It all started at  Second Chance – the premier show bar and rock venue in the Ann Arbor area.

Second Chance owner John Carver was looking for a music event for the club to bring people in on slow Monday nights. He suggested to Mark that he produce and host a monthly Monday night “jam session” featuring local and regional musicians. Mark went to work putting it together, partnering with former Savage Grace vocalist Al Jacquez to assist in getting some bigger Detroit area names.

Enter the late Steve “Flying Wedge” Pysz. Steve was our buddy, personal manager, and a born promotor. All we ever had to do was point him in a direction and like a guided missile, he nailed it.  Somehow Steve thought of using the jam session to raise money for the US Olympic Team and securing a little Vantage Point! press coverage along the way – a win-win situation for everyone.

It gets a bit fuzzy after that. Mark, John, Steve and perhaps others arranged a lunch with Michigan Olympics Committee Chairman Dick Chapin to explain what they wanted to do. They described holding the Jam Session as a benefit for the Olympic team at the Chance, getting musicians to donate their time and turning over proceeds to the Committee. Chapin was impressed by the idea. He had never seen anything ever done before of this type. After some calls and ironing out the red tape, the plan was approved with the blessings of the Olympic Committee.

The ball got rolling as musicians were rounded up and scheduled for a series of live jam sessions led by Mark and the band. Posters and T-shirts were printed, calls were made, and dates scheduled.  Steve had a huge banner made up advertising the Jam Session to hang over State Street, the main drag in the campus area. More on that to follow…

People were intrigued by the idea of seeing well-known musicians jamming, and there was no shortage of people who wanted to volunteer their time. Besides every aspiring band in the area, we featured Scott Morgan (Rationals), Shaun Murphey, Drew Abbott, Gary Quackenbush (SRC), Al Jacquez (Savage Grace), Wayne Kramer (MC5), Ron Asheton (Stooges), The Romantics, dancer Rachel Rae, Niagara, and many others. Although the money raised wasn’t huge, we did manage to contribute something to the cause and raise a lot of interest and publicity as well.

After a few of the Jam Sessions took place, Steve received a call from someone on the Olympic Committee asking if Vantage Point! would like to perform for the Olympic Athletes at Lake Placid! The Olympic Village included a complete entertainment and recreational complex featuring name acts from all over to perform for the athletes. Of course, we said “Yes”!

We were no strangers to raising tour money after our Montreux trip. The band started a fundraising campaign to raise money to get to the Olympics, only to find that the Olympic Committee was going to foot the bill – airfare, room and board for the band and crew.

Steve immediately went into his formidable “Wedge Marketing” mode, coming up with the concept of “Sports Rock” and the idea that Vantage Point! would be the US sports-rock team at the Olympics.  He contacted Adidas and convinced them to donate warm-up suits for the band to perform in. We still have custom red, white and blue tour jackets donated by Schneiders Sports Shops in Dearborn, Michigan.

Everyone got into the spirit of the thing. WXYZ Channel 7 (ABC) sent a reporter and camera crew to The Chance to film the Jam Session for both the daily news cycle and a commercial that ran up to the Olympics. WRIF-FM made arrangements to call us in Lake Placid for on-the-spot reporting. [Spoiler alert: Sportscaster Eli Zaret showed up backstage at the Olympic Village with a barrel of iced beer.]

The Vantage Point! entourage consisted of founder and sax player Chuck Perraut, guitarist Mark Tomorsky, bassist Tommy Johnsmiller, keyboardist Don Savoie and drummer Chip Trombley. Besides the band, we brought Steve Pysz, personal manager, Bruce Gebhardt, business manager, photographer Andy Oberdick of Palmer Studios, Ivan LaHaie as sound engineer, Jeff Alder as lighting engineer and John Carver of Second Chance who started the whole thing in the first place!

In early February 1980, we all traveled down I-94 to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, equipment packed, wearing our tour jackets, and getting ready for the trip of our lives…

NEXT TIME: At the Olympics