This One Time, at Rock Camp

I have convinced myself that the final night of Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp is no big deal, no different from putting on a skit with my cabin mates when I was nine. But this isn't the stage at Camp Winnawoka; it's the Bottom Line, a world-famous club in Manhattan. And this isn't a marshmallow on a stick in my hand; it's a bass guitar, on which I am expected shortly to accompany camp counselor Roger Daltrey. Yes, that Roger Daltrey. Probably best not to dwell on the fact that I'd never picked up a bass before three days ago.

"Hellooo, New York City!" the emcee howls, raising an expectant cheer from the standing-room-only crowd. "Are you ready?" For those about to rock, we beg your forgiveness.

Stratocasters and Fanny Packs

Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp is the brainchild of concert promoter David Fishof. Decades ago, baseball fantasy camps proved that rich, paunchy sports fans would pay top dollar to play catch with rich, paunchy ex-athletes. Fishof applied the idea to music, creating a place where people could "eat, sleep and live rock and roll." The first RRFC, held in 1997 in Miami, lost money, but Fishof revived the camp in Los Angeles last year, and now he's brought it to New York City.

While financial riches have so far proved elusive, the rockcamp concept has found its way onto pop culture's ultimate barometer: The Simpsons. During Homer's stint at camp, his counselors are a who's who of rock royalty, including Mick Jagger, Tom Petty and Elvis Costello. Fishof's roll call is somewhat less awe-inspiring: From the website touting RRFC 2003, I learn that this year's musical director is Mark Rivera, a Brooklynite who blows sax in Billy Joel's band. Among the 20 or so hands-on counselors are aging classic rockers such as Mountain guitarist Leslie West, Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke and Jack Blades, bassist-singer from hair-metal heroes Night Ranger. While those names don't mean much to anyone who didn't spend the 1970s and 1980s obsessing over liner notes, some bigger guns are also scheduled to appear, including Grand Funk Railroad frontman Mark Farner, Ramones drummer Marky Ramone, Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley and one bona fide superstar: Daltrey, the Who's golden-voiced god.

Legend has it that bluesman Robert Johnson bought his talents from the devil at the price of his soul. In 2003, music glory still isn't a bargain. To put an average joe in touch with his inner rock star, RRFC charges $5,995 for five days—not including travel or lodging. As I sit in a cab, zigzagging through Manhattan toward the camp's headquarters in the Hudson Hotel, I prepare for two distinct possibilities: the fulfillment of a teenage fantasy, or utter humiliation that could take years to forget. Certainly I'm feeling skeptical about the prospect of an authentic experience being delivered at any price. Rock and capitalism have a long, contentious relationship, and lately rock has been getting its ass kicked. In an age when the Clash's punk anthem "London Calling" sells Jaguars, rock seems to have outlived its mission statement of rebellion.

The Hudson is one of those boutique jobs too trendy for obvious signage, so I sneak a peek at the front-desk stationery just to make sure I'm in the right place. I'm told registration is on the third floor. When the elevator opens I'm besieged.

"Hey, how was your trip? What's your name?" yelps a caffeinted middle-aged woman in a Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp T-shirt. "Let's get you a name tag." She hands me a tote bag and turns me over to impressively busty, bottle-blonde twins armed with a camera. I'm ordered to stand against the wall and smile. I do. A photo is taken for a laminated badge.

I'm then ushered into an eggshell-colored conference room where other attendees are already auditioning. In back, Rivera sits behind a long table, jotting notes that will help him divide the 78 registered campers into nine bands. In front, Blades, Farner, Peter Frampton keyboardist Bobby Mayo and Billy Joel drummer Liberty DeVitto set up to accompany the auditions. Campers perch on metal chairs, honing their chops, suitably intimidated by this firing-squad-style arrangement.

Any hopes that camp might deliver a Dionysian cocktail of sex, drugs and rock and roll are quashed as I survey my fellow campers. The dominant demographic here is male and balding, with a heavy concentration of lawyers, salesmen and guys from New Jersey. Some are more enthusiastic than others. Craig Langweiler is a 48-year-old stockbroker from suburban Philadelphia who bears a striking resemblance to Paul Shaffer. Langweiler stands front and center, clapping along through most of the auditions. At one point he even joins in on harmonica. If there's a guy Fishof had in mind when he conceived Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp, Langweiler is that guy.

