JON MACEY OFFICIAL WEBSITE

FOX PASS (official Fox Pass website)

FOX PASS existed from 1972 to 1978. Formed while Jon Macey and Michael Roy were still in highschool, the original concept was Bob Dylan-styled folk music played with a Mothers of Invention influence (Freak Out, We're Only in it for the Money, etc.).  The Mothers influence did set the stage for Fox Pass as Performance Art, most likely a confusing aspect of the band for the public and a confounding state of affairs for some of the band members.  Clearly, even the name "Fox Pass" was designed to create an ironic distance and a deceptive veneer for the band to carry out various psychodramas.  The first shows were as an acoustic duo in places like the infamous Cambridge Common Concert Series.  By 1973, Michael's brother John Roy had joined on bass, and there was a series of local drummers.  Early gigs were notable for the quick evolution towards the New York City sound of 2 swirling rhythm guitars, epitomized by the Velvet Underground.  The chaotic pounding and 'Sister Ray' guitar jams drove most of the drummers away, as it was not the typical Boston night club thing. Finally, in 1974  Ricci LaCentra became the drummer, with an empathic understanding of this new sound, and the band started to take off with a solid line up. The sound grew into an art-pop Boston version of the Velvet Underground, but the actual main inspiration for the sound came from the Modern Lovers, who were role models for Fox Pass in the early days, especially for Jonathan Richman's heart-on-my-sleeve approach to rock music.  Jon Macey and John Roy were the main songwriters and they developed their own personal spins on themes of relationships, alienation, and growing up in the 1970s.  Michael, Jon, and John all sang leads, giving them interesting stage interactions. FP wore black clothes, had a large gay and artsy cult following, and appeared to be punk before there was PUNK due to the influence of 1960s bands like Richard and the Young Lions and The Seeds along with the Reed/Dylan/Richman lyrical bent.  The evidence shows that they had the NYC sound and look before many of the CBGB bands even existed. But, at that time in Boston, it was hard finding venues to perform in, as most clubs wanted cover bands or blues bands during this era. The much-worshipped music scene of the late 1970s was just beginning to flourish underground, but none of the bands had a central focus and there was no real sense of a common scene. The NYC new wave/punk thing started catching fire, and Boston began to really emulate it, around 1975. But by 1975, the band was discouraged and turning away from their formative influences, as it seemed that neither the general public nor the record industry was interested. The internal pressures of the struggle had eaten away at Fox Pass, and John Roy and Ricci LaCentra ended up leaving the band, which then got a professional manager, turned up the volume, and landed in the burgeoning 'punk rock' scene in Boston.

Click on the thumbnails below for photos of 1973 - 75 Fox Pass.

After the first breakup of the band, Fox Pass quickly regrouped in early 1975. They were joined by John Jules, drummer and Anglophile, and David Godbey, bassist and rock star. These two musicians were well known locally and they brought a harder sound to the rhythms, which fit with Jon Macey and Michael Roy’s move towards Sidewinders meets the Who-influenced power pop. The songs were now almost all written by Macey, although Roy did co-write a lot of the music, especially adding his signature, soaring guitar work and melodic hooks.  Jules had a big voice in the arrangements, pushing the band more towards 'rock music' and Godbey also contributed some song ideas, but Jon was the sole lead singer and the point of view was entirely through the eyes of the jaded and worldly dissolute persona of "Macey". The band became  flashier and theatrical, and Macey adopted a Bowie/Reed/Ferry Glam stage presence. Gone was the wistful, innocent Dylan Velvets 1960s veneer of the early line up. The new Fox Pass was ready for the 1970s music wars. They also met Bruce Miner, a local businessman, who became their first real manager. Bruce brought a new level of professionalism to FP and soon bookings increased and their profile rose in the Boston music world. This coincided with the spotlight on New York and Boston due to the ‘Punk’ revival and FP was abruptly in the middle of it all.  Another factor was a major car accident in which Macey was hit head on and suffered disc injuries in his neck. This accident led to unlimited access for painkillers and sedatives, increasing his existing proclivity for chemicals, and enlarging the already-big chip on his shoulder. FP released their only 45 single in early 1976; "I Believed" b/w "Prized Possession" a prototypical Macey good vs. evil paradox.  In those days, radio would play local tapes all the time (most bands had tapes rather than records), and FP had many songs on key radio stations in New England (sadly, none of these songs were pressed into records).  Press followed airplay and the boys were packing houses around Massachusetts and playing regularly in NYC. Yet, FP and Miner felt alienated from the "Punk" tag, seeing it in a negative career light, and they made statements and gave interviews that distanced them from the scene. Macey took his writing credits off of Pastiche’s hit "Flash of the Moment."  Record companies flocked to the sold-out shows, but they were bewildered by Macey’s Lenny Bruce-influenced subterfuge and sarcasm on stage, taking him at face value, the last thing Macey wanted. This dynamic culminated in Macey regularly taking the stage wearing a lime green pimp suit purchased in the scenic Combat Zone. The symbolism was lost on many observers but the outfit is still an occasional topic for eye witnesses. Smaller labels offered punk deals and FP turned them down, hoping for the big prize. To top it off, band and management decided not to be on the infamous "Live at the Rat" LP, which, history has proven, was a HUGE MISTAKE (as a side note, there are apparently ghost copies of this record with FP featured….) Simultaneously, Macey began to carry his conceptual art persona into all aspects of his life: girlfriends, press interviews, groupies, parties, gigs, radio shows, leaving pissed-off musicians and fans in his wake. The pressure cooker kept cooking, and the typcial negative co-factors surrounding the music scene, especially the drugs, began to dominate things……   

