Whatever happened to T What?!

Yesterday I was downtown, looking for some replacement parts for one of my precision Italian sports cars. Someone comes up to me, and I know the drill - I'm expecting to be asked for an autograph. I figure I can acknowledge that I'm me. I'm all set. And then they say

"What's T What!? doing these days?"

Oh. Sure, T What!?. Stunt guitarist for The Pants. I mentioned that he had been doing some traveling and working on a solo project. But I haven't heard from him in a while, so back at the Pantmansion, I got on the go-phone and tracked him down.

The short answer:

Music for the Holidaze

Hey Kids. Sid here. It's "The Holidays". Nearly.

I don't know what you think of when you think of Christmas, but here's what I think of: Disappointment. Tension. Yeah, I have a few memories of opening some toy I wanted, but those are fading just like the photographs of the days my parents probably can't find anymore.

I do remember my aunt and uncle gave me some of my first music - "Tattoo You" by the Rolling Stones. "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac.

Christmas, 1983. The band is still in the studio, working on "Life, Style..." On Christmas Day. Hoping to finish so we can go home for dinner. I'm in the vocal booth, having just finished the lyrics and vocals for "Last Song", which was also the last song we were working on.

The album was ready for mixing, and we already had a rough up. The phone rings. It's the label guy. We were being dropped. The album was never going to come out. He was claiming we cost too much money and weren't going to recoup. There were other reasons, too, but I'm not going into them here.

Over a year of hard work, and our whole teenage lives, gone. The band leaves the control room to go smoke or drink or cry or whatever. They don't notice me still in the vocal booth, in the dark. I slip out the back, my Schott leather jacket barely keeping the chill off. I walk nearly a mile before I can hail a cab and just tell him to drive...and I disappear for a long, long time.

There are other Christmases I could write about with similar stories, but instead, I'll focus on the positive.

In July of 1983 back when The Pants were still The Next Big Thing, we were asked to participate in some network Christmas special. I think Carl Sagan was hosting or involved or something. I remember Ewoks or Muppets or Gremlins or Goonies. It's all a little vague. The band couldn't make it, but the agent insisted that I did. So I turned up and did a nice little rendition of "Winter Wonderland".

Of course, after the band was dropped, they cut the segment from the special and it never aired (if anyone ever finds a YouTube video, please let me know!). But I managed to dig up a copy. We were going to put it on a flexi and send it out to the fan club.

Hope you like it, and Merry Holidays.