Subject: Tesla – 5 Man Acoustical jam

Bob,

The behind the scenes story is even a bit better and I’ve copied Cliff who may be able to shed some more light. Queenie did suggest we play accoustically at her club but we couldn’t just play 1 show, so we booked an acoustic tour (I can’t remember how many shows).

Well, before a show (either in Boston or Worcester), we went up to WAAF and played a couple of songs live on the air. Thought nothing of it, then finished up the tour including Philly which we recorded (one of us had the idea to record the show).

Several weeks (?) later, the Geffen radio/sales people in New England called to ask us on which album we had recorded “Signs” because the phones were ringing off the hook at ‘AAF. Well it turns out that WAAF had recorded our little acoustic fly by and were playing Signs in rotation.

Fortunately (see above) we had recorded a show for the archives…
1+1 equaled 3 and we had an acoustic record.

I’m guessing Cliff suggested Signs as a cover (or the band) and I probably pushed to record the Philly show because we had just finished working with the Stones on Steel Wheels and I had gotten to work with Jagger as he put together 25×5 which was a video summary of the Stones (old TV shows, news footage etc). After watching “video history” I was determined that all of our artists document anything special they were doing (or hope it would turn out to be special).

While the theory may not have applied to Tesla (although they were fast becoming a big band), it definitely applied to the filming of the making of Metallica’s Black Album (and we all got that one right!)

5 Man…was and is one of great management highlights. Which just shows, most times it’s better to be lucky than smart.

Regards
Peter
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

From: Cliff Burnstein
Subject: Re: Tesla – 5 Man Acoustical jam

Just to add: Ron Valerie was the program director at WAAF. He was in the bathroom while Tesla did the interview and acoustic songs. The live feed was piped in all through their offices inc. the bathroom. Valerie heard “Signs” while making his restroom visit. He put it right into rotation after that, unbeknownst to us at the time. Ron is still at ‘AAF today.