THE STRANGE CASE OF
STEVE KACZOROWSKI
THE
FATHER OF KARAOKE ROCK
this article
was previously
printed in UGLY THINGS magazine, #24
v 1.1 -- addendum with the
No Dice album identified, 2008-September
v 1.2 -- Steve Kaczorowski moved on to the great rock star party in the sky
on March 17, 2009. He will be missed.
v 1.3 -- another song on the Tiger Lily album has now been identified;
2010-April
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It
must have been exhilarating, that evening back in 1971 at the
unglamorous Long Island high school. A group of senior students had just
finished their performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar”, the first one ever
staged on American soil, to a standing ovation. As the audience drifted off
into the night, the young players were trying to wind down back-stage,
discussing the experience while getting out of the Palestine garments and into
their regular teenage gear. The local project had met with some
unexpected interference, as it looked like its premiere would pre-date the
major Broadway production of the musical, not to mention that the students
hadn’t bothered to seek permission from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to
use their compositions. After vowing not to charge admission, the production
company allowed the school project to continue; since they utilized the
British 3-LP set where the work had been first presented, the students had
come a long way without original sheet music or manuscript. Back-stage, rumors that Andrew Lloyd-Webber had actually come out to Long Island to see the
performance were in circulation. One of the teachers present asked if anyone
had really seen the British composer. -
He was here alright, replied one of the students. This
mild-looking young man, who had played the central part of “Jesus”, had
even more stunning revelations to report. -
Paul McCartney was here too, he declared. -
Oh I’m sure he was, Steve, laughed the teacher. -
I saw him, the student insisted. The
teacher, well accustomed to the creative mind of her young “Jesus”,
decided not to press the issue. -
Paul McCartney was here tonight and saw us perform, said the long-haired high
school boy in the white robe. Welcome
to the world of STEVE Kaczorowski. *
* * Some
30 years later, an experienced crate digger comes across an LP he has never
heard of before, despite his many years in the service of obscure music. The
front cover shows a timid-looking young man, and the track list seems
promising. The label is “United Artists”, but the logo and overall design
doesn’t resemble typical UA product. Some heavy name musicians are credited
on the back, such as Nick Hopkins and Rob Fripp. Intrigued, he gives it a
spin, and curiosity mounts to mild excitement. This sounds like a good album,
with a mix of powerful early 1970s rock and atmospheric ballads. Better still,
no one the crate digger asks seems to know it. It’s quite pro-sounding in
parts, which adds to the enigma. He decides to try and track the artist –
one Steve Kaczorowski – down.
Some weeks later, the middle-aged
Kaczorowski is found, and a few phone exchanges occur. The vibe is a little
weird, and the story takes an unexpected turn. The artist, as it turns out,
was none other than Steve Martin of the world-famous LEFT
BANKE, moonlighting
under a different name! Steve says that the person shown on the first Banke LP
cover isn’t him, but “some 30-year old guy”, who sang on a few songs.
However, famous Banke tunes such as “Walk Away Renée” features Steve
Kaczorowski, then calling himself “Steve Martin”. The vocals sound a bit
different from his obscure solo album, due to the Banke producers feeding them
through an “oscillating voice transducer”.
Regarding the circa 1971 solo LP,
titled “What Time Are You”, Kaczorowski confirms that Robert Fripp, Alvin
Lee and other heavyweights were part of the sessions (credits also show Joe
Osborne and Don Maclean). His subsequent career turns out to be remarkable,
and includes a couple of highly rated mid-70s rarities by the Steve Drake
Band, as well as extended periods spent in England working with big-name
artists and labels. This was all pretty exciting. Was it perhaps too good to
be true?
As fine as much of the music on “What
Time Are You” was, parts of it sounded strangely familiar. Also, the mixing
was a little bizarre at times, and the quality of the vocals fluctuated in a
peculiar way. And why was the label called “United Artists”, when it didn’t
seem to be a UA release? Slowly the pieces of the puzzle were coming together,
and what emerged was not a picture of a legendary ex-Left Banke vocalist
cutting an obscure demo album, but rather, and perhaps even more remarkable,
the birth of Karaoke Rock.
