Not Just Imprinted: Soaring on Wings of Classic Rock

Decades later, why do you still love the music of your teens and 20’s?

Imprinting. That’s my answer. If you’re doing little more than conjuring images of baby ducks, then it’s likely you’ve never seen the 1996 film “Fly Away Home” or know the story of Angelo d'Arrigo. His story is an exploration of imprinting’s deepest meaning. (See endnote for more on Arrigo’s amazing life.)

Imprinting implies a deep, involuntary preference you just can’t shake.

For folks of a certain age, imprinting on three bands that stormed the late 60s was nearly involuntary. The proof — as if it was needed— was the recent return storming of Port Washington (NY) Landmark on Main Street by Pennsylvania-based Magical Mystery Doors.

Apparently Aldous Huxley’s doors of perception, inspiration to the Doors at their founding, were still waiting, decades later, to be flung open yet again.

Soaring Microlights

The return to Landmark’s Jeanne Rimsky Theatre by Magical Mystery Doors (MMD) last month tapped into these deep connections. MMD is a band of highly competent musicians who have pledged allegiance to an era of rock music that preceded their birth – by a lot.

Handling most of the vocal duties – and those duties demanded a wide spectrum, ranging from Morrison’s baritone in “Touch Me” to Plant’s upper reaches in “Misty Mountain Hop” – was Vinny DeRenzis (vocals, keys, guitar, percussion). https://www.facebook.com/vinnyderenzismusic?locale=us.

It’s natural with bands featuring a lead vocalist to think of the singer as the band’s front man. But over the course of an evening’s performance, the multi-instrumentalist character of this band’s members taught that having one instrument name connected to one musician is an oversimplification.

On a different night, don’t be surprised to see any of these musicians fronting a band. With that caveat in mind, MMD’s other musicians included:

• Greg Reigle (bass, guitar, mandolin) https://www.facebook.com/reel/1140371040413304 https://www.facebook.com/gregory.j.reigle/
• Brendan Marro (guitar leads) https://www.facebook.com/brendan.marro?locale=US
• Mike Intelisano (percussion) https://www.facebook.com/mikeintelisano/
• Eric Henkels (keyboard, sax, guitar) https://www.facebook.com/eric.henkels/

Covers Uncovered

The classic songs were greatly enhanced by sometimes brilliant three-panel lighting effects reminiscent of light shows put on by Rush at nearby Jones Beach. (See the illustrative examples from photos I took at the show). Often synchronized with the music and lyrics, the result was memorable, especially for a relatively small, local venue.

After a Zeppelin-excerpted drum intro, the band broke into their version of “Magical Mystery Tour, ” followed by Zeppelin's “Rock and Roll” and the Doors “Break on Through.” The Beatles “Come Together” included a pitch-perfect rendering of the song’s guitar duet, with an out-tro to the “Seek it” phrase from “Break on Through.” MMD stayed with the Doors in the next mashup, starting with “Hello I Love You” and shape-shifting into Zeppelin’s “Misty Mountain Hop.”

An all-Beatles interlude combined “She Loves You, ” “All My Loving,” and “I Saw Her Standing There,” and closed with a remarkably complete – considering the lack of orchestral string instruments – cover of “Eleanor Rigby.”

MMD was equally up to the challenges posted by the nuanced arrangements in Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” and the Doors' heavily orchestrated “Touch Me,” whose capable sax part offered by erstwhile keyboardist Henkels made up for the missing parts.

An audience favorite connected Zeppelin’s “All My Love” at the umbilical with the Beatles straight-ahead party take on “Twist and Shout.”

Next the stage-filling visuals behind the band settled into a dreamy cascade of images as MMD worked through Zeppelin’s “The Rain Song, ” “Riders on the Storm” from the Doors, and – brightly – the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.” And back to a medley of Zeppelin's “Rock and Roll” and the floor-shaking “Heartbreaker.”

Then it was time for a double drum set, inspired by Ringo’s famous drum break in “The End.” Every player had a turn at the helm of a drum kit.

The cover of Zeppelin’s “Going to California” featured bassist Reigle on mandolin, followed by the Doors’ “People are Strange” – a somewhat surprising audience sing along, with the mandolin covering the song’s solos.

