The (Original) Sharskins

Following is a brief account of the rhythm & blues outfit known as The Sharkskins. To clarify, this account pertains to the original Sharkskins who performed on the East Coast of the US between 1982 and 1986, not to be confused with the newer band of the same name based in Delaware and currently performing in the Northeast (also a fine band).

Inception

The roots rock combo the Sharkskins was formed in early 1982 near Dover, NJ. The original lineup included myself (Phil Lewis) on guitar, my organist brother Mark Lewis, and drummer John Scott Pallotta (known as Scott in those days). The band was the outcome of our extended jam sessions which regularly took place in the basement of our parents' houses. Scott and I were childhood buddies, and all three of us had recently returned to the area from Boston's Berklee College. Scott and I had most recently been playing in the seminal punk-funk band the Titanics when one day Mark floated the idea of starting a new band. His initial thought was that we might cover some of our favorite old songs from the 50s and 60s, and squeeze in a few originals as well. In this way, the reasoning went, we would be able to work more than a band playing solely original music. Broke and hungry for gigs, we jumped at the idea.

Our first jobs were playing small bars and restaurants around the "Lakeland" area of northwestern Jersey. One night after a gig, one of us (I can't remember who) suggested that it might be fun to adopt a unifying theme -- not unlike the Ramones or one of those 60s bands where all the guys dressed alike. By rehearsal the next day it had hit me: The Sharkskins. We could all wear sharkskins suits and shades -- all the time -- and we'd take vaguely Italian-sounding pseudonyms and act like a bunch of guidos. The proposal was met with peals of laughter and promptly and unanimously adopted. To this end, I became Phil Bono, Scott was henceforth to be known as Nicky "Hammerhead" Pallotta, and Mark would become Louie "The Shark" Fontaine. This was a significant milestone: the band was now no longer just a pop band, we had crossed into the realm of theater.

The timing was good. The 80s "roots rock" revival was well under way and audiences were eager for live music that was fun to dance and party to. Louie rocking the Farfisa organ gave the band a unique and distinctly 60s flavor. When the dance floor was full, the band's covers of tunes like "Got My Mojo Workin'" or "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" would often spin out into extended jam sessions that were known to trundle freely over the hills and dales of American popular music, with snippets of everything from classical themes to TV theme songs arising spontaneously. Needless to say it was all in service of keeping booties quaking and bottles draining.

Although lacking formal management we were able to find a fairly steady stream of work at nightclubs and roadhouses in New Jersey and New York by contacting club owners and somehow convincing them that they should hire us (Nicky was especially good at this). Then, in 1983, Louie announced that he was leaving the band to concentrate on composing and solo piano work in NYC. Nicky and I were disappointed but quickly saw the opportunity to take the band in a new direction. We invited bassist Gene Boccia, then with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes' to join us. Now a guitar trio, the Sharkskins began to explore more rhythm-and-blues-based material, particularly mining the threshold where swing begat rock 'n' roll. When Gene wasn't on the road with Southside, the band continued to refine its sound, working the bars and night-haunts where its previous incarnation had broken ground.

Down the Shore and Up the Hill

Gene was pretty well plugged into the Jersey Shore music scene and helped the band make inroads "down the shore." Although gigging occasionally at (Springsteen haunt) the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ, the band could more often be heard up the street at Mrs. J's, an open-air tavern popular with local bikers. The band's combination of stripped-down, soulful electric blues and high-energy antics (I had recently begun the practice of soloing from atop the bar), began to attract the attention of critics, and the Sharkskins started receiving its first press. Around this time The Reader, a NJ weekly arts paper, featured a full page review of a Sharkskins gig. It was also in this time frame that the Sharkskins began to work regularly at the Stanhope House, a long-established inn and blues roadhouse in Stanhope NJ, which for the remainder of the band's life would serve as its unoffical home base.

