Wax Articles - Penn Gazette - Published 1970
The Sound of Wax
By Berl Schwartz
Wax has a sound? Right. It's the sound of music.
Rock music, that is, as played by Wax, a five-man group that includes three University students and a recent graduate.
You probably haven't heard of Wax unless you've been following the Philadelphia rock scene. But, if their luck holds out, Wax might be heading to your city on their first record album.
Wax formed last April and received a warm reception in a free concert on College Hall Green. They were one of the few groups to have dates during the summer, a tough time for rock in Philadelphia with the colleges not open and the Electric Factory, a local underground music establishment, closed until the fall. (It later closed, period.) Wax not only found work. but worked on the same bills with such headliners as Tom Paxton, John Mayall, and Chicago.
Now the group's manager, Bill Sisca, is walking around with a brief case full of contracts with a New York record for the group's first album. They're confident the deal can be worked out and Wax can be waxing the album soon.
Meanwhile, the group is practicing four or five nights a week in a room behind a clothing store in the Society Hill section of Philadelphia. They gather for several hours at each practice to work on their 25-song repertoire of original music - seven of which have been picked for the album - or to work out arrangements for new material.
And while they're practicing, the furthest thing from their mind is all the wild possibilities that accompany fame in the rock world.
Rick Levy, guitarist and the group's spokesman (by virtue of talking the most), is open about the group's desire for commercial success. "The purpose of this group, besides creating music, is to be really big. We'd like to make a contribution to the whole [music] thing, but the means at times are ends in themselves." His last remark, he clarified, means that the group has a lot of fun just getting together for practice.
