Been waiting for some crappy, dark, South Bend basement show video? Well, here's some footage of the Mad Dogs from 1997, performing in the basement of Clifford the Big Red House (opening for Hey, Dummy).
Songs: Mexican Girls, Blue One-Stars, My Religious Girlfriend, Love South Quad Style, I Think I'm Alone Now.
Chris:
Let's see... I guess I am proud to have been the only person rocking a homemade New York Dolls t-shirt in South Bend in 1997. I am not as proud of the Chain of Strength-esque mic grip technique I employed. Compared to subsequent bands I have been in I am impressed by the amount of energy I put into writing the lyrics to these songs (and remembering the words to the too many verses). I am not impressed with the between song monologues ("banter" would suggest some back an forth). I am not embarrassed by the subject matter of songs like "I Got a Thing for Mexican Girls." I am embarrassed by the coda of the song; what in retrospect now sounds like a Judgment Night Soundtrack/rap/rock "breakdown." I am still jealous Doug got to sing "Blue One-Stars" himself (because I had not yet learned to play an instrument). But I am no longer jealous of his preference to showcase his other bands and sweep the Mad Dogs under the rug (he was correct to do so). I am apologetic to anyone who endured this set, since we had not learned the 4th rule of live music performance (you don't HAVE to play every song you know every time). I am not apologetic for breaking the first rule of showbiz (leave them wanting more- ha!), because the negative energy was essentially the point. I wish I was as thin as I appear to be in this video. I do not wish to ever eat another dining hall chicken sandwich or Papa Johns pizza ever again.
P.S. Andy Yang loves you!
Doug:
Our set in this video seems way more mellow than I remember any Mad Dogs show ever being. However, I have absolutely no memory of strobe lights in that basement, so I suppose there is other stuff I've forgotten as well. I do remember spending a lot of time on the floor during Mad Dogs shows. I don't remember some of these songs at all. I always thought these shows were fun, no matter what Chris says.
Mike:
I'm not sure whether I should be happy or sad that you can't really tell if it's me in the video. I am happy that we have video evidence of this band's existence. The strobe light is a nice touch. Marvel at Doug's ability to continue playing bass whilst being attacked by Chris! Behold the steely gaze of Ted the destroyer! Never before has a drummer (yours truly) so artfully melted into the shadows! Witness the awesome power of amps breaking and bandmates flailing and audience members stunned into submission! Beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Or something.
Ted:
Watching these old Mad Dogs videos (yes, there's more) makes me realize that I probably should've spent more time learning to play our songs, and less time drinking before performances. But I guess that was our M.O., so screw it, it was a hella lotta fun. If we couldn't be musical, at least we were a spectacle. Anyway, I'm glad Roger or whoever recorded some of these basement shows, they've been, uh, interesting to look back at. It was also fun to see Andy singing with Chris on "Love South Quad Style," even though I butchered the middle of it. Oops!
Read more about the Mad Dogs here.
Download our cassette.
Visit our MySpace page.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Shaggs - Wink (1967)
(File this one under South Bend Power 60s!)
While legendary 60's music scenes in college towns like Austin (the 13th Floor Elevators, Golden Dawn) and Ann Arbor (the Stooges, MC5) have been well documented over the years, the South Bend/Notre Dame music scene of the '60s is not something most people give a lot of thought on even a year-to-year-basis. Listening to Midwestern oldies radio (in the pre-internet era) gave me a start on this arcana and informed me that Junior Walker (of the All Stars) got his start in South Bend bars and Tommy James (of the Shondells) was from nearby Niles. However it was a decade ago with the help the internet that I stumbled upon hints of the Shaggs. Although the Shaggs' "beyond rare" long player Wink has been one of the most coveted private-press "garage" albums in underground '60s record collecting circles and bootlegged countless times, only speculation shrouded the group itself who were often misdescribed as "Prep Rockers from Notre Dame University." Thankfully, Geoff Gillette took some time away from his studio engineering to set the record straight and provide insight into the short saga of the Shaggs and the seminal Notre Dame music scene of the mid-to-late '60s.
(Geoff in turn put me in contact with two others Shaggs: Chuck Perrin and Frank Krakowski and also Gus Duffy of their progenitors, Webster's New Word. Their vital accounts, contributions and photos from Chuck's archives are included below. Special thanks to Dennis Lopez, bass player for Captain Electric, and Bob Ewan, First Friday vocalist, for generously furnishing recordings, context and their perspectives on that groundbreaking era.)
An Interview with Geoff Gillette, Frank Krakowski, and Chuck Perrin.
By Ted Liebler (interview originally appeared on 60sgaragebands.com in 2002)
The fabulous Shaggs from Notre Dame, with their orgy of sound... from the practice sessions three years ago in the Farley Hall basement to their current fame... as the outstanding band on the campus, and in the South Bend area. Finally unleashed... and running wild.
Ted Liebler (TL): How did you first get involved with music? I assume that you have a deep background in music with vocals, guitar and keyboard listed by your name on the back of Wink.
Geoff Gillette (GG): When I saw Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show, I told my parents I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, which showed up as my next birthday present, and I taught myself the guitar which was fairly easy with all the years of piano training I had previously had. Before long, I was teaching guitar to kids after school and formed a high school band called The Ends. That was the first of several bands I would be in.
TL: Did you come from an artistic/musical family?
GG: I did come from a musical family. My mom played the piano and had me in piano lessons from the age of seven. My dad was also an artist, a painter and set designer. My sister and I were raised in the theatre - The Chatham Community Players of Chatham, New Jersey - and performed in many musicals and plays as we were growing up.
TL: You mentioned that you were in a series of bands after The Ends. Do you care to elaborate further on your pre-Shaggs band experience?
GG: Every summer my family went to the Long Beach Island at the Jersey Shore and another band called The Islanders ensued. We used to play surf music and the current Rolling Stones hits at various clubs and yacht club parties around the island. It was a great time... life-guarding, surfing, and playing in a band! What more could you want at the age of 16?
TL: When did The Shaggs first form and did you go through a series of monikers?
GG: Then I went off to college - The University of Notre Dame. Within three weeks, I joined another band called The Shaggs. Frank Krakowski was the leader and founder. The band had already been in existence for one year with a guitar player named John Hall, who left Notre Dame and went on to have a great career with a group called Orleans. (Prior to Orleans, John Hall was in Kangaroo with N.D. Smart post-Remains. They released one album on MGM in 1968]. He wrote a big hit song called Still The One, which years later became a promo theme for ABC-TV (The song was also employed for a Burger King commercial campaign). John can probably retire on the royalties from that. I love it when that happens!
Frank Krakowski (FK): The Shaggs was the first and only name of the group that existed from 1964 to 1968. The name was simply a reference to long hair and its expression then as a sign of rebellion.
TL: How did you come across the other musicians? Were they all Notre Dame students at the time?
GG: Chuck Perrin and I, both in our freshman year, found our way into The Shaggs and we had great success playing at all the Notre Dame parties and rallies. Chuck went to study in Europe for his sophomore year and consequently was not part of the record, Wink. He did, however tell me about another band from Notre Dame called Webster's New Word who had gotten a recording contract with Columbia Records and everyone had quit college and moved to New York to pursue a career in music. Chuck came back to New Jersey with me for Christmas vacation and we went to Greenwich Village to see Webster's perform at the Cafe Wah? That's when I met Gus Duffy, the guitar player in the group. This would be the beginning of a long relationship involved with music that continues to this very day.
Chuck Perrin (CP): When I graduated from high school in 1964, I returned home to Pekin, Illinois for a year to save up money to attend Notre Dame, but I used to go up to ND a couple of times a month on weekends to hang out. On one my first visits, a football Saturday in fall 1964, I walked into the Rathskeller below the student center to find The Shaggs - Frank Krakowski, Ray Wheatley, John Hall and another guy - set up and playing. They blew me away. I had been playing bass in a local central Illinois teen band, Eddie & The Excels, but I went back and started my own version of the Shags - with one "G". They became very popular in the Peoria/Pekin area that year, culminating with a top three finish in the Battle of the Bands at the Illinois State Fair the summer of '65. (NOTE: These Shags went on to record two picture sleeved 45s. Talk To A Sidewalk can be heard on the Every Groovy Day compilation from Misty Lane Records of Italy and all four of their songs can be heard on a reissue released by Craig Moore of Gonn on his CMP imprint). The next year, September of '65, I enrolled at ND and looked up Frank K. It turned out he was in the same hall as me, Farley, and needed a singer since John Hall had left ND (willingly or unwillingly). I was in the real Shaggs and the Sorin Hall porch was now "my domain" on football Saturdays!
TL: Wow! Tell me more about Webster's New Word? From Internet research, I noticed the group had singles on both Columbia and RCA Records. One of the Columbia singles was a cover of Richard Farina's Hard Lovin' Loser. [As previously mentioned, Geoff put me in touch with Gus Duffy who provides his account below.]
Gus Duffy (GD): The whole Webster's New Word thing sprung from The Four Winds - an integrated folk group comprised of some talented musicians that began at Notre Dame probably in 1960. The music was right out of the Chad Mitchell Trio, Bud and Travis, Clancy Brothers, all with jacket and tie. Bookings were good enough to quit school and go pro. We spent a year in San Francisco and worked clubs like Hungry i, Purple Onion, and Mr. Bimbo's 365 club. Bill Cosby and Mort Sahl were openers. I played 12-string guitar, 5-string banjo, and helped with the vocal arrangements.
Skip to NYC 1965: Webster's New Word had done a videotaped audition at the state fair in Indiana; the tape got sent to New York and Webster's New Word was invited to a showcase at Arthur--a discotheque named after Ringo's haircut and owned by Sybil Burton. Webster's New Word had just gone electric, and I had rejoined the band for just this one last gig (I had quit Webster's New Word to play drums with the Signe Anderson-era Jefferson Airplane and even taught Skip Spence how to drum). I got drafted and returned to Notre Dame. It was an amazing performance, and the next day we were signed to Columbia by John Hammond, on the spot, after we auditioned unplugged in his office at Black Rock. By this time we had added Jim Mason [who co-wrote "I Dig Rock 'n' Roll Music"-ed.] From 1965 thru 1967 we toured with the Mamas and the Papas and were produced by Felix Pappalardi. We got fired off the Mamas and Papas tour after a gig at Fordham University where we were at our absolute best and they weren't; Lou Adler canned us on the spot! Webster's also did a Gillette "Heads Up" hair goo commercial but I couldn't participate because my hair was too long. I just did the music track! We also did a commercial for Kohler Distributing - a great track.
TL: Getting back to The Shaggs, what kind(s) of music style(s) did the band first start with?
FK: We mainly looked to the top hits of the day and played cover songs people could dance to at the parties and mixers we were hired to play. We could play more originals when we played on the porch of Sorin Hall on football Saturdays.
TL: Who influenced you?
FK: Geoff brought in a surf influence and John Hall was really into The Beatles. I came from a rhythm and blues and an American rock 'n' roll background. The Kingsmen would be one example of that sound.
TL: How did you describe the music you played at the time?
FK: We were a consistently entertaining and exciting party band. Chuck - being a theater student - was quite the front-man and could turn on the tears when singing to the ladies on the slower numbers.
TL: Where did you typically practice?
GG: I seem to remember some rehearsals in the basement of Farley Hall, which is where Frank and Chuck resided. I was in Sorin Hall until I was thrown off campus. That is another whole story...
TL: Did the band have a manager?
CP: The Shaggs manager was really Frank. He had a knack for corralling the class and hall social directors and the manager of the student center into gigs.
FK: I was leader of the band and had the name, the P.A. and the hearse. We came close to a democracy after we finished fighting over direction of the band.
TL: Where did the band play live? Dorms? Dances? Campus Halls? South Bend bars? Chicago?
