Tom Doyle’s teeth are going. He’ll say no to my candy bar and thank you: it’s been some while since there was money left over for dental care. At 37, Doyle is still a rock guitarist and songwriter. He has been playing with Evil Rock for twenty years or so —they started together as street-music people in the East Village way back when. One look at Doyle can give me tonic spasms of nostalgia. His coiffure was scalped either from Tiny Tim or from Louis XIV. On that forty-ish head, in 1988, shoulder-length hair seems as preposterous as a snood on Rambo. Doyle, of late, has been doing the occasional three-dollar Village gig and some “chump change” menial work. He remains enthusiastic, nonetheless, and resolute: no more embittered than hopeful. Doyle, after all, has had a remarkably unspectacular career.
“The first day I brought home a guitar—July 1965—my stepfather threw it into the street.” That should’ve told Doyle something. But these were the 1960s and rock music had become amniotic fluid for a brave new world to swim in. “July of 1969. I graduated, gave my mother my diploma, and took off for Boston with $50 and my guitar. In November, busted, with short hair, I escaped back to the Bronx.” Women were the consolation prize: they’ll follow even a failed rock musician like Hamelin rats. “That kept us going pretty much. It was more than just teenage lust. We were invited to their houses for dinner.”
Comments