FRANK STEMPER, COMPOSER
Split-Second Beatles (1980)
manipulated phonograph on low fidelity cassette for Lee Hyla
[30:49 mins.]
As my kindergarten report stated, “Little Frankie likes to tease the other children.” Case in point: The late Lee Hyla and I were pals during grad school at SUNY Stony Brook (aka Stony Brook University). We had a lot of good times with several of the other grad students, Michael Bushnell, Tom Flaherty, Alan Nagel, Jimmy Bill Kohn, Tim Smith, Christopher Butterfield, and “Bat” Carpenter. Everyone seemed to be pretty serious about music, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have some fun. We had an original garage band, The Academics, except that it was in Lee and Alan’s basement. And we had a regular golf foursome (Lee, Jimmy Bill, Michael, and myself). But most evenings were spend at Lee and Alan’s, drinking Ballantine Ale and listening to the Rolling Stones, among other things. Hyla really liked the Stones. He’s often sing along. I, myself, was more of a Beatle guy. I mean, if I had to choose. I’d argue the point with Lee, who was skeptical about their Rock n Roll relevance, or some hog-wash.
After we all became Masters of Music, we of course went our separate ways – but for a long time we kept in touch. Lee, Christopher, and Alan moved to Toronto for a while to play some Rock n Roll. It didn’t last. I went off to get a PhD at UC-Berkeley. Lee tried to talk me out of it, ranting about the dangers of “Academia” on art. I said, I just want to get a job, man.
(The one big difference between me and the other guys was that I was certain that I wanted to participate in this life thing and have a family, and that doesn't bode well with the Bohemian life style. And as it turns out only Bushnell had a family - one daughter with his lovely, Vera. My wife, Nancy, and I managed to have FIVE kids, which I gather is participation to a fault. HOWEVER: With all the other guys at Stony Brook vowing that they weren't going to have any kids ever, I got at least one proxy from each of them. Don't remember asking Michael though.)
My first summer in California, Michael and Lee drove across the country and visited for a couple of weeks. The three of us had a great time, then they headed for NYC, where they stayed for a long time. While Lee was visiting, I asked him what he was going to do next. He said that he was going to try to become famous. Then he and Michael drove back. Over the next 20 years Lee did a pretty good job of becoming famous. Not sensationally famous, but pretty good – a lot better than the rest of us anyway. I think he would have done a lot better, but he probably just couldn’t stomach it, really. The things he must have had to do to get as far as he did....!
But we remained friends til his death – gradually getting more and more faded, I guess. I retired from teaching on July 1, 2014. A couple of weeks or so before that, I was teaching my last class – really my very last class, in summer session – and I got an email telling me that Lee had just died, of complications from pneumonia. Sad news. Damn.
SPLIT-SECOND BEATLES is a little ditty I made just for Lee, back when I was finishing my Ph.D. at Berkeley. It’s a series of excerpts from all the Beatle records in a half-hour – every single album, every single song of theirs. I had them all. I did it by just placing the phonograph needle on the record for a few seconds, then picking it up and placing it someplace else. (Very low-tech, which I knew Lee would appreciate.) In a few spots I screwed around with the speed by leaning on the turntable. If you’re a Beatle fan, it will drive you nuts, which is what I meant to do to Lee. This was meant to aggravate the great Hyla, Hyla the Stones fan. And that debate was taken care of in the intro, which is by Fred Astaire.
After we all became Masters of Music, we of course went our separate ways – but for a long time we kept in touch. Lee, Christopher, and Alan moved to Toronto for a while to play some Rock n Roll. It didn’t last. I went off to get a PhD at UC-Berkeley. Lee tried to talk me out of it, ranting about the dangers of “Academia” on art. I said, I just want to get a job, man.
(The one big difference between me and the other guys was that I was certain that I wanted to participate in this life thing and have a family, and that doesn't bode well with the Bohemian life style. And as it turns out only Bushnell had a family - one daughter with his lovely, Vera. My wife, Nancy, and I managed to have FIVE kids, which I gather is participation to a fault. HOWEVER: With all the other guys at Stony Brook vowing that they weren't going to have any kids ever, I got at least one proxy from each of them. Don't remember asking Michael though.)
My first summer in California, Michael and Lee drove across the country and visited for a couple of weeks. The three of us had a great time, then they headed for NYC, where they stayed for a long time. While Lee was visiting, I asked him what he was going to do next. He said that he was going to try to become famous. Then he and Michael drove back. Over the next 20 years Lee did a pretty good job of becoming famous. Not sensationally famous, but pretty good – a lot better than the rest of us anyway. I think he would have done a lot better, but he probably just couldn’t stomach it, really. The things he must have had to do to get as far as he did....!
But we remained friends til his death – gradually getting more and more faded, I guess. I retired from teaching on July 1, 2014. A couple of weeks or so before that, I was teaching my last class – really my very last class, in summer session – and I got an email telling me that Lee had just died, of complications from pneumonia. Sad news. Damn.
SPLIT-SECOND BEATLES is a little ditty I made just for Lee, back when I was finishing my Ph.D. at Berkeley. It’s a series of excerpts from all the Beatle records in a half-hour – every single album, every single song of theirs. I had them all. I did it by just placing the phonograph needle on the record for a few seconds, then picking it up and placing it someplace else. (Very low-tech, which I knew Lee would appreciate.) In a few spots I screwed around with the speed by leaning on the turntable. If you’re a Beatle fan, it will drive you nuts, which is what I meant to do to Lee. This was meant to aggravate the great Hyla, Hyla the Stones fan. And that debate was taken care of in the intro, which is by Fred Astaire.