Lee Cronbach

                    FROSTY 2: FROM THE DUKE TO PURPLE JUMPSUIT   3a) The Other Side - Opening the Ears of Boston's Gay Crowd                         One week Frosty felt that the band was getting slack, with all these note-for-note covers we were playing.   So he decided that for one week, we would practice at least 2 hours a day individually, 2 hours full band practice, no grass, alcohol, or any other intoxicant, and half an hour of physical exercise running, jogging, pushups and pullups - whatever was our favorite.                  So, when we hit the Other Side for the start of next week's gig, we were ready!  By a lucky chance one of the more famous queens had a gay wedding celebration that afternoon, and the whole regular Other Side crowd had been invited.   So, the whole Other Side audience that night was loose as a goose and high as a kite, open to whatever musical treat we could bring them while we were tough, tight, in peak physical and musical shape. Sounds very mascu

                INTERLUDE : ANIRUTH                                                                                                                                                         Once we were established at the Other Side and our money got a little looser, I started taking the bus down to New York on our off nights.   This was just a few years after the Gay revolt at the Stonewall Tavern, and in the middle of the Rainbow Revolution, and so a new dance scene was created.  It was a combination of gay, black,  and hippy dance styles mixing in free yet elegant ways.  The venues were not in the disco palaces of the future but in warehouses, the top floors of half-defunct businesses, and in the gay bathhouses, which were just starting to open as combination dance, diner, and romance rooms (Bette Midler and Barry Manilow got their start in one).              Some of the most fun dancing I ever had was in the third floor of an old wooden building in the East Village. People were mixed

                           FROSTY's PACK HITS THE BOSTON SNOWS:      1) Frosty Furman - Frosty was a natural-born leader.  He liked telling people what to do, when to solo, or if they needed to adjust their tuning. And also, the good stuff:  praising players for strong solos, harmonic inventiveness, or taking a familiar pattern into an unexpected direction.  And it was done in a no-take-back tone of voice, like Jack Nicholson correcting a confused Marine.  When he wanted to persuade, his voice would become relaxed, easy, and friendly; this was the voice he used to persuade me to finally chose his band and school over Chambray and the Bay area life .            And he was a good team leader.  Making sure everybody practiced relentlessly, calling long group rehearsals, scouting out agents and bookings so we were almost always employed (a step up from Chambray's perennial poverty).             He had the perfect body for his personality.   He was a big hairy WASP, all muscle and t