The Story of Ménage
By Marc P. Friedland

It was spring of 1985 and Lorilee and I had just recently got married. We decided to put together a music group to perform top 40 music at hotel lounges while touring the country. We needed to acquire many more pieces of the puzzle and do a lot of homework before we were truly ready to tackle this new project.

The Music:
Of course we wanted to sound really good and have as much fun as possible. We also needed to make sure that it generated enough money to really be worth it. If we were going to be on the road for an extended period of time, we needed to continue paying our rent on our rent-control apartment in Santa Monica, pay all of our monthly bills, and come home with a significant amount of cash in hand. The format that we decided to be the best was to hire one additional band member besides us, a bass player that could also sing pretty well. In order to sound like a full band with only three musicians meant that I needed to create "tracks" that would be pre-recorded, for us to play along to at the gigs. Here's how the "tracks" went from a concept to a reality ---------- We purchased two Yamaha 4-track cassette recorders to record the music to, and I experimented with them to understand how they worked. We purchased a decent Yamaha drum machine, and this being new territory for me, I had to do an extensive amount of homework with it in order to get the most from it and become proficient. Lorilee and I then determined a tentative list of about 40 popular songs that we thought we could perform well in this format. It was now time for me to "program" all of the songs onto individual cassettes. Two of the first songs I programmed were Dreams by Fleetwood Mac and Back on the Chain Gang by The Pretenders. Each time I programmed a new song, I would start by listening very carefully to the song a number of times. I would determine the tempo, and also figure out pretty accurately what each instrument was playing. After dissecting the drums being played on the record, I did my best to recreate them on my drum machine. Next I would add 2 or 3 tracks of color instruments, depending on what worked best for the song. It would usually be one track of piano and one or two tracks of string or organ sounds. While programming the songs I needed to keep in mind what the live musicians would play at the gigs, which were lead guitar, bass guitar, and percussion instruments. I also extended the length of many songs by adding instrumental solos or additional verses and choruses. At first it would take me between six to eight hours to program each song. Eventually I did get a little quicker with it, but it was always a time consuming event. Having parts of the songs pre-recorded like this meant that we would always have to perform the songs this same way, EXACTLY! I made it a practice to put only two songs on any one cassette tape. This way it would not be difficult to change the order of our set list if we wanted to, and also be easy to find one particular song if we needed to.

The Gigs:
We connected with a booking agent in Hollywood. His name was Dick Kravitz. He promised us that if we had a good promo picture, he would be able to keep us working full time out on the road. He was a very nice man, who kept true to his word. He arranged gigs for us by contacting booking agents all across the country. Once we had the first booking confirmed, we knew what date we had to be prepared to be able to perform, so we really got to work. Most of the gigs were two or three week engagements, usually six nights a week. Most gigs paid about $1,200 a week. Out of that, we paid $240 right off the top, which was 10% for Dick Kravitz and 10% for the other booking agent. We split the remainder in thirds and I took a little extra as band leader and to cover some expenses. The accommodations were always fine and free of charge, and at many of the locations we got some food free or at discounted prices. The bottom line was we did make enough to cover all our expenses and pocket a fair amount of change for when the adventure would come to a close. We sometimes referred to our address as Holiday Inn USA, but we played some other hotels as well. We did take a few weeks off at one point and visit with my parents and stayed at their house in New Haven, CT. I may be forgetting 1 or 2, but here's a list of the cities we played, in the order we played them:

McAllen, TX
• Sierra Vista, AZ
• Midland, TX
• Las Cruces, New Mexico
• Dallas (Irvine), TX
• Forest City, Arkansas
• Ponca City, OK
• Mt. Pleasant, TX
• Thibodaux, LA
• Williamsport, PA
• Youngstown, Ohio

Ménage Transforms to a Duo:
After a successful and somewhat lucrative, but exhausting adventure of about 8 months, Ménage returned home to S. CA. in March of 1986. We did play gigs around town for a while, but if we wanted to continue to make a living performing music, we needed to make some changes. The venues that were available for us to play at in our home area only paid about $700 - $800 a week. So Lorilee & I decided we would continue Ménage, but as a duo. Besides the additional singing burden for the both of us, it also meant that I would have to add the bass guitar to all of the existing programmed tracks, to make up for the lack of it being played live. To give Ménage more live sound on stage, Lorilee added rhythm guitar to her responsibilities in addition to all the various percussion equipment she played. It didn't take long for us to adjust to the duo format and in some respects we actually sounded better like that. One of our gigs was at The Bay View Plaza Holiday Inn which was right next door to where we lived in Santa Monica. We were able to safely leave our equipment set up there, so we literally grabbed our guitars & toys and walked to work each night. As it turned out, we performed there about 6 months out of the year, and finding that job ourselves meant we didn't have to pay an agents fee. We also got to make some good money playing private parties as well.

