Then Geffen tapped Mike Stone as producer. What
was Stone's background?
[P
ALIGN=CENTER]
rry_schon.jpg">
Journey!!! The horrible 70s/80s AOR
power balladeers. So..., you're going to get music
that sounds like Journey.
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sorry to take up so much space, folks... but this artice
is an absolute MUST READ:
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Still They Ride
A newly minted star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
offers an occasion to look back on the career of
Journey. That's right, Journey.
BY DAN REINES
They came from the corners of the country for this,
from Florida, from New England, from Tennessee,
and yes, from San Francisco. They came out by the
hundreds, maybe more, lining up in numbers large
enough to choke off traffic, at least temporarily, at
least in one direction.
They look different now. Their hair is thinner than it
was, their teeth yellower, their mullets -- so many
mullets, even now -- flecked with gray. They wear
vintage concert shirts stretched across 45-year-old
bellies, black with white sleeves, tour dates on the
back.
One of them, a 40-ish blonde named Jill, left two
dying cats at home and drove from the southern tip
of Orange County to be here, all the way from San
Clemente, a good two hours in traffic, easy. "I'm not
missing this," she says. "I didn't stay home to
comfort the babies, I came here, because this is for
me." She will later shriek and gasp and wipe streaks
of mascara from her cheeks. She will proclaim
herself ready to die.
Thirty feet to Jill's left, a woman with a round nose
and a fried perm clutches an old LP that she hauled
all the way from Boston, all the way from 1981.
Fifteen feet beyond her, a man from Myrtle Beach,
S.C., holds a boombox above his head. From its
speakers comes a familiar voice singing a familiar
ballad, perhaps the most familiar ballad in rock
history. All around him, Alabamans and Oregonians
and Californians scrunch up their eyes and contort
their faces and sing along, thumbs hooked through
the belt loops of their faded 501s.
They're here, all of them, standing 10 deep on
Hollywood Boulevard, to see something they've been
waiting two decades to see.
They're here -- and here's the kicker -- they're here to
see Journey.
Yes, that Journey.
Well. Sort of.
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
OK, not that Journey.
That Journey, the Journey you're thinking of, almost
certainly no longer exists. Because chances are the
Journey you're thinking of has Steve Perry singing,
Neal Schon playing guitar, Ross Valory playing bass,
Jonathan Cain playing keys, and Steve Smith playing
drums. Or perhaps it's Perry, Schon, and Valory, with
Gregg Rolie on keys and Aynsley Dunbar on drums.
Or maybe it's just Perry and four guys whose names
you never knew.
One way or another, though, the odds are good that
the Journey you're thinking of involves Steve Perry.
That's because the Journey that involved Steve Perry
was one of the most loved -- and loathed -- bands
San Francisco ever produced, a group responsible
for a pile of albums and songs you probably heard
far more than you ever wanted to and know far better
than you'd ever admit. Think Infinity. Think Departure.
Think Escape. Think "Wheel in the Sky," "Don't Stop
Believin'," "Lights," "Open Arms." Especially "Open
Arms."
Of course, Journey existed before Steve Perry. It
began here in 1973 as the brainchild of manager
Herbie Herbert, a fusion band centered around
Santana alums Schon and Rolie. They called
themselves the Golden Gate Rhythm Section, then
settled on Journey after an abortive name-the-band
contest on KSAN produced such memorable listener
suggestions as Rumpled Foreskin and
Hippie-potamus.
But that Journey put out three albums in four years
and produced zero hits, which is why Herbert hired
Perry, virtually forcing him on the rest of the
members in 1977. They didn't want him at first,
Schon least of all. It made no sense to them.
Journey was prog-rock, and Steve Perry was a
crooner.
Whatever. It worked. From 1978 to 1986, Journey --
the Steve Perry Journey -- released six top-10
singles and seven platinum albums replete with
futuristic cover art that managed, in less than a
decade, to turn the ordinary scarab beetle into a
mystical symbol of raised lighters and back-seat
make-out sessions. And yet, even coming as the
band did in the malodorous wake of disco, it never
managed to amass so much as an ounce of cachet.
Journey was huge, but it was never cool -- not by
anyone's standards.
"They weren't held in high regard," says
Berkeley-born Herbert with a trace of long-held
frustration. "They sure the f**k weren't the Police."
