In May 1981, former members of the bands,

Adrenalin (or Adrenaline) and the Direction, formed a new outfit, the Dream, with help from Rick Berlin of the Boston band, Berlin Airlift.¹ The radio-tape, "Mutha (Don't Wanna Go to School Today)," earned the group much airplay on WBCN-FM and other Boston-area stations.

Our archive first picks up the Dream's story when the band competed in the 1982 WBCN Rock and Roll Rumble. The range of talent represented in the Rumble each year is always fascinating, and 1982 was no exception. Among the contestants were the Dangerous Birds (an early Thalia Zedek band), the Enemy featuring Charlie Farren (Joe Perry Project; later, FarrenHeit), the Hi-Beams, Johnny A's Hidden Secret, Limbo Race, New Career featuring Audrey Clark (later of the 360s), Primary Colors, the Proletariat, and Gary Shane and the Detour.

Members of the Dream, at the time, included Gary Cherone, Paul Geary, Eddy Goulart, and Peter Hunt.² The guide to the Rumble, distributed as a Boston Phoenix insert, said, "Always energetic, hard-hitting and very polished in concert, this band of rockers will be heavy Rumble contenders, indeed!"

For many bands, entering the Rumble ... and losing ... has been a great career move. So, the Dream was on a roll. In September 1983, the band was on the bill at the Channel for a Joe Perry Project CD-release party. Another high point was the occasion when they opened a show at the Orpheum for Night Ranger.³ Boston Rock reported that Gary Cherone nearly stole the show when he "ran through the crowd and crashed into the drum kit" at the end of the Dream's set.⁴ In spite of these and other highs, band members never lost touch with their home turf. Their press kit contained notices from the Medford High Mustang and the Malden Blue and Gold.⁵

From "Street Sheet," Boston Phoenix, May 1, 1984

Membership of the group included Gary Cherone, Paul Geary, Peter Hunt, and David Rich,⁶ when they recorded an extended-player, The Dream (EP, Toppe, 1984). Local journalist Sally Cragin saw a promising future for the band in one track, "See the Light."

Guitarist Peter Hunt uses the three syllables of the title for a soaring symphonic hook, and singer Gary Cherone has a hypervirile thickness to his voice that solidifies watery teen slogans like "Everyone has some ideas/Of what they think is right." His delivery and the sprightly pan piping of David Rich's synthesizer make "See the Light" broad-shouldered commercial rock.⁷

Around the time of the record's release, or not much later, the band found itself operating without a name.

CBS television had a show in production, Dreams, about a struggling rock band. But Cherone, Geary, and company were the intellectual property owners of the name, the Dream. Their manager, Joanne Codi, went into negotiations with CBS; and their lawyer got a court order, temporarily stopping production of the series. It appears that CBS executives may have been overly optimistic about the show's potential; for they paid what was reported to be a five-figure sum for the rights to the name, the Dream.⁸ Dreams came to an inglorious end after a mere five broadcasts. Codi said, "The guy who paid me must never have seen the show, or he wouldn't have spent the money."⁹

Speaking of spending the money, the band members had an idea of what to do with theirs. An unidentified former Dreamer said they were putting it toward "equipment, getting out of debt, and recording a demo tape."¹⁰

Meanwhile, the band formerly known as the Dream needed a new name. These guys were no longer the Dream, they were the ex-Dream. Say "ex-Dream" five times fast and you'll get an idea how they came upon the new moniker. They became Extreme.

At some point, Pat Badger joined the band. Nuno Bettencourt, who had been playing in Sinful, switched camps and became Extreme's much-admired lead guitarist. Years later, in the October 1990 issue of Boston Rock, Bob Lang wrote, "The band's reputation for energetic live shows quickly spread."

In the fall of 1985, the Extreme video of "Mutha (Don't Wanna Go to School Today)" brought the band victory on the MTV Basement Tapes. They went on to the finals in February 1986.¹¹

We're already into the history of Extreme; and most of that band's story must wait for another time and another page. I'll just add that my own favorite Extreme albums are Waiting for the Punchline (CD, A&M, 1995) and the bootl-- ... uh, live demo ... Get the Funk Out (CD, Templar, 1992).

We have little information about the more-recent activities of the former members of the Dream. Perhaps they'll hear about this profile and send updates. [Since writing that, we have learned that Paul Mangone has a forthcoming CD, Fly By Wire, and is about to enter the Information Age by launching a Web site.] We do a bit better with the former members of Extreme.

In 1999, Pat Badger was in SuperTransAtlantic, a successful Fort Lauderdale, Florida, band. Nuno Bettencourt released a terrific Japanese-import album, Schizophonic (CD, A&M, 1996) which, unfortunately, was not readily available in the United States and, as far as I know, got little promotion here. At present, he is fronting a strong band, the Mourning Widows.¹² Much information about Gary Cherone's activities has come out each time he has performed in a Boston Rock Opera production. After Extreme broke up, he sang in a high-profile David Lee Roth/Sammy Hagar tribute band. Today, Cherone fronts a promising group, the Tribe of Judah.¹³ Paul Geary manages the multi-platinum-selling Boston band, Godsmack. Not bad.

-- Alan Lewis, October 9, 2001

Greg Cherone, who has a face that looks strikingly familiar, has a new record which evidently is simply called Five Song E.P.  Have you heard about it? Here's the direct Web address to his CD Baby page:

www.cdbaby.com/cd/cherone

And speaking of Extreme-connected EPs, last evening I got my first listen to the new EP by Nuno Bettencourt's band, Population 1. It's called Sessions From Room 4, and it certainly sounded radio-ready to these ears. As I recall, Bettencourt said a full-length is in the works.

1. Rick Berlin may still be best remembered for his wonderful, if eccentric, Boston theater-rock band, Orchestra Luna.
2. At first, I took this to be the band's founding lineup. But according to a January 4, 2003 e-mail message from Paul Mangone, David Rich was the group's original keyboard player.
3. Sometimes the name is given as a single word, Nightranger. At other times, it's Night Ranger.
4. Boston Rock, 10/1990, Issue 107.
5. Less than a year ago, Gary Cherone made reference to Adrenaline's old friendly home-town rivalry with quite an interesting band, Boy's Life.
6. Notices tended not to name all the band members, so we're shaky on who was in the Dream and when. We find Paul Mangone listed very late, though it seems likely he had been in the group for some time. Around the point the band's name was changed, or a bit after, he was replaced by Pat Badger. Mangone has just been in touch, and perhaps we can ask for clarification. He did tell us that David Rich returned to the lineup late in the Dream's career but left the band before the Mutha video was shot. According to one source, Mike Watson played keyboards and sang, though he isn't named elsewhere in our records. Paul Mangone tells us that Watson joined the Dream late in 1983. Evidently the returning David Rich took his place sometime in 1984.
7. Boston Phoenix, 11/6/1984.
8. Whether this is rumor-inflation or some more substantial information source, we don't know; but some articles claimed the sum was on the high end of the five-figure range.
9. Boston Rock, 11/19/1984, Issue 57.
10. Ibid.
11. I remember that Extreme prevailed in the Basement Tapes finals, but I could not (yet) find a reference that was published close enough to the event to be reliable.
12. The Mourning Widows' CD has a surprising lack of focus on Nuno Bettencourt's guitar playing. Though the band is quite good, it seems to me it may still be finding itself.
13. Well, okay, that other band Gary Cherone sang in was Van Halen. Meanwhile, we believe--though we have no handy reference, embarrassing as it is to say--that Pat Badger is involved with Tribe of Judah.

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Copyright © 2001 by the New England Music Scrapbook.
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