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Here’s an in-depth and never before published SAINTE ANTHONY’S FYRE interview, including some incredible stories and photos.
Stefan Kéry talks Sainte Anthony’s Fyre with Tom Nardi.
Stefan Kéry: How did Ste. Anthony’s Fyre come to be?
Tomm Nardi: Gregory Onushko, alias Greg Ohm started Sainte Anthony’s Fyre in 1967 and I joined in 1968, before that we played in local area bands. Greg was heavy into music having played classical music in elementary and high school. He was first violin, first chair, in Trenton High’s Orchestra. My wife met him there, she was first viola. After high school Greg took some music classes in college. For a class assignment the professor asked the students to write an assortment of songs. After getting a C+ for the work, the professor proceeded to use Greg’s songs to score a Broadway play called The Me Nobody Knows. Later Greg sued, got a bunch of money, and opened a practice hall/recording studio on Broad Street in Trenton. He spent all the money on new recording equipment and sound systems, amps, and then had no money to pay the rent. Greg was in a group called Peter’s Precious Soul. Very popular at the time. Bobbie (SAF drummer) and I played together in a band called Third Degree. I left that band to form the Trenton Raiders, a Paul Revere/Young Rascals cover band. When that one broke up, my brother-in-law put me in contact with a singer from New York who needed to put a band together to replace 1910 Fruit Gum Company. So, I took the best drummer and keyboard player from my area, tried to get Greg from Peter’s Precious Soul, and formed Marshmallow Way. We recorded an LP for United Artists, but when they sent us out to live shows we did the same thing 1910 Fruit Gum Company did — played rock and roll instead of bubble gum pop. We got fired, too. The whole time I was with Marshmallow Way I tried to get Greg to join but he said he was done with Top 40 cover songs and formed Ste. Anthony’s Fyre to do original music, though when Cream and Hendrix were on the scene he covered some of their songs. But he was playing like Hendrix before Hendrix even came out. All the while he was trying to get me to quit Marshmallow Way and join his group. I had already played with Bobbie, so the two of them kept hounding me until I joined.
SK: How did you come up with the band name?
TN: Greg was cleaning his grandmother’s attic one day and found an old newspaper with the headline, “Ste. Anthony’s Fyre Strikes French Town” A local French wheat crop had developed ergot, which is a disease that affects rye and other plants, and was contaminated. They used the wheat to make bread anyway and sent the whole town on an LSD-like trip that lasted nearly three weeks. There’s even a book written about it detailing the events called, The Day Of St. Anthony’s Fire by John Grant Fuller.
SK: What kind of equipment did you guys use?
TN: Greg’s guitar started life as a Gibson Firebird. The body was cut and it was custom wired. He only used a Vox wah-wah, and later on an Echo-Plex tape loop with a fifteen second delay. He would only use Marshalls after he saw Hendrix play and told me the only requirement for me was that I had to have a Sunn amp, like Felix Papalardi of Mountain. At the height of our popularity, he was using three 100-watt heads with six cabinets, and I had (and still do) a Sunn 2000S with four 15” JBLs, four Sunn 412S cabinets with two Sunn Sorado heads, one Sorado head with a 610 cabinet, and one 15” cabinet. Bobbie always had a double bass drum set.
SK: Where did you guys rehearse?
TN: We started rehearsing in the cellar of a boutique in downtown Trenton on Montgomery Street called the Hip-Pocket. I think they’re renovating the buildings there into apartments now. One of the owners was also in a local band. He and his business partner decided to manage us. They used the profit from the clothing store to promote us, and when they couldn’t get us booked as an opening act in big venues, they started putting on their own shows instead. We opened for MC5, Ten Wheel Drive, Wishbone Ash, Grass Roots, Rare Earth, Fleetwood Mac, and Joe Cocker.
SK: Wow! With that all happening you started to plan recording and releasing a record?
TN: As our fan base grew our manager tried to hook us up with big promoters and record companies. No one would talk to them. So, they decided to put out an indie LP. About this time, we met a black promoter named Dickie Diamond who wanted to bankroll us. The first thing he did was take us to Broadway Records in New York to record an album. He said he knew everyone and would take care of everything. He was putting on shows with black acts and had us opening for them. We also had to fill in as backup players for James Brown, Jackie Wilson, The Coasters, The Drifters, The Four Tops, and others. The Broadway Records recording in 1968 was the first time I played with Greg. I was reading sheet music for the songs, mostly instrumentals, no overdubbing. The whole thing was done in one day, about sixteen hours straight. Supposedly, according to Dickie Diamond, Joe Cocker‘s people called and wanted to use the studio while we were there, and they turned him down. The Broadway Records tape was never released because Dickie Diamond never paid the studio for the time we took to record it. At one point in the mid-70’s Greg talked Broadway into pressing an acetate for him. Unfortunately, we never made any copies, and it was lost while being passed around to keyboard players we were auditioning. For all I know, if Broadway Records is still in business anyway, those tapes are still there.