In early 1977, in yet another personality clash, the band fired David Godbey and hired bassist Max Camfield and their first keyboard player, Steve Couch.  Jon Macey was sick of the pimp suit and sick of being misinterpreted as a punk rock singer.  Macey had also tired of his negative persona and flipped to the polar extreme of his youthful love for pure pop music like The Beatles or the Jeff Barry/Phil Spector/Brian Wilson songs.  Again this was the paradigmatic good versus evil struggle. Macey was an early lover of ABBA, and he wanted to emulate them by hiring women on bass and keys, but soon abandoned that idea as it was much frowned upon in the tough guy rock circles of the Rat. However, the new band could perform the more sophisticated Macey songs, and they reverted to the multiple lead singer format, with four part harmonies. The whole thing flew in the face of the punk new wave trend just as it finally was gleaning record deals for some of the bands that followed in Fox Pass' foot steps. The band still held a very high profile in the media, but this abrupt change confused their audience. What happened next was that FP lost its place in the urban race towards New Wave stardom, but at the same time they played even more New England gigs and actually were much more popular on the suburban college circuit. Airplay and NYC gigs continued as well, but they could see that they were being left behind, and that had they packaged themselves as PUNK, they would have rode the trend along with other East Coast bands. Feeling defeated, they fired manager Bruce Miner, hiring a manager with more lucrative agent connections. After a year or so, this line up fell apart, and Macey and Roy decided to pack it in and relocate to NYC. But before they did, they reunited with their original members, John Roy and Ricci LaCentra, adding Bob Toomey on piano, and played the last six months of 1978 in a series of final shows all over New England, reviving some of their early sound. Characteristic of their whole saga, these last shows may have been the most successful streak of gigs in the FP history.  Fox Pass ended before the real explosion of Boston music that came in the early 1980s and therefore are somewhat obscure in history. They left behind many unissued studio and live recordings spanning their whole career.

"History belongs to those who rewrite it."

The thumbnails below are photos, promo stuff, and press from 1975-1978.

