What does this logo mean? Contact Starcrost Attention campers! Don't forget to listen to the music before you leave here - (click on this) Click here to listen to Roller Derby Star in Streaming Audio Click here to listen to Pat and Joe's in Streaming Audio Instrumental only, written and produced by Willy Truckaway

Special Credits:

Songwriter:   Kent Housman
Producer and lead vocal:   Willy Truckaway
Vocal harmonies:   Peter Cross
Vocal arrangement and drums:   Peter Cross
Guitar:   David Lewark
Recording:   The ridiculous Pete Slausen
Final Mix:   The disastrous Pete Slausen

Commentary:

After moving from New York City to Laguna Beach, I took a trip up to northern California and I have no idea why I did it. There I met Pete Slausen who was running a small recording studio at the Mill Valley heliport, an old building which had been badly burned in a fire and had been gutted and refitted into small recording and rehearsal studios for local San Francisco bands like Hot Tuna (Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy, formerly from the Jefferson Airplane). Pete was running Studio B, and Hot Tuna was in Studio A. This is where I met Jorma, who I met again many years later at Wavy Gravy's Camp Winarainbow. And speaking of rainbows, there actually was a magical double rainbow hovering over San Francisco Bay on that same afternoon when I walked into Studio B and met David Lewark and David Raeder - one outstanding guitar player (Lewark) and one weird guitar player (Raeder). And they just happened to be looking for a drummer so that they could start a really good band. How fortuitous! I showed the two Davids some of my original songs and they were both impressed. We jammed all day long and the band Magic was formed that same night.

Willy Truckaway was also working with Pete Slausen, and Willy had been contracted by Warner Brothers Records to cut a version of Roller Derby Star, a song written by Kent Housman who was a San Francisco songwriter that Warner Brothers was interested in. Kent's best song was Roller Derby Star, but Kent's version of his own song apparently wasn't good enough for Warner Brothers. Besides, many of the lyrics are certainly questionable, like "don't be a salad"? What's that supposed to mean? And "You do the best with what you got where you are"??? My English teacher would roll over in her grave! However, I worked with Willy to make the arrangement much more driving hard rock, and Willy let me put my trademark vocal harmonies in the chorus because Kent's version had no vocal harmonies at all. Willy also let me sing the higher vocal harmony along with his lead vocal. My drumming is the best playing I ever did that was recorded successfully, except for my own song, Favorite Toy, and that's the main reason that Roller Derby Star is on my web site. But it's not for sale for obvious Warner Brothers kinds of reasons.

After the recording was finished it sounded awesome, but then Slausen got an idea to go out to a roller derby stadium, set up a bunch of microphones underneath the wooden roller derby track and record the raucous sounds. He then mixed this crap together with the intrumental tracks and put the damn levels up so high that a lot of the brilliant guitar playing and drum work is obscurred. When radio stations tried to play it, their needles went clear off the scale so it got no airplay and just died a pathetic death. Many years later, I tried to find a copy of the thing, but Willy Truckaway had disappeared, Pete Slausen didn't have a clue, and Warner Brothers acted like an inaccessible corporate giant who didn't give a hoot. I was convinced that my work had been totally lost until I went back east in June 2004 to attend my younger son Alex's high school graduation. When I got my chance to go up into The Bitch's attic to retrieve all my valuable stuff, one of the things I found was an original 45 record of Roller Derby Star. Completely charged by this incredible find, I brought it back to California, copied the 45 recording into my computer, and then converted the sound into MP3 format which is what you can hear now. Dig it!