SK: Turning up that tape would be amazing! How did the Zonk album come about?
TN: The Zonk Record was recorded around the end of 1969 in a studio in Pennsauken, New Jersey which was run by the bass player from the Lovin’ Spoonful. He had no idea how to record us. We refused to go directly into the board or use small amps, so we kept blowing up his board. Then finally we just set the amps up facing the back wall and hung two microphones on the far wall. The sound varies because of moving the microphones, the engineer trying different settings. It took months to record. We went to Pennsauken about two times a week and we also did some overdubbing at Nise Studios in Philadelphia for vocals and overdubs about four times. After mixing, the tapes were sent to Motown Records for pressing (Dickie’s connection). They totally screwed it up, hence the finished product. United Artists pressed about 1000 copies of the Zonk Productions album. Nobody knew what they were doing but Dickie said he would make it up to us. So, he got some time at Electric Lady Studio in New York to re-record the album in January 1971. Dickie took Greg to check it out and record some tracks. But before Christmas Dickie was arrested for setting up a drug hit in Trenton. So, because he wasn’t with us when we showed up at the studio, they wouldn’t let us in. He also never paid the bill for the time at Broadway Records and for years Sara Dash and Pattie LaBelle refused to acknowledge that they knew him or that, in Sara’s case, they were ever married.
SK: What kind of response did the album get back then?
TN: Because the Zonk record was indie, no radio stations would play it except for WMMR Philadelphia late at night. The station decided to have a free concert with Leon Russell, local Philadelphia bands, and us. The catch was they would give out clues every day, and you had to guess where the concert was. About two days before the concert rival station WYSP paid Leon Russel more money to play at their paid concert. But it was too late, all the MMR listeners knew the free show was at Penny Packer Park in Philly. About 5,000 people showed up. Without a headliner everyone moved up a notch. Frank had bought a couple of boxes of LPs and told me that after we got done playing, announce that anyone wanting a record to meet me at the foot of the stage. Greg had no idea I was going to do this, so after the last song he said thank you and goodnight, turned to shut off his Marshalls and pack his guitar. I made my announcement and all at once the whole crowd rushed to the stage knocking down both the police barricades and the police. Greg turned, saw all those people rushing us, screamed and dove for cover. It was funny as hell. He sounded like a little girl. All I could do in the confusion was throw records Frisbee style. I never got to tell the crowd what area record stores were carrying the LP.
SK: Any other memorable gigs or so that you’d like to mention?
TN: Dickie wanted to put us on tour as Led Zeppelin (he called them “Zefflin”), he said no one would figure it out because Zeppelin was from England and nobody knew what they looked like. He also started booking shows, selling the tickets, and then cancelling the shows. Real class act! We did a show at the Trenton Armory with Kool and the Gang, and the drummer tried to use Bobbie’s set. He couldn’t handle the double bass drum and also kept breaking the sticks on the snare. So, Bobbie had to sit in. He wouldn’t do it alone, so I had to play bass, and I didn’t even know any of their songs. The guitar player had to shout chord changes out to me. That’s how we started being back up musicians for Dickie’s black acts. Knowing Dickie he probably got the acts cheaper because he was supplying equipment and backup men. I did know Jackie Wilson songs and with us playing Your Love is Lifting Me Higher as an encore, Jackie took forever to come back on stage, so I kept playing the intro bass line. He finally came back out, walked to the front of the stage, and stopped. He turned around, came up to me, put his finger up in the ‘wait a sec’ gesture and walked to the back of the stage behind my amps, where he threw his guts up. He came back out, smiled, and started to sing. He was late coming out for the encore because he was backstage shooting up. He must have shot just a little too much.
SK: That’s crazy!
TN: Frank Kelly somehow got in touch with the Allman Brothers’ manager and said to him, ‘Listen to this.’ He had us play a song over the phone. The manager said he would send us contracts to tour with the Allman Brothers when they arrived. According to the contracts there would be no drinking, no drugs and we must all go to church on Sundays so we could be clean and Christian like the Allman Brothers were. We laughed and tossed them out.
SK: (Laughs) Can you tell some more about Greg?
TN: Greg considered himself a fashion plate and was always looking for new trends. He always wore a grey felt cowboy hat, a scarf tied around his left knee, and bedroom slippers when he played. To this day, someone in our circle of friends calls leather bedroom slippers ‘Ohm’s.’ Me and Walt have carried on that tradition somewhat by always wearing those cheap black boaters from K-Mart. Greg wrote a little ditty called the Vegetable Song that we sometimes opened up with. It became so popular that Frank Kelly decided to put out a line of vegetable t-shirts. We sold hundreds of broccolis, celery, and cu-cucumber (as the song goes) t-shirts at the Hip-Pocket. Backstage at a show at the Trenton Armory with Joe Cocker: Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Greg was mesmerized by Leon Russell’s girlfriend’s t-shirt. There were two holes cut into the front, so her breasts stuck out (and they made a big deal about Janet Jackson). Greg hammered at Frank for weeks to make and sell that shirt, but common sense prevailed.