TOM DICKIE

AND THE DESIRES

Tom Dickie and the Desires existed from 1979 to 1983.  Jon Macey and Tom Dickie had become friends during the peak of the Fox Pass at The Rat days.  Tom Dickie was in a band called ‘Susan’ who had performed on the infamous Live at The Rat album and were one of the top bands in Boston in those days.  Fox Pass and Susan were very dissimilar bands, but Dickie and Macey had a lot in common: a love of songwriting craft, Bob Dylan, Lenny Bruce, and most importantly, ABBA. Susan relocated to NYC in the late 1970s and got a deal with RCA and released one album. In 1979, after the demise of both of their bands, Macey moved to NYC to form a songwriting partnership with Dickie. Michael Roy from Fox Pass followed a few months later, and they auditioned a series of drummers, settling on Ronnie Ball, an early member of Twisted Sister. Joe Martino, much later a member of Macey’s Parade in the 1990s, was also in the first lineup, but he was not able to commit to the project. Macey switched to bass guitar during the gestation phase of the band, and he ended up staying with that instrument for the life of the band. The Dickie/Macey songwriting team modeled itself after Bjorn and Benny, Frey and Henley, Lennon and McCartney, and the 1960s bubblegum teams like Cordell and Gentry. POP was a huge undercurrent, but the actual sound of the band was NYC rock.  The guitars were in the classic interweaving style of most good rock - not too much lead and lots of drive. The song lyrics did not bother with trite sentiment, instead this where the Dylan influence was: metaphorical lyrics about SOMETHING, not merely window dressing for the music. They wrote about NYC, the struggles of being downtown, addiction, failed relationships and the post-modern dilemmas of age and idealism. The psychological edge from Fox Pass was transferred to these new songs. They had very strong vocals, as Dickie, Roy, and Macey were all accomplished singers, and they exploited this in song arrangements. This particular aspect set them apart from many of the bands they played with at Max's and CBGB's and allowed them to integrate the harmonic sensibilities of pop with the blasting city sounds. Tommy Mottola had managed Susan, and thus Mottola also managed the new band, initially called the Tom Dickie Combo. Tommy Mottola was a powerful and well-connected music figure, most known for managing Hall and Oates, and having the song ‘Native New Yorker’ from Saturday Night Fever written about him. With Mottola's clout, they were able to tour with many national acts of the time and, from their first NYC gigs, record scouts were coming to see the band, and soon Peter Lubin signed them to Mercury Records. During this time, they changed drummers again, getting Peter Charles of ‘Black Betty’ fame. They also added hotshot keyboardist Gary Corbett. Mottola’s people christened them Tom Dickie and the Desires, after the 50s tune ‘That’s My Desire’. Once the deal was inked, Lubin nixed Peter Charles, and brought in the then-unknown Mickey Curry on drums for the recoding sessions. Many producers were contacted (including Bjorn and Benny!!) and they hired British producer Martin Rushent, of Stranglers and Buzzcocks fame. They recorded their first album, "Competition," at Electric Lady studios in December 1980. Released in March of 1981, the LP yielded two radio hits across various US regions:'Downtown Talk' and 'Competition', the latter actually released as a single in the US and England, as well as some Euro countries. Boston radio especially played both of these songs, with WBCN pushing 'Downtown Talk' and 'Competition' hitting number eight on KISS 108. The album charted in Record World and a promotional tour was scheduled.  However, after a few big shows with Hall and Oates, Mickey Curry was promptly removed from the band by management and delivered to Hall and Oates, a gig that would pay off big time for him. Chuck Sabo was hired to do the tours and the videos for both songs featured him on drums. The band set off on their biggest tour, highlighted by huge dates in the Mid-West with Cheap Trick.

The band faced many stumbling blocks.  One key issue was that they were being promoted as 'New Wave' by Mercury and subsequently viewed by the critical intelligentsia as latecomers to the party, aping Costello, Petty, and the Cars. This hurt because the truth was that Dickie, Macey ,and Roy had all been doing this since the early 1970s, and were actually forerunners of some of those artists. A friendlier and more insightful critic noted that: "I would describe the album as 'radio friendly' and full of catchy hooks, but with an abundance of meaning and depth under a deceptively glossy surface." Another big snafu was the relationship with the management, who were used to acts like Hall and Oates and a string of Adult Contemporary and Disco acts, and did not get the true soul of the band. They couldn't understand the ABBA meets Dylan meets the Clash vibe at all. And they did not empathize with the band's intense idealism.  Tom Dickie especially took umbrage at this, and it soured his relationship with Mottola. But the biggest self-defeatng factor during the entire history of the band was the reckless drug abuse of some members. Macey certainly had progressed much deeper into addictions since his Fox Pass daze and some of the others had serious problems as well. With all these forces bearing on the situation, the later tours were fraught with internal tensions. The band really had no support other than each other, and the strain on them made it impossible to remain a united front.