CP: The main other campus band from our freshman year (1965-66) were The Shamrocks. They were our competition for all the frat parties that were held almost every weekend at a place called the Laurel Club on the other side of town. It was far enough away from campus that the junior and senior class social organizations could rent it out, a floor for each class, and have bands, dancing and booze. It was a wild scene, great parties, girls dancing on the tables, guys doing the alligator on the floor. I had this 50-foot mic cord and I would wander the room and dance floor during certain songs. We had no cars at one point, so The Shaggs would take two cabs there and back. Frank had it all worked out so all the equipment would fit in one cab and the two trunks, including his drums and the PA, and we would all cram into the other cab.
GG: We mainly played campus parties, "mixers" with St. Mary's College, rallies and a few in-town club gigs. We didn't travel too far away as I recall, but I do remember that Frank had an old hearse that when we did venture out that's how we showed up equipment and all of us. It was pretty outrageous! I recall carting around a Hammond B3 organ with a Leslie tremolo and I think a Wurlitzer electric piano that I played. The Shaggs pretty much had the market cornered in the Michiana area during that year, 1966.
FK: We played a few bars and clubs in the South Bend area. I also remember playing a class event at the Indiana Dunes and even one time playing on a train. The train was full of students bound for West Lafayette, IN for the Notre Dame-Purdue football game.
TL: Do you recall what kind of instruments (make and model) that the other Shaggs played?
GG: I'm pretty sure there were some Fender amps and guitars involved. I know that Ray (Wheatley) played through a Fender Bassman amplifier. I was more of a Gibson guy when it came to guitars. I have that guitar in my possession today.
TL: What was the farthest gig from South Bend that The Shaggs played?
FK: I seem to recall some clubs and bars around the Chicago area.
TL: Tell us more about the Kingsmen show...
FK: They were only a few years older than us. They were so open and helpful with their tips. Their drummer showed me how to get a good punchy sound out of my drums.
TL: Did The Shaggs ever open up for any other "name" '60's groups?
The head security guard where I work, Dennis Miccolis, was the original keyboard player for The Buckinghams and can be heard on the worldwide smash/oldies staple Kind Of A Drag. He said he played South Bend in the '60s.
TL: Did any other bands come through the city? I have heard that Jr. Walker and the All-Stars got their start in South Bend and I know The Riverias (of California Sun fame) were from the Michiana area.
CP: When Stepan Center was built on campus, we became one of the main openers for concerts there. The Kingsmen (Frank's dream come true) were one and I remember we also opened for The Supremes there.
FK: We were not aware that Jr. Walker was from the area until years later. The Riverias were really before our time. We also opened for Bob Seger and the Last Heard, The Buckinghams, The Mob (from Chicago) and that band that had the one big hit, The American Breed.
TL: How did the Wink LP recording come about? Please tell us more about the MCM record label? Who is the "winker" on the front cover? I like the two originals and the upbeat cover of the Searchers' (or the Cryan' Shames') Sugar and Spice - plus the well chosen Beatles covers, If I Needed Someone and The Night Before.
FK: MCM was derived from the last name of Bryan McMahon. He was a major "Type-A personality" from the business college. He thought he was going to make a lot money from the project. We just went along for the ride knowing that he was taking all the risks. McMahon probably booked us at International Recording Studio in Chicago because it was cut-rate cheap. We really did record it all in 20 hours straight as the back of the album states. The most takes we did of any one song was around 20. Brian ended up trying to sell the album door-to-door on campus and lost a lot of money on the whole deal.
GG: We were mainly a cover band, even though we had the two originals on the record. We took the opportunity to squeeze a couple in, but mainly we chose songs of the day that we liked, generally tunes that had lots of background vocals (because we could), and of course the usual Beatles and Stones covers. By the way, the "winker" on the cover is me. I can't remember why!
TL: Was the title of the album inspired in any way by the grapefruit soda-pop from Canada Dry named Wink? I noticed from a vintage ad that the Wink soft-drink logo and the Wink font that appeared on the album are somewhat similar.
GG: There was no reference to the Canada Dry product called Wink. It was just an idea we had.
TL: What were your impressions after recently re-listening to the album?
GG: The Wink CD-R was interesting, yet somewhat painful, to hear after all these years. There were definitely some good moments and surprisingly good, thick background vocals.
FK: While I have not listened to record in over 30 years, as soon as I heard it I didn't think the sound was good at all. It sounded okay in the studio, but the record was very underdeveloped and didn't capture any of our live energy at all. The bass shows up as non-existent and I would have put the drums deeper into the mix. Who knows what it would have sounded like if we had more studio time?
TL: Were there any other recordings that never made it to the album?
CP: We recorded two songs in nearby Elkhart, IN. The songs were Farmer John (mp3), one of our big crowd pleasers, and Too Dark For Day (mp3), a song Geoff and I wrote. I have a copy of the acetate, which used to get quite a few plays on WSND [campus radio station] and the Huddle [a campus snack bar/hang-out] jukebox.
TL: When did The Shaggs break up and why?
FK: I really don't have clear answer on this. We used to put the band on hiatus each summer. Our bass player Ray Wheatley graduated in that spring of '68. In addition, the style of music we played had been fraying for the past couple of years. Fortunately, we were able to continue making some serious money with the live gigs before calling it a day. The administration was probably glad as they hated us for a variety of reasons. Looking back, it really was a fertile time with lots of talent coming through the band. We really had access and opportunities that are non-existent for a band today. I would hate to be 20 years old now and try to make it in the current atmosphere.
TL: What other bands did you play in after The Shaggs?
FK: I drummed in a Supremes-like group called Red Top and the Young Family that was based out of Northern Ohio and toured the "black & tan" clubs of the Midwest.
GG: Shortly after making Wink, I heard that things had not materialized for Webster's and that Gus was back at Notre Dame - after doing a brief stint playing drums with a group called Jefferson Airplane! I slipped a note to Gus at the architecture building asking him if he felt like playing some music. He called me back and said he was interested and that was the beginning of Captain Electric and the Flying Lapels. I had become close friends with Dennis Lopez, a bass player in another Notre Dame band called The Plague. He was interested in being part of a new band with Gus and I and signed on. We had seen a South Bend local guy play drums and Barney Shultz came aboard to round out the quartet. The first time we all got together and played, something magical happened and we knew the chemistry was something special. It was almost scary!
TL: Did Captain Electric record?
GG: In 1968, my junior year, Captain Electric decided to make a record of a rock opera we had put together based on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Ode to Joy movement. This was before anybody, The Who or Procol Harem, had done anything like this. We recorded it at a studio in the middle of a cornfield in Pekin, Illinois. The next summer, Dennis and I started shopping it around in New York and somehow got a meeting with a producer named Tom Wilson. When we walked into the Record Plant Studio, Tom was in the middle of a recording session but he immediately put our tape on and after listening to the first three minutes of The Symphony, he stopped it and said, "Boys, step into my office." On the spot, he signed us to ABC Dunhill where he had a deal to produce seven albums in a year, and wrote us a check of $10,000 to cover our costs of making the record with enough left over to go back and polish it up! Also, (he asked us to) get ready to go on the road to promote the record. Well, I went back to the Jersey Shore with the news and my parents had mixed feelings about me dropping out of college, but were happy for me as far as getting the recording contract. The rest of that summer was great; I was going to be a rock star!
CP: One interesting sidelight to all of this is Golden Voice Recording Studios, operated by my friend Jerry Milam. Everything recorded during this period on my Webster's Last Word Record label was done there - The early Chuck & Mary stuff, The Shags [Pekin] recorded their 45 there. Dan Fogelberg did some of his first demos there. And I brought a lot of groups from ND back home to record there, including Captain Electric's Symphony, and one other great ND rock group from '68-'69, First Friday. I produced their now much sought after LP and released it on Webster's Last Word.
TL: Would you be able to tell us more about The Delphic Oracle? Supposedly, it was the first psychedelic nightclub in the Midwest! I have heard bits and pieces about it over the years.
GG: This is a very interesting story... Right after Captain Electric formed, my roommate, Eddie Kurtz, had the bright idea of creating a club for our new band to play at. We all thought it was a good idea and we got 20 of our friends to take out $100.00 loans from the Notre Dame Credit Union, and with $2000.00 we took over a recently defunct Italian restaurant and proceeded to build a club. We did everything by the book, getting all the proper permits and doing everything necessary to meet the local codes. It was an incredible club once we got done with it, complete with an amazing light show and a "head shop" in the back. I think that was the thing that got us into trouble...
The first weekend the club was opened, it was a huge success - and packed. We were able to pay back all the original investors! The second weekend, the band went out and bought all new equipment from the proceeds. In the meantime, The Delphic Oracle had become the talk of the town. We were the subjects of every radio/TV show in South Bend. It was like fervor! They hated us! There were all these innuendos about it being a drug haven, which wasn't the case at all. We just wanted a place to play. We couldn't be responsible for what went on among the locals, but on the third weekend, it was pure profit - we were putting the money in our pockets! On the fourth weekend, however, we noticed that our rent-a-cops didn't show up and before long, a SWAT team showed up and shut the evening down taking a few of us to jail, specifically Eddie Kurtz and Dennis Lopez. There were some trumped-up charges about de-facing the American flag. There was a poster of the American flag with flowers on it on the wall, and some charge about cow manure in the streets that dated back to 1890. It was totally bogus. At any rate, that was the end of The Delphic Oracle. South Bend was not ready for us!
TL: After the record was tied up in record company politics (and never released) I have read that that Captain Electric moved out to California around 1970. I found it very interesting that you rented a band house in Laurel Canyon from landlord Fred MacMurray! However, it sounds like things never really got off the Western ground musically with the commerce-minded music industry looking for cookie-cutter groups at that time and Captain Electric being outside the pre-fab mold. What did you do musically in the wake of Captain Electric?
GG: Eventually, we decided to throw in the towel. Dennis went back to Notre Dame to finish his last semester, Gus started doing architecture, Barney moved to Florida where his Mom had moved to and I had a few more adventures as a musician. I auditioned for, and got the gig working for a guy named Mac Davis as a Hammond organ player. I think I lasted for two gigs when I quit, not only hating the music, but also not really clicking with Mac! I then joined one more band with an artist named Tim Rose. Do you remember him? He did a slow tempo version of Hey Joe that inspired Hendrix and wrote Morning Dew that The Grateful Dead recorded. The guitar player in this band was a guy named Andy Summers. A few years later I picked up the first Police record and there he was. Anyway, Tim Rose had had a serious drinking problem, and even though he was sober when I was with him,he unfortunately couldn't get arrested by any of the record companies because of his reputation. I guess he had been seen sloshed at the Troubadour too many nights in the past. Too bad, because he was really talented and we had a great thing going.
TL: From research on Google and allmusic.com, I know that you are a recording engineer and worked with legends like Lamont Dozier and Sergio Mendes. How did you make the transition from stage to behind the scenes?
GG: After that band fell apart, I sat around for a month trying to decide what to do. I almost went to the airport everyday to fly back East. Then, a light bulb went on and I got the idea of becoming a sound engineer. I knew I loved being involved with music, and I also knew I wasn't an exceptional musician or song-writer, so I called Peter Granite - the engineer who had done our record and asked him how would I go about becoming a sound engineer. He mentioned he had heard about a guy in Burbank that was just getting ready to build a new studio, and maybe I could get in on the ground floor. So I went over there and made a proposition that I would give him a good deal as a carpenter to help build the studio and when it was completed, they would train me to be an engineer. That's exactly what happened. I spent the next six months of my life building this studio and one day, I put the hammer down and the first client to come in to check this new studio out was Stevie Wonder. He put a tape on and liked the way it sounded in there and my apprenticeship was a year with Stevie Wonder. Go to the head of the class! The record was Songs In The Key Life. For the next five years, I worked at that studio, called Kendun Recorders, which became the hottest place in town. I got to work with everybody from Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, George Harrison, Billy Preston, Mick Jagger, Bad Company, Lamont Dozier, and Fleetwood Mac - just to name a few. It's also when I met Sergio Mendes who I went on to have a 23-year working relationship with. The rest is history. Now it's 30 years later and I'm still here and have been fortunate enough to parlay this into an ongoing career. I think this is what I want to do when I grow up!
download:
The Shaggs - Wink (1967)
While legendary 60's music scenes in college towns like Austin (the 13th Floor Elevators, Golden Dawn) and Ann Arbor (the Stooges, MC5) have been well documented over the years, the South Bend/Notre Dame music scene of the '60s is not something most people give a lot of thought on even a year-to-year-basis. Listening to Midwestern oldies radio (in the pre-internet era) gave me a start on this arcana and informed me that Junior Walker (of the All Stars) got his start in South Bend bars and Tommy James (of the Shondells) was from nearby Niles. However it was a decade ago with the help the internet that I stumbled upon hints of the Shaggs. Although the Shaggs' "beyond rare" long player Wink has been one of the most coveted private-press "garage" albums in underground '60s record collecting circles and bootlegged countless times, only speculation shrouded the group itself who were often misdescribed as "Prep Rockers from Notre Dame University." Thankfully, Geoff Gillette took some time away from his studio engineering to set the record straight and provide insight into the short saga of the Shaggs and the seminal Notre Dame music scene of the mid-to-late '60s.