SK: Maybe we should start making that tee now (laughs).
TN: We once opened for Fleetwood Mac at a place called the Lambertville Music Fair. It was a theatre in the round with a rotating stage. So, at some point during the show the stage made a quarter turn so all the audience could see the group. When we all arrived backstage, Greg was all excited to get to talk shop with all the big-name musicians. He proceeded to ask the guitar player (Peter Green maybe? Or it could have been a backup player…) what kind of strings they used, what key they tuned in (we tuned a half step down), amp wattage, model and age of guitars, etc. He was appalled that they didn’t know a thing about their own equipment. They said, ‘Ask the roadies, we have no idea.’ That night the crowd was at about 3/4 capacity and every time the stage turned everyone got up and followed it around. Most people were just standing in the aisles. We only had two volunteer roadies so as soon as we got done playing all of us started to load all our equipment. Fleetwood Mac then went on and after about three songs most of the crowd walked out. About ten people offered to help load us up. It was the quickest pack up we ever had.
SK: Were you ever offered to record another album or so?
TN: Frank Kelly (the only one who still thought we had a chance) shopped the album to all the major labels, who said that if we consented to sign over everything and leave our managers, they would put us on their labels. We were in the office of a vice president at Columbia Records, who opened his blinds and showed us a billboard for Grand Funk Railroad’s Closer To Home album and said, “Sign that contract. I’ll pay your management what they spent on you plus $10,000 and you’ll be on that billboard tomorrow.” Greg said no. “We all go or no one goes.”
SK: How long did the band last?
TN: We broke up in 1972. Six months after the Hip-Pocket closed, because Frank Kelley and Bob Bellana spent all their money on us, I went back to retrieve the rest of the Sainte Anthony’s Fyre records. We couldn’t open the front door because of all the mail piled against it from the inside. When we finally got in, we found letters from all the major labels, wanting to sit down and sign us to their labels. By then it was too late. Greg quit and started a new group called Greg Ohm’s Shock Troop who played a continuation of Ste. Anthony’s Fyre songs. Some of the ones we rehearsed for a second album became Shock Troop’s beginning play list. We tried to keep Sainte Anthony’s Fyre alive with a host of different guitar players, but it just didn’t work. We disbanded and went our separate ways. Bobbie and I played in a bunch of different groups and kept in touch until he moved out to the Midwest. Meanwhile Greg was building Shock Troop into a rather complex ensemble. With George Miller as drummer and Greg Simon (the original Sainte Anthony’s Fyre bass player) at the core. He sometimes took us on stage with up to ten to twelve people. Rhythm guitars, horns, keyboards, backup singers, etc.
TN: Greg reached his zenith in about 1978. After that he fell ill, but before he died, he told George to keep his music alive. All Greg’s family would say about his death was that it was “natural causes.” Greg’s brother Anthony, who himself was another fantastic guitarist who died too soon; a girl he knew was mugged and her purse was tossed over the fence of an electrical sub-station. While trying to retrieve it, he grabbed two wires at the same time and was electrocuted. Anthony took lessons not from regular books, but from Sainte Anthony’s Fyre songs. He played in a bunch of local bands, names of which I have no idea. At one point I tried to get Greg and Anthony to play together in a band we would call Brother’s. They almost looked like twins (despite their age difference) to the nth degree. They looked, talked, acted, sang, and almost played exactly like each other. Anthony was even more amazing than Greg in the fact that his mother used to tell him all the time, ‘Why can’t you be like your brother?’ So, he bought a guitar and in the span of a few years was playing as well as Greg without any formal training. He hung out with Gary Moto so I’m sure they jammed together. Greg and Anthony had a love/hate relationship and refused to play in a band together.
TN: When not playing gigs, Greg made money by giving lessons. Two of his students, who were friends of Greg’s, Walt Burbella and Gary Moto, used to follow Sainte Anthony’s Fyre wherever we played. These guitar players would set up chairs in front of Greg and watch his hands as he played. They couldn’t copy his hand movements – he played weird positions, inverted chords, and off-key tuning to get his sounds and all the guitar players were trying to copy it. At one time or another every guitar player in the Trenton area either jammed with us at the Hip-Pocket or just came down to watch us. Some of these guys are still around, plugging away. Joe Zook, Paul Plumeri, Ernie White, John Bushnel, to name a few. Some of them still will not acknowledge that Greg was amazing and that he influenced them, but every time the third generation Shock Troop played (me, George, Walt, and Gary) in concert they all came out and stood in front of the stage to watch Gary, as he is almost an incarnation of Greg when he plays.