Sit back and let me tell you the story of the Metromen, the best New York City rock band you have never heard of.
What I remember anyway...
The time was 1980, and disco was all but dead. I was working at Mediasound
Recording Studios as a technical engineer and was exposed to all kinds of great
music. Lou Reed, Blondie, Talking Heads, David Bowie, they all passed through
our doors. Those were glorious times for NYC rock and roll and Mediasound was a
very hot studio.
One day I was talking to Harvey Goldberg, probably the most talented
engineer working at Media, and he started raving about a project that he was
working on for Genya Ravan's new label, Polish Records. The band was called the Metromen,
and they were playing that night somewhere in the city. A friend and I went
and were blown away. If you saw them live you became an instant fan.
My memory is a bit fuzzy, but as I recall the Metromen were a four piece
band, consisting of two guitar players, one lefty (Russ Velazquez) and one righty (Tom Teeley), plus an
amazing drummer (Robert Miller) and bass player (Bill Teeley, Tom's brother). One guitarist doubled on keyboards on some of
the songs. The guitarists and drummer were all very handsome and fit and you
could always count on a dozen pretty girls at their shows. I recall that Bill always wore a 1940's style suit complete with hat and looked a lot
like Clark Kent. He never spoke or sang but boy, could he play bass. The
other three all sang and were excellent musicians.
Harvey would let me hear rough mixes of the record as it progressed and I became
a Metromen fan. I saw them live several more times and looked forward to
the day that the album was finished so I could buy a copy.
Now Genya Ravan was a brilliant singer and musician (and still is) but
running a record company was probably a bit too much for her to handle at the
time. (She had a wonderful sense of humor though and her red Polish Records
t-shirts had WHO DO I HAVE TO F*CK TO GET OFF THIS LABEL neatly
printed on the reverse. I had one and gave it to a skinny girlfriend, it didn't
fit me...) As far as I know the Metromen record was never released and
the band eventually broke up and got real jobs. Shame, if they had been around
when MTV first came out it might have been a different story. But sadly they
were a little ahead of their time.
I was lucky enough to obtain a cassette of the album made from the master tape
and that is what you are listening to right now. I am assuming that this
material is public domain by now but if I am wrong I will shut down this page
immediately. Otherwise this is a chance for people to hear this incredible
overlooked band. The songs still sound fresh and the recording and production
are both first rate. (This was recorded on a Neve 8068 console and Harvey was
the Neve master.)
If anyone has more information about the Metromen, especially photos, send me a message and I will be happy to add your
input to this page with full credit.
NEWS FLASH! The Metromen reunited for a show on 11/12/07 at Maxwell's in New Jersey. Based on the enthusiastic reception and a very high fun factor future shows and a new CD are planned, stay tuned for details and enjoy the actual photos of the band...