Mysterious Biker-Musician Coincidences Pt. 2

Picture this: 1970, Asbury Park, NJ. The Upstage Club. Upstairs Bruce Springsteen is jamming with the boys. Downstairs the Hazard From Harvard is doing acoustic music. Big Danny Gallagher is wandering back and forth between floors. (I went to High School with Big Danny. He and this guy Eddie Lurachi are sorta bouncers at the Upstage.) .

Big Danny was part of Springsteen's DR. ZOOM AND THE SONIC BOOM onstage entourage, and he has a gold album given to him by Bruce to prove Bruce's loyalty to him. Margaret Potter - the owner of the Upstage - is swilling down brews with the boys upstairs.

In come several members of the Pagans MC. Okay, so big deal. Well, one of the guys in the Pagans is this dude named FOO who is pals with Tinker West and both of them are Springsteen's buds. At the time I was married to this Pagans MC member HEAVY. FOO is living with NAILS, one of the Pagan big-wigs, who HEAVY and I used to party with a lot, so this is how I meet FOO. This is all just backstory...

Cut to the 1980s - The Upstage is long closed down. Down the beachfront, right next-door to the infamous Stone Pony club is Mrs. Jay's Beer Garden, and out front the Harley Davidson and Indian choppers are lined up at the curb. Both clubs are blasting loud rock/blues music into the hot summer night air. Asbury Park is hoppin'. I've long ago divorced HEAVY, married my 2nd husband Charlie, and then got divorced from him. It's the 1980s, like I said...

My present husband Too Tall Tom (a musician to whom I am still married) and I are in this little Asbury Park dive bar named JP Maloney's (a legend in it's day) where he is playing the Blues with some guys he knows, and in walks Big Danny Gallagher with his dobro and he begins to play. So Tom and he wind up playing together for the next 12 years or so in one band or another. I was at the time on the board of directors of this environmental organization, Clearwater, where I meet this guy Lee ( who I eventually learn is The Hazard From Harvard ) whom I'd never met before. Turns out he's old pals of Big Danny's from Upstage days. Lee and I remain friends, as do me (and Tom) and Big Danny.

Cut back to 1970 - Eddie Lurachi joins the Pagans. Eight months later, so does his little brother Little John Luraschi. Johnny does not stay a member - he can't handle it - but Eddie, now known as "DIRT", stays a lifelong member.

Cut back to the 1980s - Tom and Big Danny are playing in this bar and in walks Johnny Luraschi with his bass guitar. Now, I haven't seen DIRT or Little John Luraschi since 1973 ( I divorced HEAVY in '74) and here it is, 10 years later and DIRT has Multiple Sclerosis and is in a wheel chair. Johnny is now playing bass in a band with my 3rd husband Too Tall Tom. I never knew he could play bass! In fact, Johnny was in a legendary Asbury band named CAHOOTS with George Theiss, who was the band leader of Springsteen's first band.

One big incestuous family, huh? And by now you're thoroughly confused, right?

Cut to 2005. Big Danny visits us in North Carolina just prior to moving to Ireland for good. In the course of discussions we talk about Bruce, the Luraschi boys, the Pagans, and then I ask whatever happened to FOO?

Well, seems FOO ran off with Danny's wife is on everyone's shitlist. He hasn't been a biker since the early 70s and dropped out of sight. FOO is probably of consequence to no one except Big Danny anymore.

And what of Bruce? Bruce never hangs with any of his old friends anymore. He didn't even go to Margaret Potter's funeral (Little Steven did, to his credit) when she died of lung cancer in her early 50s. DIRT is dead, NAILS is dead. I still speak to HEAVY who is a Christian now. Johnny is still playing the Asbury Park circuit and riding his Harley.

IF you get yourself a copy of Springsteen's THE WILD, THE INNOCENT AND THE E STREET SHUFFLE, read the liner notes and listen to the songs. In some way or other, everyone is in there. Even me, vicariously. In fact, the first 3 or 4 Springsteen albums are all about those days in Asbury Park.

So what's that got to do with The Biker Chronicles? It's the backstory to why I wrote the books and my life as a biker chick in the 1960s-70s in Asbury Park NJ. It was all documented on those first 3 or 4 Springsteen albums. That place and those times and those characters - even me - were so intense that Springsteen wrote platinum-selling albums about the same scene that inspired The Biker Chronicles (although my books take place in more contemporary times).

