As we got tighter the venues got bigger, but we still hadn’t achieved something that we really wanted; a top 40 record. So Jim and I got busy writing and testing our stuff on audiences. When we were ready we took them to Testa. He liked a tune that Jim wrote called “Lonely Boy” but felt it was B-side material. For the A-side he had us do a song called “Is it Time”. Testa released them on his TEMA label and “Is it Time” broke into the top forty on the Cleveland WIXY 1260 charts.
Now the fun really began! We appeared on the Big Jack TV show, did radio interviews on WIXY and WMMS (which had just started on FM). We were the band for the Plain Dealer Dance Contest (which had a stage in the center of a racetrack facing the grandstand with a seated audience of thousands). We were the house band for the Cleveland Teen Fair. We played the Hullabaloo circuit, the Cedar Point Ballroom, Cain Park (a Hollywood Bowl type amphitheater), and yes, THE CLEVELAND STADIUM!!!! Remember I told you that Testa could sell fudgsicles to Eskimos? Well, one day he came to us and told us we were booked at the stadium. We were so excited we were beside ourselves. This was the same stadium I had seen The Beatles perform in. Could this really be happening? He gave us the appointed date and told us to meet him at gate C at a specific time. Gate C was the largest pedestrian gate that there was. On the appointed date, at the appointed time, we met Testa and immediately asked him where we could drive the van in to set up the equipment. He replied, “You don’t. You set up right over there” pointing to a makeshift stage that had been erected about 100 yards from the entrance. We were young and naïve and never thought to see if there was a ball game that day, nor did we notice that there had been nothing in the newspaper about it. Oh well, screw it. I PLAYED AT THE CLEVELAND STADIUM!! (I just didn’t play IN the Cleveland Stadium.) We still had a ball and it was a heck of a crowd.