"They were really unhip with the guys," Herbert
elaborates, "because they weren't Ted Nugent, they
weren't Aerosmith. They weren't hard enough. But if
[guys] wanted to get laid, they'd better go to that show
anyway, because all the girls were there. So what
made us look a lot hipper than we were is that we
had such a deep penetration -- no pun intended --
into the female target demographic."
Because?
"Because of the songs," he says. Then, falsetto, "'I
come to you with open arms ....' You know, all that
kind of sloshy stuff that the girls loved."
Hip or not, it's that Journey that has inspired the
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to immortalize
the band with a star on the Walk of Fame. And it's
that Journey that brought them here today to see it
happen, maybe 500 of them, maybe 1,000, enough
to make the fire marshal reroute traffic on this stretch
of Hollywood Boulevard.
Today's Journey, however, is not that Journey. It is a
very different Journey. It looks like the Steve Perry
Journey, and it sounds like the Steve Perry Journey,
but it's not the Steve Perry Journey. The Steve Perry
Journey is long gone. Steve Perry himself is long
gone. And anyone familiar with the acrimonious
circumstances surrounding his absence from the
band knows that Perry showing up on this scene is
about as likely as today's Journey playing Ozzfest.
And yet they have made this pilgrimage anyway.
Typical: They haven't stopped believing.
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
The story, in brief: In 1984, during a break from
Journey, Steve Perry released Street Talk. Buoyed by
the No. 3 single "Oh Sherrie," Street Talk went
platinum, certifying Perry as a solo star. When
Journey regrouped to record 1986's Raised on
Radio, Perry, clearly feeling his power, forced
drummer Steve Smith and bassist Ross Valory out
of the band, replacing them with drum machines and
studio musicians.
Raised on Radio would be Journey's last new
recording for a decade. In the interim, Schon and
Cain and singer John Waite grew their hair big and
formed Bad English, and Perry put out another solo
album, 1994's For the Love of Strange Medicine. In
1996, Sony gave Journey -- Smith and Valory
included -- a trunkful of cash to come back together
for Trial by Fire, but the reunion was doomed when
Perry came up lame after recording the album,
developing an unspecified hip ailment while hiking
in Hawaii.
"We made a decent record," explains Schon, who
now lives in San Rafael. "But then nothing happened
from there. And I sort of felt that that's what it was
gonna be."
Meaning you never really expected a tour?
Yeah."
Then, after a pause: "And I can't really get into why.
I've got like ... you know, everybody signed papers
years ago with [Perry]. Like, gag orders."
Gag orders meaning -- meaning that you can't talk
about ...?
"About each other ... yeah," Schon says, laughing.
"Silly sh*t, I know."
Multiple attempts to reach Perry for comment failed.
Luckily there's the effusive Herbie Herbert, who
signed no such gag order.
"I think he never planned on actually performing with
these guys," says Herbert, who himself ended his
association with the band before Trial by Fire,
ostensibly the result of a rift with Perry. "I think he
dislikes them every bit as much as they dislike him.
But they're just not that smart. I love Neal Schon like
a son, but he's just never been the sharpest knife in
the drawer.
"I said, 'Neal, [Perry] would come, and if you were
drowning in the ocean' -- which in terms of Journey,
that's a good metaphor -- 'he would show up in his
luxury liner and offer you a life raft in such a manner
as you would decline. Of course, if you had any
self-respect at all. If you accept, well then you have
no self-respect.' And that's basically what Jon Cain
and Neal Schon did, they accepted."
The life raft, apparently, came with a short leash.
Reportedly in crippling pain, Perry spent much of the
year after Trial by Fire's release considering hip
surgery. His bandmates, meanwhile, lost patience.
In early 1998, Cain called Perry and asked for a
decision. Perry balked, and the band decided to
move on. As Perry's replacement, they tapped
another Steve, a Brooklyn kid with the last name
Augeri who had sung lead for an early-'90s band
called Tall Stories.
When they called, Augeri was retired, two years
removed from the music business and working for
the Gap, of all things. Tall Stories had never risen
above obscurity, cursed as they were by the fact that
their singer sounded just a little too much like Steve
Perry.
This is no longer a problem for Steve Augeri.
