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WPCNR Rockola. By KKIX THE BIG 1440’S Big Melvin Mead “The Rock Daddy Show With All the Hits You Need”. May 5, 2008: He shows up minutes before concert time.  Bounces on stage dressed in black, hits the keyboard with the seductive good time individual  signature dum dum plunk diddee plunk plunk plunk, dum dum plunk diddee plunk plunk plunk of Lonely Too Long and you know it’s been  way too long since you’ve heard that Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals sound since the 60s.

Fasten your seatbelts, rock and roll turbulence ahead! Felix Cavaliere and His Rascals Blasted the 60-Somethings at Irvington Town Hall — the latest in the White Plains Westco Gold Star “Tour” Saturday night. Irvington Town Hall Theatre will never be the same!

Felix Cavaliere and Susie The K After the Rascals Blast — White Plains own Susan Katz, founder of Westco Productions — rapidly assuming the title of “Westchester’s First Lady of Rock N Roll.

Like rocking a coin solidly into the slot – you get a big round mound of sound and all hits all the time—from the first note Mr. Cavaliere plays. Felix Cavalier’s  Rascals – the latest rockologists to emerge from White Plains Westco Productions “DynamicVeebleVetzer Time Machine”  they call the Gold Star Series — laid down a wall of sound of Felix’s Rascals hits splashing the sound canvas of the seething shoulder to shoulder Town Hall Theater with Jackson Pollack madness in sound, with slashing, driving, get-into-your-body and make-you-bob-to-the-beat rock and roll the way a rock and roll party should be.

Whoever coined the term rock concert got that wrong. Rock’s not a concert, man, it’s a zone – the good time zone — a party, man.

 That’s what Felix Cavaliere turned the Irvington Town Hall into Saturday night.  Westco Productions continued their uncanny stroke-of-genius programming: the Westco Gold Star series. Each 60s  and 70s rock group they have brought back to “sophisticated Westchesta”  have opened up tapped into a secret outlet, a yearning, a craving for rock-n-rollers too old too rock and roll no more, but they kinda like the music.  

A sellout crowd  streamed in, beeping the hand-held scanners at the rate of a supermarket cash register on Super Bowl Sunday Saturday night. The Lettermen, Judy Collins, The 5^th Dimension, Gary Puckett, The Association, The Kingston Trio have all brought out different audiences, Susan Katz and Peter Katz the promoters say, and the series has struck a loyal following in Westchester County, Saturday night kept the hits coming back – sounding better than ever

Felix, working up a sweat in minutes, pounding the Hammond and making it a living, rockin thing.

Mr. Cavaliere – no stranger to playing the metro area – showed why: he delivered just the great Rascals music man – the straight ahead, fidgety, signature rock and roll keyboard style that opens up your party spirit and makes you feel “Good Lovin’” all night. Well, at least for an hour and 30 minutes, Cavaliere and his three sidemen  overmodulated raucously enough to wake up Rip Van Winkle from his siesta on the Town Hall lawn.

The Pyschedlic Medley

It was all Racals there – the punctuated contrapuntal organ keys to start Lonely too Long, the swells of organ crescendos – not heard since The Happy Organ – flowing like a flood of wine across a picnic blanket on “Good Lovin”.

Cavaliere’s side men, Mark Prentice’s bass (left) sounded like a power drill. Lead guitarist Mike Severs (right) laid in clear, aggressive nasty licks like a chain saw over Mr. Cavalieri’s signature organ segues. Severs  recreated the essence of  psychedelia in a medley in the second half of the show, His lead guitar lent a power dimension to the Rascals hits that sounded better, danceable, and thumped into you from the feet up through the body, with the Roadway Truck backbeat of drummer Vince Santoro.

The sold-out hall bobbed  its  heads in sync throughout the spontaneous big beat mayhem on stage.

Cavaliere was a pied piper – an icon preaching  the old time beat and exposing the rock roots of the audience with an attitude. Felix recreated the old time rebel look tonight, coming on stage and doing his thing. No anecdotes – just the hits man. The crowd was in rock and roll shock –  they bobbed heads, clapped hands, but were not moved to dance as if they were awed in reverence by the sweaty, grinding crescendos of tightly tracked, pounding songs dominating the hall – not heard this way in sometime – and sounding better than records. 

From Lonely Too Long, Felix and his beatmasters, Prentice and Severs mixed in those dance staples – including Midnight Hour – handled by drummer Santoro – cooling down to Groovin –getting to the heart of teen love pain on Do What You Know You Should – made all the more harsh by Felix’s full-swells of Hammond glory. His medleys were things of rock and roll genius mixing his hits with other gotcha songs.

