Ron Alexenburg was an A&R guy and record exec of some reputation going back to the sixties in Chicago and California. In the late seventies many of his peers began to parley their successes into their own companies. He decided to try it as well, and after he arranged a distribution deal with CBS, Handshake records was born.

The band didn't know it, being focused on England, but Hilly had been shopping their tapes to Handshake. Then one day Hilly told them that England was off but that they were signing with a new CBS affiliate, Handshake records. It may not seem like it from the story, but the Clams at first had a warm relationship with Handshake. It was good to be wanted. Dean, Ron's younger brother, became close friends with Richie. Many promises were made and some were even kept.

The following October, at Kingdom Sound Studios on Long Island, the band recorded "the Pet Clams."

Glen Kolotkin, Hilly Kristal, and Ron Alexenburg

No longer in print, maybe slightly more remembered that the company that produced it, "the Pet Clams" received very good reviews and noticable airplay on several leading radio stations. It is a very varied record ranging from the ringing Bryds-like pop of "something happened late last night" and the loopy goofy reggae of "don't get so upset" to the darkness of "suicide note". The album's apocalyptic masterpiece "Jerusalem" was butchered with a razorblade to half it's length, (obstensibly to release it as a single, but it was never released as a single.) The single was "riding my car" which was later copped by another Jersey band, the smithereens, and released as "a girl like you". "Generations," performed for the first time in the studio the day it was recorded, was a mistake. The song it replaced, "show business" would have closed the piece much more completely. But everyone agreed that three songs; "revisions of Johanna", "Count your Saturday nights", and " things just keep on changing" could not have been better. Produced by (future grammy award-winner) Glenn Kolotkin and Hilly Kristal, "the Pet Clams" was generally received on the scene as the sucessful debut of a band with a very promising future. At one time after it's release in march of 1981, four songs; "revisions of Johanna","something happened late last night", "gonna get fooled again", and "riding in my car" were on regular rotation on New York's influencial WNEW rock station.