The evening would not have been complete without a heartfelt version of the Beatles “Yesterday,” played by lead vocalist DeRenzis on solo acoustic guitar.

The band’s forte was on display in their cover of Zeppelin’s “Ramble On, ” but their versatility, featuring Henkel on keys and vocals, offered the Beatles “Let it Be” with vocalist DeRenzis contributing organ accompaniment. When DeRenzis returned to the microphone, it was to step up the energy with Zeppelin’s plainspoken “Whole Lotta Love” and a rare cover of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.”

The band closed the second half with a mashup of the Zeppelin classic “Stairway to Heaven,” the Beatles’ “Guitar Gently Weeps.” The extended applause was rewarded by an encore featuring a Beatles send-off of “Sgt. Pepper” and – after a deceptive guitar excerpt lifted from a Zeppelin instrumental – ending with “Hey Jude,” which left much of the audience hoarse and awash with familiar song.

Audience Reaction

In correspondence with Karen Gennarelli, Landmark’s Development Director, we discussed reasons for the triumphant, sell-out return of MMD to the venue. She offered several reasons:

• A Beatles medley is an opportunity for 425 passionate groupies to exercise their vocal cords.
• The three-panel light show made the music come alive
• Definitely the music -- the familiar music.

Gennarelli’s take on the most memorable MMD moment? That moment at the close of the show’s first half: a drum sequence, started by percussionist Intelisano, but ultimately featuring all five band members in turn proficiently hitting the drum heads.

Memory Mashup

It was an almost perfect evening of classic rock.

One could wish for better mic’ing or mixing of the snare, and swapping out the popular but repetitive Doors song “Roadhouse Blues” for “Light my Fire” or perhaps the lesser-known “Waiting for the Sun.” More Doors music. (The band’s sweet spot revealed itself to be the Zeppelin sound.) And speaking of loop fatigue, a tasteful truncation of “Hey Jude” would have gotten a thumbs-up.

But overall the Magical Mystery Doors setlist was so delightful and so well executed that long-neglected flights were launched in what could only be called suddenly recalled weightlessness. The singing, the group incantations, were a unison swell.

But each flight was particular, unique as each person’s early years. Unique as the lyrics of the time: poetic and obscure, predictable and powerful.

And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason (“Stairway to Heaven”)

You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day (“Break on Through”)

and the prescient

The act you've known for all these years
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

If by now you haven’t retrieved your primitive imprints, wings fluttering as you soar above a personal Everest – as Blind Willie Johnson first and much later Robert Plant warned – “It’s nobody’s fault by mine” (1927).

There are risks, flying this way, with no visible means of propulsion. It was Mr. Mojo Risin’ who enthusiastically declared, “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.”

Upcoming Landmark Events

• BeauSoleil will celebrate their 50th Anniversary with special guest Richard Thompson (rescheduled for a future date)
• Duane Betts & Palmetto Motel on Thursday, April 10
• “Fearless: The Taylor Swift Experience,” an authentic recreation of a Taylor Swift show, Friday May 9

Check the website https://www.landmarkonmainstreet.org/events/ for times and ticket availability.
#landmarkonmain #magicalmysterydoors

Poem

We will count on these walls
to whisper
our resumes
to the strangers who take up
the work of these rooms,
forwarding them
past dust.

An excerpt of “The Imprint” by Jennifer Moxley.

Endnote

Angelo d’Arrigo specialized in microlights and hang gliders. He used his skills with these simple devices to rescue species of raptors which had been reared in captivity. As this Wikipedia excerpt explains:

"Because birds hatched in captivity have no mentor birds to teach them traditional migratory routes, D'Arrigo hatched chicks under the wing of his glider and they imprinted on him. Then, he taught the fledglings to fly and to hunt. The young birds followed him not only on the ground (as with Lorenz) but also in the air as he took the path of various migratory routes. He flew across the Sahara and over the Mediterranean Sea to Sicily with eagles, from Siberia to Iran (5,500 km) with a flock of Siberian cranes, and over Mount Everest with Nepalese eagles."

His flight over Everest is depicted in the documentary Flying Over Everest.

The gifted aeronaut was tragically killed in a flying accident at age 44.

#landmarkonmain #magicalmysterydoors