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
It's really not all that high, the bar separating you
from your very own place on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame. You'd have to apply, of course, and you'd have
to promise to show up for the ceremony. And you'd
have to come up with $15,000, ostensibly to cover
the costs of digging up the sidewalk. In Journey's
case, members of the band's fan club submitted a
presentation to the Hollywood Chamber of
Commerce, and two weeks later the Chamber
accepted. Somewhere along the line, $15,000
changed hands, and now star No. 2,275 belongs to
the guys who gave us "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'."
As Neal Schon himself puts it, "Don't they have
Disney characters on the Walk of Fame?"
In fact, they do. Both Donald and Mickey are there. So
are Britney Spears, Dear Abby, Jamie Farr, Woody
Woodpecker, Paula Abdul, John Tesh, and the Olsen
Twins, who share a star.
But a low bar is not the same as no bar, no matter
what you might think of Mr. Tesh. And when it comes
to raw sales, Journey can clear pretty much any
hurdle you'd care to put in front of it. According to the
Recording Industry Association of America, the band
has sold more than 40 million albums in the United
States alone, about as many as Jimi Hendrix and the
Who combined. Journey is the 30th best-selling act
of all time in America, the third best-selling Bay Area
act behind Metallica and Santana. The band's own
figures set the total at 50 million records worldwide.
Of course, 50 million Journey fans could be wrong --
just ask a critic. And Journey always had plenty of
critics. The Washington Post called the group's
music "five-chord fluff" in one review, and said
Perry's singing had "all the nuance of a siren" in
another. The New York Times labeled Journey
"heavy-handed purveyors of a style so hackneyed
that only a massive infusion of passion and energy
could revitalize it." And in his California Magazine
column, rock writer Greil Marcus invented a Journey
Award for the worst album by a California band.
Journey won it every year.
"They made Eddie Money sound like Muddy Waters,"
Marcus explains today in an e-mail. "It was the
self-evident phoniness in Steve Perry's voice -- the
oleaginous self-regard, the gooey smear of words,
the horrible enunciation: It was the 'ci-tay' in 'Lights'
that really made me want to kill."
Perhaps as much as the five-chord fluff and the
gooey smear of words, hipsters and critics hated the
band's naked embrace of capitalism. At a time when
selling swag still meant selling out, Journey
extended an open palm to Madison Avenue,
licensing an Atari video game and shilling for
Budweiser, among other offenses. ("After a hot gig,
we go backstage and we open ourselves an ice-cold
Budweiser," Perry cooed in one radio spot.) And
manager Herbert ran the band like a business,
taking direct control of everything from in-store
marketing to the lighting and video production at the
live shows. (Herbert and Schon still co-own
Nocturne, the company Journey created to sublet its
massive light rigs and video screens to other acts.
Today, clients range from Madonna to Paul
McCartney.)
Rolling Stone tagged the Journey-men early on as
"corporate rock," but if the label bothered them, it
didn't slow them down any. "I love money," Schon
explained in Hit Parader in 1983. "I want to make as
much as I can."
Schon still feels that way. "I wasn't the manager," he
says, "I was never the guy that was coming up with
this stuff, but I never thought it was a bad deal. You
know, a lot of people that write, they think that if you're
not slamming heroin into your arm or something,
you're not really living rock 'n' roll."
Dave Golland puts it another way. Golland, a
Brooklyn-based historian, runs fan site
journey-zone.com with all the detached dispassion
you'd expect from an academic. The site features
reviews and interviews dating back to the '70s, a
comprehensive history of the band, even an
annotated and corrected version of the band's official
bio.
Says Golland, "I guess screaming fans just trumped
screaming reviewers."
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
There are still plenty of screaming fans, especially
here on the sidewalk, in Hollywood, at 11:15 on a
Friday morning. They hold up hand-lettered signs
that say "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Journey4ever,"
and they surge into the barricades set up to keep
them from overwhelming the band.
One woman up front points to the teenage girl at her
side. "I named my daughter after Steve Perry," she
says, establishing her fan credentials right off. The
girl, Stephanie, waves shyly.
Four feet to her left are Eric and Jeannie. They drove
from Memphis for this, but they won't be at tonight's
celebratory House of Blues show -- which sold out in
minutes -- because it ain't Journey without the Voice.
They have no kids to name for Steve Perry, says Eric,
but, "We got a bulldog called Steve Augeri." He
cackles at his joke. Actually, the dog's name is
Journey.
Regardless of what they named after Steve Perry,
though, none of these fans seems to think he'll
show. None of them.
