Dad's Story — band by band

Every band you were ever in, in order, from the porch in Summerfield on.

Two questions a day, and this round I want them as voice memos — hold the mic button in our texts and talk to me like we're in the car. Ramble as long as you want; there's no wrong answer and no rush. Each band you tell me about, I build out on davidlicht.com. — love, Jacob

1 · The Sentinel Boys — the first band

Your first real band, the Sentinel Boys — start at the very beginning. You've told me about noodling on Scott Manring's porch out in Summerfield. Take me to that afternoon: who was there, what did you play, and how did messing around turn into actual gigs?
Bobby Kelly and Dennis Worley were a year ahead of you in school. How did they end up letting a younger kid keep the beat, and who were they to you back then?
What did the Sentinel Boys actually SOUND like — covers, originals, which songs? And walk me through a real Sentinel Boys night: the room, the crowd, what you got paid, the drive home.
The first Sentinel Boys gig you can still see in your head — where was it, and what went wrong?
Kevin Rutan drove the van as your roadie and then you two started L and R Painting in '74. How does a roadie become a business partner — and did the painting start as a way to keep the band going?
Does anything from the Sentinel Boys still exist — a tape, a flyer, a photo, a poster, a setlist? Who would have it? And who from that band is still around that I could call?
How and why did the Sentinel Boys end?

2 · Tornado & the Swamp Cats

Tornado — you say you were never really a member, you just played double drums with Cliff Greeson. How did that come about, and what is playing double drums actually like?
The Swamp Cats — who were they, and what was the Greensboro scene then? Which rooms did bands play?

3 · Sammy Anflick & the first kit

Sammy Anflick — a working jazz drummer who also ran a restaurant, teaching a bar-mitzvah kid. What were those lessons like, and what did he say that still runs in your head?
The bar-mitzvah kit in '67 — describe it piece by piece. What happened the first night you set it up?

4 · UNCG Big Band

You went to UNCG to be a medical illustrator and ended up in the Big Band. What was reading charts in a big band like for a rock kid, and when did you know you were dropping out?

5 · In-Time, Minas, Paws, Dark Door

In-Time, the jazz group — who was in it, what were you playing, and what's the name of the sax player who leads the Carolina Horns now? I want to find him.
Minas — Brazilian bossa, cut in North Carolina in '83. How did a Greensboro drummer end up on a Brazilian record, and what did that music teach your hands?
Paws and Dark Door — what were those bands, and what were you chasing in that stretch?
The two nights you subbed with the Alkaphonics in Chapel Hill — tell me that whole story, and what Jimmy Carpenter was like back then.

6 · Chadbourne & Shockabilly

1978, the Downbeat ad, the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock — the day you met Eugene Chadbourne. You call it the fork in the road. Walk me through that day.
Shockabilly from behind the kit — did it feel as wild as it sounded, or was it just the gig? And tell me the Charlotte Double Door night with the Hells Angels laughing in the front row.

7 · Noise New York

1985 — Kramer's studio, Noise New York. What was that job actually, and what was your first week in the city like?

8 · Bongwater & B.A.L.L.

Bongwater with Ann Magnuson — how did it start, and what was she like to make records with?
Night Music, 1989 — backing Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the band playing Led Zeppelin behind him. Tell me everything you remember about that night.
B.A.L.L. on the road with Sonic Youth and Teenage Fanclub — the best story from that van.

9 · Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra

The Andy Statman Klezmer Orchestra — how did you get in that band, and how was it different from the Klezmatics?

10 · T-Klez

T-Klez — tell me what that band is now, who's in it, and what you want people to know about it.

11 · Two I still owe you

One I asked in June and never got — your father, Norman: 35 years teaching at Bennett, an HBCU, in the thick of the Civil Rights era. What was he like at home? This one I'd love in your voice.
And the other one — Greensboro in the '60s: a Jewish family in the South, your dad teaching at a Black women's college, the movement all around you. What did you actually see, and what did it leave in you?

