Meeting with Abe Rabinowitz had changed everything. When we all left his office, the twins were uncharacteristically silent. Subdued.

“What’s up with you, Billy?” I asked.

“I’m Bobby.”

  “No, you’re not.” Rivka was matter of fact.

“Shit, how y’all do that?” asked Bobby.

  “Magic,” she responded, smiling. The twins laughed, shaking their heads, each putting an arm around her, the three of them walking down the sidewalk together a few steps in front of Max and me.

“I guess Abe knew your mama pretty well.” We were walking together out of earshot of the others.

“Yeah . . . I mean, I met him a couple of times in Portland when I was a kid, before my dad died. I guess they’d been pretty tight, he and my folks. I think the war. But dad didn’t talk about the war, ever.”

“Yeah, same with my papa.”

  “Something happens to people, bad shit. Get through it, binds them together.”

We followed the other three who were now talking and laughing, the twins back to normal, smoking. Rivka took turns sharing cigarettes with both of them. We decided to stop at the next cafe we came to. We were all hungry, always hungry. The neon sign said, “The Last Drop.” The five of us were sitting at a corner booth with a round table. Our waitress was a middle-aged woman with dark hair in a bouffant out of central casting, Meg.

“You want coffee?” We all did, and perused the menu. She’d brought the pot and was peremptory with Rivka, Max and me, but she smiled a big Meg smile for the twins. They turned on the cajun charm, which was actually pretty much always on. 

“Why thank you, ma’am,” they said together, smiling.

“I’ll give y’all a little time,” adopting the twins’ drawl. She walked away, smiling. The Monkees were doing something awful on the radio which caused everyone in the band to look at each other in disgust.

  Max was nodding slowly, thoughtful. “We need a new name.”

“Jeez, finding cool band name. Why is it so difficult?” Rivka, frowning, then scanning the menu, “How about ‘Over Easy?’” Two beats, then everybody laughed.

  “How about ‘You Want Fries With That?’” offered Max to universal groans.

Meg came back to the table, topping up the twins’ coffee first, then the rest of us. 

“Did y’all decide?” keeping up the drawl . . . somewhat. 

Max, Rivka and I ordered cheeseburgers and fries. No kosher Jews at that table. The twins, as usual, were a bit more adventurous.

“How’s the blackened catfish, Meg?” asked Billy.

  Meg frowned. “I’m so sorry, sugar. We’re out of the fish.”

  “Hmm . . .” uttered Billy, obviously disappointed. Meg put a consoling hand on his shoulder. “Well, screw the fish,” he said with a good natured smile. “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries, Meg.” Bobby ordered the same. Meg walked away.

  “Screw the fish,” said Max evenly, scanning our faces, thoughtful, looking for comment.

  “Naw, man. No label gon’ sign a band named ‘Screw the Fish.’” Billy, shaking his head.

“Might as well call us ‘Fuck the Fish,’” I opined conspiratorially to generalized laughter.

Rivka took on a teacher’s tone. “Brits refer to it as ‘rogering’ . . . fucking, I mean.”

  “Roger the Fish.” Bobby, barely containing himself.

“Roger the Fish.” Billy laughing.

“Roger the Fish.” Max was serious, tilting his head back and forth, gently swaying.

“Roger . . . the Fish.” Rivka, gesturing at me, like she was introducing her friend, this fish named Roger.

No one in the band could remember when the decision was actually made. We just started referring to ourselves as Roger the Fish. We booked a studio in New Jersey and over the next week recorded our ten song demo. The twins knew an engineer they’d recorded with in Nashville, Cam Fokkus, who was now residing in New York. We all understood our mission. 

“A demo is just who you are, at that moment, snapshot, move on,” said Abe.

The studio in Jersey City was much nicer on the inside than it appeared from the outside. Rivka looked into the control room and Cam gave us a thumbs up. “So, just like we gig it, right, guys?” she said, then looked over at Bobby and nodded. He clicked us in.

Abe was impressed with the tape, Max told us. They listened to it together, stopping after each song with questions about players, singers, our process (that answer was pretty easy . . . we just did live takes), disagreements in the studio (none), fights (none). We all just got along really well, the twins were hilarious and Rivka truly was a civilizing influence on them. In point of fact, they were a little afraid of her. Shit, I was a little afraid of her. Abe told Max he would get back to us in a week. We learned, over time, one week was an Abe unit of time. If he couldn’t figure it out in a week, it wasn’t worth thinking about. Move on.

Roger the Fish, under our new name, went back to work, four gigs that week, back to the grind. We loved playing together. Rivka and I felt it was all about respect. It just seemed natural for us to respect each other’s skills. That’s how Mother Lode had functioned. Apparently, that was not how all bands operated. Max and the Twins told stories of some very dysfunctional bands with factions, cliques within factions, warring at times with fluid alliances. This occurred, apparently, even sometimes in bands with only four members. Rivka and I tried to imagine how that might play out in Roger the Fish. We thought, the twins were a unit, Rivka and I were a unit, so with Max we were kind of like a trio, but even with trios it wasn’t usually as easy as Roger made it seem (see “Cream,” that famously dysfunctional super group).

