a Gretsch amp, because it had reverb. We brought that reverb amp into the high school gym, which, by the way, has a lot of reverb anyway, and we turned the reverb all the way up. We sounded like a fucking dragon drowning off the flat edges of the Earth. Just gargle, gargle, garble, is all you could hear. But Donnie played very well.

POWELL: As did you, Bruce. And we all sang. You did “Twist and Shout.”

SPRINGSTEEN: That’s right!

POWELL: I did “Kansas City,” and “Tell Me” by the Stones.

SPRINGSTEEN: All right!

POWELL: Craig did a few Stones.

SPRINGSTEEN: Let’s hear a few of those tunes right now. And here is “Twist and Shout.”

SPRINGSTEEN: And here’s Donnie Powell’s “Kansas City.”

SPRINGSTEEN: Here’s “Tell Me,” by the Stones. The first song besides … uh, the song they wrote for Marianne Faithfull, I can’t think of the title of it …

SPRINGSTEEN: “As Tears Go By.” The first song they wrote for themselves. “Tell Me.” I love listening to the 12-string on this thing, and the riffs. The great echo that Andrew Loog Oldham put on these records really made them, back in the day, and of course Mick is singing great. Here’s “Tell Me.”

SPRINGSTEEN: All right. And that was us, The Rogues, which I was unceremoniously thrown out of because my guitar was too cheap. We won’t talk about that right now. I’m sure Donnie voted to keep me in. But Jay Gibson, wherever you are, I know your voice was against me. (everyone laughs)

POWELL: Actually, I wanted to straighten that out today.

SPRINGSTEEN: Go ahead!

POWELL: Craig and I had nothing to do with it. Now, when you think back … in the day, like you said, if you had good equipment, if you took some lessons and you could really play a chord …

SPRINGSTEEN: Right.

POWELL: … You were the leader of a band.

SPRINGSTEEN: Right. And I had done none of those things.

POWELL: And you brought Jay in …

SPRINGSTEEN: I brought Jay in!

POWELL: And he was our amp.

SPRINGSTEEN: That’s right. And he threw me out. But anyway, it all worked out. But that was a funny moment, because I went from there to The Castiles, which was my major School of Rock. Lasted three years. And the baby band in Tex’s (Tex Vinyard’s) stable were The Legend. All right? Now, Mayor (Mike Wilson), Mike Domanski … how long were you mayor in Freehold, Mike?

WILSON: Twenty-six years.

SPRINGSTEEN: All right. He was the lead singer of The Legend. Tell us how The Legend got together and who was in it.

WILSON: Ok. We got together in 1966, I guess it was. It was our sophomore year. ’65! I got together with Mike Domanski and Brian Johansen was the lead guitar. Mike played bass. I originally played bass till they found out that I couldn’t play bass (everyone laughs), so they made me the lead singer. And we brought in Steve Lackett as the rhythm guitar player. We had Joe Heumiller as our drummer. And we started practicing in Brian’s attic, I believe, on South Street. And it was awful, to say the least. But we hung in there. … And actually Bruce came a few times …

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah!

WILSON: … to several of our practices.

SPRINGSTEEN: I came to counsel and mentor.

WILSON: Yes, exactly. As a matter of fact, one time, after a few months, I’ll never forget … we were upstairs in the attic playing “Paperback Writer,” by The Beatles. And Bruce was outside, on his way up, and he actually said to us … and that was the first time Bruce ever said something really nice about the band … he said, “You know what? That sounded really good, guys.” Which gave us a lot of confidence. “Let’s get out on the road now.” (Springsteen laughs) We started trying to beg Tex Vinyard, who was the manager of The Castiles, “Hey Tex, can we get some jobs here?” And he says, “Relax, guys, you’re young. You’re young yet. You’ve got a ways to go yet.”

SPRINGSTEEN: Let’s hear “Paperback Writer.”

SPRINGSTEEN: That’s “Paperback Writer,” sung originally, in Freehold, in 1965, by Mayor Mike Wilson. Donnie, what’s your memories of The Rogues?

POWELL: The Rogues. So, we went from …

SPRINGSTEEN: Our first gig. Remember our first gig?

POWELL: We played at The Elks.

SPRINGSTEEN: The Elks! That’s right, my friend. Thirty-five cents to get in.

POWELL: Yes. And some weird people ran it.

SPRINGSTEEN: Bingo Bob …

POWELL: Bingo Bob.

SPRINGSTEEN: … and his wife. They were ex-circus performers.

POWELL: Yes. There was actually a time we went in there, and there was a lion or something. In there, she had it. We were like, “OK, we’ll just set up over here.” But that was our …

SPRINGSTEEN: First gig.

POWELL: … first gig.

SPRINGSTEEN: And do you remember the bands we played with? I remember one, The Victorians.