✓ Round one — the 39 questions I already sent you

To start easy: what's the first piece of music you remember loving?
You were born in Detroit. What do you actually remember of it, and what's just family lore?
In 1965 the family moved to Greensboro when Grandpa Norman took the Bennett College job. What was that move like for a kid?
Tell me about your father, Norman — 35 years teaching at Bennett, an HBCU, in the thick of the Civil Rights era. What was he like at home?
Greensboro in the '60s — a Jewish family in the South, your dad teaching at a Black women's college with the Civil Rights movement all around you. What did you actually see, and what did it leave in you?
And Grandma Sandra?
Three brothers — Robert, Dennis, Ronald. What was the house like with four boys? Where did you fit?
Dennis and Ronald are both gone now. Tell me who they were — the stories, the trouble you got into, what you want Bess and me to carry about them.
How did you find the drums? A first kit, a first teacher, a moment it clicked?
The early Greensboro bands — the Sentinel Boys, the jazz years, In-Time. How did all that start, and what did it teach you?
Were your parents for it or against it? Did anyone think music was a real path?
You've said it didn't really land for Grandpa Norman and Grandma Sandra until they came to see you play Carnegie Hall, years later. What was it like to look out and see them in that audience?
What made you decide you had to leave Greensboro?
What did New York smell, sound, and look like the week you arrived?
You came to NYC in 1985 to run Noise New York. What was that job, that whole world?
Shockabilly — how did you meet Eugene Chadbourne, and Kramer? What were they each like to play with?
Shockabilly was wild, confrontational music. Did it feel like that from behind the kit, or just like the job?
1987 — Bongwater starts, with Ann Magnuson. What's the story there?
1989, NBC's Night Music — Bongwater backing Screamin' Jay Hawkins, the band playing Led Zeppelin behind him. You've called him the nicest guy. What do you remember about that night?
B.A.L.L. toured with Sonic Youth and Teenage Fanclub. What do you remember from the road?
Bongwater, B.A.L.L., Shockabilly, and When People Were Shorter — all overlapping at once. How did you keep all of it going?
The Shimmy-Disc / downtown scene — who were the people, what were the rooms? A real scene, or only in hindsight?
What did you think your life was going to be, around 1986?
If you had to teach someone one thing about drumming, what is it?
After all those bands — what do you actually believe about drumming? What's the job of a drummer in a room?
How did you meet Mom — Karen? What was she like then?
Mom's a choreographer. You composed for her dance work and played the 1989 Roulette show with her. What was making work together like?
So much of Mom's dance work — the Roulette nights, the Merce Cunningham studio pieces — may only exist on old tapes now. What was she making in those years, and do you know where any of it still lives? I don't want it to disappear.
What changed in you when you became a father?
You put me on a Klezmatics record — “sticks” on Rise Up! when I was about six. Do you remember that day?
You've run David B. Licht Painting & Plastering for about 37 years. How did it start, and how do you hold it next to the music?
Is there a thread connecting the drumming, the painting, and the family — or are they just separate lives?
Somewhere along the way you got deep into hand drumming — the jimbe, the djembe, drums you play with your hands instead of sticks. How did that come into your playing, and what did skin-on-drum teach you that sticks never could?
You kept ending up in "world music" — klezmer, Balkan, Yiddish, West African — long before anyone called it that. What pulled you toward music from everywhere, and where all did it take you?
Is there one night playing a tradition that wasn't your own — a rhythm from the other side of the world — where it just clicked and felt like it was yours too?
You've described a moment of seeing yourself from above — from outside your own body, looking down. Tell me that whole story: when it happened, what you saw, and what it left you with.
The electricity in your hands — you've talked about feeling it. What is that, exactly? When do you feel it, and when did you first notice it was there?
What are you proudest of? What do you wish had gone differently?
What do you want Bess and me — and anyone after us — to know about you?