"To play harp with Mark Rivera and Liberty DeVitto is about as good as it gets," Langweiler tells me. "I guess playing with Billy Joel would be like sex. This is the foreplay."

Not everyone here fits the same mold, though. I spot a few pimply teenagers and about a dozen women. Shana Golden, 30 (by her reckoning), is a Vegas showgirl who won a contest to attend the camp. She's sitting in the corner, strumming a white Stratocaster, with sheet music spread in front of her. "It's all because of Roger Daltrey," she says. "I heard about the camp on the radio. If his name wasn't mentioned, I just would've gone, 'Oh, that's cute.' But I said, 'Oh my god, I have to try.'"

The thing most campers here do have in common is that they can play. As I listen to accountants rip through the guitar solo in "Mississippi Queen" and orthopedists pound out the beat to "Won't Get Fooled Again," I'm reminded that I can't. My musical history is a chronicle of abandoned piano lessons, ditched school band concerts and a guitar that's been gathering dust in my closet for several years. They call my number, and someone hands me a top-of-the-line Gretsch hollow-body guitar courtesy of the house. It doesn't help; I butcher "All Along the Watchtower." After the last sour note peters out, Rivera says, "Great job! It's gonna be a fun week." He actually sounds sincere.

I head to my room and inspect the registration materials more closely. Each day's schedule looks the same: breakfast, band practice, lunch, band practice, dinner, "celebrity" jam session. Planned activities run from nine A.M. to 11 P.M., with little downtime. Oddly I don't find the sheet that lists sessions such as Advanced Hotel-Suite Destruction, How to Use Your Coke Habit as a Tax Write-Off and Management of Nubile Groupies.

Dirty Deeds, Not Dirt Cheap

My audition debacle weighs on me early next morning as I trudge into a gray rehearsal space to meet my freshly selected bandmates. I'm resigned to being the worst musician in the entire camp, destined to spend four days slapping a tambourine against my hip à la Linda McCartney. So it's a relief when I discover seven campers nearly as hopeless as I am.

The first guy I meet is Andy Oringer, a 45-year-old attorney from Long Island. He's one of two drummers in our group and our most experienced rocker, having played a law firm party. Of our five guitarists, not one has ever been onstage. Our only real talent is Ryan Bruch, a gangly 16-year-old keyboardist from Roanoke, Virginia.

Ricky Byrd, a mop-coiffed former guitarist for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, is the counselor responsible for whipping us into shape. He hands us each an autographed photo and a copy of his solo CD, then asks, "Does anyone sing or play bass?"

Silence.

Despite never having attempted either, I offer to do both. Another guitarist, Lori Interrant, 42, a frizzy-haired data-entry clerk from Queens, New York who enrolled in the camp after winning the lottery, volunteers to sing. Our lineup is cemented.

"What do you wanna play?" Byrd asks, to a chorus of non-committal murmurs. "Okay, let's try 'All Right Now' by Free."

I guffaw, concerned I won't be able to keep up on bass.

"Don't worry," Byrd says. "It's just like playing guitar, but easier. It's got two less strings."

"But I can't really play guitar, either."

"Even better."

Later I catch a van ride to lunch with Langweiler, the harmonica-playing stockbroker. His enthusiasm comes from experience: In the 1970s he played music semiprofessionally.

"But I decided I needed to make a living and become a family man," he says. Langweiler wanted to attend last year's L.A. camp but was too consumed with a divorce. Now he's a free man. "The whole thing for me is to do what I always wanted to do," he says. "The Who, Grand Funk—I used to play all that stuff. That was my teenage years. To bring back those memories is really great." He passes around a wallet photo of himself onstage with Kenny Loggins.

Mayo, the Frampton sideman, nods. "Yeah, I know Kenny. Kenny's great. He rocks." Everyone in the van agrees with this assessment of the lite-FM mainstay responsible for "Whenever I Call You Friend" and "Celebrate Me Home."

Meals are served in a loft space overlooking the Hudson River. As we load up our plates with kosher cold cuts and pasta salad, Fishof rises to make announcements. He appears somber.

