The Gaslite Village

The Gaslite Village Band was a popular Long Island group from the late ‘60’s that won a battle of the bands that led to the recording of their lone single, “I Am Afraid” b/w “”Up From The Underground”. They reunited earlier this summer for the first time in 35 years, and member Ramon (Ray) Dominguez graciously agreed to provide a brief history of the band.

Ramon (Dingo) Dominguez Recalls The Gaslite Village Band.

I came from the poor side of town. I started hanging out with a guitar player, Bob Campbell, and we became best of friends. His sister was paying for his guitar lesions, so when he would come home he would teach me what he learned that day; that's when I knew I wanted to play all the bass parts. He would do chords and I did the bass on his old six-string.

The first band I was in was The Long Island Sound. I still have a photo of the four of us playing at my own birthday party. We then started another band, Satan And The Lost Souls; three of the members went on to become Gaslite Village: Bobby (Campbell), Marvin (Dowd), and me. We played mostly Motown and rock. There were some other bands in between, since back then one guy would leave and another would take his place.

After Satan and The Lost Souls I had to quit (playing) because I did not have money for a bigger amp or a good bass. In 1967 I ran into a kid by the name of Joe Desiderio. He told me he was the younger brother of John Desi, of a band called J.C. Production. He told me he was better than John (John being one of the best keyboard players on Long Island) and he was right; that kid could play. By now I had a great summer job and my folks told me I could spend the money on an amp. I bought a Kustom-200 bass amp.

My sister's boyfriend gave me his Fender P-Bass since he was shipping off to ‘Nam and asked me hang on to it. I called Bob and Marvin to jam. We tried different drummers (without any) luck. Bobby then remembered a friend and said how good Rich Greenberg was; Gaslite was born. We all came from five different ethnic backgrounds: One black, one Jew, one British, one Puerto Rican, and one Italian. We wanted to be called The Melting Pot but the name had been taken.

In New York it was okay to play in bars under aged so we played schools, parties, bars, youth centers, and so on. We were influenced by Billy Joel and The Hassles. They were very big on the Island before Billy made it big. We all knew Billy and knew he was going to make it big. We also liked Cream, The Rascals, Vanilla Fudge, and we still liked the Motown sound (we put a little rock into Motown).

Gaslite won a battle of the bands on Long Island to get a recording contract, but we already had a contract with Murbo Records. We had a manager, Lou Siellino, but he had other things to do and not give us the time we needed. The recording was on Long Island. We played very soft behind four-foot tall walls. The guitar and keyboards were played twice over to give it a fuller sound. The band wrote the music but a producer by the name of Richard Babeuf wrote the lyrics. “I Am Afraid” was the only track we did; "Up From The Underground" was (recorded) just to get “I Am Afraid” up and spinning.

Before the touring took place Uncle Sam called me in late ’68 (I would turn 18 years of age the following month). I was the oldest of the Gaslite members and it was my time to go.

No never appeared on TV but we were interviewed on radio station WGLI in Long Island, New York.

I left the band in ‘69 for USMC boot camp and I was told the band broke up six months later. I still jam and I live in California. I have been around many bands but now I own my own home so I have to do that 9 to 5 thing.

All I can say is when we came back for the reunion two weeks ago we had the place bumping. Not bad for four of five guys that had not played together in 35 plus years (let alone seen each other in 35 plus years!).

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