Monday England:

Monday England started rocking the backyards and neighborhood bars of Greater Springfield in late 1981.  Their original lineup consisted of Marc Lafayette on bass, Mario Carvide on lead guitar, Bob Kottage on rhythm guitar, Rich Calderigi on drums, and Fran Berthiume on vocals.  In those dark days before the advent of the Internet, garage bands were compelled to figure out their songs by ear—a painstaking process that might sometimes give rise to debate.  But Monday England managed to keep it together, and to play a reasonable facsimile of the music they all loved.  They even got the lyrics right, usually (although to this day the boys are still waiting for Mario to provide a definition of the word “fuswage”).  With an arsenal of roughly ten songs, played in Grateful Dead jam fashion to fill time, they plunged into the Western Massachusetts underage drinking circuit.

 

By 1985 they had experienced a number of modifications: the loss of Fran on vocals, the change to Mitch Kupiac on drums, and the addition of both Mike Crowther on soundboard and Pete Snyder on keyboards.  Their sound became more finely tuned as a result, and their repertoire expanded.  Whereas the format of the local “classic rock” station had long since turned, tragically, to a steady diet of Bee Gees and Grease, the band carried the torch for the roots rock of Cream, Black Sabbath, Neil Young, Bad Company, et al., while making room for the best of the new stuff they heard, such as The Cars, Talking Heads, and The Police.  They became regulars at the now-defunct Wolfe’s Den in Palmer, and made it through the experience with no permanent damage to anything but their eardrums (and a pickup truck, smashed one night by a piqued cocaine dealer).  They bought themselves equipment.  They were playing for actual money.  Things began to take off....

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By Bob Kottage