Charlie Pickett went off to law school after seeing an old friend work as a public defender and deciding that that was what he wanted to do, too. The Eggs had broken up back in 1985. Some of the members of Pickett's various groups continued to do strong work in short-lived local bands. Over the following years, bassist Marco Petit and Johnny Salton would continue to reunite with Pickett for homecoming gigs while Pickett was on break from classes in Michigan. This past summer, Frank Falestra recorded a live CD at Churchill's Hideaway featuring both the Chant and Pickett's latest group.
Eggs drummer Galway is reportedly employed in some nonmusician capacity by Liza Minnelli.
Ted Gottfried's See Hear store is thriving. "We sell fanzines, magazines, and books," he says from New York. "Everything, mostly music, but there's variety. Call it pop culture. We also sell through mail order and wholesale. Yeah, I'd call it successful."
Manager Robert Mascaro lives in Massachusetts. Dave Parsons, the fanzine publisher, moved to Paris where he busked with a Charlie Chaplin routine that gained significant popularity and led to a job with the Chaplin estate in Switzerland, according to his friend Gottfried.
Eric Moss maintains the same job he had then: a scout and manager of motion picture locations. He gave up his radio show in 1982. He had taped the program, but when it became a live program, the late hours interfered with his job, so he abandoned it.
The former members of Spanish Dogs have been involved in a number of projects, including releasing albums with the bands Johnny Tonite and Rooster Head. Pete Moss, Randy Ruffner, and Michael Kennedy will reunite to play Dogs songs at the Open party.
As for the Eat, "We never did break up," says Chris Cottie. "We just never see each other any more." While rumors of Eat compilation albums abound and the group occasionally reunites (Wimmer has been attempting to arrange an Eat appearance at the fourteenth anniversary affair), the communist, as it were, seems to have gone out of their radio. Eddie O'Brien works for Southern Bell, as does Glenn Newland. Michael O'Brien works for a book distributor. Ken Lindahl is a draftsman. And Cottie himself is a teacher in the Dade County school system.
Hal Spector, who still works at Sync with Frank Falestra, recalls an occasion when the Eat performed at Open in the early Eighties. "Then we were at this Mexican restaurant, talking about old times, about how we were getting older," Spector remembers. "Eddie O'Brien says, 'I used to take LSD and smoke joints, now I take LSU and the points.' They wrote a song about that." O'Brien's line is more than a sports-gambling quip. It's a metaphor for the land that time forgot.
Open Books and Records, 44 NW 167th St, North Miami, celebrates its fourteenth anniversary Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Admission is free. Call 940-8750 for more information.