Ménage Says Good-by!
This may be one of those examples of the saying "all good things must come to an end." After performing as a duo for about three years, times had changed and even though we didn't want to admit it, we were also being forced to change with them. It was becoming next to impossible to find enough gigs locally to make ends meet. Five & six nights a week gigs appeared to take the route of the dinosaurs. We were fortunate to play more than most of the other musicians we knew of, but it was now down to about 12 gigs a month, and not enough to make it financially. We both took part time day jobs in order to not max out the credit cards. One time when we were just about to take full time day jobs, we were offered a 4 day a week gig at a local hotel. It only paid $100 a night, but it was Monday thru Thursday. This left all the weekends available to book other gigs, which for the most part, we were to able to take advantage of. Living in a rent-controlled apartment that only cost us about $200 a month allowed us the luxury of continuing to live this lifestyle. Eventually, the gig scene dried up even more. We sort of felt like miners who worked in the local mines for their whole life and then get informed that it was being shut down. So in about 1991 we accept full time day jobs and sadly say good-by to Ménage. We would get an offer to play a gig here & there that we would do, but it would only be on rare occasions.

There were probably a number of contributing factors to why the sharp decline in the gig scene for our type of music, some of them being: The general state of the economy; Stricter drunk driving laws being enforced, resulting in fewer people staying out late in clubs to hear music, and much less bar hopping; Hotels and clubs no longer competed with each other by trying to outdo the other by having better entertainment, because quality entertainment was no longer that strong of a draw; DJs, Karaoke, piano bars, or nothing at all, was then happening in almost all venues that had previously featured live bands on a regular basis.

Ménage Stories

Manage in Lounge:
On our very first gig in McAllen, TX they had a marquis advertising who their entertainment was at the time. Unfortunately, it read "Manage in Lounge" People were literally coming in to apply for what they thought was a managerial positional in their lounge! I guess something like "Ménage performs in lounge" may have avoided the confusion.

Meet the Batters:
The next story takes place when we performing as a duo at the Bay View Plaza Holiday Inn in Santa Monica, in 1987/88. A young man & woman who were watching us perform, asked Lorilee what the name Ménage means. Lorilee went on to explain that in addition to other definitions, it also means a group or family. We sat down to talk with them, and they introduced themselves as Joyce & Bucky Batters. They were in a 5 piece cover band called "Xerocks," but were in the process of changing their format over to performing as a duo. They were checking out the competition and potential venues to play. From that moment on we went on to become very good life-long friends with them. We've substituted in each other's bands and played in the same band on many instances. We also shared many personal experiences like going to movies, events, parties, going out to eat, or just getting together, etc. Although we now live about 400 miles from each other, we still stay in contact with them and will always have special places in our hearts for each other.

The Tornado Story:
This story tells how Lorilee's pillows literally saved our lives! The trio, Ménage had concluded its final road gig in Youngstown Ohio, and we were on our way back home. We could have taken some gigs on the way home, but everyone was pretty burnt out and just looking forward to getting home. We had stayed at a motel one night somewhere in Indiana. After leaving the motel and traveling for about a ½ hour, Lorilee realized that she left her pillows back at the motel room. These pillows were important, not because of their financial value, but because of the large part they played in our comfort factor. So naturally, we turned around to go back and get the pillows. Once on our way again, we're traveling down the road towing a trailer behind our 1982 red Subaru. The trailer contained most of our worldly possessions, music equipment and personal belongings. It was a gorgeous day in the middle of March, 1986. All of a sudden, the beautiful sunny day turned almost as dark as night within a minute. The wind was blowing so hard that I had to slow down from 55 to 25 immediately or I would not have been able to control the car. We saw a large billboard on the other side of the highway get blown apart and go flying in front of our car as though it wasn't heavier than a piece of paper. We got off the very next exit that was available to us. As we're going down the exit ramp we can see a little diner near by, and as we get closer we see all of its lights go off. We pull on the side of the diner and attempt to get out, but the wind was so strong, that it was difficult to open the doors. We get inside the café, and the owner greets us. She says: "four twisters just touched down over the hill and may be on their way here - you can get in the walk-in cooler with us, or stay out here in the dining room, it's your lives!" I turned to Lorilee and said "WHAT!!!!!!" I couldn't believe I just heard those words. I wasn't ready to accept the fact that our car & trailer and all of its contents will probably be blown away like that billboard I saw, and that we'd be lucky to escape with our lives. We brought in flashlights, a radio, blankets, and of course, pillows, and figured we'd wait there in the dining room to see what would happen next. Oddly enough, the pay phones were working, so I called my parents who were in Florida at the time, to let them know what was happening. A call came in also from someone to inform us that 2 more twisters touched down and appeared to be on their way towards us. We anxiously waited, looking out the windows expecting to see one of Mother Nature's most lethal forces coming right at us. We wondered if we too, would run to the cooler with the others. But the tornado was a no-show! None of the many twisters that actually touched down ever came over the hill where this little café sat at the end of the exit ramp. We had to remain in the diner for about another hour until the State Police indicated that was it was safe to resume travel on the highway. Eventually we got moving again. We had been traveling about an hour when we passed the area on the highway where there was a tremendous amount of damage and semi trucks turned over. If we had not gone back to get Lorilee's pillows, we could have ended up in that area where the worst damage was done, right at the same time the twisters crossed over that section of the highway.