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09/14/2016 08:30 AMIf you’ve been to a concert at Clinton’s gazebo, library, Bluefish Festival, beach, or the town hall’s Green Room, chances are you’ve seen, maybe danced to—or at least heard—Felix Rivera. For the last nine years, the lead singer of the local band The Engine Room has been a fixture at community celebrations and charitable events.
Besides “Flex,” as he’s known to bandmates, the classic rock, blues, and R&B ensemble includes drummer Dick “Sticks” McManus, lead guitarist Smoking Joe Skrabl, Jack “The Ripper” Roberts on keyboards, and bass player Kris Kloszewski, a.k.a. KK Basso. (More on KK later.)
Though Clinton has been his stomping ground for the past 37 years, Felix—a native New Yorker—grew up in the Bronx, where he shared an apartment with his mother and baby brother. Their last apartment was in a six-story building where they’d come to know a lot of the other families.
“We would get together and help each other out, picking up something at the local bodega or carrying a load of laundry down a flight of stairs.”
Tenants were from various ethnic backgrounds, says Felix—”It was as eclectic as you could get.”
When it was warm, he remembers, they sang a cappella—The Beatles or the Beach Boys—on their front stoops.
As kids, Felix and his friends played baseball in the back lots of their Bronx walk-ups.
“There were fields, but the best times were running home from school, grabbing a baseball mitt, and meeting everyone else in the alley to play ball.”
One of his favorite memories from those days is being selected as a “Yankee Good Kid” in 1970-1971.
“I was given two tickets to attend a game behind home plate. I had my picture taken with Gene ‘The Stick’ Michael, and I got a ball autographed by all the Yankees and handed to me by Thurman Munson.”
Felix’s days in New York ended shortly after the building next door was consumed by fire and boarded up.
“The building to our right looked like it was next,” he recalls, “so with help from my aunts, we decided to move closer to them to make sure my young brother had a good future in a better environment. That was in 1976—40 years ago this year. We moved to New Haven.”
‘Clinton Taught Me How to Take a Deep Breath’
As a young man, Felix held a number of jobs, working at Caldor department store in Old Saybrook, C.R. Gibson greeting card company in Guilford, and Railroad Salvage Stores in West Haven, where he met his bride-to-be, Sandy.
“We got married, moved to Clinton, had our kids, and became part of this small and wonderful community. I can honestly say after all this time, there’s not much I miss about New York, as far as the fast-paced lifestyle,” he says. “The city taught me how to survive in the world, but Clinton taught me how to take a deep breath and really see the world around you for its beauty.”
The town’s best assets, he says, are its people.
“You may not know everyone’s name, but faces are always familiar.”
After seven years with Connecticut Water Company, Felix took a position with the South Central Regional Water Authority, where he’s worked for 25 years and is now a field service supervisor lead, providing regulatory guidance to customers and contractors.
In his off hours, he’s the front man for The Engine Room, a staple at The Morgan School’s Project Graduation dance as well as Clinton Summer Fest and Fireworks, Chamber of Commerce summer concert series, Clinton Summer Fair at First Church of Christ Congregational, Henry Carter Hull Library’s Summer Fest, and the Durham Fair—Connecticut’s largest agricultural fair. (For the third year in a row, the band takes center stage in Durham on Friday, Sept. 23, at 4:15 p.m. and promises to “rock the hillside” with 90 minutes of “good old high-energy rock-and-roll.”)
The band also performs at charitable events such as the Westbrook Elks Lodge Beach Jam, which raises money for breast cancer awareness; individual fundraisers for cancer patients; and The Hearth at Tuxis Pond, an assisted living facility in Madison, where they put on a karaoke-style show for older residents.
“It’s very satisfying,” Felix says, noting that music holds a treasure trove of memories for people. “It’s a major flashback. One time, we were invited to play at The Hearth, and there was a gentleman sitting with his head down, not moving, not looking up. When we started to play, his picked his head up. He started moving and snapping his fingers. It was great to see.”
The band brings residents up to the mic to sing, and many of them get up and dance.
The name of the band, says Felix, comes from the idea that an engine drives things, allows things to progress, and makes them move.
‘I Feel Good’
As for how he got started with the group, Felix says, “The band’s drummer, Dick McManus, knew I sang karaoke and asked if I would be interested in playing with a new band. They asked me what song I wanted to sing, and James Brown’s ‘I Feel Good’ came to mind. They played it, I joined in, and it felt right.”
The best thing about playing with The Engine Room, he says, is that are no egos.
“If a song doesn’t feel right, we discuss it. Also, everyone has a chance to ask for a freebie performance of their choosing, so if there’s a particular cause or person they want to support and it’s important to play a free gig, we’ll do it,” he says.
The group practices every other week in McManus’s basement.
Even with the best preparation, however, things don’t always go as planned, Felix says.
“At this year’s Project Graduation performance, bass player Kris Kloszewski tripped on his own wires during a song. He kept on singing, even though he was on the floor. Two of us tried to get him back up, all the while the band still played. Not everyone noticed what was going on!”
Though he loves classic rock, Felix’s musical tastes expand to include Billy Joel (“big fan,” he says) as well as crooners Michael Buble, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra—”And with my Latin roots, Willie Chirino.”
On a Sept. 8 trip to New York at the height of Fashion Week—when top designers descend on the city—Felix was stopped on the street by crew members of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. The show typically puts together its own video for the occasion—something like “Fashion Week, Dads Edition,” featuring men in Hawaiian shirts, Crocs, and fanny packs.
“They asked me fashion questions,” Felix says, laughing. “I guess it was Fashion Week. I don’t really know about fashion.”
Felix does know music, though, and The Engine Room’s next local performance, after the Durham Fair, is Saturday, Oct. 1, 8 p.m. to midnight, at June’s Outback in Killingworth.