I was too young to ever see The Beatles live, I never got the chance to see The Kinks in their heyday and The Small Faces had broken up as I was just learning to walk on my own as an infant. But, nonetheless, I grew up listening to those bands enthusiastically through my adolescence.
What I did have though was The Smithereens.
A four-piece heavy duty rock and roll band from Carteret, New Jersey which embodied the spirit and the essence of those British bands and then some. From its formation in the early 1980’s through the release of the band’s astounding 1986 debut full length album Especially For You, these guys paid their dues. College rock favorites, the band’s records drew heavy airplay on those campus radio stations and gathered plenty of accolades from rock critics and magazines across America. It was the type of band whose records were well-produced in that they highlighted pop sensibilities without reducing The Smithereens’ penchant for rocking out. The Smithereens were a band who mixed killer, catchy hooks with fat, crunchy guitar riffs and who had rock and roll running through its veins.
But, as is the case with so many great bands, for every ounce of firepower its were able to pack into the grooves of a vinyl record, the recordings were no match for what they were capable of unleashing from a concert stage. I’d seen plenty of bands before seeing The Smithereens the first time, but very few were able to tap into the spirit and the vibe of the rock and roll I grew up listening to. They were a band obviously as hip to the British Invasion-era bands as it was to American garage rock bands, and its reverence for all that great music shone through when these four cats took a stage.
Loose, cool, humorous, sweaty, dedicated and hard-working, The Smithereens were one of the most exciting and unpredictable bands I’d seen…it would reel off unexpected cover versions as easily and as gingerly as it would unleash razor sharp renditions of its own rockers like “Behind The Wall of Sleep” or “Strangers When We Meet” without missing a beat. I was hooked. Really hooked.
The band did well in Florida and came down to our home state often, making the most of the treks down here by playing a multitude of cities and venues. Did it like the weather? Was it happy with the overly enthusiastic reactions the band would get from Florida audiences? Who knows? I was just happy that The Smithereens made such a regular habit of coming down and I made the most of all they visits by going to see them often. Very often.
Every show was different, every show had its highlights and every show was a fucking blast. Isn’t that what rock and roll is supposed to be about? I witnessed these four guys having the time of their lives playing music, and I in turn got to see some of the best shows of my life by any band.
The Smithereens’ onstage good nature spilled over to the offstage personalities, too. Having seen the band so many times, I had the chance to hang with band members, get some of my albums autographed and pose for plenty of pictures with them. They were every bit as cool on the stage of a nightclub as they were hanging out after the show had ended. I was given an honorary autographed drum head by drummer Dennis Diken after he’d recognized me from so many shows. I was casually friendly with the four members of the band, and they were always super cool to me.
But Pat DiNizio, their fantastic front man, was really something special. The guy could sing like no one else of the era, he was a pretty great guitarist and he could tell a joke or two from center stage. The band’s carefree, lighthearted air was a direct reflections of Pat’s good nature and made it really easy to root for The Smithereens and rally around what they were putting out there; no gimmicks, no fancy stage shows, no overpriced tickets, no bullshit: just rock and roll.
I watched Pat lead the band on many nights, and he never phoned it in. Pressed up against a stage at many bars, nightclubs and theaters, I saw the sweat drip off his brow while playing along with ace guitarist Jim Babjak and bassist Mike Mesaros. If you ever grew up wanting to be in a solid, honest, hard-working rock band that sounded great and was fearless and fun, that was The Smithereens.
I was so sad to wake up to the news of Pat’s passing away. He’d just enthusiastically posted on his Facebook page a few days ago about all the great classic movies he planned on watching at his New Jersey home and he asked his followers to post their own reviews of the movies he was going to enjoy. That was Pat. No ego, no put-ons. Just a cool guy who was a well-versed student of rock and roll and a damn fine purveyor of keeping it alive.
I drove up to Gainesville once with a couple of friends to see The Smithereens perform at a ballroom on the University of Florida campus. Not knowing how large the venue was and in an age before the advent of the internet, we made the two-hour drive without tickets in hand. We started hearing rumors once we arrived in town about how the show was sold out. In disbelief, we attempted to buy tickets and lo and behold, the rumors turned out to be true. No tickets to be had…the hall was at capacity and we were out of luck. Dejected and down, we regrouped at a local eatery and contemplated our next move. Out of nowhere, I spotted a guy in a black jacket walking down the sidewalk outside the little restaurant where we sat and I recognized him right away.
“That’s Pat!” I said out loud and, with that, I hopped outside to stop him. “Pat!” I said enthusiastically and he responded in kind with a sense of recognition from seeing me at so many Smithereens shows in the past. I started to explain to him how we’d driven from Tampa to find that there were no tickets available and, mid-sentence, he stopped me.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said…”I’ll get you in”. Pat told me to just look for the band’s road manager (who I recognized) outside the hall and to tell him that Pat said it was cool to let us in.
Sure enough, a few hours later, outside the ballroom before I could get the words “Pat said….,” we were escorted in without any incident.
That was Pat DiNizio. I’ll miss his good humor, his spirit, his personality and his charm. But, most of all, I’ll miss him as the leader of one of my favorite bands to see live. Pat DiNizio was rock and roll and he certainly instilled the fierce spirit and fire of rock and roll in me night after night. Pat was a rare breed and there certainly weren’t many guys like him at the time that The Smithereens rose to prominence and there sure as hell aren’t a whole lot like him nowadays.
So long Pat…we’re all in a lonely place without you.
This article appears in Dec 14-21, 2017.