"Why do birds suddenly appear, every time I come near?
Just like you, they long to be, close to me!"

The Clams A Brief History

In case you have no clue at all, The Clams was a 70s novelty band. Most accurately described in current terms, it was a Spike Jones tribute band.  The band lasted two days, did one recording session, played no live gigs, had a bonafide national top-40 hit single that sold less than 100 copies, and quietly faded into memory.  Later on The Clams returned to the studio and did five more tracks, trying for an album deal.  Nobody was interested.  (Same history as above, except without the hit single part.)  They also did some Doctor Pepper radio commercials for Don Elliott productions which were summarily rejected by the ad agency, who claimed that when they asked for 'humor', they didn't mean 'that'.

FAQ - as good a place to start as any:

Q. Where did the name come from?
   A. The band's name intends no risqué or double entendre meaning;   It's musicians' slang for a wrong note - not a subtle mistake, but a whopper that your tone-deaf mother-in-law would spot right away.  There was nothing subtle about The Clams.  The name was an inspiration for the title of the album they didn't release.  Under consideration were, "The Clams: Live at the Casino", "The Clams: On The Half Shell", "The Clams: Fried!".  (You get the idea.)
Q. Can I buy those albums?
   A. No, you can't buy those albums;  They don't exist.  You might find the single on Ebay, but that's it.
Q. Is there a Clams reissue available on CD?
   A. No.  The album never existed, so how could it be reissued on CD?

(That's it for the FAQ;  We don't get all that many.)

Here's the story:

The Clams was the inspiration of bassist TONY LEVIN (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson) who brought the project to his brother, keyboardist  PETE LEVIN (Gil Evans, Annie Lennox) in 1974.  Both grew up listening to Spike Jones and Stan Freberg.  The collaboration produced two tracks ala Spike Jones' manic City Slickers band, utilizing Spike's techniques of satirizing currently popular songs.   "Cocktails For Two" was a huge hit in Spike's day, and a juicy target for his brand of satire.  24 years after Spike's death, Burt Bacharach's "Close To You" was a huge hit recording, featuring Karen Carpenter's sensitive, award-winning vocal performance.  Possibly the most-requested wedding song during that period, it was a beautiful, tender ballad just waiting for someone to come along and wreck it!  Accordingly, The Clams' rendition - up-tempo ragtime "corn" - is peppered with gun shots, duck calls, glass smashing, slide whistles, alarm clocks, etc. ... your basic love song.  We can't speak for the Carpenters, but for the Clams, good taste was never a consideration.

Tony and Pete brought several friends into the project.  Drummer STEVE GADD (Paul Simon, Eric Clapton), pianist/musicologist MICHAEL HOLMES, and guitarist/washboardist VINNIE PASTERNACK.  To engineer the date, Tony brought in a fellow Eastman School of Music grad, Grammy award winner DIXON VAN WINKLE.  (Dixon also took a tuba solo, but due to length considerations it was edited out of the single release version.  Had to keep it under 3 minutes back then.) Tony played bass of course, and also took a solo on saw; (yes, "saw" ... that's not a typo)  Pete played banjo; Tony, Pete & Vinnie did the SFX, vocals and the kazoo chorus.   Looking for a different sound, Steve laid down the groove with brushes on a NYC phone book.  This all took place over a weekend at A&R Studios on 48th street in New York City.

Not counting one unfinished track ("The Godfather Does The Soft-shoe") the Clams session produced two covers, The Carpenters' "Close To You" and Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", subsequently released as the A and B sides of a single.   Three Brothers, a new sub-label of CTI Records, put it out, but Creed Taylor hadn't authorized spending any money on promotion so CTI just pressed enough copies to send to radio stations and called it a day, possibly hoping that nobody would notice.

That would have been the end of this story but for Bruce "Cousin Brucie" Morrow, the #1 disk jockey on New York's WNBC, at that time one of the most influential top-40 radio stations in the country.  Making no bones about it, Bruce thought the record was idiotic drivel.  Undoubtedly having a bad hair day, he played "Close To You" to show his listeners the kind of crap he got in the mail every day from record companies.  Much to everyone's surprise, the phones 'lit up':  His radio audience loved it, and "Close To You" was added to the station's playlist.  In the days following - as these things go - top 40 stations all over the country picked it up because WNBC was on it.  For 2 or 3 weeks, "Close To You" was a national turntable hit and The Clams were a household word, demonstrating yet again that in America, poor taste is contagious.

By the way, a "turntable hit" means its big on the radio but you can't buy it anywhere.   Remember, CTI hadn't pressed enough to send to stores.

Epilog

"Close To You" (The Clams' version, not The Carpenters' ) was an enormous flop, financial and otherwise.

* When Creed Taylor found out about the record, the staff A&R man at CTI who signed The Clams got fired.

* Three Brothers, created as a new pop division of CTI, released a total of two recordings (The Clams' single being one) and went out of business.

* The parent label, CTI, overextended and having major financial problems, eventually closed its doors too.

* Inspired by his listeners' enthusiastic  response to The Clams, Cousin Brucie started a "Bomb Of the Week" segment on his show, but it fizzled out within a month.

* WNBC is now a 24-hour all-news station.

* Bruce Morrow moved to doing freelance commercial voice-over work.  Later he joined WCBS-FM and had a street named after him in New York.

* Engineer/producer Phil Ramone sold A&R Studios, which later went out of business.

* Pete, who sang lead on "Close To You", was never asked to sing again by anybody.

* Tony, possibly one of the most recorded and most recognizable pop bassists in the business, never got another chance to play saw: That's his only recorded performance.

Not to say that all that was precipitated by one measly Clams recording.  We'd like to think it was all going to happen anyway.  Gosh, we were just having some fun!

Trivia: The 48th street A&R studio space is now the offices of AFM local 802.  Impress your friends!

More trivia: There was a rumor that Steve Gadd wanted to record the basic track for "Late In The Evening" on a phone book, but Paul Simon insisted that playing with 2 drumsticks in each hand was much funnier.   This probably isn't true.

And more trivia:  During the mid-70s The Carpenters, then at the height of their popularity, had a weekly variety show on network TV.  On one of the shows - right after The Clams' record release - they put together a Spike Jones-style backup band and did the Clams' arrangement of "Close To You".   So - if you're following this - The Clams covered the Carpenters' hit record; Then The Carpenters covered the Clams' hit record.  That's got to be a music history landmark.

A few years ago Pete ran into Bruce Morrow in a New York recording studio; Bruce was doing a voice-over.   Pete introduced himself and thanked him for breaking the Clams way back then.   Bruce denied any recollection of the record or the band.  Now there's a testimonial!  Show biz; its a jungle out there!

The Clams hang on in a few memories though.  Doctor Demento gave it lots of airplay, and remembers.   A handful of demented music fans who hang out at rec.music.dementia recall and have asked for copies.   (Sorry ... there aren't any.)  Ted Hering, Spike Jones' archivist remembers.   But topping our list, Jordan Young immortalized the Clams with that nice comment in his book - quoted at the top of this page.  What a swell guy!  (In fact, its probably the only nice thing anyone ever said about the Clams.  Other than that, its a very good book.)

A few years ago, Tony started up Papabear Records to release his solo CD and some other projects he's working on.  He is slowly expanding operations and threatens to release the Clams sessions in some form someday.  We'll see.

* The following is courtesy of Doug Payne,
excerpted from his DISCOGRAPHY & HISTORY OF CTI RECORDS.
This section was added August 1998.

CTI Records & Creed Taylor

(Here come The Clams ... the Three Brothers label)