Over the course of the next few years, this mess congealed into "Crabtree" in which Anderson, and Cicerello were principal players. This band through 1969 and 1970 was a major part of the Asbury Park/upstage scene that spawned so much music in the early and mid 70's. Applegate, not being a member of Crabtree, was forced to form a series of strangely named bands, Most notably "rockaday Johnny and the blue suede shoes". The principal virtue of these bands was original music. In one of these bands,whose name has been lost, Gary partnered with a drummer named Al Spero
While Gary was developing a local reputation as a songwriter, Dave was becoming known as a very good guitar player. As the upstage scene began to collapse in the early seventies, the "rockaday" found himself jamming with Anderson again. These sessions mutated into "magpie", an all original band with both Anderson and Applegate on guitar. "Magpie" had a young drummer named Brian Buckelew who will re-enter the story in about twenty years.
Magpie's weaknesses eventually overwhelmed it's strengths and it wasn't until 1975 that another band was formed. Remembered most often as "the alright brothers band" this was essentially a reformed "Crabtree" with Applegate on bass and Al Spero on drums. Al did not last long, and he disappeared into the wilds of Idaho. The "brothers" had a moderately successful run as a cover band along the Jersey Shore, but finally succumbed to bad blood between the lead singer and the lead guitarist. Dave and Gary continued to play, but now they were working on original songs again, even getting into the studio to record some demos for the first time.
In fact during one of those sessions, Gary's new friend Rich Gelbstein had stopped by...