Ah… The Lucy Brown story… Where to begin… Well, the beginning sounds about right…
The band was formed in Washington DC in the late '80s. I saw them for the first time in 1988 (or maybe 1989) opening for M.O.D. at The Bayou, and immediately loved their mix of funk and rock (way before it became cliche) and the singer’s soulful voice and presense.
I spoke with them briefly, telling them about the fanzine I did, and quickly lost touch.
Then, after I moved to New York City, in the early part of 1990, I was coming back from the port authority at 3AM from a DC visit, making my way across town to catch my train to Brooklyn, and what did I see in from of me? Aside from the pan-handlers? I saw a bunch of people with Lucy Brown jackets…
So I stopped them and it was the same band. Turns out they relocated about the same time I did, both of us trying to make it.
So I watched this band grow in front of my eyes. I saw them at a place in Staten Island called The Red Spot where I was the only person in the audience. I saw them in clubs in Manhattan. And slowly, things began to happen for them.
I was on the stage with them in a miserable attempt to be a roadie for them when they played the show that secured them their publishing deal. And when Megaforce Records signed the band, I was at their record release party which was still among the Top 10 most attended gigs at the venerable venue until the days the doors closed.
In addition, there was a core of people who followed the band, about a dizen of us. Some of us were just friends when Lucy Brown hit the stage. Others became good friends. To this day, one of my best friends is someone who followed the band with a fervor of my own, whom I met at a show the band did.
Unfortunately, I then say what the music biz can do to a band. I saw their label, in the middle of breaking ties with their subsidiary Atlantic, put the record out without any help from the major who was on the way out. I saw the record sound like shit, as thy brought in some name-producer who didn’t get the band at all. I saw the group flounder in vans as the structure behind them collapsed. I saw them get dropped.
For a while, I didn’t hear much from the band. They went back to DC, and there I was in NYC still. Then, I heard that the band was still around, and that they put out an EP on a small label in DC. Then, I heard that they were playing a gig in New York! Having not seen them in a couple years, I eagerly anticipated the show!
It was like old times. The band were as friendly as ever. All of the old Lucy Brown fans were there. The band played old tracks as if they never left, and new ones which, while a bit more harsh, still retained the feel of the group.
I remember joking around with the band after the show, about how I loved the Lucy Brown ambulance (their vehicle of choice!), to which someone replied, “Well I live the Lucy Brown ambiance!” I remember giving Marlboros to Gene, the singer.
Gene in particular was amazing. The guy had a lust for life beyond that of most mortals. He was always up for anything. The stories about the two girls who dragged him into a hotel they didn’t leave for two days was true, yet he didn’t brag. Life was all about new things, and he had a child-like curiosity about everything. And he was ALWAYS bumming cigarettes off of me!
Well, we said our good-bye’s after the show. I didn’t know what fate held for the band - lord knows it’s hard to get one breaks in the music industry, let alone two - but I was hopeful they would be able to at least keep it going on some level.
Less than three weeks after the show, a friend who did publicity at Megaforce called me. He told me Gene was dead. Overdose of coke and heroin. Found by the band’s guitarist. I was devastated.
Before I dealt with the death of my mother and two grandparents, I dealt with Gene’s death. I got together with that great friend, and we drove in his car to the funeral. Most of us were there… The band, the faithful fans. I got to meet his family for the first time. God bless his poor family.
The funeral was surreal. I always found the black church to be an amazing place, filled with a spirit that is unlike any other church experience I have ever had, but I never was at a funeral at all, let alone in this setting.
I remember most looking at the open coffin, seeing the blemishes not-so completely covred with make-up. I stood there, silently begging for him to wake up and ask me for a Marlboro. I would have stuck one in the coffin itself, had I had the balls. To this day, I wish i did.
The pastor, a God-fearing black woman in every stereotype you would expect of a Southern Babtist female preacher, came on to do Gene and his friends a total disservice. I recall feeling venom as she began her “eulogy” of a man she obviously never knew at all, about how “there are a lot of people in this church who don’t go at all, so while you’re here, I’m gonna use this to tell you something.”
She proceeded to tell us all how we would wind up like him. Fuck, she even pointed to the coffin at one point. Only the respect I had for his family prevented me from walking out in the middle of it.
I remember being in a daze of fury and remorse as thy brought the coffin out of he church. There I was, outside, in DC, and my friend was being taken away in a wooden box. I lost it. I cried like I never did before and only a couple of times since. I was devastated.
After the funeral, I showed my friend a bit of my life before I moved to NYC, and we went to a “party” the rest of the band was holding. It was, after all, what Gene would have wanted.
I got drunk as hell. We laughed together, remembering the little things, like how he would stick the mike in my face whenb they did color-blind, once almost chipping a tooth of mine on the process. About how I would put my arms around his sweaty skin and dance with him through the crowd during instrumental parts of songs. About how he was always bumming smokes off of me. Yes, I got trashed, talked too much, but it didn’t matter.
And that is where Lucy Brown ended. At that party. Here is a page in dedication to the band, which will fill in some details, and even has link to the music store that the guitarist Luis opened up in Maryland: http://members.aol.com/ReillyMon/lucybro.html .
I loved that band. I loved those guys. I grew up with them as I watched them go through the highs and lows. The impact their music and them as people will never leave me. And I still have a picture on my desk - taken by my publicist at their label friend - of Gene and myself at a concert. It is a slide, and it sits on my desk. I still look at it often…
Sorry if I rambled…
Yer pal,
Satan
