Therefore his music is a seamless blend of each genre. Noel is influenced by classic soul as well as the contemporary sounds of R&B and Hip-Hop. His first exposure to the vocal arts came in church and he was introduced to the larger canon of soul music by his father (who introduced him to the classics, such as Otis Redding) and his brother (who turned him on to the sounds of new jack swing). He honed his skills in Brockton, MA, and by the age of 24 scored a deal with Sony and had his first album in stores. The result is a man who is city to the heart but southern to the soul. He was born in Brockton, MA but spent his summers with family Pachuta, Mississippi. This energy was apparent and wonderful, in the aforementioned concentrations and proximities: We are all Gunkies, we will all live forever, we will all die, we will all be born. Who could argue with such notables as Jim McCarthy, Jim Donini and Henry Barber, all incredibly accomplished world wide, if they had traveled to the Gunks to proclaim thusly? Further substantiation was supplied by Albert Einstein: General Relativistic geometry allows us all to be equally at the center of a universe, which ventures outward and then contracts, concentrating all of the incredible energy into a super-hot kinetic particle soup, an inescapable black hole, a point of singularity. The finale, Saturday night at the Mohonk Preserve Visitor Center, was a gathering and slide show, again manifesting three common themes: partying (chemicals including C 2H 5OH) and climbing, preserving access to the Mohonk Preserve, and the Gunks being the center of the climbing universe. The podium-a living museum of those who had evolved with soft-iron pitons and Army nylon ropes through kernmantle, chrome-moly, nuts and now Spectra bound cams-was a reflection of Rich Gottlieb’s glass and laser-beam protected entranceway shrine to such hardware in Rock and Snow. At the other spectral extreme, Lynn Hill’s five-year-old son Owen effervesced incandescently as a totally imbued neo-Vulgarian. Under the command of designated exacerbator Russ Clune, they were supplemented by walk-ons Burt Angrist (’65) and Jim Andress (’50).Įighty-five-year-old Jim Andress (first climbed in 1944, liberated Italy in 1945 with the 10th Mountain Division, and converged on the Gunks in 1950) clarified the events leading up to his histrionic 1959 ascent, with Jim McCarthy, of Drunkard’s Delight. A focus on the entering class of the 1950s and ’60s featured speakers Jim McCarthy (’51), Al DeMaria (’57), Dick Williams (’57), Claude Suhl (’58), Elaine Matthews (’65) and Rich Goldstone (’66). Various surrogates struggled mightily to urge the unruly mob to settle in and continue the rabid conversations, perforated with ingestion of food and drink.ĭavid Lucander publicized and collected reprehensible representatives of proto Vulgarians to bracket the Iron Age at a well-publicized “Round Table Discussion,” hosted by the New Paltz gear shop Rock and Snow on Friday night.
He knew me? I said, “Who the fuck are you?” He said, “Yeah … Claude! I haven’t seen you in years!” I said, “Hey, didn’t I see you up at the cliffs yesterday? You were climbing right next to us.”
At the bar, I saw the same walrus mustachioed guy from the day before. It was slowly burbling into a madhouse as more people arrived. I headed to the bar to get my wife and myself a drink prior to settling in at our table. The next night, Laura ‘Chaitin’ and Gene Smith organized a dinner at the Mountain Brauhaus. I am used to having little old ladies, fat young chicks, old geezers, and muddle-aged twits ascending 5.10s on either side of where I am groveling nevertheless, both Harland and I could not help but stare at this guy. One dude was pointing out and naming routes, and then climbing them with a discernible command and authority belied by his physical appearance. On Wednesday, October 15, I was climbing with my buddy Harland (71 years old) on a classic 5.5c, Frogshead, when two gnarly old yet ageless dudes stumbled up to the cliffs.
The success of last year’s Gunks Reunion, which focused on the ’70s and ’80s, spawned an extended invitation to all eras and all ages this year.
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