Perry and the band members haven't spoken for
seven years, not since early '98 when they told him to
tour or cut bait. And though every current and former
member was invited -- including Randy Jackson, the
American Idol judge who played bass on 1986's
Raised on Radio -- organizers say Perry hasn't
responded. Even the die-hards concede it's a long
shot that he'll be here.
"No way," says a 40-ish woman from just outside
Tampa who answers the question "What's your
name?" with "Real name or screen name?" (Real
name: Dale. Screen name: JrnyBrat.)
"Zero percent chance," says another woman, who's
holding a sign that says "I * Journey w/Steve Perry."
"Oh, I hope so," says another, clutching at her chest.
She's clearly the wild-eyed optimist of the bunch.
It's not just the fans, either. "I don't think he comes,"
Cain says. "I sort of think he doesn't, no. He's not
good at confronting situations like this, you know?
Never was. I mean, it's just part of his personality."
Cain has reason to doubt Perry. Back when the
band's star was announced in June 2003, the singer
went on "Uncle Joe" Benson's SoCal radio show
and mused, "The big question is whether I would
show up or not and, I've got to tell you, the honest,
honest feeling is that I just don't know if I want to do
that. It's not that I don't think I'll show up at the star
someday and take a picture standing on it, and look
at it and have a moment of reflection to myself, for
how hard it was to possibly see that happen in my
lifetime. But whether or not we stand together
anywhere again is gonna be difficult for me to say."
The band's been trying. Just two days ago, on L.A.'s
Mark and Brian radio show, Schon publicly implored
Perry to come, and the hosts spent the entire
segment trying to reach the singer on air, to no avail.
Later that night, on the syndicated Rockline show,
Schon tried again. When host Bob Coburn asked
who'd be at the ceremony, Schon listed a few of the
confirmed guests -- Steve Smith, Aynsley Dunbar --
then added, "and I don't know, Steve Perry may pop
his head in, surprise us all." Then, leaning into the
mike, "I wish he would. Steve, we miss you. We wish
you would come and sing with us."
Schon's sincerity is iffy at best. At the break, he
laughed. "You know, all day on the radio I've been
inviting him. He always does this 'woe is me' bullsh*t
about 'Oh, they don't like me ....' Well, you're invited. I
mean, come on."
No one, it seems, can reach Perry. Calls are placed
to his lawyer and to his fan club administrator, both
of whom are in touch with him. E-mails are sent. Will
Steve be there? How does he feel about the honor?
Eventually, the lawyer calls back -- actually, the
lawyer's assistant, Annette. She's sweet, but firm.
Steve's got nothing to say. "He thanks you for your
interest, but he just respectfully would rather not
talk."
Perry is totally not coming.
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
Not that that bothers Donna Denys any.
Donna is one of a small but loyal core of Journey
fans who have in fact stopped believing in Steve
Perry, enthusiastically embracing his replacement
instead. Her California license plate, which she
holds above her head, reads "*AUJRNY." When
Steve Augeri signed her left breast after a show, she
headed straight to a tattoo parlor. This is not a
woman who dwells in the past.
"He's just class," she explains about Augeri. "For this
band, he's Number 1. He can sing, he's good with
the crowd, he's great with his fans."
Well, not all of his fans. "That's not Journey! No Steve
Perry, no Journey!" says a woman named Laureen
who protests from behind the barricades. "This guy's
a fraud. He's a really nice man, but he's a fraud. He's
just trying to sound like Steve [Perry]."
The funny thing is, nobody really denies this. When
David Lee Roth left Van Halen, the band replaced
him with a completely different voice in Sammy
Hagar. But when Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain
and Ross Valory decided, seven years ago, to move
on without Perry, there appears to have been very
little doubt that Journey wasn't going to be Journey
without Perry's sledgehammer tenor -- even if he
wasn't the guy wielding it.
"So what if it's not exactly the same?" Schon says of
Augeri's pipes. "It's damn close enough for people to
have a good time."
Screaming fans still trump screaming reviewers.
True to his reputation, Augeri himself handles the
question with grace and candor. "Frankly, I know
where my bread is buttered," he says, "and the
reason why I'm here in the first place is because I
sounded like Steve. And I accept that with open
arms."
(Yes, people, "open arms.")