(Geoff in turn put me in contact with two others Shaggs: Chuck Perrin and Frank Krakowski and also Gus Duffy of their progenitors, Webster's New Word. Their vital accounts, contributions and photos from Chuck's archives are included below. Special thanks to Dennis Lopez, bass player for Captain Electric, and Bob Ewan, First Friday vocalist, for generously furnishing recordings, context and their perspectives on that groundbreaking era.)
An Interview with Geoff Gillette, Frank Krakowski, and Chuck Perrin.
By Ted Liebler (interview originally appeared on 60sgaragebands.com in 2002)
The fabulous Shaggs from Notre Dame, with their orgy of sound... from the practice sessions three years ago in the Farley Hall basement to their current fame... as the outstanding band on the campus, and in the South Bend area. Finally unleashed... and running wild.
Ted Liebler (TL): How did you first get involved with music? I assume that you have a deep background in music with vocals, guitar and keyboard listed by your name on the back of Wink.
Geoff Gillette (GG): When I saw Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show, I told my parents I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, which showed up as my next birthday present, and I taught myself the guitar which was fairly easy with all the years of piano training I had previously had. Before long, I was teaching guitar to kids after school and formed a high school band called The Ends. That was the first of several bands I would be in.
TL: Did you come from an artistic/musical family?
GG: I did come from a musical family. My mom played the piano and had me in piano lessons from the age of seven. My dad was also an artist, a painter and set designer. My sister and I were raised in the theatre - The Chatham Community Players of Chatham, New Jersey - and performed in many musicals and plays as we were growing up.
TL: You mentioned that you were in a series of bands after The Ends. Do you care to elaborate further on your pre-Shaggs band experience?
GG: Every summer my family went to the Long Beach Island at the Jersey Shore and another band called The Islanders ensued. We used to play surf music and the current Rolling Stones hits at various clubs and yacht club parties around the island. It was a great time... life-guarding, surfing, and playing in a band! What more could you want at the age of 16?
TL: When did The Shaggs first form and did you go through a series of monikers?
GG: Then I went off to college - The University of Notre Dame. Within three weeks, I joined another band called The Shaggs. Frank Krakowski was the leader and founder. The band had already been in existence for one year with a guitar player named John Hall, who left Notre Dame and went on to have a great career with a group called Orleans. (Prior to Orleans, John Hall was in Kangaroo with N.D. Smart post-Remains. They released one album on MGM in 1968]. He wrote a big hit song called Still The One, which years later became a promo theme for ABC-TV (The song was also employed for a Burger King commercial campaign). John can probably retire on the royalties from that. I love it when that happens!
Frank Krakowski (FK): The Shaggs was the first and only name of the group that existed from 1964 to 1968. The name was simply a reference to long hair and its expression then as a sign of rebellion.
TL: How did you come across the other musicians? Were they all Notre Dame students at the time?
GG: Chuck Perrin and I, both in our freshman year, found our way into The Shaggs and we had great success playing at all the Notre Dame parties and rallies. Chuck went to study in Europe for his sophomore year and consequently was not part of the record, Wink. He did, however tell me about another band from Notre Dame called Webster's New Word who had gotten a recording contract with Columbia Records and everyone had quit college and moved to New York to pursue a career in music. Chuck came back to New Jersey with me for Christmas vacation and we went to Greenwich Village to see Webster's perform at the Cafe Wah? That's when I met Gus Duffy, the guitar player in the group. This would be the beginning of a long relationship involved with music that continues to this very day.
Chuck Perrin (CP): When I graduated from high school in 1964, I returned home to Pekin, Illinois for a year to save up money to attend Notre Dame, but I used to go up to ND a couple of times a month on weekends to hang out. On one my first visits, a football Saturday in fall 1964, I walked into the Rathskeller below the student center to find The Shaggs - Frank Krakowski, Ray Wheatley, John Hall and another guy - set up and playing. They blew me away. I had been playing bass in a local central Illinois teen band, Eddie & The Excels, but I went back and started my own version of the Shags - with one "G". They became very popular in the Peoria/Pekin area that year, culminating with a top three finish in the Battle of the Bands at the Illinois State Fair the summer of '65. (NOTE: These Shags went on to record two picture sleeved 45s. Talk To A Sidewalk can be heard on the Every Groovy Day compilation from Misty Lane Records of Italy and all four of their songs can be heard on a reissue released by Craig Moore of Gonn on his CMP imprint). The next year, September of '65, I enrolled at ND and looked up Frank K. It turned out he was in the same hall as me, Farley, and needed a singer since John Hall had left ND (willingly or unwillingly). I was in the real Shaggs and the Sorin Hall porch was now "my domain" on football Saturdays!
TL: Wow! Tell me more about Webster's New Word? From Internet research, I noticed the group had singles on both Columbia and RCA Records. One of the Columbia singles was a cover of Richard Farina's Hard Lovin' Loser. [As previously mentioned, Geoff put me in touch with Gus Duffy who provides his account below.]
Gus Duffy (GD): The whole Webster's New Word thing sprung from The Four Winds - an integrated folk group comprised of some talented musicians that began at Notre Dame probably in 1960. The music was right out of the Chad Mitchell Trio, Bud and Travis, Clancy Brothers, all with jacket and tie. Bookings were good enough to quit school and go pro. We spent a year in San Francisco and worked clubs like Hungry i, Purple Onion, and Mr. Bimbo's 365 club. Bill Cosby and Mort Sahl were openers. I played 12-string guitar, 5-string banjo, and helped with the vocal arrangements.
Skip to NYC 1965: Webster's New Word had done a videotaped audition at the state fair in Indiana; the tape got sent to New York and Webster's New Word was invited to a showcase at Arthur--a discotheque named after Ringo's haircut and owned by Sybil Burton. Webster's New Word had just gone electric, and I had rejoined the band for just this one last gig (I had quit Webster's New Word to play drums with the Signe Anderson-era Jefferson Airplane and even taught Skip Spence how to drum). I got drafted and returned to Notre Dame. It was an amazing performance, and the next day we were signed to Columbia by John Hammond, on the spot, after we auditioned unplugged in his office at Black Rock. By this time we had added Jim Mason [who co-wrote "I Dig Rock 'n' Roll Music"-ed.] From 1965 thru 1967 we toured with the Mamas and the Papas and were produced by Felix Pappalardi. We got fired off the Mamas and Papas tour after a gig at Fordham University where we were at our absolute best and they weren't; Lou Adler canned us on the spot! Webster's also did a Gillette "Heads Up" hair goo commercial but I couldn't participate because my hair was too long. I just did the music track! We also did a commercial for Kohler Distributing - a great track.
TL: Getting back to The Shaggs, what kind(s) of music style(s) did the band first start with?
FK: We mainly looked to the top hits of the day and played cover songs people could dance to at the parties and mixers we were hired to play. We could play more originals when we played on the porch of Sorin Hall on football Saturdays.
TL: Who influenced you?
FK: Geoff brought in a surf influence and John Hall was really into The Beatles. I came from a rhythm and blues and an American rock 'n' roll background. The Kingsmen would be one example of that sound.
TL: How did you describe the music you played at the time?
FK: We were a consistently entertaining and exciting party band. Chuck - being a theater student - was quite the front-man and could turn on the tears when singing to the ladies on the slower numbers.
TL: Where did you typically practice?
GG: I seem to remember some rehearsals in the basement of Farley Hall, which is where Frank and Chuck resided. I was in Sorin Hall until I was thrown off campus. That is another whole story...
TL: Did the band have a manager?
CP: The Shaggs manager was really Frank. He had a knack for corralling the class and hall social directors and the manager of the student center into gigs.
FK: I was leader of the band and had the name, the P.A. and the hearse. We came close to a democracy after we finished fighting over direction of the band.
TL: Where did the band play live? Dorms? Dances? Campus Halls? South Bend bars? Chicago?
CP: The main other campus band from our freshman year (1965-66) were The Shamrocks. They were our competition for all the frat parties that were held almost every weekend at a place called the Laurel Club on the other side of town. It was far enough away from campus that the junior and senior class social organizations could rent it out, a floor for each class, and have bands, dancing and booze. It was a wild scene, great parties, girls dancing on the tables, guys doing the alligator on the floor. I had this 50-foot mic cord and I would wander the room and dance floor during certain songs. We had no cars at one point, so The Shaggs would take two cabs there and back. Frank had it all worked out so all the equipment would fit in one cab and the two trunks, including his drums and the PA, and we would all cram into the other cab.
GG: We mainly played campus parties, "mixers" with St. Mary's College, rallies and a few in-town club gigs. We didn't travel too far away as I recall, but I do remember that Frank had an old hearse that when we did venture out that's how we showed up equipment and all of us. It was pretty outrageous! I recall carting around a Hammond B3 organ with a Leslie tremolo and I think a Wurlitzer electric piano that I played. The Shaggs pretty much had the market cornered in the Michiana area during that year, 1966.
FK: We played a few bars and clubs in the South Bend area. I also remember playing a class event at the Indiana Dunes and even one time playing on a train. The train was full of students bound for West Lafayette, IN for the Notre Dame-Purdue football game.
TL: Do you recall what kind of instruments (make and model) that the other Shaggs played?
GG: I'm pretty sure there were some Fender amps and guitars involved. I know that Ray (Wheatley) played through a Fender Bassman amplifier. I was more of a Gibson guy when it came to guitars. I have that guitar in my possession today.
TL: What was the farthest gig from South Bend that The Shaggs played?
FK: I seem to recall some clubs and bars around the Chicago area.
TL: Tell us more about the Kingsmen show...
FK: They were only a few years older than us. They were so open and helpful with their tips. Their drummer showed me how to get a good punchy sound out of my drums.
TL: Did The Shaggs ever open up for any other "name" '60's groups?
The head security guard where I work, Dennis Miccolis, was the original keyboard player for The Buckinghams and can be heard on the worldwide smash/oldies staple Kind Of A Drag. He said he played South Bend in the '60s.
TL: Did any other bands come through the city? I have heard that Jr. Walker and the All-Stars got their start in South Bend and I know The Riverias (of California Sun fame) were from the Michiana area.
CP: When Stepan Center was built on campus, we became one of the main openers for concerts there. The Kingsmen (Frank's dream come true) were one and I remember we also opened for The Supremes there.
FK: We were not aware that Jr. Walker was from the area until years later. The Riverias were really before our time. We also opened for Bob Seger and the Last Heard, The Buckinghams, The Mob (from Chicago) and that band that had the one big hit, The American Breed.
TL: How did the Wink LP recording come about? Please tell us more about the MCM record label? Who is the "winker" on the front cover? I like the two originals and the upbeat cover of the Searchers' (or the Cryan' Shames') Sugar and Spice - plus the well chosen Beatles covers, If I Needed Someone and The Night Before.