I've run into Springsteen on a number of occasions. One of our musician friends Mike is his brother-in-law. I remember going to DR.ZOOM gigs on our chopper with HEAVY.

I remember when both DIRT and LITTLE JOHN LURASCHI were prospects with The Pagans. Mrs. Jay's is no longer there. The club was razed to make way for urban renewal in Asbury Park. The Stone Pony has been through several owners. The Pagans are still around, but even they've changed. Most of the guys I knew in the club back then are either dead or born again Christians now.

Those times, those places, those people are burned into my memory and the memories of many people, and every time we hear those early Springsteen Albums it all comes back. You had to be there, and if you were, you know what I'm talking about.
-Suzi

The Mysterious Biker-Musician Coincidences Pt. 1

I moved to the mountains of North Carolina in 2001, abandoning the Jersey Shore for a much saner environment... someplace where I could concentrate.

When sanity returned, I decided it was time to sit down and write the "Great American Biker Novel" (!), so I dragged out old photos and memories, and then decided to do some research to get a better grasp of the past. Several decades had passed since my last biker adventure, afterall, and my memory of those times were fading.

So I went online, found me a "younger" biker convict penpal to correspond with from the old club and began asking questions.

Little did I expect that he would actually KNOW most of the guys I asked about from the old days, but that he would also be able to fill me in on a lot of the details that I'd forgotten about. . It also turned out that he was a bigwig in the club and doing 16 years in the federal pen. Tsk, tsk.... He was also the bearer of bad knews that many of my old pals were dead and how they'd died.

Meanwhile - back to real time - my husband found a band to play with in Asheville, so for the next year I took my trusty pen and faithful composition books with me everywhere I went, to every gig he played.

Then one night 6 months after he started playing with this band, I was sitting out on the front porch of one of the clubs during band break and someone told me to talk to "Johnny" because he was from somewhere in NJ, too.

Johnny was the band's keyboard player. So I asked him where he was from and it turns out that he was not only from the town we'd just moved out of, but that he'd gone to the same High School as my husband, only three years earlier!

THEN Johnny mentioned playing the Asbury Park circuit once or twice, and I said that my husband was a long time veteran of that scene, and that so was I, both as part of the music scene and the bikers scene.

HERE IS THE REALLY WEIRD PART....

He not only KNEW all my old biker pals, but HE was the one who converted several of the very baddest guys I knew to becoming Born Again Christians.

In fact, he was still in touch with them. Is that not coincidence? After knowing this guy for 6 months I find out he shared friends with both me and my husband. Did I mention that my husband is 11 years younger than me? And that long before I knew him or even noticed him, he played at the biker club parties and the bars I used to frequent?

Anyway, these were just a few of the many strange coincidences that helped convince me to write - and finish - DISTANT VISIONS, the first book of the Trilogy.

More strange coincidences next time.... Johnny Luraschi and his brother Dirt, and the Big Danny - Foo connections to Bruce Springsteen.

What? Biker Romance? Are You NUTS?

Someone recently asked me why I chose to write a trilogy of romance books centered around an outlaw biker gang. Who, they asked me, were my target readers.

The answer to the first question is that it's something I know about, since my first husband and I rode with one of the biggest, baddest outlaw clubs in the nation for 5+ years back in the seventies. It's a lifestyle that was exciting, alternative, and definitely over the top, and I can't say that I didn't enjoy the hell out of it. However, drugs and women got to him, and I moved on, but I know the ins and outs of the lifestyle as well as any other lifestyle I've lived, and a lot of it was very romantic, indeed. Some of the deepest people I ever met were outlaw bikers. I was romantically involved with a few, friends with many others.

Looking back I can see that I was one of the few who got out in one piece, without falling prey to addiction or getting killed. Looking back I see how many of my old friends and lovers died along the way. In tribute to them, I decided to write the first book.

Who are my "targeted" readers? Anyone who likes a good sexy story with the following elements: motorcycles, sex (sometimes kinky), violence, crime, drugs, romance, and deep introspection. I guess that means people with open minds and no fear of dirty language.

I'm not quite sure how to define a genre of readership. My stuff is not mainstream, but yet it's not so raw and rough that only outlaw bikers would like it. It's deeper than that. My readers are alternative thinkers who are not afraid to read about the darker side of life.

I wonder how you would pigeon-hole that into a genre of readers? Any comments?