POWELL: Yes.

SPRINGSTEEN: And George Theiss had a band that he played with. It was a guy with that sparkle red guitar, that’s sitting right there. I can’t remember what they were called, though. But there was us, there was The Victorians, and a couple other groups, all of whom were basically instrumental. We did one thing different. We sang.

POWELL: We went for it.

SPRINGSTEEN: We went for it. Literally. Because it couldn’t have been good.

POWELL: I think it was a circular …

SPRINGSTEEN: That’s right. The bands set up in a circle and played toward each other the whole afternoon.

POWELL: So everybody had guitars back in those days, not guns, folks. It was circular.

SPRINGSTEEN: That’s right. Tell me some of the tunes that, at the time … what were The Legend’s big tunes?

DOMANSKI: Boy, we used to start off all the time with “Look Through Any Window” by The Hollies. That was our big one. We would do “Satisfaction,” by the Stones. We’d do some Beatles stuff. I remember that, in those days, The Castiles were edgy. You had an edge to you guys. We, on the other hand, were looking to please everyone in the crowd, so we started to do Motown stuff, like The Four Tops.

DOMANSKI: We had a whole set that we would do, just with those kind of songs. Whereas you guys did, like, “Smokestack Lightning” … and I used to love the edginess of the way you guys were. And if you remember correctly, there was a band called The Clique.

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh, they were major in the area. The biggest band in the area.

DOMANSKI: One of the guys in the band had a kid brother who sang very high, and that’s when they started singing Beach Boys, Temptations …

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh, they were really good. Really good. They won all the battles of the bands.

DOMANSKI: Oh yeah. They were incredible. Their harmony was out of this world. Yeah, great times, back then. And then we progressed with the times. Later on, we went to Sgt. Pepper’s, we did Hendrix, we did The Doors. So we kind of progressed with the times, you know. But our first song, and our first gig was at the YMCA in Freehold, for The Legend, our first song ever? “Secret Agent Man,” by Johnny Rivers.

SPRINGSTEEN: Let’s hear it!

SPRINGSTEEN: All right. That was Johnny Rivers, “Secret Agent Man.” Craig, what were the three tunes or two tunes that you remember The Rogues … besides “Twist and Shout” … that we played? Do you remember? Do you have any memory? Or what were the tunes that struck you (or) inspired you, back in the day?

CAPRIONI: Zombies.

SPRINGSTEEN: The Zombies, yeah.

CAPRIONI: I did my homework.

SPRINGSTEEN: OK, good.

CAPRIONI: “It’s My Life,” The Animals.

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh!

CAPRIONI: I remember that, we played.

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah, yeah. We played the hell out of that.

CAPRIONI: “She’s Not There.” And “For Your Love,” by The Yardbirds, which was a great group. Three great guitarists in the same group.

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah.

CAPRIONI: And “The Last Time” and “It’s All Over Now” — I remember that song.

SPRINGSTEEN: You are so on. Because I remember playing these tunes so distinctly. And … what was the first tune you mentioned?

CAPRIONI: The first one was, uh, The Animals, “It’s My Life.”

SPRINGSTEEN: Ah, there we go, man. Eric Burdon. Come on! The best R&B singer to come out of Britain, period. What a voice at 19 years old. Un-fucking-believable! Let’s hear “It’s My Life.”

SPRINGSTEEN: That was “It’s My Life.” We’re talking about playing our first gig with no guitar straps. No one had then. Everybody went, “Oh yeah, we need guitar straps to play out live. And strings.” Jay broke a string, and that was it. He played with five. (laughs)

CAPRIONI: I couldn’t sing and play at the same time.

SPRINGSTEEN: Craig couldn’t sing and play … but we played “Route 66,” “The Last Time,” “Time Is on My Side” by the Stones, and The Yardbirds were our go-to. We picked the edgier bands. Let’s hear “Heart Full of Soul,” by The Yardbirds, and then let’s hear “The Last Time.” Come on!

SPRINGSTEEN: Now, in any local scene, there are unsung rock ‘n’ roll heroes. And they are the parents that let you come into the garage, move shit around, set up your equipment, bash the hell all afternoon, regardless of what the neighbors think, so you can get a start on your road to rock ‘n’ roll stardom. In our case, there was a couple called Tex and Marion Vinyard. And they were childless, so they welcomes us in, as teenagers, into a house the size of your thumb, all right? And we set up our equipment and we jammed there every day from 3 to 6 in the afternoon. Me, George Theiss, Vinnie Manniello, Paul Popkin, Curt Fluhr … am I forgetting anybody? I’m sure I am. That was the hive of our earliest rock ‘n’ roll activity, at Tex and Marion, who were probably only in their early 30s but seemed so old to us at the time. Gave us their home, gave us their support, gave us their money to buy little Shure microphones and amps, when Tex would get paid on the weekend for working at Brockway Glass. They were essential — essential! — to the development of young bands in Freehold, N.J. What’s your recollections of Tex and Marion, Mike?