FK: MCM was derived from the last name of Bryan McMahon. He was a major "Type-A personality" from the business college. He thought he was going to make a lot money from the project. We just went along for the ride knowing that he was taking all the risks. McMahon probably booked us at International Recording Studio in Chicago because it was cut-rate cheap. We really did record it all in 20 hours straight as the back of the album states. The most takes we did of any one song was around 20. Brian ended up trying to sell the album door-to-door on campus and lost a lot of money on the whole deal.
GG: We were mainly a cover band, even though we had the two originals on the record. We took the opportunity to squeeze a couple in, but mainly we chose songs of the day that we liked, generally tunes that had lots of background vocals (because we could), and of course the usual Beatles and Stones covers. By the way, the "winker" on the cover is me. I can't remember why!
TL: Was the title of the album inspired in any way by the grapefruit soda-pop from Canada Dry named Wink? I noticed from a vintage ad that the Wink soft-drink logo and the Wink font that appeared on the album are somewhat similar.
GG: There was no reference to the Canada Dry product called Wink. It was just an idea we had.
TL: What were your impressions after recently re-listening to the album?
GG: The Wink CD-R was interesting, yet somewhat painful, to hear after all these years. There were definitely some good moments and surprisingly good, thick background vocals.
FK: While I have not listened to record in over 30 years, as soon as I heard it I didn't think the sound was good at all. It sounded okay in the studio, but the record was very underdeveloped and didn't capture any of our live energy at all. The bass shows up as non-existent and I would have put the drums deeper into the mix. Who knows what it would have sounded like if we had more studio time?
TL: Were there any other recordings that never made it to the album?
CP: We recorded two songs in nearby Elkhart, IN. The songs were Farmer John (mp3), one of our big crowd pleasers, and Too Dark For Day (mp3), a song Geoff and I wrote. I have a copy of the acetate, which used to get quite a few plays on WSND [campus radio station] and the Huddle [a campus snack bar/hang-out] jukebox.
TL: When did The Shaggs break up and why?
FK: I really don't have clear answer on this. We used to put the band on hiatus each summer. Our bass player Ray Wheatley graduated in that spring of '68. In addition, the style of music we played had been fraying for the past couple of years. Fortunately, we were able to continue making some serious money with the live gigs before calling it a day. The administration was probably glad as they hated us for a variety of reasons. Looking back, it really was a fertile time with lots of talent coming through the band. We really had access and opportunities that are non-existent for a band today. I would hate to be 20 years old now and try to make it in the current atmosphere.
TL: What other bands did you play in after The Shaggs?
FK: I drummed in a Supremes-like group called Red Top and the Young Family that was based out of Northern Ohio and toured the "black & tan" clubs of the Midwest.
GG: Shortly after making Wink, I heard that things had not materialized for Webster's and that Gus was back at Notre Dame - after doing a brief stint playing drums with a group called Jefferson Airplane! I slipped a note to Gus at the architecture building asking him if he felt like playing some music. He called me back and said he was interested and that was the beginning of Captain Electric and the Flying Lapels. I had become close friends with Dennis Lopez, a bass player in another Notre Dame band called The Plague. He was interested in being part of a new band with Gus and I and signed on. We had seen a South Bend local guy play drums and Barney Shultz came aboard to round out the quartet. The first time we all got together and played, something magical happened and we knew the chemistry was something special. It was almost scary!
TL: Did Captain Electric record?
GG: In 1968, my junior year, Captain Electric decided to make a record of a rock opera we had put together based on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Ode to Joy movement. This was before anybody, The Who or Procol Harem, had done anything like this. We recorded it at a studio in the middle of a cornfield in Pekin, Illinois. The next summer, Dennis and I started shopping it around in New York and somehow got a meeting with a producer named Tom Wilson. When we walked into the Record Plant Studio, Tom was in the middle of a recording session but he immediately put our tape on and after listening to the first three minutes of The Symphony, he stopped it and said, "Boys, step into my office." On the spot, he signed us to ABC Dunhill where he had a deal to produce seven albums in a year, and wrote us a check of $10,000 to cover our costs of making the record with enough left over to go back and polish it up! Also, (he asked us to) get ready to go on the road to promote the record. Well, I went back to the Jersey Shore with the news and my parents had mixed feelings about me dropping out of college, but were happy for me as far as getting the recording contract. The rest of that summer was great; I was going to be a rock star!
CP: One interesting sidelight to all of this is Golden Voice Recording Studios, operated by my friend Jerry Milam. Everything recorded during this period on my Webster's Last Word Record label was done there - The early Chuck & Mary stuff, The Shags [Pekin] recorded their 45 there. Dan Fogelberg did some of his first demos there. And I brought a lot of groups from ND back home to record there, including Captain Electric's Symphony, and one other great ND rock group from '68-'69, First Friday. I produced their now much sought after LP and released it on Webster's Last Word.
TL: Would you be able to tell us more about The Delphic Oracle? Supposedly, it was the first psychedelic nightclub in the Midwest! I have heard bits and pieces about it over the years.
GG: This is a very interesting story... Right after Captain Electric formed, my roommate, Eddie Kurtz, had the bright idea of creating a club for our new band to play at. We all thought it was a good idea and we got 20 of our friends to take out $100.00 loans from the Notre Dame Credit Union, and with $2000.00 we took over a recently defunct Italian restaurant and proceeded to build a club. We did everything by the book, getting all the proper permits and doing everything necessary to meet the local codes. It was an incredible club once we got done with it, complete with an amazing light show and a "head shop" in the back. I think that was the thing that got us into trouble...
The first weekend the club was opened, it was a huge success - and packed. We were able to pay back all the original investors! The second weekend, the band went out and bought all new equipment from the proceeds. In the meantime, The Delphic Oracle had become the talk of the town. We were the subjects of every radio/TV show in South Bend. It was like fervor! They hated us! There were all these innuendos about it being a drug haven, which wasn't the case at all. We just wanted a place to play. We couldn't be responsible for what went on among the locals, but on the third weekend, it was pure profit - we were putting the money in our pockets! On the fourth weekend, however, we noticed that our rent-a-cops didn't show up and before long, a SWAT team showed up and shut the evening down taking a few of us to jail, specifically Eddie Kurtz and Dennis Lopez. There were some trumped-up charges about de-facing the American flag. There was a poster of the American flag with flowers on it on the wall, and some charge about cow manure in the streets that dated back to 1890. It was totally bogus. At any rate, that was the end of The Delphic Oracle. South Bend was not ready for us!
TL: After the record was tied up in record company politics (and never released) I have read that that Captain Electric moved out to California around 1970. I found it very interesting that you rented a band house in Laurel Canyon from landlord Fred MacMurray! However, it sounds like things never really got off the Western ground musically with the commerce-minded music industry looking for cookie-cutter groups at that time and Captain Electric being outside the pre-fab mold. What did you do musically in the wake of Captain Electric?
GG: Eventually, we decided to throw in the towel. Dennis went back to Notre Dame to finish his last semester, Gus started doing architecture, Barney moved to Florida where his Mom had moved to and I had a few more adventures as a musician. I auditioned for, and got the gig working for a guy named Mac Davis as a Hammond organ player. I think I lasted for two gigs when I quit, not only hating the music, but also not really clicking with Mac! I then joined one more band with an artist named Tim Rose. Do you remember him? He did a slow tempo version of Hey Joe that inspired Hendrix and wrote Morning Dew that The Grateful Dead recorded. The guitar player in this band was a guy named Andy Summers. A few years later I picked up the first Police record and there he was. Anyway, Tim Rose had had a serious drinking problem, and even though he was sober when I was with him,he unfortunately couldn't get arrested by any of the record companies because of his reputation. I guess he had been seen sloshed at the Troubadour too many nights in the past. Too bad, because he was really talented and we had a great thing going.
TL: From research on Google and allmusic.com, I know that you are a recording engineer and worked with legends like Lamont Dozier and Sergio Mendes. How did you make the transition from stage to behind the scenes?
GG: After that band fell apart, I sat around for a month trying to decide what to do. I almost went to the airport everyday to fly back East. Then, a light bulb went on and I got the idea of becoming a sound engineer. I knew I loved being involved with music, and I also knew I wasn't an exceptional musician or song-writer, so I called Peter Granite - the engineer who had done our record and asked him how would I go about becoming a sound engineer. He mentioned he had heard about a guy in Burbank that was just getting ready to build a new studio, and maybe I could get in on the ground floor. So I went over there and made a proposition that I would give him a good deal as a carpenter to help build the studio and when it was completed, they would train me to be an engineer. That's exactly what happened. I spent the next six months of my life building this studio and one day, I put the hammer down and the first client to come in to check this new studio out was Stevie Wonder. He put a tape on and liked the way it sounded in there and my apprenticeship was a year with Stevie Wonder. Go to the head of the class! The record was Songs In The Key Life. For the next five years, I worked at that studio, called Kendun Recorders, which became the hottest place in town. I got to work with everybody from Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, George Harrison, Billy Preston, Mick Jagger, Bad Company, Lamont Dozier, and Fleetwood Mac - just to name a few. It's also when I met Sergio Mendes who I went on to have a 23-year working relationship with. The rest is history. Now it's 30 years later and I'm still here and have been fortunate enough to parlay this into an ongoing career. I think this is what I want to do when I grow up!
download:
The Shaggs - Wink (1967)
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Vomit Launch - Live at the Rokkhouse
Being located conveniently off of the Indiana Toll Road between Chicago and points east helped South Bend live up to the state motto of the "Crossroads of America." This meant that bands on tour who were visiting Chicago could stop by South Bend on their way to or from the Windy City.
In the Spring of 1992 I received a call from Teenbeat Records, who had just agreed to release Vomit Launch's Dogeared LP. Vomit Launch was a Chico, CA-based band that spent the late '80s and early '90s bouncing around obscure record labels. According to the band's official history, "The music climate was changing - post-Nirvana the big labels seemed to be coming in and picking up any stupid band with loud guitars - but Vomit Launch didn't fit that mold. Plus they still had this dumb band name."
The newest member of Teenbeat Records was playing a gig at the now-defunct Lounge Ax in Chicago and had an open date on the band's calendar. We had a few Vomit Launch records in the stacks at WFVI and I owned a copy of Exiled Sandwich. The Student Union Board at Notre Dame wasn't very friendly towards indie rock, so for expediency's sake, I invited the band to play a live show in the basement of the Rokkhouse at 919 South Bend Avenue. I don't even recall promoting the show with flyers. In the pre-Internet era, we probably relied on word-of-mouth.
On April 11, Oatmeal opened up for Vomit Launch, and if I remember correctly, it was probably the only live performance by the lo-fi pop band that consisted of me and fellow 1992 ND graduate Jim Doppke. The headliners put on a spirited show that evening and our basement was packed with students and locals alike. They crashed somewhere in the Northeast Neighborhood and the next morning, after a hearty breakfast of omelettes, Vomit Launch headed east to Pittsburgh. I recall that my housemate admitted he had a bit of a crush on the lead singer, Patricia Rowland.
--Jeff Jotz
P.S. The "It's Coming!" banner behind the stage was a banner promoting the Hoosier Lottery, which began in October 1989. I refuse to reveal the source of said banner ;-)
It was cold! The party was in a cool old 2 story house, and we made spaghetti and then hung out pre-party; everyone was really nice, and they had rad lights strung up and a stage built in the basement. One (?) of the housemates had a conflicting gig with his band, the Bucket Kickers, so they (the Bucket Kickers) walked off to their show. He was super cute. He was an artist. Yummy. Can't remember his name. Wish I did. I wanted to see the Bucket Kickers! But it wasn't meant to be. South Bend seemed pretty cool and music friendly. Decent radio station, smart people, etc. The party crowd was extremely enthusiastic and we had a good time. Sold lots of stuff, rock stars oh yes. Then we drove a long ways away and spent the night in the apartment of a nice young man. Left the next morning, still really cold.
