BOSTON (CAP) - As the pop music world gets a taste of the New Kids On The Block reunion album The Block, one Boston man truly hopes for it to be a complete flop. 39-year-old Vincent DiGiassi, known throughout his native Dorechester as the sixth New Kid, says the album and upcoming tour are opening up old wounds that never fully healed.
"Yeah, originally the New Kids was supposed to be a six-member band - and I was that sixth guy," DiGiassi told CAP News between drags on his Winston cigarette. "I did all the rehearsals with those guys, learned all the songs and the dance moves, and then Starr gave me the axe."
Starr is former New Kids manager Maurice Starr, who DiGiassi says pulled him aside just before the group hit the stage for their first concern back in 1986 and told him the band was going with only five members, and that he was out. "I was crushed," DiGiassi said as he shook his head. "Absolutely crushed."
DiGiassi, who stands at a modest 5 feet 4 inches tall and tips the scale at just over 300 pounds, splits his days working part-time for a Boston construction company and as a special-duty officer for the local sheriff's department. "I was also in the Navy Reserves for a while," said DiGiassi. "I'm basically a one-man Village People."
For their part, the New Kids deny that DiGiassi was ever a member of the band. "Vinnie lived down the street from the Wahlbergs when they were kids," said NKOTB's National Fan Club Chairwoman Kimmie Wilkinson. "He was someone they knew from around the way, but they were never friends with him, and they certainly never invited him to be part of the band.
"It was more like they'd see him walking around the neighborhood, eating Fun Dip with his fingers and guzzling Mountain Dew, and they were like That guy is a weirdo!" added Wilkinson. "If he thinks he was ever in the band, he is so dreaming!"
DiGiassi said a family friend gave him an advanced copy of The Block, and that it "sucks big time."
"What they were always missing was the guy who was tough, but also brought the humor, and was also good looking but could laugh at himself," said DiGiassi as he lit up another cigarette. "Basically they need the guy who'd be like, Yeah, I'm 39, morbidly obese, and I live in my mom's basement, but you know I'm hangin' tough!
"They don't have that, and they should," he added.
Despite DiGiassi's ill-will, industry insiders expect the new album and tour to be extremely well received by fans around the world. "Vinnie DiGiassi can't stop the New Kids," said Wilkinson, "unless he sits his fat ass down in front of their limo and refuses to move."
- CAP News Staff