I Remember Steve Letkauskas

I met Steve years ago while working at MXR 

We talked about music a lot. I was working on the

Zenith LP at the time and I got to engineer Steve’s

music…wow I did not see that coming. He was

gifted.  He was always a good guy. He will be missed

Steve was a regular at our annual get together picnic and Jam sessions. This year(2009) I don’t remember seeing Steve at the picnic but he did show up to the Jam at Mastrella’s bar. He didn’t get a chance or want to play( I’m not sure of which) this year but did hang around to see everyone and socialize. He did play though at our 2008 session and I just came across this photo my wife Barb had taken and thought I’d share it.
RIP Steve….you’ll be missed by all your old friends.
Rich Lanze

Brian Soule, Tom Lanze, Mark Rossiter, Mark Peters and Steve Letkauskas

Sorry for any confusion on this, but we’ve been working to pick a date and time that works for as many people as possible (including the people that own the venue). So, that date is now officially November 8th at 3pm.

It’s going to take place at the MuCCC ( www.muccc.org )

If you can, please let me know if you are planning to attend:

Email me: uburoi at rochester dot rr dot com (please replace the at with the @ sign, and the dots with periods.

Well, what I can say about Steve is that he was a friend in the true sense of the word. We met while we were both working for MXR in the late 70s and became fast friends and of course, we were both music fanatics. Steve would come over to my house on Hazelwood Terrace 2-3 times a week and we would listen to records until the wee hours of the morning. I would often see him at concerts, and we would meet up at Scorgies and other bars to see music and hang. I remember that Steve was the first person I talked to the day John Lennon was murdered. Actually, I hadn’t thought about that until just now.

We didn’t hang out that as much since the early 90s when I got divorced, then moved out of the city, and remarried. But Steve would still regularly stop by the store to say hello, talk about music, pick up some tunes and generally catch up on life.

I last saw him on Tuesday afternoon (September 15^th) and we talked about the Neil Innes concert I had at the store this past June. Steve talked about how much he loved the show and reminded me that the Bonzo Dog Doo Da Band were one of his favorites as they were mine. Neil sang “Urban Spaceman” that night and also talked about his friendship with George Harrison and it reminded me of our friendship.  I’ll miss my friend.

Tom Kohn

c. November 1970

Steve & I didn’t hang out to much, me not being a musician and he not being at Eastridge (as I remember it).  And I left Rochester in 1972, so we didn’t have much chance to overlap.

What we did have in common – loving to go to concerts and loving to tape shows, and we’d see each other at shows often.  Steve was even willing to lend me his recorder several times (his was STEREO, mine was a cheap mono).  I was thinking of him a few weeks ago – I was making a disc of a Red White & Blues Band show that I gave to Werner Fritsching (also now a New Yorker).  I may have made that recording with the recorder pictured above!

Happy Trails Steve  - sorry we only got to say hi in passing at the post-Alphonzo jam last summer.  Thinking of you and wishing I got to know the ‘adult’ you, if indeed we ever did grow up. . .

Kevin Yatarola

This is a performance of Unit at the Penny Arcade in 1976:

In the mid ’70s, Steve played in a band called Friends Of Lois which became Unit. This song was the second song of the night, called Son Of A Beat.

The band this evening consisted of Steve on Bass, Mark Peters guitar and vocals, Mark Rossiter drums, Vince Erclemento sax, Vince Randazzo on keyboards and Joe Ward on horn (but only on the first song of the night).

UNIT_SonOfABeat

A week ago Sunday (Sept 13th), I ran into Steve at the East Ave Wegmans. He was buying a donut, and waxed poetically about the tasty benefits of donuts. We talked about lots of stuff – I filled him in on my trip to Abbey Road, giving him details and inviting him to see the pics and hear the audio. He talked about the tribute to Syd Barrett he was working on and asked me to play on it. He seemed very upbeat and, while we’d not seen each other in quite a while, it seemed like old times – for the first time in a long time. Anyway, we’d made plans – he was going to come down to the Little Theater and see the band play on Wednesday night. That, of course, didn’t happen. I always figured Steve would be around forever. And in some ways, he will be.

I miss you, Binky.

Signed, Binky.

(thanks to Kirk for the drawing)