The weathered and venerable Stanhope House had been built in 1790 and over its long life had served as everything from a post office to a speakeasy. Although it had been offering live music since the mid-1960s, it was the Wrobleski family, who purchased the historic property in the 1970s, that began to book country and blues acts. Under the Wroblesky's stewardship, the 'Hope House hosted many of the greatest blues acts in the country, including the likes of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, Albert Collins, James Cotton, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, and on and on. I remember Dave Wroblesky telling me about one night when Stevie Ray Vaughn was on stage with only a handful of people in the house. Dave was cleaning glasses at the bar when he heard a tremendous cacophony, like the sound of a freight train crashing into a Quonset hut. He looked up to see Stevie Ray dragging his guitar across the dance floor by the cable -- strings down and amp cranked to 10. It was that kind of place.

The Sharkskins were right at home at the Stanhope House, serving up ripping original numbers like "Do the Shark" and "Sharkskin Watusi" as well as early R&R covers. One night Hammerhead leapt up from behind his throne during a drum solo and worked his way across the dance floor, drumming on everything in sight. It sounds ridiculous, but people went berzerk and it became another hallmark of the Sharkskins' stage show.

Through the period 1982 - 1984 the band struck out on occasional road trips, working clubs and saloons as far south as Florida. During this period the personnel was fluid and sometimes included John Hughes on electric bass and/or Mark "Palms" Palmerini on organ and guitar. Palms could really tear it up on both the guitar and organ and could belt out R&B vocals like Otis Redding. The first really hard blow to the band came in 1985 when Palms tragically died of a drug overdose. He was such a beautiful cat and could sing and play up a storm.

Retro Madness

In 1985 the band's lineup changed again. Looking for a more authentic "vintage" sound, we brought in Chris "The Crusher" Carmean on upright (and sometimes electric) bass. Crusher was a wiry little guy with arms covered in Betty Boop tattoos. (Folks may know him now as the bassist for the Gashouse Gorillas.) He was as much a maniac as the rest of us, maybe more so, and could slap that big bass just like Bill Black from the original Elvis Presley trio. Audiences would go crazy when he would spin the thing around or climb on top of it without dropping a beat. Later that year we added Carey Terrat on second guitar. Terrat (nicknamed "Snapper"), was a somewhat more reserved fellow and a kind of country picker. His style never quite fit in with the rest of band and Nicky would endlessly give me grief for calling Snapper for gigs, but he was a nice fellow and helped take some of the workload off of me. I have to tell you that playing music, especially the high-energy kind, is not easy, and it's damn hard work to sing lead and play lead guitar with only the support of bass and drums. With Palms gone, I was nearly killing myself every night trying to hold that down. It was like doing two gigs at once. So Snapper helped lighten the load.

This incarnation of the band built the greatest following. The combination of rowdy stage antics and danceable, straight-ahead blues-based rock was irresistable to bar crowds (as has been proven time and again since Muddy and The Wolf first rocked the South Side), and the band began to attract larger (and more unruly) audiences. In 1985 the band cut its first and only recording, a self-released EP titled Shark in the Basement. Some samples from that record can be heard by clicking the links below.

Throughout 1985 and 1986 the band worked a lot, in no small measure thanks to the herculean efforts of its crew, led by road warrior Steve "Wally" Malanka and sound-and-light man Tom "Turtle" Ahern. The work was hard -- sometimes making up to three gigs in a day -- and the partying was commensurate with the workload. Increasingly, the after-gig parties would last well into the next day, and the band's appetite for drugs and alcohol (including my own) was growing accordingly. As a self-proclaimed lightweight, I've never played stoned, but in those later Sharkskins years I confess that I could barely wait for the gig to end because I needed that fix so bad.

This was the mid-1980s and the US was in the midst of a cocaine blizzard. (Presumably a result of the CIA's involvement in Central America, but don't even get me started...) Although we were largely toiling in obscurity and about as far from being "rock stars" as is possible, the partying situation was exacerbated by the fact that we had started to attract a coterie of loyal fans, many of whom were eager to "party" with band. (Translation: they really wanted to share their drugs with us and we were more than willing to oblige.)

To be continued (when time permits)...