--Patricia Rowland, Vomit Launch
Visit vomitlaunch.com for a complete band history, free mp3 downloads, and much more.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Oatmeal - Rabbitcore Demo
Oatmeal pays homage to the site of the Rokkhouse, SB, IN, 1994. One of us was thinking about doing a concept album about the history of jorts.
Oatmeal: I Do Not Know What “Rabbitcore” Means
Oatmeal was Jim Doppke and Jeff Jotz getting together at Jeff’s urging in late 1991 or early 1992. (The directors of Oatmeal Holdings LLC have knowledge of only one photograph of Oatmeal (above), taken after the demise of Oatmeal the Band, Inc. Therefore, the rest of the article will be illustrated with public domain images courtesy of NASA.)
Jeff had definite ideas about how we should sound, and I tried to do them justice: 1. Basic love-rock sound. 2. Cool-sounding minimalist instrumentals. 3. Tight, cut-off endings. 4. Cover “Do Ya.” I wasn’t really sure I was versed enough in playing actual rock music to do any of this, having previously invested some time in affecting a singer-songwriter persona. But Jeff was excited about it, and I was excited about playing with Jeff, so I gave it a go.
And by “gave it a go,” I mean: mooched incessantly off the good will of others. I was not well-equipped for this experience in any real sense. Think of the person you knew who had the weirdest gear. What’d they have? A mauve left-handed Strat with Hello Kitty stickers all over it, including the fretboard? A nameless amp that somehow had wood paneling on it? The infamous “Eat Me” bass? Well, I had ‘em all beat. I owned a white Gibson Explorer
So I asked many people for permission to rock, and they granted it. At various times, I borrowed guitars from the extremely cool brainiac Marshall Armintor, as well as goes-without-saying-how-extremely-cool-he-is Ted Leo. I also borrowed four-track usage from TL as well as extremely-cool-like-the-other-side-of-the-extreme-pillow Joe Cannon. We rocked at the Rokkhouse, a place at which I did not live and paid no rent (though Jeff did). I borrowed amps, microphones, patch cords, picks, orange Fanta, spare change, and pocket lint from God-knows-who. I had my own guitar tuner, though, thank you very little. Overall, if I had been any less materially invested in this thing, I would have had to pay a cover to see us.
I then set about trying to write songs that I thought Jeff would like. I drew on our shared influences: Unrest (“Caustic”), Bob Mould (“Met Myself”), the Feelies (“Honorablesque,” “Bridge” [Jeff’s words!]), etc. The process was: 1. Knock around on guitar in room. 2. Play song for Jeff. 3. Play song with Jeff. 4. Jeff goes “Alright! Rad!” 5. Song finished. I’m lucky Jeff was as enthusiastic about the whole thing as he was. I also learned some covers at Jeff’s suggestion, like the Wooden Soldiers’ “Commercial Avenue” and the aforementioned “Do Ya,” but note the attention to detail on that last one. I probably could’ve learned how to play the real bridge instead of just improvising my own, but I had to wash my mullet that week (the Seinfeld look was very big back then, don’t let anybody tell you any different).
Jim’s mullet is met with icy silence at Club 23.
- Club 23, possibly an open mic, possibly not. I remember playing our cover of Chisel’s “Swamp Fox/Spike” to some stirs of recognition in the crowd.
- Opening for indie-rock legends and all-around nice people Vomit Launch at the Rokkhouse. I remember wearing a thrift-store tee that said “Heart Throbbing” on it. That’s right, a thrift store tee in 1992, yeah, I was born this cool. Read it and weep, trendinistas. Though the real story here is that I paid for the shirt with my own money.
I also remember playing our cover of “Who Painted Whistler’s Mother?” by the Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet (still a beloved favorite of mine, salaam to the Shadowy Men) at the VL show, and somebody from VL (Trish, the singer?) kindly praising our cover of The Feelies’ “Let’s Go.” Then, rather than brave the rigors of the Rokkhouse after the show, the VL folks stayed at my apartment. They were really funny and cool; they put up with my impetuous indie-rock self, and they made scrambled eggs for me the next morning. When I tell this story now, people seem surprised that I ate scrambled eggs prepared by people who called themselves “Vomit Launch,” but I didn’t blanch at it then and still don’t.
TL let me play his main Chisel guitar, and we used his drum kit as well. He recorded us on his 4-track, and he and his punk rock silver-spray-painted Stratocaster joined us on “Rokk-o-Medley.” (First one to name the song TL sings, and the original artist, wins a chance to enter a raffle in which the grand prize is a ticket for a drawing to win a cassette of Oatmeal’s other demo tape, the one recorded in the Rokkhouse basement on one microphone and featuring a cover of Toni Basil’s “Mickey.” [ed. note: winner will receive prize sometime within the next seventy-five years])
When we heard Ted play on the "Rokk-o-Medley" we said "my God... it's full of stars."
Whenever I read this blog, I’m impressed with ND rockers’ dedication to their bands, even now. I wish I could say I showed that kind of dedication to Oatmeal, though I still do like our stuff a lot. Jeff’s game-for-anything drumming makes these songs for me, gives them the good nature and sense of fun that Jeff himself embodies. I also love to read, over and over, people’s expressions of thanks for the opportunity to have made music with their friends. I echo that sentiment wholeheartedly. As short-lived and small as Oatmeal was, it made a big impression on me, mostly because my good friend Jeff was having fun with it. And I was too, thanks to his infectious enthusiasm and sense of humor. I am forever glad that I got to experience them at close range, that he chose me to do this with him. And to cover “Do Ya.”
Thanks to everybody I mentioned, everybody I should’ve mentioned but didn’t, all our friends, all ND/SB rockers, the SBP90s guys for the time and care they put into this blog, and you for reading this.
--Jim Doppke
--------------------------
Oatmeal comes full circle.
I've seen fellow Jerseyans The Feelies more times live than any other band, so naturally, a cover of "Let's Go" was appropriate for our live show. And "Commercial Avenue" was a cover by an obscure 1980s band from New Brunswick, NJ called the Wooden Soldiers. You can download the EP here. As for "Do Ya," it is still one of the most rockin' pop songs of all time, and I will never, ever get sick of hearing it. I celebrate Jeff Lynne's entire catalog.
Jim Doppke was a skilled songwriter due to being a Bruce Springsteen fan during his formative years, so I was always impressed with his song ideas. I don't really know what influence I had on him... perhaps I just made his tunesmithing more bizarre.
Our recording session in Ted Leo's Radium City in 1992 was held the same day as my grandfather's wake. Seventeen years later, I still feel guilty for rocking out in Ted's basement instead of standing solemnly at the funeral home that afternoon. My grandfather moonlighted as a lounge singer in Newark, NJ in the 1930s and 40s and perhaps he would have been proud that I was carrying on the Jotz musical genes.
--Jeff Jotz
listen/download:
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
V/A - Incubus 1993: ND Music Compilation
LISTEN UP!
A new campus band CD is on the way
by Pete Dedman
"Somebody said the music was not good enough to play"
--"Green, Red, and Blue" by Brian, Colin, and Vince
Well, apparently somebody was sorely mistaken. Not only is good, original music being produced here at Notre Dame, but the music scene has developed, especially over the last year, into a rich and diverse assortment of bands ranging from punk to folk to jazz. Two years after the WVFI Jericho Sessions were released, a new CD [Incubus 1993], sponsored by S.U.B., is in the works, documenting the present campus music scene through the work of 16 bands playing their own original material.The bands are as diverse as they are talented and have all played a major role in creating a vibrant music scene at ND. The CD will feature popular and established groups such as Dissfunktion, Chisel, The Sister Chain, Brian, Colin and Vince, Palace Laundry and Victoria’s Real Secret, as well as younger bands fast on the rise, including Grope For Luna, Bother and Bovine Solution. Rounding out the playlist will be Mr. Head, 2-10, the Porkchoppers, Emily Lord, Access Denied, XYZ Affair and a jazz group, Thee Accent. The CD, as of yet without a name (though an accompanying booklet has been designed by Peter J. Pultorak), is due out soon after spring break, according to co-producer Steve Sostak.
"There’ll be a final mixdown of all the songs on March 10. Then we’ll take the masters down to the Sony plant in Terre Haute, and, if all goes as planned, we’ll have it out a couple of weeks after break," Sostak said. Sostak, who is also the lead singer for Victoria’s Real Secret, has found the work as producer to be easier than expected. He added, "Most of the real work was already done by the end of last semester, thanks to [co-producer] Ryan Hallford," who is on a leave of absence this semester.
Hallford was also instrumental in the success of Acoustic Cafe, which has been taking place regularly in the LaFortune basement each Thursday night for over a year. Acoustic Cafe features an open-mike setting, which allows for musicians to experiment and try out new songs before a live audience. "Especially with Acoustic Cafe, Ryan’s been very instrumental in trying to push original music," he said.
Joe Cannon, lead singer and guitarist for Mr. Head, credits the recent success of an original music scene on campus to certain artistic fountainheads. "A few very original, talented and active musicians have sparked a large interest in creating original bands/music, especially among the younger students," Cannon said.Ted Koterwas, assistant producer for the CD, is more specific in giving credit where it is due. "I think the success of Brian, Colin and Vince really opened up the way for original music being accepted more readily." Koterwas, who plays drums for Grope for Luna, added, "Joe Cannon has been something of a powerful original musical force as well."
The rising acceptance of original bands on campus has also been spurred on by the success of St. Mary’s Dalloway’s Coffeehouse. Each Wednesday and Saturday night, the Coffeehouse, charging little or no admission, had presented full-length shows by acts featured on the CD such as Brian, Colin and Vince, Chisel, Mr. Head, the Sister Chain, Grope for Luna and Bother, as well as brilliant performances by other bands such as emiLy, and most recently, Severinsen.
As opposed to Acoustic Cafe, Dalloway's is a forum for bands who have already proven themselves to perform in a full show setting, when an optimum number of people can be expected to come. On Saturday nights, while the rest of campus is partying themselves senseless, the Coffeehouse draws 100 people on average. "I’ve been pleasantly surprised by its success," remarked John Dugan, drummer for Chisel, whose performance at the Coffeehouse in January drew 175 people.
With such live successes, stated Dugan, "there‘s obviously enough interest out there for original music." Dugan hopes that the success of the new CD will result in organizations getting more cooperation from the Student Activity Council, in terms of being able to get smaller bands to play at Notre Dame, "so that our campus bands can get a chance to play with them. This will give these bands more exposure to playing live, as well as a chance to get their name passed around the larger music circuit," he said. Last fall Victoria’s Real Secret opened for They Might Be Giants and Chisel will open for Velocity Girl on March 31 in the LaFortune Ballroom.For many, though, just the CD itself is a huge accomplishment. Everyone involved expects this compilation to enjoy more success than 1991’s Jericho Sessions. As Cannon described, "Yeah, this should be better. The idea behind this is campus bands. As a result, almost all the bands are very well-known. Jericho Sessions, on the other hand, was originally meant to be a sampler of acoustic acts, and there ended up being more of a hodge-podge of musicians just recording for the sake of contributing to the CD. At the same time, (former WVFI station manager) Kevin Flaherty’s work with The Jericho Sessions was indeed seminal."
"The Jericho Sessions certainly paved the way for what's going on with the current CD," concurred John Dugan.
Dugan, Cannon and other musicians who appeared on The Jericho Sessions, have agreed that the recording studios for this effort are far better facilities than those used on the last sampler. Most of the bands have been recording over the past two months at Miami St. Studios in town. The recording process gave several of the musicians their first opportunity to put down their music in a studio environment. Miami St. engineer John Nuner was very helpful in making the process rewarding for the more experienced bands as well as the "rookies."