WILSON: Oh my lord. They were the nicest people, other than my parents, actually, that I think I had ever met. Just sitting there in that dining room, listening to The Castiles practice … and you guys practiced probably five or six times a week.

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh, we did.

WILSON: And The Legend practiced maybe twice a week. And you could tell that with The Legend, OK? Practice makes perfect. But such nice people. And Tex, he was a little rough on the edges (Springsteen laughs). I’m speaking as a former politician now, Ok?

SPRINGSTEEN: That’s funny! Yes they were.

WILSON: But I remember, and if my memory is correct … there was a time when Paul was either sick, or before he came in the band, you guys had asked … “We’re looking for, like, a tambourine player and backup singer,” or whatnot. And I actually had a try-out at Tex and Marion’s. I’ll never forget the song. It was “I Got You Babe.” Who was that? That was Sonny & Cher, right?

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah!

WILSON: And I thought I did pretty good. I could carry a tune back then. And when I got through, Tex pulled me aside and said, “That was good, Mike. But you know what? You ought to be a choir singer.”‘

SPRINGSTEEN: You ought to be a what?

WILSON: A choir singer.

SPRINGSTEEN: A choir singer! (laughs)

WILSON: Not a rock ‘n roll (singer). So my ego was shot for a few weeks on that. And I didn’t even let Legend know. That was my very first recollection of Tex and Marion. And the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that they would make for everyone.

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh yeah. They clothed us — The Castiles, anyway, in snakeskin vests and frilly wedding shirts, and they got us professional pictures taken, for The Castiles, where we all ironed our hair the night before, so it was good and Beatles straight. And they were an incredible couple who played a central, pivotal and irreplaceable role in the development of my career, and many of the young bands that were in the area at the time. Do you guys remember partaking in any band battles? We did.

POWELL: Absolutely.

SPRINGSTEEN: Tell ’em about The Rogues. Go ahead, Don.

POWELL: Well, in The Rising Suns, we did band battles … I remember Keyport.

SPRINGSTEEN: Keyport-Matawan Roller Drome.

POWELL: Yeah. And we finished second to a band called The Five Old Men, who were these older guys …

SPRINGSTEEN: No, they were young kids who we dyed their hair gray.

POWELL: They sprayed their hair silver …

SPRINGSTEEN: Completely silver.

POWELL: … and they were good. They could sing doo-wop.

SPRINGSTEEN: Incredibly.

POWELL: Banging. So they won. And we did one in Hullaballoo, out in Middletown, maybe.

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah, there might have been one there. And there was one in a strange church in Highlands that The Clique was in, that I remember going to see ’em and being just awestruck by how good … they did “We Can Work It Out,” by The Beatles, and it was note-perfect. Let’s hear “We Can Work It Out.”

SPRINGSTEEN: We’re back, and we’re talking about battles of the bands. Donnie, what else do you remember?

POWELL: Playing on a gig where we opened for The Mods.

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh!

POWELL: Do you remember The Mods?

SPRINGSTEEN: The Mods were one of the biggest bands — surf-band, rah-rahs — on the Jersey Shore. Huge. Huge.

POWELL: I think we were at the Driftwood, maybe, out on that strip there, down the Shore, in their territory. They’re just so good.

SPRINGSTEEN: They’re giants.

POWELL: They’re handing out 45’s that they just cut somewhere.

SPRINGSTEEN: Right, right.

POWELL: I still have one.

SPRINGSTEEN: They were almost famous (laughs).

POWELL: Yes. And they had their loafers.

SPRINGSTEEN: And they had a magazine! Mod magazine, that used to come out bi-weekly, down at the surf scene, all along the Shore and in Middletown.

POWELL: They were really big. So here we are: “Oh, let’s go open for The Mods.”

SPRINGSTEEN: Right.

POWELL: What a great gig. But it turned out okay. I got my 45.

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah. But I played the Matawan-Keyport Roller Drome, with The Castiles. We did “Mystic Eyes” by Them, and thought for sure we’d come in somewhere. And of course, we didn’t win shit. But what I remember is, George cried. (laughs) Let’s hear “Mystic Eyes,” by Them.

SPRINGSTEEN: All right. After The Beatles, second favorite band? And we can’t count The Rolling Stones.

CAPRIONI: Mmm … that’s a tough one.

SPRINGSTEEN: Go ahead, Don.

POWELL: The Animals.

SPRINGSTEEN: The Animals, yeah.

CAPRIONI: That’s a good one.

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah, that’s it for me, you know. It’s Beatles, Stones, Animals, that’s how my playlist goes, you know. But any Dave Clark 5 fans?