By the summer of 1981, it was time to plan another album and Martin Rushent was called in again, but he declined to proceed. Ed Sprigg, who had worked with John Lennon, became producer. The band was really becoming great in concerts but internally things were not so great. Macey and Dickie were becoming fractured as a team as they cooked up a new batch of songs and did pre-production with the band between tours. The new songs were more explicit in detailing the downward spiral of Macey's plunge into oblivion. The first album had dealt with these matters (especially 'Downtown Talk'), but now it became a predominant theme. In November, the foretelling became the present moment, as Macey ended up in a coma due to a life-threatening case of hepatitis. Things came to a dead halt until he was able to return to the studio. Gary Corbett was fired from the band at this point, as his addiction made him expendable. Throughout the first part of 1982, Roy and Dickie had to do most of the work overdubbing the basic tracks of the album because  Macey was a ghost during the sessions. Joe Martino also contributed some lap steel. The aptly titled album, 'The Eleventh Hour,' was released in the summer of 1982, just as Macey abruptly quit the band. Tom Dickie and the Desires played more gigs and did some touring, but the label and management abandoned them quickly. The promise of the band at the beginning, to merge sharply crafted lyrics to the elusive power pop sound, lay in the dust of misfortune as the band dissolved. Their legacy is on the 2 released Mercury albums. There is enough material for a third Tom Dickie and the Desires album recorded and stored in boxes.

"The fault may be in our stars after all."

MACEY'S PARADE

Macey’s Parade existed from 1989 until 1994, although the story really begins around 1985. After the debacle of his ruinous drug addiction and the demise of Tom Dickie and the Desires in Manhattan, Jon Macey moved back to Boston in the mid-80s. He struggled to make music but his personal problems made it quite difficult to pull together and sustain a band. He formed a band called The Score in 1985, with notable members such as Michael Scott (now of The Distortions) and Jeff Mayo, both currently active in Los Angeles. One of the drummers was Mark Highlander (at one point in Duke and The Drivers) who actually coined the name ‘Macey’s Parade’, which Macey himself dismissed at that time. Former Fox Pass drummer Ricci LaCentra joined, along with Macey’s then wife Kimberly Stephenson on keyboards. The Score played a number of gigs around Boston (like the iniquitous Chet’s Last Call) and did some recording sessions. But Macey could not overcome his all-consuming drug habit, and each promising song or gig turned into nothing. Not wanting to become a caricature of the junkie poet has-been, Macey simply withdrew from music.

In 1988, a series of mishaps and disasters completely broke Macey down to the point that he was able to seek help and begin to salvage his life.  He met a British expatriate named Steve John (a singer and conga player) in recovery meetings and the two of them started to write songs together, mostly about their common experiences with drugs. They also modified a number of the songs Macey had composed for the ill fated Score a couple of years earlier. They soon contacted Joe Martino, the multi-instrumentalist who had played with Tom Dickie and The Desires, and they had the core of a new band. Steve John christened the band ‘Boys Make Noise’ and, with drummer Steve Arnold and bassist Steve Leonard, they started playing the local Boston/Cambridge circuit in 1989. Neither Steve John nor Macey were particularly mentally stable at this juncture, due to the shock of being totally conscious for the first time in years and, although they drew crowds in the bars, the band could not hold together. Steve fled back to England as his drug habit reared its ugly head again and Macey and Martino got Ricci LaCentra (yet again!) and Rich Doherty on drums and bass. More gigs and recording sessions followed, including the first recording of the song ‘The Clinic’, which has become the most remembered Macey song from this era. That session actually included John Ryder (Face to Face) on bass and was released on the local VAR label as part of a compilation of Boston bands. The band was now officially called Macey’s Parade and went through various incarnations , sometimes changing from gig to gig. Martino was in and out of the band, Steve John returned with his congas, Charlie Cirrone played flute(!), Jane Elizabeth sang back up, John O'Toole played lead guitar, and even local producer Joe Harvard played guitar for a stretch.