This was not Max’s first band, not the twins’ first band, but it was their first band with all original songs, arrangements by the group, not by a leader/dictator. We weren’t making any money to speak of, we were toiling long hours with rehearsals, schlepping equipment, traveling, gigging, sleeping very little, but we were happy. Living and working in New York City, the vibe pulsing twenty-four hours a day. Our goal at that point in our lives was to play hot music live to screaming fans and sell large quantities of records. That was it. We had no plan B.

Exactly one week after Abe heard the demo, Max got the call and assembled us for another meeting. It was considerably more relaxed this time with the twins making rude comments and Rivka mercilessly giving them both shit, but when Abe Rabinowitz spoke everyone quieted and listened.

“That may be the most impressive demo I have ever heard.” He paused for a moment in tomblike silence. We were stunned. “Initially I was a little unsure as to how to proceed. Max told me about how you recorded it. Clearly you all know what you’re doing. But I wanted to see you live before I spoke with you again.”

The letdown in the room was palpable, each of us thinking he hadn’t seen us and there was going to be more delay. We hadn’t been together that long, but we were very young . . . and impatient. Rivka was seventeen (legally nineteen) and I was nineteen, the twins, nineteen and Max was twenty-one. We knew what we had was special. People, when they heard us, knew it too. Fans were starting to follow us around to the various venues in town, eager to see the exotic identical twins rhythm section, the whirling dervish lead singer, the drop dead gorgeous auburn haired keyboard player and the nascent guitar God. When we played out of town the crowds got bigger each time.

“I heard you the other night at the Dally Lamb.” Our world brightened. A big smile on Abe’s face. The smile was infectious. “Your uh, stage act is . . . provocative.” We all looked at each other, nonplussed. “I know you see me as ancient, but I know a few things about the stage. Don’t laugh, but I know from sexy.” If we were confused before we were completely in the weeds then. “The girls AND the guys in the audience were very interested in each of you.” I said later I was pretty sure Abe had toned down his comments because of Rivka. Abe was old fashioned, plus he felt paternal with Rivka. “Maybe the fact you have a young woman in the band makes the guys feel less threatened with their girlfriends salivating over you, but I’m thinking the guys were at least as turned on by you guys as by Rivka . . . I’m sorry, Rivka, if this is too gross.”

Rivka laughed. “Abe, I know how sexy these guys are.” We all looked down, smiling, suppressing laughter. Rivka rolled her eyes. “Honestly, I don’t think they’re even trying.” She was quiet for a few beats. “Oh, and to me, Abe, sex and sexy is about furthest thing from gross I can imagine.”

All the guys in the band continued looking down at the floor, smiling tightly, trying not to laugh. I thought about one of our first trips out of town in the van. The other guys had never been in a band with a girl, plus they didn’t know Rivka as well as I. Bobby was shotgun, Max was driving, Billy was sitting behind Max, Rivka behind Bobby, and I was stuffed in a very tight space behind Rivka with a floor tom in my lap. It wasn’t even a seat. More like a drum case with a couple of blankets on it to cushion my ass. This asshole cut Max off and he had to slam on the brakes, testing our packing job.

“Oh, man y’all just got buttfucked,” yelled Bobby, laughing.

  “Yeah, Max, that boy fucked you in the ass,” joined Billy, laughing hysterically. Then the whole van got tomblike quiet, all remembering there was a chick present.

A few moments passed and then Rivka innocently asked, “And that’s BAD thing?” The whole van was howling for the next five minutes. Rivka had reached back and squeezed my leg.

So, when she gave her reaction to Abe’s assessment of our stage act we could only look forward to him discovering that she was not the sweet, wholesome young lady he thought she was. Looked like an angel, talked like a sailor. Of course, by the time he found that out he loved her like a daughter.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Abe began and over the next five minutes outlined the way forward. Take two songs, make a single. He told us which two and that he would handle that item. He would work to get some radio play. Shorten the demo to five songs and make cassettes. These were for promoters. Again, Abe’s job. Continue gigging a bit less relentlessly, shifting to more upscale, hipper venues. Extend our roaming to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, D.C., upstate New York (there was a rising music scene in Albany and Rochester). Abe was taking over booking (Max said a silent “yay!”). Photo shoot. And, lastly, Abe would pursue a label. He knew everyone, including producers and A&R people at Columbia, Elektra and Capitol.

He ended up saying, “I believe in you. I believe you’re good kids. I believe you have an amazing band and as good as you are right now, you’re just gonna get better and better.” He was smiling and looked around into each face. “Don’t get big heads . . . don’t doubt yourselves but don’t be assholes . . . I think that’s the only thing that may potentially stop you. Now get out.”

We didn’t have time to be in shock. We hit the road, but not at the frenetic pace we’d been at before. Abe rented two vans for us and hired roadies. We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Back to backs became eminently more doable. Before this, all we knew about Abe Rabinowitz was from what we’d seen in our meetings and his reputation as a kick-ass manager. We found out, firsthand, Abe was The Man. He had promo people who put up posters and took out radio ads in towns in advance of our visits. We noticed a sharp uptick in attendance at gigs in venues we were playing for the first time. The second time through attendance would be almost capacity and the third time, sold out. Rivka and I kept on writing. At times it felt to us like the heavens had opened up and were emptying music, songs, into our heads. But we worked hard on the songs. The more we wrote, the better at it we got.

Summer of ’68 found Roger the Fish gigging prodigiously, Abe shopping for labels and Rivka and me writing songs faster than the band could incorporate them. But the school year was approaching and we’d almost forgotten about NYU.