"For the most part he [Nuner] took direction from the bands, and allowed them to come up with their own sound, the sound they wanted on the CD," said Cannon, who was quite pleased with Mr. Head’s recording of "Weather," their offering to the CD. Cannon also attributed the ease of recording to the fact that "an analog recording was made first, instead of recording directly to digital, so it was a more natural recording process." Mr. Head bassist Dave Holsinger, for whom the recording process was a first-time experience, found himself quite pleased with the outcome as well. "We heard some bands took 9 or 10 hours, so relatively, I found the whole process to be somewhat easier than I'd expected," said Holsinger.
As Bother bassist and Dalloway’s Coffeehouse manager Kelly Daugerdas attested, "It was a lot more work than expected, at times even tiresome, but by the end, we really felt exhilarated." The band is also elated at the success of their recording for the CD, "Kill the Popular Kids,” even before the CD has been released. Their explosive song has garnered enough airplay on WVFI to crack into the station’s weekly Top 20, and thereby warrant mention in the nationally distributed College Music Journal.For other, older bands, the CD is a chance to document what may be swan songs, as members graduate or leave. For Brian, Colin and Vince, whose co-founder, Brian Muller, transferred to Boston University at the end of last semester, the CD is just that. Featuring the a capella intro, "Yahtzee," the band has recorded "Green, Red, and Blue" for the CD, with astonishing success. "The recording fortunately occurred at a peak for us as a band,” said guitarist Colin Clary. "‘Green, Red, and Blue' is a bit more serious than our other songs but it's really almost beautiful, and I don't use that word a lot; well, I do, I guess, but it was really good," he eloquently added. Later this spring, Clary says he will finish a CD of Brian, Colin and Vince’s last semester together. To be titled Bucket o’ Fun n' Stuff n' Yeah, the CD will feature at least 15 songs from the band.
Whether half the campus knows it or not, the music scene is alive and well at Notre Dame. A large amount of ignorance is due to the fact that many bands play at private parties rather than overcrowded bars, and some people just aren’t open-minded enough to pass up those bars for a show at the Coffeehouse on a Saturday evening. Nevertheless, the campus CD is for all to enjoy, so, as your spring break tans begin to fade, keep your eyes open for great original music that’s been under your noses all along.
-- from the March 4, 1993 edition of Scholastic, Notre Dame's student magazine. The musicians pictured in the article are members of Grope for Luna.
---------------
It's funny to have this Scholastic article come back to light. I was a little haunted by it in hindsight - and by hindsight I don't mean sixteen years down the road, I mean a month after it was published. That is, I rued not having spent more space presenting the featured bands in an in-depth way. Although to my mind, Chisel, Brian Colin & Vince and so many other of the acts were by that time household names, that familiarity may have only been present for hundreds of devoted fans on campus. This article was an opportunity to really introduce the excitement of the 'SB Power 90s' scene to the uninitiated thousands. I missed that opportunity a bit, but hopefully the music took care of my understated oversight!
--Pete Dedman, October 2009
Track Listing:
1. "Fish" - Victoria's Real Secret
2. "Dream Bar" - Chisel
3. "Angelina" - Emily Lord
4. "Kill The Popular Kids" - Bother
5. "Yahtzee/Green, Red And Blue" - Brian, Colin and Vince
6. "Follow Me" - Access Denied
7. "In The Crowd" - Grope For Luna
8. "Take Me To The Funktion" - Dissfunktion
9. "Peter Pan Syndrome" - XYZ Affair
10. "My Name Is Sky" - The Sister Chain
11. "Weather" - Mr. Head
12. "Smitherman" - 2-10
13. "I Don't Look Back" - Thee Accent
14. "Never Had The Time" - Palace Laundry
15. "Pyramid" - The Bovine Solution
16. "Punch The Clown" - The Porkchoppers
listen/download:
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Potatomen - Live at Dalloway's
The Potatomen: Friends of the Bend
An Interview with Larry Livermore by Ted Liebler
It all started a couple of weeks before when I passed out flyers for WVFI’s upcoming Potatomen/cub band-a-rama at the Riverdales, Gaunt, Fastbacks show at the Lounge Ax in Chicago. Out of the blue and a few weeks later, Ben Weasel (of the Riverdales, Screeching Weasel) called WVFI requesting if they could play the show with their friends the Potatomen. I recall I had to go an early evening seminar at the Snite Museum on New Mexican pottery. Usually the Southwestern subject would have truly engaged me, but this night was hard to sit through as I was thinking about the possibilities of the 2nd Riverdales show ever! The day of the show finally arrived and I stopped by WVFI and Jim Jadwisiak and Ron Garcia were at the station. Jim said, “I have some good news and bad news for you Ted. The bad news is that Ben Weasel called and had to cancel because of problems with their van. The good news is that the station got the new Mr. T Experience EP today.” To a non-Buddhist trained mind, it was letdown city as I thought to myself there was simply no comparison and Ford Econoline Rent-A-Vans were surely easy to come by in Chicago. On a regular day, the arrival of a new MTX EP would have been exciting, but this would have been a major coup for WVFI to bring Ben Weasel to ND-or technically SMC. In those days before widespread internet use, word about the Riverdales’ cancellation traveled slower than the I-31 highway under construction.
That small and endearing coffee house known as Dalloway’s was packed by the time the Potatomen, all the way from Berkeley, went on that April 5th night. The Potatomen were so well received and reflected my current perspective that music can be a complex thing that has the power to make the world simple again. Making their triumphant return to ND/SMC/South Bend/Michiana, the headliners cub played a joyful set that had almost the whole room dancing. The night hit its zenith when the Vancouver, BC band ripped out their Cars’ cover of "My Best Friend's Girl." At one point, I looked back beyond a room of smiles to the shadowy back corners and spotted a bunch of upset hardcore punks. The arrival of these hardcore punks (perhaps from the Chicago suburbs or maybe even Granger) to encounter two indie rock bands, the Potatomen and cub and no Ben Weasel made for quite the sideshow element. (However, if they were truly upset what were they doing hanging around for the entire show?) The night had it all: Harmony, Contrast, Balance, Unity, and Disorder as the Dalloway’s cash box was ripped off that night...
This edition of Friends of the Bend brings us the thoughts and reflections of Larry Livermore. Larry was the leader/lead singer of the Potatomen and co-founder of Lookout Records–the label which brought the world the sounds of Green Day, Screeching Weasel, the Mr. T Experience, the Queers and our own Ted Leo. The UC-Berkeley graduate is now living in Brooklyn, following his beloved Fulham Football club and writing his first novel.
TL: After the show, you made the very Hank Williams-esque statement that crisscrossing the country as a band was easy street or biscuits 'n' gravy or some such thing. At the time, I didn’t know if you were being facetious or serious or both.
LL: Ha! I don’t remember ever using either of those expressions in my life, but I very well might have said something like that, hopefully in a similar vernacular. I was probably being facetiously serious, in that up to that point, we hadn’t had any real problems on the tour, and it had indeed been as easy as dipping biscuits in gravy, or however the saying might go. But that’s easily explainable by the fact that the Notre Dame show was only the second one of the tour; it had been booked in an unfortunate format that required us to drive some 2,400 miles before playing our first show in Ann Arbor, Michigan. So although the three days it took us to make that drive were filled with some chagrin that we hadn’t had the foresight or aptitude to set up shows for ourselves along the way in, for example, Winnemucca or North Platte or even lovely Dubuque, we otherwise had a good old time listening to music, arguing among ourselves as to what was the best Smiths or Hank Williams song, and having a feet-up-on-the-dashboard look at this great country of ours. The trip back west was not quite so smooth, involving such things as blizzards, break-ins and fitful bursts of rancor and tears, but I’ll suppose you’ll ask more about that later on.
TL: Would you like to add any words here about life on the road as a band? I recall, from a Lookout ‘zine, you wrote about the trials of listening to a bandmate's New Order tape over and over again on one of the Potatomen's tours.
LL: And it looks as though I was right! I don’t, however, remember any specific incidents with a New Order tape, though that’s entirely possible. Ironically, New Order are now ranked high in the regular rotation on my iPod, being especially appropriate for gym workouts and running, but at the time, I would have found it a trial, and it’s quite possible that the bandmate in question might not have been with us for the long run. As noted above, the Smiths and Hank Williams maintained a stranglehold on the Potatomen van (known as Blimpo, by the way) stereo, along with occasional discursions into Morrissey solo records.
But yes, other trials: well, there was the time we had a raging argument that lasted from Berkeley to Portland, Oregon over the merits or lack thereof of facial hair, with the band being evenly divided on the subject. By the time we’d hit the far north of California, I (one of the antis) was being accused of wanting to put all bearded men into concentration camps, when in fact, all I’d said was that if you put a fence down the middle of the planet and put all the beardos on one side and all the clean-shavens on the other, a survey would demonstrate a better intellectual and moral climate on the clean-shaven side.
After we left Notre Dame on that particular trip, things went smoothly enough for a while, the roughest part being when we were required to attend a backyard barbecue in Minneapolis, where locals stood around in t-shirts and shorts despite the temperature hovering around 40 degrees (apparently this is what passes for summer in Minnesota). Two days later, we were stranded in a sudden blizzard near Bismarck, North Dakota (it was the first or second week of April, so I think we were entitled to a little indignation).
The worst episode of the tour, however (provided we’re not talking about the quality of some of our performances) came in Missoula, Montana, where someone broke out the front window of our van and ran off with all our clothes, my acoustic guitar, Patrick’s violin, and my brand new leather jacket, while we were on stage playing. Apparently it happens quite a bit in that deceptively small and innocent-looking town, but we were completely unprepared for it, and even more unprepared for having to make the rest of the trip with a sheet of plastic covering the window and the wind howling like a banshee at a volume that made arguments about the Smiths and Hank Williams not only impossible, but also more pointless than usual, because we could no longer hear the stereo either.
TL: I was under the impression that the band arrived in the late afternoon on an overcast day and really didn’t have time to wander the verdant campus. Still, any impressions of South Bend? It’s OK if you compare it to Eureka, CA or Westland, MI... Any comments on the Notre Dame music scene at the time? (Again, I realize you only encountered 6-7 hours worth of certain aspects of it.)
LL: We did get there fairly late in the afternoon, and it was gray, and we didn’t really have time to see much more than we saw from the van as we found our way to where we’d been instructed to show up. I honestly don’t remember who set up the show for us, but now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it would have been cub’s booking agent, Margie, as she arranged the entire tour. Anyway, I don’t remember seeing much of South Bend apart from the campus, and not too much of that, which was kind of a disappointment for a Catholic boy who’d been filled with stories of Notre Dame for 12 years of elementary school and high school. Some of our teachers actually used to make us say a prayer for Notre Dame on Fridays during football season. It was as though they saw Notre Dame winning as a victory for all Catholics in much the same way JFK’s election was.
For what I saw of it, I was very impressed by the Notre Dame music scene. It was the kind of scene I occasionally encountered in smallish towns – Arcata, California was another one – that were located far enough from major population or cultural centers that people got together and made up their own entertainment rather than just wait for it to come to them, and the result tended to be more creative, quirky and eccentric than you’d typically encounter in one of the more conventional scenes. I’m thinking of both Krautmiser and Sweep The Leg Johnny in particular. Also, such scenes tend to be much more cooperative and supportive as opposed to the competitive and copycat tendencies one tends to encounter in the “big” towns.
TL: I remember that you told a group of us a story that a nun once told you, “One day, you’ll make it to Notre Dame” and how grateful you were to play at the University with the Potatomen.
LL: I highly doubt that any nun ever predicted that I would make it to Notre Dame; if anything it would have been the opposite: more along the lines of, “If you carry on the way you are, you’re not only never going to get to Notre Dame, you’ll be lucky to get anywhere apart from reform school.”
That being said, I was indeed very proud and grateful to finally make it to Notre Dame, even if it was under circumstances that I never would have imagined back in high school. If anything, I wished the nuns could have seen me, though I doubt they’d have been too impressed. One of them had also rejected me from the high school glee club because I “just didn’t have a voice made for singing.”
