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| Stinky Or the night that Billy Martin re-found Rock and Roll
After the crash and burn of the band Billy whipped out his Martin acoustic and took over the local coffeehouse scene with his younger brother. There were times when hundreds of kids would follow them from one coffee house to another in the same night. No shit. It was quite a trip for Billy. Then came the Country years. Billy was one of the founding
members of Temperance Hall.
A seventies folk rock and country group, they did the club scene with a certain
amount of success. But the reality was that Billy had taken off his Rock and Roll
shoes. Temperance Hall and the Flying dogs of Jupiter were rivals on some levels. Mainly because of Frank, but that's
another story. Temperance Hall crashed before the Flying Dogs did. The opportunity came up for Billy to come and do his Folk gig at a outdoor concert with the Dogs. He preformed his folk set and retired to the beer keg for the rest of the night. The Dogs came on. It was a good night for the Dogs. The crowd was jumping, and the the band was hot. Then from underneath the stage HE appeared. Billy had transformed himself and had become STINKY. Several things happened at that point, but we won't go into them here. Suffice to say that he made a lasting impression on some people that they would like to forget. But Stinky was in full command of Billy. The Rock and Roll was infecting his soul. After years of middle of the road, please the audience and the manager type music, Stinky wanted to cut loose. Unfortunately, he wanted to cut loose in the middle of a Flying Dogs concert. This was not going to work. It was up to the Spuds to keep a lid on things. So when Stinky would put his amp on stage and then go back for his guitar, the Spuds would take his amp and hide it. This scenario repeated it self for a half any hour or more. He finally gave up. But it was this experience that set Stinky back onto the road to
Rock and Roll fame. He later acknowledged to the Spuds that it was a good thing that
they kept him from playing that night. He knew that the Spuds were only looking out
for his best interests. So when the the time was right, Stinky asked The Spuds to
work with him on his new music. Since the resurrection of the Spuds in 1997 Stinky has come out to play several times. Its hard to believe that we all got so old. But when we play together, it feels just right.
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Stinky |
Stinky wasn't always Stinky. In the dim reaches of the past there
was Billy Martin, FOLK GOD. Back in the early 1970's Billy boy was the leader of one
of the most influential bands that ever hit Westfield High School in NJ. That might
not count for much now, but back then, there were only one or two people in school who
were more of a parents nightmare than Billy. In the late 60's and early 70's
Westfield always had at least six working high school rock and roll bands going strong.
Out of them all, Of The Body was
the baddest there was. Billy was the lead singer who had the look, and the
attitude that set the standard for all others to follow. It was a great time to be a
teenager in Westfield.