Steve Kaczorowski, you see, was just
a Long Island teenager fresh out of high school, whose main claim to fame was
performing in a school production of “Jesus Christ Superstar”. When the
Left Banke hit #5 on Billboard he was only 13 years old. He didn’t know any
famous rock musicians, but he really wanted to be one, and had found a unique
way to make his dream reality. Rounding up all the money he could, he went
into a cheap local studio, armed with some obscure albums he liked. Exactly
what went on inside that studio will probably never be known, so instead I’ve
assembled this simple table:
To make it absolutely clear: what we are dealing with here, on at least four tracks, are not “cover versions”, but karaoke versions. In other words, Steve Kaczorowski added his own vocals to existing recordings by various rock bands, usually singing in tandem with the original vocalist. The tracks selected were particularly suited for this trick, and in addition the channel balance might be off-set, in order to bury the original vocals in the mix. Other edits were also applied at times. The end result is surprisingly convincing; if you weren’t aware of the background, it sounds like common double-tracking of the vocals. If you are aware of the background, the listening experience becomes quite bizarre. And there are more layers to this enigma. As you can tell from the table above, the obscure fourth LP by Boss-Town band ORPHEUS was a Kacz favorite. This LP, released in 1971, featured a revamped line-up of the band, among which you could find a vocalist and songwriter named – wait for it – Steve Martin. Now, this Boston Steve Martin was neither the ex-Left Banke singer, nor Steve Kaczorowski, or even the famous Hollywood comedian, but yet another guy who due to his name got dragged into the Kacz funhouse. Another facet to the bizarre logic at play is that most of the karaoke tracks retained their original titles. Kacz could simply have renamed the tunes and drastically reduced the risk of being exposed, but not so. To Kaczorowski’s credit, he did actually deliver some original recordings on this debut LP. The Orpheus track “Big Green Pearl” is not a karaoke version, but a regular cover, identified as such by the different backing, as well as the less than stellar vocal performance by the K-man, who misses the high note on the chorus with half an octave. A few of the tracks on side 2 may be karaoke stunts whose sources are not yet identified, but there is no doubt that a couple of numbers are actual Kacz works.
After completing his recordings
Kaczorowski had the LP “released” via a custom plant (possibly QCA in
Cincinnati), wrapped in a nice period cover complete with sensitive artist
photo on the front, a snapshot from the heavy studio sessions on the back,
plus those bogus musician credits and the fake “United Artists” label
design. He also assumed songwriting credit for all tunes, including the
regular cover versions. Since the purpose was to create the image of being a
famous rock star, only enough copies were pressed to show friends and maybe
send to radio stations, which explains why the LP remained buried for 30
years. Long before anyone knew anything about Karaoke Rock, the two LPs by the “Steve Drake Band” had been known among specialists on obscure 1970s music. Highly rated by some, they changed hands for $500 or more on the few occasions they were offered for sale. Nothing unusual had been noticed about them, except maybe that they appeared on somewhat dubious labels, and that the music seemed a bit schizophrenic, almost like it featured different bands, or had been assembled over a long period of time. The first Steve Drake Band album, which I’d also rate as his best “work” all over, breaks down like this: STEVE
DRAKE BAND: “Cold
Sweat” (Odyssey, 1975)
The
back cover features some highly ironic liner notes by one Bob Ciasca (“…each
song has its own identity, yet each song contains the superlative personality
and style of the performer/composer”), and we are again informed that all
songs were written by Steve Drake and published by C.A.B Music. Producer
credit this time is assigned to none other than Chas Chandler. There is also
an insert which claims members of SLADE to play on the Bebop Deluxe tracks!