"Shhh! We've got some bad news," he says. "Ace Frehley fell down the stairs this morning and is in the hospital, so he won't be able to make it today as scheduled." Groans of disappointment. "But we have a special surprise for you," he continues, his voice rising. "This guy's sold millions of albums and toured the world. He's here to talk about it all." A man sporting black jeans, a sleeveless Special Forces T-shirt and the mother of all mullets walks to the stage. "Please give a big Rock n' Roll Fantasy Camp welcome to Mark Farner from Grand Funk Railroad!"

Farner delivers a rambling speech that's equal parts George W. Bush and Grandpa Simpson: "I'm proud to be an American. When people try to terrorize this country, it just draws us together. We will kick your ass." Somehow this segues into an assessment of today's pop music: "The music you don't like, that you think is just noise—maybe your kids like it—remember, that's somebody else's favorite music. But I hope this music we play, classic rock, doesn't go the way of Perry Como. Because there's something alive in rock. And that's rebellion."

This theme—"Rock and roll ain't like it was in my day"—is a popular one here. For the vast majority of campers, the day the music died falls somewhere between Jimi Hendrix's overdose and the advent of MTV. One senses that if, say, Bono were to drop by he'd be slightly suspect for still trying to create new, relevant music. He's no Mark Farner, that's for sure.

I'm starting to realize that all counselors aren't created equal. Full-timers such as Byrd, Blades and DeVitto do most of the hands-on instruction. Others, such as Simon Kirke and Leslie West, make sporadic appearances during which they're treated like honored guests. None is treated with the awe reserved for Daltrey, though. He's a scarce commodity, and brushes with him take on almost mythic significance.

As Blades, who sold millions of records with Night Ranger, puts it, "How many times do I get a chance to play Who songs with Roger Daltrey? It's a fantasy-camp experience for me, too."

Later I corner Fishof. He is a fleshy former sports agent who took his first whacks at promotion in the 1980s organizing tours—the Monkees, Ringo Starr—that capitalized on baby-boomer nostalgia.

"I want to do a lot more camps, but I'm also in negotiations to do a reality TV series," he explains. "Like American Idol, but I want to create a rock band." To this end, he has promoted this camp with the subtlety of a carnival barker. VH1 Classic's cameras are omnipresent, and a steady stream of reporters is ushered through the events.

Golden, the Stratocaster-slinging showgirl, sees all the media attention as an opportunity to promote the band she plays in back in Vegas. "We couldn't pay a PR person for this kind of publicity," she says. "For me, talking to the press is the most natural high in the world."

The next day, Friday, Byrd adds a new song to our repertoire. "We've got 'All Right Now' in the bag," he says, displaying a confidence not universally shared. "We just need to add one song today and another tomorrow and we'll be ready for Sunday." He suggests "Summertime Blues." "That way," he says, "maybe we can get Daltrey to come up and sing with you guys."

Byrd shows us an arrangement that gives the 1950s chestnut a grungy, snarling edge. I'm charged with playing a simple bass line and sharing the singing chores with Lori. We jam for two solid hours, then take a break. When the band—which after a mercifully brief flirtation with the moniker Rockin' Byrds, is now called Byrdman of Alcohol—reconvenes, we're short a guitarist. Ten minutes later, he wanders in.

"That's it, you're out of the band," Andy shouts, standing up from his drum kit. "You're not showing the kind of commitment Byrdman of Alcohol demands. Pack your things."

Everyone chuckles, but in the practice spaces of the eight other bands, such events are no laughing matter. Personality conflicts are common, and in some cases artistic differences prove terminal. Golden's band, the Liberators, seems to have already written a few chapters of its Behind the Music saga. One member threatens to quit because he doesn't like a song they're playing; another is demanding more guitar solos. "Right now we're under a lot of pressure," she says. "The singer's terrible. Can't sing a note. I think it'll all come together in the end, but it's hard when everybody's unprofessional."

It's Only Rock and Roll

It's Friday night, and I'm antsy for our Behind the Music episode to slide into its inevitable dark chapter. You know, the part where a camper can't resist sharing a needle with his idol, a limo winds up at the bottom of the hotel pool and, for heaven's sake, someone oils up those twins.

For now, everyone seems content to hang in the hotel bar's courtyard, bum cigarettes and listen to Mayo tell an anecdote about Peter Frampton splitting his pants. Soon I realize that the night is not going to devolve into the pagan bacchanalia of The Song Remains the Same. Hell, this isn't even the sweet, gauzy nostalgia of Almost Famous. Screw these squares. I'm going to cut loose. Next trip to the bar I order an imported beer.

