I remember Club 802 very well. I was born in Brooklyn and spent my childhood years there. When I was 7 years old (1966), my mother signed my up for guitar lessons at Bay Ridge Music. Myself, like many other kids my age, wanted to be a Beatle. Luckily I had some talent and the music teacher, Ed Pavia, decided to put together a quartet of his best students. I was 9 at the time and other two guitar players were 10 and the drummer was 11. Once a month, Bay Ridge Music would sponsor a battle of the bands at the Club 802. Mr. Pavia entered us in one of them when he thought we were ready. Many of the groups were in their late teens and early twenties but nevertheless, we took second place. At this point in my life I'm pretty sure we gained alot of points because of the "cuteness" factor but back then, we thought we were "boss". We entered subsequent competitions at the Club 802 where we took third place, then second place again. For our fourth competition, we added 2 go-go girls, our age of course, and all of us wore matching velour turtle necks (the same color of the girls' go-go skirts). This time we were the boss. We took first place, hands down. Unfortunately, the victory wasn't that sweet when we learned that after having taken first place, we could no longer compete. Oh well, such were my memories of Club 802.
--rjb
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