Ask Alma

The Matador Historian

Dear Abba,

My roommate, a Capricorn, swore she saw the main guy from the Chain Gang riding horses in Central Park. Could you please provide me with some background on the Chain Gang, as well as any information on career goals they have pursued? Thank you.

Dicky Dodge
Brooklyn, NY

Dear Dicky,

Chain Gang broke out of a maximum security facility called Marble Hill--technically a part of Manhattan. The diversion of the Harlem River with dynamite led to the river's re-routing, leaving Marble Hill on the land mass of the Bronx. In this clifftop Jewish and Irish neighborhood, memorialized by a stop on the Harlem/Hudson line, the Gang ran as a gang, inspired by the Bowery Boys and by real-life gangs that operated in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. Ears glued to their police radios, they broke out of obscurity with their 1977 smash Son of Sam, charted in the UK, and demonstrated the perverse humor of their approach. They had much in common with the emerging punk rock movement, only they'd been doing it since the 1950s.

PHIL VON ROME (drummer) was nearly a chess master. He was a ranked player. His chess coach was Brazilian. At one time, he planned to migrate to Brazil to improve his game. For a while, he made his living as a streetside fruit seller, with a cart usually parked at 40th and 6th Ave. He thought it was the perfect job since he could live off the fruit and would never need to buy any food. The second summer, he got some ugly sores on his lips from the caustic effects of fruit acid. He continues to live in the old neighborhood. He has black glasses that are sometimes repaired with medical tape.

TED TWIST (bass) has worked a number of jobs, many in construction. For a while, he was the guy that took the explosive charges down into the hole--blasting caps, wires, sticks of dynamite. He would risk his life placing these charges, scramble out of the pit, at which point the union guy--who made ten times what Ted did--would lift his little finger to blow the mess to hell. Ted prefers denims and has been known to drive a beat-up old car. Current whereabouts: unknown, by me at least.

LARRY GEE (guitar) kept a pair of mean-looking dogs in his bedroom at A and 2nd St. Previously, he leased the storefront at 123 Allen that became the legendary Chain Gang School of Music sometime in the early '80s. There were two levels, and the basement became a club, complete with a bar and flagstoned backyard. There were many musical performances at this space, including a couple of Chain Gang gigs. Other bands that played included Mofungo, Honeymoon Killers, and the Scene is Now. The backyard backed up to a Spanish-language movie theater on Delancy that's still there, and a couple of times performances of bands had to be cut short due to complaints from the theater.

For the longest time, RICKY LUANDA (singer, gang leader) lived in the same apartment at A and 2nd St. that Larry lived in. Photos for some of their recording and promotional needs were taken on the roof of the building. The building was built before 1850, and has a creepy Gothic feel to it. There is a nonworking fireplace in the fourth floor apartment, and Ricky's giantic pulp fiction collection, which includes thousands of lurid paperbacks from the '40s, '50s, and '60s. Ricky's girlfriend Randi also lives there. She used to be a television personality in Florida, but luckily moved to New York. Ricky has worked a picturesque variety of odd jobs including cabbie, exterminator, video artist, video schlepp, street-level circulation work for the Daily News, temp office work, and operator of one of those pedicabs (if you see a driver with a red braid, it's probably him). By the way, Luanda is an alias, glommed from a little girl who lived on his floor when he was a kid, named Luanda, of course.