I wake up Saturday morning with my head pounding like John Bonham's bass drum. I drag myself into rehearsal to find that Byrd has flown the coop to help out another band.

After some awkward moments I suggest we take a shot at "Summertime Blues." It's our first time playing without professional help, and it sounds like a mess. But it's our mess. "All Right Now" sounds equally rough, but the bigger problem is that we're supposed to play three songs onstage tomorrow night, and we know only two. We need something easy. We settle on a medley of the garage-rock classics "Louie Louie" and "Wild Thing." I beg off singing this one. Nobody argues.

The medley comes together quickly. Granted, it helps that these songs are meant to be played with all the grace of a drunk on a weeklong bender, but nonetheless something worthwhile lies buried beneath our slag heap of missed cues and wobbly rhythms. It sounds like we're having fun.

"Does anyone know if Ricky's coming back?" Lori asks as we pack up our gear. Nobody does.

"I think we're okay," says Andy. "I'm not sure we need him playing with us."

We're granted free time on Saturday night. I exit the hotel into a cacophony of car horns and jackhammers that awakens me to a fact I'd nearly forgotten: I'm in New York City. The distance between the camp's earnest universe and the hard-boiled streets of Manhattan is immeasurable. Fishof has engineered an insular world, a place where cynicism simply doesn't exist. The "star" counselors are notably lacking in the world-weary bitterness common among the once famous, and his staff is beyond nice. Case in point: Crystal and Jocelyn Potter, the pneumatic twins. Though they're ostensibly part of the administrative team, their real purpose seems to be keeping morale high. How better to make a middle-aged insurance agent feel like a rock star than to surround him with girls who otherwise wouldn't glance his way if his head were on fire?

On Sunday morning most of the talk is about what people did with their free night. Bruch, my band's 16-year-old keyboardist, went to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway with his mom. Many other campers stayed in and went to bed early. Rock and roll!

"Think we're ready for tonight?" Andy asks me, as he fiddles with his drumsticks at our final practice.

"Not remotely," I say.

We spend the morning running through our set. Our plan is to start with "Summertime Blues," follow with "All Right Now" and close with the garage-rock medley. Practice is wrapping up when Byrd reappears. We play our set for him, and he seems enthused. Then he informs us that he's enlisted Derek St. Holmes, a former vocalist with Ted Nugent's band, to sing lead on "All Right Now." "That's a tough song to sing, and so much of it depends on the vocals," Byrd says.

I'm hoping ego deflation doesn't actually make a noise. Still, nobody else seems bothered by this coup, so I keep my mouth shut. Back at the hotel I lie on the bed for an hour, going over the bass parts in my head. I spend another hour fretting over which of my shirts looks coolest with my bass.

When I arrive, the Bottom Line is packed to capacity—400 people, many of whom paid $25 for a chance to see...me? Three beers and a scotch soothe my nerves, and I begin to understand why so many rock stars end up in rehab.

Around nine-thirty, we're told to get ready. We crowd near the bottom of a staircase backstage, clutching our instruments. Crammed into a tight space, with nowhere to go but forward, I'm reminded of the numbing fear I felt prior to jumping out of an airplane. Only this time I don't have a parachute.

St. Holmes wanders up. Tanned, toned and clad in a tight black T-shirt, he looks like a bouncer at a strip club. But for a 30-year rock veteran he seems slightly frazzled.

"Does anyone have a lyric sheet for 'All Right Now?'" he asks. Nobody does. "That's okay. I'll be fine without it."

Fishof introduces us, and the eight of us climb the stairs. The lights make me squint; we struggle to find room on the stage, which is much smaller than our rehearsal space. I set my beer on an amp and plug in. Byrd calls us in close. (concluded on page 162)Rock Camp(continued from page 116)

"We're changing the song order. We're moving 'Summertime Blues' to the end of the set and starting with 'All Right Now.'"

His announcement is met with panic. "Why don't we do it how we practiced?"

"'Cause Daltrey isn't ready yet. Don't you want Roger to sing with you guys?"

It occurs to me that I don't give a shit. I say so, but nobody pays much attention.