TL: You were generous enough to distribute your last major issue (#40) of Lookout that night. I remember friends and myself discussing your writing and perspectives for months. I know your life situation shifted in major ways at that time in your life, but did you foresee (#40) being that last major issue of Lookout?LL: No, I had no idea at the time that #40 would be the last issue. On the contrary, I was quite pleased in that I felt I had broken new ground with that issue (first full color cover, much greater diversity of material, expanded size) and that I had passed the 10-year mark in publishing it. I was already writing articles for the next issue, including a tour journal that I was keeping, and to this day I have a computer file somewhere full of outlines and partially completed stories for what would have been Lookout #41. It’s just that things were getting a little crazy back in California with the rapid expansion of Lookout Records and the attendant complications brought on by that, and the work just kept getting put off and put off until one day I realized that it probably wasn’t ever going to happen. And once I left the record company, I lost the distribution network that had enabled me to get the magazine all over the country. It was a bit discouraging.
TL: I remember that people wanted the Potatomen and cub to stay longer in South Bend, but the band had to get to (West) Lafayette to record at Mass Giorgini’s Sonic Iguana to record that same night (the split EP with cub). Was West Lafayette the ending point of this tour?
LL: No, on the contrary, Ann Arbor and South Bend were the first two shows of the tour. We had one day off in Lafayette (West Lafayette, the home of Purdue, was just a few minutes walk away, but the studio itself, as well as Mass’s home, was located in Lafayette. From there we went on to Minneapolis. cub had a show in Chicago which we were not asked to play, so that night, the two bands played separate shows, and then we met up again in Fargo ND/Moorhead MN the following night for the rest of the tour out to the West Coast.
TL: Did the successful ND/SMC experience/show influence those Sonic Iguana recording sessions which resulted in the first Mint Records/Lookout label split 7”/CD? (The Beautiful & Damned by the Potatomen and The Day I Said Goodbye by cub.)
LL: I think we were all buzzing from the excitement and enjoyment, and that that did in fact help us to breeze through the Sonic Iguana session (only one; we had to do it in a hurry). Normally, Potatomen recording sessions were drawn-out ordeals, owing in large part to my perfectionism and nervousness that caused me to make an inordinate number of mistakes. But those three songs (our two songs plus a Buddy Holly cover for the CD version) were done in two or three takes at the most. In fact, we chose the Buddy Holly cover and learned to play it on the spot when we realized we should probably record a bonus track for the CD. While I do think that recording on the heels of a great show helped the mood considerably, we also had the advantage of working with the very talented – both on his instrument and behind the board – Mass Giorgini. Just having him in the band and as our recording engineer made us feel about ten times more professional than we ever had before.
MP3 download:
The Potatomen - "The Beautiful & Damned"
(from the Potatomen/cub split EP, The Beautiful & Damned/The Day I Said Goodbye)
see also:
The Potatomen @ larrylivermore.com
The Potatomen on MySpace
The Potatomen on last.fm
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Snowi Springs - Snowi Springs/Yam Soap
"This is dedicated to anyone who's ever picked up instruments, played and/or recorded a few songs then thought up a name then called themselves a band." -- Snowi Springs
Chris:
The snowy spring of 1993 begat Snowi Springs. Colin Clary, Ted Leo, Chris Norborg. St. Peter Street. Drums, bass, guitar, one mic. Tape running, all improv.
Ted:
So, I'm downloading the Snowi Springs as I type, and though I remember these recordings fondly, I have a conceptual issue to bring up (and I ask this with all good humor) - is it right that everything that everyone has ever done be made eternally available for anyone with an internet connection? I mean, all of those different improv groups that happened - Snowi Springs, Sweet Mama of Guadeloupe, Oatmeal, Water, Ferry to Helsinki version of Chisel, etc. - like, I think that part of the reason they remain so special in my mind is because we were just doing it for us - no pressure, no goals or intent other than to have fun and create, and the amazing thing is that we came up with some amazing stuff, and probably, whether we knew it or not, grew as artists because of it. I've become really bummed out on the instant gratification world and the entitlement that the yung'ns seem to fee they have to that access to instant gratification for all things at all times lately - it's one thing I dislike about YouTube - a show can never be about living in and experiencing and APPRECIATING the moment anymore - there's always someone taking video for tomorrow or later that night or years down the road. I love Snowi Springs because I remember that weather and that house and that night, and I love that it happened. And I have no problem sharing it with people, but I'm driven to deny universal access, not because I need to cling, but because I feel like it cheapens it a little. Listen - I am MORE than willing to admit that I may be putting too much weight on these otherwise fun things, but does someone wanna try and talk me down from this ledge?
Listening to it right now... it's pretty great... I'm on "Foil Belt" now... shit - I'm about to go completely back on everything I said above and say we should do a fucking reunion...
O.K. Fuck that - this tape is AWESOME - "Alice & Roland??" "WASHY??!?" So good. The world should have universal access to this.
Chris:
I live on that ledge. Not that I want to go back to the days of nothing but oral histories and whatnot -- long live John Lomax -- but, to my mind, we should have stopped with the crackly old silent Super 8 home movies. The advent of home video was not-a-so-good, in my opinion. Virtually every second of my younger cousins' childhoods are committed to video tape. Now every sight and sound is digitized, cataloged, reminisced over, commented upon, and widely disseminated. No more warm and charmingly fuzzy memories.
But whatevs. We were our own poor man's Lomaxes. And let us not forgot the core principle of Sudden Shame - that is, sudden shame. Not that it's all shameful. But some of it sure is! And it definitely has a certain 1993 Time Capsule feel to it, what with "Joe's Apartment" (MTV used to be so good) and the Koresh-inspired "ATF" (which I love, btw).
Colin:
Listening to it now-- I was often somewhere between huge smile, big cringe, and rueful and amused laughter! I think that there is something totally awesome and also something a little embarrassing about the recordings, but I agree with the idea of staying true to what the thing was about– the whole semi-spontaneous aspect of getting on an instrument, having to say what the name of the song was gonna be and then going for it.
"Dextro" sounds awesome (except for my wack singing, which ranks up there with "Long D Silver" and "When I Can" as some of my least awesome!). I love "ATF," "Foil Belt," "You Must Know How Beautiful You Are." As a document of what it was, I love it 100%. "Bag of Gardetto's!" "Rebus!" Yow! The power of an upright, right in your hand!
I love living room bands, so much fun. Some of this cracks me up with its awesomeness. Sometimes I can tell I wanted the song to go on forever, other times I'm not sure what we were thinking. There were chance elements involved and we just went for it. Recording an album should feel this easy...
I never regret that we pressed the record button. I couldn't think of a better way to have spent those days.
listen/download:
see also:
Snowi Springs on MySpace
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Krautmiser - Last Show 6/3/1995
In the summer of 1995, Krautmiser went on tour through the Midwest. It culminated in a final show in Doug McEachern's basement in Pennsylvania, where all good things must come to an end. Amazingly, a video of the show survives, and even more amazingly, we're going to feature it here. Krautmiser aficionados may recognize the deep tracks "Daft Benefactor" and "Puck's Theme," previously thought lost forever.
On this tour, a Vietnam vet in Sandusky was close to starting a fight with us; in South Bend, we took all the couches, tables, chairs, indeed every stick of furniture, out of Jules and Jack's house and burned them in a midnight bonfire, causing the fire department to attempt to pay us a visit--a failed attempt, for Cripe Street was under construction; we enjoyed an enchanted evening with St. Louis' own Beatle Bob; and our roadie went AWOL from the Army.
Those are the true Krautmiser stories. Here is a fake Krautmiser story, which James wrote on tour and read aloud before Krautmiser's show at a coffeehouse in Kansas City.
Krautmiser didn't intend to go on tour in that humid summer of '95. The boys had decided to take time off from the music for a while and go prospecting for gold in the Ozarks. You may find it hard to imagine those dapper young men of leisure sweating in the afternoon sun as they toil with rock picks and chisels, but make no mistake: a gaggle of pale effete aesthetes Krautmiser is not. Although Krautmiser's streetfighting days were behind them, their pugilist's strength and endurance remained: indeed, the London Times, reported that not only was Krautmiser rumored to have participated incognito in shady prizefighting tournaments, but that drummer Jack Howard had actually killed a man in the ring—a revelation that scandalized a nation. Protective mothers forbade their daughters from attending Krautmiser shows, tut-tutting that "if those lads can't control themselves in the ring, how do you think they'll treat a young lady?"
In any case, as the rest of Krautmiser was panning for gold in the Arkansas River deep in the heart of the Ozarks, Jules Dingle, Krautmiser guitarist, struck the mother lode. "Gold! Gold! Gold, I tell you, boys, gold!" Jules bellowed from the side of the mountain as he rappelled down. Krautmiser's eyes opened wide at the sight of the vein Jules had uncovered in the side of the mountain. What a windfall! Finally, Krautmiser would have enough money to buy a moon rocket. This was a longtime dream of vocalist Dave McMahon's, and only reluctantly revealed after one too many white wine spritzers at a local saloon. "Daddy always said, son, you gotta be a moon man," Dave slurred as he swung his bottle around in a clumsy arc. "He always said I was his little moon man. Dad always said, son, you gotta go to the moon. Damnit!" Dave threw his bottle to the ground. "Who am I kidding? I'll never make it to the moon. I ain't nothin' but another chump in a suit. They don't let chumps on the moon, I hear! Oh, what's the use! I'll never be an astronaut! Pour me another drink there, Kennedy—I'm blubbering like a baby."
But now it looked like Dave's crying days were over. "Finally," muttered bassist James Kennedy as he swung his rock hammer into the mountain, "we won't have to listen to that sniveling buffoon weep into his pillow every night about his precious moon."
It took days for Krautmiser to mine the gold, but at the end of the week, all the ore was packed into Krautmiser's stagecoaches. It was only then that Krautmiser had their first fateful run-in with Old Man Grizzard—the self-proclaimed "Master of the Mountain" who headed his own obscure cult of renegade hillmen and unsavory ex-rangers.
"Varmints! Cotton-pickers! Carpetbaggin' scalawags!" spat the grizzled old prospector, waggling his rock pick accusingly in Krautmiser's direction. "That there's my gold you're totin', boys!"
As always, Jules Dingle was calm and cool and ready with his acid tongue. "By what rights, you locust-eating old coot? Out of our way, or we will be forced to strike you."
"Goddamned city boys—I'll keelhaul the lot of ya!" sputtered Old Man Grizzard. "I'll have you know that this is my land you're standing on—and I suggest you clear off in a hurry—sans that gold, of course!"
"Your land, huh?" Jack Howard asked skeptically. "Prove it."
"Why, I just happen to have the deed right here," said Old Man Grizzard. And out of the right breast pocket of his flannel shirt he produced a crumpled, yellowed legal document. "See here, boys, this mountain has belonged to me since eighteen-ought-four!"
James Kennedy scanned the document with a critical eye, bringing his encyclopaedic knowledge of nineteenth-century American colonial law to bear on it. "This is all well and good, Mr. Grizzard, but not only is this document improperly notarized, but it also has its basis in an archaic Missouri statute that was struck down by the Supreme Court's landmark 1837 Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge decision, in which then-Chief Justice Roger B. Taney established the policy of 'eminent domain.' In other words, this land belongs to no one—and therefore, the gold we mined belongs to us."
"Flamin' hootenannys of sweet Jesus! I own this land de facto!" snarled the ornery mountain man. Burly, gamey-smelling figures stepped out of the shadows, fingering the triggers of their muskets. Old Man Grizzard chuckled to himself. "You drop that gold right now, fellers—or I'll fill your behinds so full of lead that you'll never have to worry about atomic radiation again for the rest of your lives."
"Your deadly uranium is our morning tea," riposted Jack Howard airily. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, he turned to Krautmiser. "Boys! Shall we scrap a bit with these hillbillies for our hard-earned gold?"
Dave McMahon, tears brimming in his wide, innocent eyes, stepped forward. "I've never wanted anything in my life so much as a moon rocket," he said, voice cracking a little. He shook a tiny trembling fist. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get it. I say we fight, guys."