CAPRIONI: I had that on my … you just took the words right out of my mouth. Loved the Dave Clark 5. Remember, Donnie liked Dave Clark because of the drummer, Dave Clark.

SPRINGSTEEN: Hell yeah!

POWELL: He used to sing and play drums.

CAPRIONI: You used to listen in your room. I’d be banging that hollow-body guitar and Donnie would be playing drums on the towel.

SPRINGSTEEN: And the Dave Clark 5 made great records. This is “Any Way You Want It.”

SPRINGSTEEN: Anything to talk about, guys? Anything you had on your minds?

WILSON: When Tex passed away, in 1988 … I became mayor in the town and had a whole different life change. And I ran into Bruce at the Higgins Memorial Home, where Tex was laid out. And this was 1988: I hadn’t seen Bruce in years. And who comes walking in, who was on our town council at the time, was a drummer, his name was Eddie Mack, and he was in The Breed.

SPRINGSTEEN: The Breed was the biggest band in Freehold. They played all instrumentals. John Batleschmit. The drummer was …

WILSON: Ed Mack.

SPRINGSTEEN: Ed Mack, that’s right. These guys were all lessoned, played the hell out of their instruments, we thought we were going to kick their ass when we opened for them, because we sang at Freehold Regional High School. And we were wrong. They kicked our ass, simply because they knew how to control their instruments, which we did not know at the time. What else do you remember about The Breed?

WILSON: We didn’t see The Breed that often because if they were playing, we might be playing at the same time. But Ed was on the town council with me … and we got to know each other really well. When he walked in, (he said you said), “I remember you. You were in The Breed. And you kicked our asses over at the Keyport Roller Drome. Nobody ever beat us.” And Ed Mack, for years after that, would say to me, “You know, after all those years, I can’t believe Bruce Springsteen remembered that.”

SPRINGSTEEN: I was in Manasquan, I walked down, in the inlet. There’s Ed Mack. He said, “Hey, you remember me?” I said, “Of course I do. The Breed.” Now, who came to Freehold High School and kicked the ass of The Breed. There’s only one band that could have done it. Come on, boys. (someone correctly says The Motifs) Give that man a cigar. The Motifs! The Motifs, who were men at the time, opened up for The Breed at Freehold High School, and tore them down. And Ed Mack came to me afterwards and said, “We’ve been outclassed.” They sang. He said they sang and played incredibly. “We’ve been outclassed.” Right? The Motifs were the realest thing to a real famous rock band who you could stand two feet in front of on Saturday night, and watch how they tore the house down. Ray Cichon, Walter Cichon, guitarist and frontman, just incredible, you know. Scary. Scary to look at. Scary to get too close to. But roarin’. The Motifs. Let’s try The Motifs, “If I Gave You Love.”

SPRINGSTEEN: Donnie was just talking about John Lewandoski, drummer in The Motifs. Incredible drummer. What were you just saying, Don?

POWELL: I would sit and just watch him. Actually, I used to go to Tex’s, when they would practice there, every once in a while, and I’d sit in the window. You could look through the window, and there is the drummer. And I’d watch John Lewandoski. And I asked him, the one night, I said, “How do you get the triplets and your paradiddles so fast?” He goes, “I practice on a pillow. As simple as that.” I went right home, got my pillow.

SPRINGSTEEN: Started beating the hell out of it.

POWELL: And started beating it.

SPRINGSTEEN: They were absolutely incredible. I’d say the scene lasted there from about ’65, till we got out of high school. What years did you guys graduate?

EVERYONE: ’68.

SPRINGSTEEN: See, I was a year older than you guys. So I was ’67. But it was a great, great time to be young and in Freehold, and to have friends who were in bands with you, to have music be such a central part of your life. I’ve known and remembered these guys for my whole life, from that incredibly shaping moment that we shared together, down in Freehold, N.J. Guys, thanks for being with me today. God bless. And don’t quit now. It’s too late to stop now. Let’s hear The Rolling Stones, and “Time Is on My Side.” That’s our show today.

SPRINGSTEEN: Let me than Mayor Mike Wilson, Donnie Powell, Craig Caprioni and Mike Domanski, all great veterans of the Freehold rock scene, for being my guests today. Let me take a moment and thank my fans affected by our postponed shows, for their understanding. I am deeply, but this belly thing, despite my ability to laugh at is, has been a monster, and is still, unfortunately, rocking my internal world. But it’s better this week than it was last. I want to thank everybody for their support and well wishes. We will see you in the new year, and we will bring it to you, in your town, at the top of our game. There’s no other way. Let’s encore with The Castiles, “You Can’t Judge a Book.” Peace.

^{By Bruce Springsteen via E Street Radio.}

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The ’60s Music That Influenced All of Them