The record label “Odyssey” looks mysteriously similar – in fact
identical – to Columbia’s classical imprint of the same name, who probably
would have been surprised to find a collection of Brit-style hardrock and
glamrock in their roster. To finance the pressing of the album, Steve offered
locals a chance to “invest” in the release, buying a “block” of it at
a few hundred dollars each. Kaczorowski’s other new favorite was BE-BOP DELUXE, who at the time hadn’t reached the popularity that they would see just a year later, making life difficult for our young karaoke rocker. In fact, band leader Bill Nelson would later be informed of the Steve Drake album, although he hasn’t yet bothered to pursue this legally. The Be-Bop Deluxe and Stackridge songs are from 1975, shortly before Kaczorowski/Drake's album came out. The CRYAN SHAMES track (from their “Synthesis” album) is perhaps the most surprising choice, although its British power-pop sound fits well on the Drake album. The K-man slowed it down a bit, which made it heavier and probably also easier to sing along with. It should be pointed out that there really was a Steve Drake Band, at least for a little while, which consisted of Steve and some local Long Island musicians. The band members figured something was weird about their vocalist’s career and various grandiose claims, yet it didn’t seem to hurt anyone and they played along hoping something would come from it. While everyone waited for the big break, the potential rock star briefly held his first and last real job, at a local grocery store. Kacz/Drake also had an image update, abandoning the sensitive young man on his first LP for a tougher, down-to-earth look with sunglasses and a cigarette, as seen on both his mid-1970s album covers.
The strangeness of the Kaczorowski
trajectory reached new heights with his third and final album of Karaoke Rock,
released by the notorious tax-scam TIGER LILY label. One can only marvel at
the unknown cosmic forces that made this marriage happen. In one corner you
have one of the most dishonest record labels of all time, a shady NYC sting
operation that managed to rip off the IRS, the artists and the buyers in one
fell swoop. In the other corner you have a con artist, a deluded man living
out a hoax of being a "rock star", and copying other people's music
to make it happen. Put them together and what do you get?
It’s
not known exactly how Steve Kaczorowski/Drake and Tiger Lily got hooked up;
possibly he simply sent them a demo of one of his karaoke collections, as was
his style, and Tiger Lily released it with no strings attached, as was their
style. In any event, it is appropriate to the label that the Kacz-man here
took his karaoke rock concept to even further heights: he stopped bothering
with the vocal overdubs, but simply taped a bunch of tracks from obscure UK
import albums and christened them Steve Drake Band recordings! The selection
is even more schizophrenic and unlikely, throwing you abruptly between
different soundscapes and moods. As on the earlier albums, several tracks
inexplicably retain their original titles, rather than being anonymized under
new headings. Further British 70s rock scene and shady record label connections can be found on the first album by NO DICE, though the story gets a little hazy here. Released on Western Hemisphere, a presumed tax-scam front with Roulette distribution (just like Tiger Lily), this obscure 1976 LP credits one Steve Drake for all songwriting, listing his C.A.B publishing company and better yet, shows him as the “producer”. No Dice were a real, existing British band who would release two more albums with a less dubious look than this “Cool Me Down” debut. Although stylistically in the Kacz school, there is no musical overlap with the “Steve Drake Band” albums, and it’s possible that the Roulette wiseguys simply threw Steve’s name onto the sleeve credits as a joke, or to confuse the paper trail, knowing that if some IRS agent managed to track Drake/Kacz down, whatever he told them would have little connection to reality. After this flurry of activity in the mid-1970s, it appears that Steve Kaczorowski decided to wind down on his artistic ambitions, and reap the fruits of being a famous rocker while floating around in his hometown doing essentially nothing. We have found no further releases with his involvement, although anything is possible. As indicated at the beginning of our saga, the pop star fantasies are still very much alive in the Kacz zone. From reports it appears that at least some of his relatives and buddies genuinely believe that their local son – who is described as a friendly, gentle person – really used to be a big name in rock, and why not? He’s obviously made enough of a mark in rock history to have people write magazine articles about him.
Thanks all who
have contributed [names withheld], and if you have something to add, you MUST
get in
touch. ADDENDUM 1. The NO DICE
album discussed above turns out to contain rather excellent, pro-sounding
hardrock. Apart from the Steve Drake credit, one of the other names listed on
the sleeve is a guy who played with "Drake" in a local Long Island
band in the mid 1970s, after Steve's third album. This Steve Drake Band once
opened for the Dixie Dregs but lasted less than a year. Upon hearing the No
Dice LP, the ex-member commented that it was nothing he had ever been involved
with. He did recognize "Love You Lost" as something that Drake/Kacz
had played for him at the time. Here's the NO DICE "Cool It Down"
track list:
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©
Patrick
The Lama
2005-2010