Les Talent

Personal notes and history

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I bought my first bass, a Kramer Striker, in Orlando. It was right before I moved to Tampa in November of ’86. Here is a little bit of personal history and experiences that have led me to present day.

The Steinhardt Moon Saga

After “Siren” returned from Europe, drummer David Smith had had enough. The new drummer, Mitch Marcum (Dreamtime, Freaks Rule) was introduced to us by our friend Robbie Moore, president of Drum Lab, who I would later play with in “Bobby DeVito and Moore Talent”. Mitch and guitarist Brian Hendrickson (Digital Music Services) decided to fire the singer, Doug Lee (Mekong Delta) with the idea of updating the sound and image of the band to ride the late 80’s “hair band wagon”. Apparently my own image and playing were suspect as well, and the band was making plans without me.

On November 26 1989, I lost my left eye when my ’71 Triumph Spitfire was T-boned by some drunk kids in a 5.0 Mustang. When I woke up from my coma five days later, I don’t know how else to say this, but I had already been casually fired by “Misstaken”, as we were now calling ourselves, and then, for a bit of salt in my literal wounds, they tried to snag my personal management, Nick Fa-Kouri who had worked for “The Rolling Stones and “Kansas”. Nick didn’t take that very well I must say, and instead set me up meetings with Henry Paul (Outlaws, Black Hawk), Robbie Steinhardt (Kansas), and Chris Anderson (Outlaws). I hadn’t been a southerner for long or I might have been in “Black Hawk” now, but I chose Robbie’s new solo band “Steinhardt Moon” because of all the “Kansas” material we would do. We started recording the record, which was never bought or released, at Morrisound in Tampa with Jim Morris at the board. I recorded five songs before the new band got a chance to get Manny Yanez (Robert Palmer, Patti LaBelle, “The Neville Brothers”). Once again, “bye Les”.

In 1990 I was house tech at Head First Productions and playing with Bobby DeVito at venues like The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, and Janus Landing. When I was re-approached by Rick Moon who told me about the demise of the “studio cat“ version of Steinhardt Moon and he apologized and asked me to be in the re-organized version of the band; the “rock“ version, if you will, featuring Jesse Rojas (Crimson Glory), and Chris Strayer (Eli). In addition to playing bass, I also played “Dust in the wind” every night on Robbie’s own D-18 acoustic, which Martin had given him.

The Tyger / Tyger Saga

From my recollection of the events, labels approached Tony Wise at the end of 1993 after the demise of Tyger /Tyger. He quickly assembled Mike, Joe, and I. We learned a T/T song and two of Tony and Joe’s tunes and went to Pro Media Studios in Gainesville Fl where we recorded them with Mark Pinske engineering and Andy Meyer seconding. Then, we all went home.

Three months later, around April or May, some labels said go, and we went, writing 20 songs in 30 days, roughly, played them out twice, and then recorded them live, at the warehouse of Next Generation Sound, in one or two takes. We set up all our gear against one wall with stacks of 4×18 EV manifold speakers between us and recorded them. straight through, in a row, with no vocals cues. From what I understand, Tony did his stuff fast too. I don’t know, I went home. Then we broke up within a year.

In 2001, Tony got signed to Space Ark Records with a band called The Real Modjo. They asked if he had any thing else and he presented them with almost twenty T/T songs. I then had to pare that down, due to production standards, to the 12 tracks that I could clean up the best.

The disc was mastered at Digital Music Services, St Pete Fl, by Brian Hendrickson. It was produced by Les Talent and Brian Hendrickson, arranged by Les Talent and Tony Wise also, co-produced by Tony Wise. We signed to Space Ark on May 23, 2001, and within thirty days, all the artists on the label worldwide, filed a class action lawsuit against the label and the record was never released.

Editors Comments

Les maintains a solid stage presence. He is professional, adaptable and well suited for complimenting the sound anywhere. Les Talent maintains a distinguishable sound in his style that can be recognized either live or recorded. I welcome you to come watch Les perform live so, you may form your own opinion.