Cain, who wrote or co-wrote nearly every one of
Journey's early-'80s hits, figures there's only one way
for Augeri -- and Journey -- to move out from under
Perry's shadow once and for all. "There's a certain
perception," he says, "and it's gonna take a hit record
to change it. And that's what it's gonna take."
Herbie Herbert agrees. "It'd be good if they had a
record and had some success," he says. But the
former manager is a bit skeptical about the odds of
that happening. "You know," he says, "you've got a
much better shot at the lottery or your dick growing a
foot, to be honest with you."
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
Of course, people buy lottery tickets every day, and
assessments like Herbert's haven't stopped Journey
from trying. In April 2001, the band released Arrival,
its first new LP without Perry since 1977, which
made it as high as No. 56 on the Billboard 200. But
Perry's shadow looms large -- six months later
Columbia released The Essential Journey, a
two-disc package featuring only music from the
Steve Perry era. That album reached No. 47.
They'll keep trying. According to Schon, the band
heads back into Jonathan Cain's Healdsburg studio
this month to rehearse a new record. The plan is to
get it done in time to hand out copies at a series of
"Evening With Journey" summer shows -- 3 1/2
hours a night in intimate theaters, featuring vintage
Journey music dating all the way back to the band's
self-titled 1975 debut.
"It's going to be sort of like a Journey festival," Schon
says. "Of course we'll play the hits. We always play
the hits. But we're going to go back in time and play a
lot of the jamming stuff, too."
Back in time, that is, to when Gregg Rolie's Afro
rivaled Julius Erving's and Neal Schon's Afro
dwarfed Gregg Rolie's. Back to when they were still
playing the Winterland and the Cow Palace and the
Great American Music Hall, sharing stages with the
likes of Robin Trower and the Mahavishnu
Orchestra. Back, in other words, to when Journey
was still prog-rock -- and Steve Perry was just
another guy with a demo tape.
But the local fans, the ones who just might have
seen some of those pre-Perry shows, won't have to
wait until summer to see the post-Perry Journey.
Even before Journeyfest 2005, the guys are set to
play a benefit for the National Center for Youth Law at
the Paramount Theater in Oakland on Feb. 27. They
go on at 7, and if Schon uncorks some of his old
guitar solos, they should finish late, right around the
time the lights. Go down. In the ci-tay.
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
Few things start on time in Hollywood, but this one
will. At 11:30 exactly, as a city bus slows to squeeze
past this carnival of feathered hair, Johnny Grant, the
honorary mayor of Hollywood, will stand above the
band's still-covered star and command the attention
of hundreds of people. He will read a biography of
the band, the multitudes roaring with every album
and song title mentioned. And when, at last, he
shouts, "Ladies and gentlemen, Journey!" the first
person to emerge from the shadows will be the last
person anyone expected.
The crowd will shriek and surge forward into the
metal ramparts, and Jill, who left two dying cats in
San Clemente for this, will seize up, her entire body
suddenly rigid, her hands clasped in front of her chin
as makeup streaks toward the corners of her mouth.
Steve Perry will wave and point and blow kisses, and
the other nine current and former band members in
attendance will do the same, one eye on the
assembled masses and one eye, always, on the
black-clad ghost with the auburn-streaked mullet.
When invited, Perry will stand at the podium and
speak well of the roadies, of the band, of the fans,
even of Herbie Herbert ("We had our ins and outs,"
he'll say, "but who doesn't, right?"). He'll hug his
former bandmates, then skirt along the barricades,
signing albums and arms and posters and T-shirts,
including the Budweiser bottle on the shirt Eric from
Memphis is wearing. ("He signed the best thang
ever!" Eric will later gush.)
Then he will snake his way back through the
assembled press and VIPs, a bodyguard in
sunglasses acting as a blocking back, until he
reaches the gate through which he'd come in the first
place. Before he disappears, he will be asked when,
exactly, he decided to come. He will smile and
answer simply, "Long story." Asked for a short
version of the long story, he'll smile again, and not
answer at all.
sorry to take up so much
space, folks... but this artice is an absolute MUST
READ:
/PAlogo_v2.gif "Progarchives.com Homepage")
Why were Asia rubbish?
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iguana wrote:
and I'm still having the nightmares with 'Owner of a lonely Heart' pounding the airwaves
I agree. Even if one album is not "fully Progressive", it has a lot of good things to keep the listener interested.
