After a gig with teardrop explodes in Philly, Dave left the band. He left because he thought it was over, because there was no money, because he didn't like being around Applegate so much, and because he needed a new car. He really assumed he was breaking up the band, that it would not go on without him. If it had been up to Gelbstein to decide, it would not have. But Gary was furious, Dave was supposed to be his friend and he was throwing all this away for both of them before it was really done. Handshake had not passed on a second album, three or four months was not enough time to decide on a career. More importantly he had grown used to writing songs in order to deal with his tortured view of the universe, the Clams were a release from the pain and madness he saw as making up the world. He was not willing to give that up yet.

In Dave's defense, he was right, it was over. Handshake was finished, having turned into a money laundering machine for rich musicians. Another year of starving looking for a new contract was out of the question. Neither Dave nor Gary knew that MTV was three months away and that rock was saved. Cindi Lauper would have her fun. Poor Brian Setzer of the bloodless pharaohs that the Clams had mocked so mercilessly, would become a sex symbol and guitar hero. The go-gos would be millionaires. Another year would not have been that hard.

Gary went into seige mode. He hired John Fernandes a friend of his and Dave's, to play guitar. He brought in Jimmy Beringer to play keyboards, freeing Richie from the tyranny of his fingers. He and Richie began writing with a vengence, songs about betrayal and collapse.

While I was first collecting material for this site, Richie approached m e with a tape of a unrecorded song from this period. Done on a little mono cassette recorder in his living room on his untunable upright piano. It was called " the end of the world didn't come". I could almost hear Gary's speaking voice describing Dave's leaving and how it hurt him.

Hilly had grown distant, mainly due to Al's constant carping for money. So Gary found a new place to record with his new band. It was at mixolydian studios in Boonton N.J. that the Pet Clams recorded their greatest song.

" In Belfast" was certainly Applegate's most ambitious lyric and Gelbstein's music fit it perfectly. But it was Beringer's piano that turned it into something new for the Clams. In those same sessions they re-recorded a couple of the "ten song tape" songs, and a new one "you oughta be in pictures", which contained a great bridge, and a great guitar solo by Fernandes. In the year or so that Fernandes was with the band, he proved himself an excellent musician, coming up with just the right part for the song over and over again.

With Dave gone, Handshake smelled blood. It became a race to drop the Clams before the company folded. In the final meeting Gary and Richie and Hilly had with Ron Alexenberg at Handshake offices in midtown, Ron asked the Clams to record other people's material. Richie almost plotzed, he had always played "good cop" to Gary's "bad cop", and his reaction even caught Applegate off guard. They had gone in there, armed with a finished, complete "In Belfast", to make a second album. They were not there to tell off the president of the company. After hearing "In Belfast" Ron said "It's a good song, but it's not a hit single." It was as if fm radio didn't exist to him. The Clams knew Handshake was finished with them.

As an aside, it was a month or more before they were actually notified that there would not be a second Handshake record. Whether this was because Dean had interceded with his brother for his friend and got a little reconsideration, or just slow paperwork no one knows. A few days later, Dean called and said they were clearing out the midtown offices and if they wanted any Pet Clam records or merchandise they should come get it. Gary went over and grabbed a couple of boxes of promo albums but the moving men were emptying everything. Handshake was no more.