In the second half,  with little time inbetween songs, the group’s highlights included What You tryin’ to do to my Heart where the drums shook your bones – and the snarling, Ain’t Gonna be Your Clown No more. The recognition of  old feelings in these songs is just right made possible by the way Felix and the Rascals confront you with the sound.

A long version of Good Lovin in the second half – complete with sing-a-along was just enough audience relationship. To tell you the truth,  the audience appeared stunned by the big ball of rock and roll Felix, Mike, Mike and Vinnie throw out there Saturday night.

The slow songs, which yours truly never really liked when they were hits, were better with a little soul – How Can I Be Sure was a winner the way Felix sings it today – and the one song that Cavalieri got sentimental on, People Got to Be Free  he dedicated to our servicemen and willing, expressing the thought that he hoped their sacrifices would not be in vain. A telling thought.

My favorite was Felix’s working the organ into the classic medley of  Good Lovin’ into La Bamba, Bo Diddley and Mustang Sally, — topped by a pyschedelic medley, featuring Led Zepp and Jimmy Hendrix tunes. All that was missing was incense in the air.

Your rock and roll pal, Big Mel Mead has to say that the hits being recreated by the original artists on the Westco Gold Star “Tour” never sounded this good when I was spinning them on my Rock Daddy Show 1440, KKIX Hit Music Radio Clear Channel the Rock of the Midway.

There is no such thing as an old rock and roller. Felix Cavaliere and His Rascals proved rockers just rock better the older they get!  Here Felix Says Good Bye to the fans, but not before he stayed for an hour meeting and signing autographs for the aficionados.

The faithful should check in at www.westcoproductions.com for a peek at the just-released Gold Star Tour this autumn.

WPCNR RINKSIDE By Katharina Devitofranceshi, The German School, White Plains. May 4, 2008: Synchronized Skating: Those are two words you don’t hear very often and most likely tell you nothing (that is unless you’re in the 10^th grade of German School New York in White Plains, then you know all about it.)

The Skyliners of New York, the Tri-State Area’s Zagreb Snowflake Trophy Junior Gold Medal Winners, skating in the Frasier, Michigan  Syncrhonized Skating Junior Qualifier in January. The Junior team holds tryouts tonight in Rye, and here a member of the team, attending the German School here in White Plains, Katharina Devitofranceschi reflects on the team’s unforgettable journey, representing the USA in Croatia in March.

Skyliners 2008 Juniors skating their Short Program in Frasier, Michigan in January.

Sounds easy? It’s not. It’s hours of hard work both on ice and off, laden with sweat, lots of yelling, tears and blood, and I’m not over-exaggerating either. Most of us have the scars to prove it.

But, as a team with an incredibly close bound, we are always there for one another.

Being on The Skyliners is much like eating candy: We bit through the hard candy coating and are rewarded with a yummy, soft center.

In this case, the chewy center was an international assignment from United States Figure Skating to skate in Croatia and the title TEAM USA.

So overseas we flew in March to compete in the Zagreb Snowflake Trophy Competition March 9-14, a first flight abroad for most girls on our team, and 12 hours later we made it all the way to Zagreb. We all agreed that it was a surreal sensation to finally be there, after all the anticipation which had built up since August.

We spent most of the days leading into the competition having extra practices, fine-tuning the programs to perfection and listening to our coaches’ (Josh Babb and Jenny Gibson) and parents’ “motivational speeches.” (They got old fast, trust me.)

When the Zagreb Snowflake Trophy Competition actually began, it was absolutely nerve-wracking, knees shaking and jitters, all that good stuff. Our first shock came when we got our scores. They were much lower than anticipated. Dissappointed and heads hung low, we made our way to the locker room in silence, despite the fact we were in first place. But it didn’t mean anything because the favorite-to-win had yet to skate.

But our biggest surprise came when we found out, we, the underdogs, had won! Twenty of the loudest screeches erupted simultaneously. Naturally, celebrating and partying (with the awesome Aussies) ensued.

This year (2007-2008) has undoubtedly been the most trying year, what with juggling school and skating constantly, but our parents’, coaches’ and teachers’ support made everything that much easier. Those last moments in Croatia, standing up on the podium, were unforgettable. The Skyliners’ organization is still pretty young, so to have won the gold at our first international assignment (an accomplishment in itself, was unexpectedly incredible!

I know no matter what happens next year internationally, for good or bad, nothing can make me forget that unimaginable sense of accomplishment as a team.