When we launch into "All Right Now," I'm surprised to realize that the huge, ugly sound blaring into the club is us. It's shambling but energetic. I look over at St. Holmes. He shrugs his shoulders. I'm on. I jump to the microphone and let fire. Later I'll see photos of myself doing all the embarrassing, hackneyed things rock singers do—closing my eyes, clenching the microphone—but right now it feels fucking great. I don't give a shit that my voice is off-key or that my bass lines are wandering so far they need a passport.

After we careen through our medley the crowd roars, and I realize that Daltrey is there to lead us through "Summertime Blues." Strangely, as one of the most famous voices in rock howls the opening lines—"I'm gonna raise a fuss, I'm gonna raise a holler"—it's less surreal than I would have imagined. Standing about 5'7" and dressed in a sweatshirt, Daltrey is hardly an imposing figure. Sure, the song sounds better than when Lori and I sang it, but I find myself more annoyed than appreciative that he's distracting attention from our mistakes. After five days of hammering these songs into presentable form, pulling a genuine rock god onstage feels like a cheap ploy. He's a ringer. The audience eats it up.

We file offstage, and after five minutes of basking in our peers' congratulations we're absorbed in the anonymity of the crowd. Onstage, the Liberators are blasting through "I Wanna Be Sedated." Golden was right: Their singer is terrible.

"How do you think we sounded up there?" Lori asks.

I tell her I think we were okay.

"I'm ready to do it again," she says.

Truth is, I don't know how it sounded up there—probably pretty awful. But it felt like rock and roll.

It would be easy to dismiss suburbanites paying washed-up stars to teach them how to "eat, sleep and live rock and roll" as the least rock-and-roll thing this side of the Taliban. But the night of the finale I ask Daltrey whether it's painful listening to all these camper bands maul the Who's catalog. He stares at me as if I were an idiot.

"No, not at all," he says. "As long as they think they're doing it, it doesn't matter. Rock and roll is about not giving a fuck." He motions toward the campers filling the club. "And these people are out there not giving a fuck."

Don't Quit Your Day Job

Their 15 seconds of rock fame are up. Now What? Not all washed-up rock stars settle for becoming fantasy-camp counselors. Some pursue exciting postfame careers in gardening and...missile defense?

Kim Wilde

Old gig: British singer of the New Wave classic "Kids in America." Chirpy, curvy and blonde, she was the Kylie Minogue of 1981, and her global hit is on at least 49 compilation CDs.

New gig: Horticulture expert. Wilde, 42, has offered gardening tips to green-thumbed Brits on afternoon TV. She recently appeared on Celebrity Detox Camp, a reality show on which four celebs sought good health through twice-daily enemas.

Career trajectory: Did we mention that they were coffee enemas?

Bobby Sherman

Old gig: Teen idol. Clean-cut crooner Sherman was like David Cassidy with less hair. Starting in 1959 he scored several sugar-coated hits that moistened the groins of pubescent girls.

New gig: Paramedic. As a certified a emergency medical technician in Los Angeles, Sherman, 60, has delivered five babies and created a foundation that helps EMTs volunteer at public events.

Career trajectory: "There is no better feeling than saving a life," Sherman says. Except maybe never singing "Bubble Gum and Braces" again.

Mike Score

Old gig: Singer, A Flock of Seagulls. The synthrock band dominated MTV in 1982 with the video for "I Ran (So Far Away)." It prominently displayed Score's asymmetric 'do, dubbed the Waterfall.

New gig: Boatbuilder. Score lives in Rockledge, Florida with his third wife. He recently went 18 years without a haircut and has a ponytail.

Career trajectory: If he puts are much craftsmanship into his sailing vessels as he did his hair, he may just stay afloat.

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter

Old gig: Guitarist for the Doobie Brothers. With his ponytail, beret and walrus mustache, Baxter looked like a cross between a 1970s guitar hero and Cap'n Crunch. His solo on Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" led to Doobies membership plus session work with Julio Iglesias—and Cheryl Ladd.

New gig: Missile-defense expert. The 54-year-old college dropout is a self-taught military analyst who frequently advises Congress and the Pentagon.

Career trajectory: Four words: high-level security access.

"I hope this music we play doesn't go the way of Perry Como." —counselor Mrk Farner of Grand Funk Railroad