In mid-1991, Macey finally assembled the line up of Macey’s Parade that lasted the longest, with Tom Hostage (guitar), Bill Mello (bass), and Steve Lytle (drums), all veteran musicians who had played in many popular bands such as The Streets and The Blackjacks. This group was hard-edged, and Macey again found himself (as he did in some versions of Fox Pass) in the tension between ‘rock’ music and his elegiac lyrical side. The band was very professional and played many successful shows, but the aftermath of his addiction, and related health problems, caused Macey to doubt his vision and subverted his ability to lead. Macey was finally able to use all of his talents and he jumped from sound to sound with great glee, like a bird let out of a cage. His career-long tendency to alter styles and always add new songs increased exponentially, giving the band a vast repertoire, but creating a state of affairs where neither the audience nor the band could ever get a fix on their sound. They recorded and issued a number of songs that were played on local radio, gathering gigs and press notices. Steve John’s drug problems finally drove him from the band (and the country) permanently. (He eventually died of AIDS in England in the late 1990s.) Joe Martino came back into the band in the middle of the prolonged recording sessions for their album, under the production guidance of Barry Marshall. The many harder rocking tracks the band had recorded prior to the Barry Marshall sessions were shelved by Macey, as he wanted to move more to the folk and country/rock sound that appealed to him at that moment. Plus the drug related chronic health issues had worsened, sapping his energy and enthusiasm for loud rock music. The result was a three guitar line up, with Hostage on lead electric guitar and acoustic guitar, Martino on many instruments (lap steel, mando guitar, electric and acoustic lead) and Macey predominantly on acoustic guitar. The resulting album took over a year to record due to financial limitations (this was the very dawn of the digital home recording era and that option was not yet common) and before mixing even commenced, Bill Mello left the band, frustrated with Martino. The final product, "Too Much Perspective," was very professional and eclectic, but not truly representative of all of Macey's best songwriting of this era. Due to the lengthy recording process, many newer songs were not included, and by the time it was released Macey had lost interest in many of the older songs. There are a few true classics on there though, and the music holds up remarkably well a decade later. Steve Korba replaced Mello on bass.

The CD immediately achieved media recognition with many newspaper, magazine and television notices, almost all praising the record. It was a heartfelt cry in the middle of the explosion of Grunge and Irony, and the few knocks it took derided it as too 'sincere.'  The notices tended to overplay Macey's drug addiction and downfall which, although he was willing to talk about it, made him feel like a one dimensional music biz cliche, and this overshadowed the more universal aspects of the music. The band did not fit into the Alternative Rock trend of the moment so, even as the Macey's Parade public profile increased with bigger and better shows, they could not get a big label to take the album. On their own (this was pre-Internet) they could not do much except keep playing the Boston area club circuit. They headlined the Orpheum Theatre on Dec. 31, 1993 in a triumphant concert, but Macey could feel that the end was near. During 1994, the band improved even more, becoming a great live act, able to play tight arrangements and improvise in the same songs! They played all the hot clubs (The Paradise, The Middle East, Hard Rock Cafe) and also recorded 20 more songs in an 8 track studio as demos for a second CD. Macey went to Los Angeles for 2 extended trips in the Spring to shop the CD but he was tired of struggling and started to lose hope. With little fanfare, in September 1994, Macey called it quits. The last shows were certainly their best shows, and he wanted to stop while the music was great. Many songs remain unreleased, begging for a second Macey's Parade CD to complete the story.

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

You can buy the CD at CDBaby  or Amazon

Click on the thumbs below for Macey's Parade photos and press clips

Right after the end of Macey's Parade, Jon Macey hooked up with local star Sal Baglio, of The Stompers fame, to form The BitterSweets, along with bassist Stephen Gilligan and drummer Lenny Shea (both also ex-Stompers). A few concerts were played, and an entire album recorded, in 1995. Abruptly the band split and the album remains unreleased. Then Macey became co-writer and guitarist for singer Agona Hardison for a spell. By 1996, Macey had decided to go to school and was working in the Public Health field, and his music efforts were in building a professional home studio and playing the occaisional fundraiser. By 1998, he was back in touch with Michael Roy and John Jules, and they, among many others like Tom Hostage, Ron Doty, and Sal Baglio, contributed to the recordings that became "Actuality in Process", which was released in 2003. Wanting to play as band again, Macey, Roy, and Jules enlisted Gilligan, and The Score name was revived. Jon Macey and The Score played a series of well-received shows around Boston, getting rave reviews.

It soon became clear that this band was playing for keeps and needed to record. Since the core of the band was in Fox Pass (and Stephen Gilligan had kind of always wanted to be in Fox Pass) the decision was made to use that name for this band. After 30 years, Fox Pass recorded its debut album, with Barry Marshall (who always wanted to produce Fox Pass) as producer. It was released in November 2005. Check out all the great reviews at the Fox Pass website. What once was, is again. The music never stops.

Universal praise followed the release of the CD. Check out the reviews page on this website. Timing being everything, they finally got it all together just as the sale of recorded music plummeted and the market was flooded with myspaceflybynightamatuers and getting the attention of the general public was nearly impossible. Locally, Fox Pass had a good Boston following, playing the major clubs in town and always pulling big crowds. Jules, however, became disenchanted and resigned his drum stool in late 2006. Replacing such a key member proved difficult until Fate shined her light on the situation.

"It" is all in the "perception"

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