"Then it's settled," smirked James Kennedy as he finished changing into his purple-and-yellow spandex fighting gear, complete with glitter and lace ruffles. "Let's throw down, you inbred honkies—and let me teach you a new meaning of 'squatter's rights.'"
And so the brawl began. "Man, those gymkata lessons sure are coming in handy," muttered Jules Dingle as he delivered a roundhouse kick to Old Man Grizzard's chin from off the pommel horse, ending in a triple reverse flip and flawless recovery that brought the judges' table to their feet. "Gottinhimmel!" shouted the notoriously difficult-to-please German judges in exultant joy. "A new Mary Lou Retton for a new unified Fatherland!"
"Sorry, boys," said Dingle as he wiped his brow. "But my heart and my incomparable gymkata skills belong to the good ol' U. S. of A. Good luck in '96, guys—you'll need it."
Soon Krautmiser had dispatched all of the mountain men. Only Old Man Grizzard was left standing.
"Hogtied! Hornswaggled!" howled Old Man Grizzard impotently, jumping up and down in rage. "You done put some kinda hex on my boys or somethin'—this ain't right! Tain't natural!"
"Nothing magical about it at all," replied James Kennedy as he wiped blood and spittle from his hands with a pre-moistened lemon-scented towelette. "Just the usual skills one picks up when one has to fight one's way out of an Iranian prison with nothing but one's own bare knuckles and a first edition of Brideshead Revisited."
And so Krautmiser boarded their stagecoaches and left the Ozarks for good. But even as they pulled away from the mountains, they could still hear Old Man Grizzard's mad ravings:
"This ain't the end! No, not by a sight!" hollered the crusty codger. "I'll pursue you gold-heistin' varmints up and down this great land of ours—I'll strap on my magic nose and smell the roads for your droppings—I'll pursue you in the dead of night from city to city, soiling my own undergarments in the sheer thrill of the chase. O! Young Krautmisers! You have stolen gold from the wrong man. For as you can see, I am more than a man—I am a man who is even now wetting himself."
And so began Krautmiser's 1995 summer tour. Pursued by gold prospector Grizzard, Krautmiser flitted from St. Louis—to Oklahoma City—to Kansas City—to Chicago—to Sandusky—to South Bend—to Pittsburgh—to Philadelphia—to Newtown, PA—and finally to the moon, where Krautmiser had their lunar showdown with Old Man Grizzard in the barren wastes of the Sea of Tranquility.
A new addition to the Krautmiser cast: our roadie, the indefatigable Puck
Naturally, none of it could've been done without the help of Krautmiser's resourceful roadie Puck. Three cheers to Puck, who was always on hand with the right quip, riff, or farming implement to help Krautmiser out of a tight situation. Puck’s unparalleled beekeeping skills have saved Krautmiser from Dr. Hexagon's "flesh hive" more than once. An accomplished linguist, Puck once compiled a definitive Etruscan-to-English dictionary—essentially, the elusive "holy grail" of classical liguistics—during his off-hours on one of Krautmiser’s international tours. However, as soon as Puck completed the massive scholarly opus, he just as deliberately and soberly burned it, if only to spite the hidebound academic establishment that had jealously expelled him from their ranks so many bitter years ago. And, of course, every schoolchild knows that Krautmiser would be in Davy Jones’ locker at the bottom of the Challenger Deep had not Puck single-handedly outwitted the merciless Emperor Gionko and his cadre of pinochle-playing robots at their own game. The beloved tale was produced by Universal Studios as a full-length motion picture, starring Emmanuel Lewis as Puck, the Facts of Life girls as Krautmiser, and the 1985 Chicago Bears as the scheming yet fickle Emperor whose lust for potpourri spray and brass knickknacks was—ironically enough—his own undoing.
see also:
Krautmiser on MySpace
On this tour, a Vietnam vet in Sandusky was close to starting a fight with us; in South Bend, we took all the couches, tables, chairs, indeed every stick of furniture, out of Jules and Jack's house and burned them in a midnight bonfire, causing the fire department to attempt to pay us a visit--a failed attempt, for Cripe Street was under construction; we enjoyed an enchanted evening with St. Louis' own Beatle Bob; and our roadie went AWOL from the Army.
Those are the true Krautmiser stories. Here is a fake Krautmiser story, which James wrote on tour and read aloud before Krautmiser's show at a coffeehouse in Kansas City.
Krautmiser didn't intend to go on tour in that humid summer of '95. The boys had decided to take time off from the music for a while and go prospecting for gold in the Ozarks. You may find it hard to imagine those dapper young men of leisure sweating in the afternoon sun as they toil with rock picks and chisels, but make no mistake: a gaggle of pale effete aesthetes Krautmiser is not. Although Krautmiser's streetfighting days were behind them, their pugilist's strength and endurance remained: indeed, the London Times, reported that not only was Krautmiser rumored to have participated incognito in shady prizefighting tournaments, but that drummer Jack Howard had actually killed a man in the ring—a revelation that scandalized a nation. Protective mothers forbade their daughters from attending Krautmiser shows, tut-tutting that "if those lads can't control themselves in the ring, how do you think they'll treat a young lady?"
In any case, as the rest of Krautmiser was panning for gold in the Arkansas River deep in the heart of the Ozarks, Jules Dingle, Krautmiser guitarist, struck the mother lode. "Gold! Gold! Gold, I tell you, boys, gold!" Jules bellowed from the side of the mountain as he rappelled down. Krautmiser's eyes opened wide at the sight of the vein Jules had uncovered in the side of the mountain. What a windfall! Finally, Krautmiser would have enough money to buy a moon rocket. This was a longtime dream of vocalist Dave McMahon's, and only reluctantly revealed after one too many white wine spritzers at a local saloon. "Daddy always said, son, you gotta be a moon man," Dave slurred as he swung his bottle around in a clumsy arc. "He always said I was his little moon man. Dad always said, son, you gotta go to the moon. Damnit!" Dave threw his bottle to the ground. "Who am I kidding? I'll never make it to the moon. I ain't nothin' but another chump in a suit. They don't let chumps on the moon, I hear! Oh, what's the use! I'll never be an astronaut! Pour me another drink there, Kennedy—I'm blubbering like a baby."
But now it looked like Dave's crying days were over. "Finally," muttered bassist James Kennedy as he swung his rock hammer into the mountain, "we won't have to listen to that sniveling buffoon weep into his pillow every night about his precious moon."
It took days for Krautmiser to mine the gold, but at the end of the week, all the ore was packed into Krautmiser's stagecoaches. It was only then that Krautmiser had their first fateful run-in with Old Man Grizzard—the self-proclaimed "Master of the Mountain" who headed his own obscure cult of renegade hillmen and unsavory ex-rangers.
"Varmints! Cotton-pickers! Carpetbaggin' scalawags!" spat the grizzled old prospector, waggling his rock pick accusingly in Krautmiser's direction. "That there's my gold you're totin', boys!"
As always, Jules Dingle was calm and cool and ready with his acid tongue. "By what rights, you locust-eating old coot? Out of our way, or we will be forced to strike you."
"Goddamned city boys—I'll keelhaul the lot of ya!" sputtered Old Man Grizzard. "I'll have you know that this is my land you're standing on—and I suggest you clear off in a hurry—sans that gold, of course!"
"Your land, huh?" Jack Howard asked skeptically. "Prove it."
"Why, I just happen to have the deed right here," said Old Man Grizzard. And out of the right breast pocket of his flannel shirt he produced a crumpled, yellowed legal document. "See here, boys, this mountain has belonged to me since eighteen-ought-four!"
James Kennedy scanned the document with a critical eye, bringing his encyclopaedic knowledge of nineteenth-century American colonial law to bear on it. "This is all well and good, Mr. Grizzard, but not only is this document improperly notarized, but it also has its basis in an archaic Missouri statute that was struck down by the Supreme Court's landmark 1837 Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge decision, in which then-Chief Justice Roger B. Taney established the policy of 'eminent domain.' In other words, this land belongs to no one—and therefore, the gold we mined belongs to us."
"Flamin' hootenannys of sweet Jesus! I own this land de facto!" snarled the ornery mountain man. Burly, gamey-smelling figures stepped out of the shadows, fingering the triggers of their muskets. Old Man Grizzard chuckled to himself. "You drop that gold right now, fellers—or I'll fill your behinds so full of lead that you'll never have to worry about atomic radiation again for the rest of your lives."
"Your deadly uranium is our morning tea," riposted Jack Howard airily. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, he turned to Krautmiser. "Boys! Shall we scrap a bit with these hillbillies for our hard-earned gold?"
Dave McMahon, tears brimming in his wide, innocent eyes, stepped forward. "I've never wanted anything in my life so much as a moon rocket," he said, voice cracking a little. He shook a tiny trembling fist. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get it. I say we fight, guys."
"Then it's settled," smirked James Kennedy as he finished changing into his purple-and-yellow spandex fighting gear, complete with glitter and lace ruffles. "Let's throw down, you inbred honkies—and let me teach you a new meaning of 'squatter's rights.'"
And so the brawl began. "Man, those gymkata lessons sure are coming in handy," muttered Jules Dingle as he delivered a roundhouse kick to Old Man Grizzard's chin from off the pommel horse, ending in a triple reverse flip and flawless recovery that brought the judges' table to their feet. "Gottinhimmel!" shouted the notoriously difficult-to-please German judges in exultant joy. "A new Mary Lou Retton for a new unified Fatherland!"
"Sorry, boys," said Dingle as he wiped his brow. "But my heart and my incomparable gymkata skills belong to the good ol' U. S. of A. Good luck in '96, guys—you'll need it."
Soon Krautmiser had dispatched all of the mountain men. Only Old Man Grizzard was left standing.
"Hogtied! Hornswaggled!" howled Old Man Grizzard impotently, jumping up and down in rage. "You done put some kinda hex on my boys or somethin'—this ain't right! Tain't natural!"
"Nothing magical about it at all," replied James Kennedy as he wiped blood and spittle from his hands with a pre-moistened lemon-scented towelette. "Just the usual skills one picks up when one has to fight one's way out of an Iranian prison with nothing but one's own bare knuckles and a first edition of Brideshead Revisited."
And so Krautmiser boarded their stagecoaches and left the Ozarks for good. But even as they pulled away from the mountains, they could still hear Old Man Grizzard's mad ravings:
"This ain't the end! No, not by a sight!" hollered the crusty codger. "I'll pursue you gold-heistin' varmints up and down this great land of ours—I'll strap on my magic nose and smell the roads for your droppings—I'll pursue you in the dead of night from city to city, soiling my own undergarments in the sheer thrill of the chase. O! Young Krautmisers! You have stolen gold from the wrong man. For as you can see, I am more than a man—I am a man who is even now wetting himself."
And so began Krautmiser's 1995 summer tour. Pursued by gold prospector Grizzard, Krautmiser flitted from St. Louis—to Oklahoma City—to Kansas City—to Chicago—to Sandusky—to South Bend—to Pittsburgh—to Philadelphia—to Newtown, PA—and finally to the moon, where Krautmiser had their lunar showdown with Old Man Grizzard in the barren wastes of the Sea of Tranquility.
A new addition to the Krautmiser cast: our roadie, the indefatigable Puck
Naturally, none of it could've been done without the help of Krautmiser's resourceful roadie Puck. Three cheers to Puck, who was always on hand with the right quip, riff, or farming implement to help Krautmiser out of a tight situation. Puck’s unparalleled beekeeping skills have saved Krautmiser from Dr. Hexagon's "flesh hive" more than once. An accomplished linguist, Puck once compiled a definitive Etruscan-to-English dictionary—essentially, the elusive "holy grail" of classical liguistics—during his off-hours on one of Krautmiser’s international tours. However, as soon as Puck completed the massive scholarly opus, he just as deliberately and soberly burned it, if only to spite the hidebound academic establishment that had jealously expelled him from their ranks so many bitter years ago. And, of course, every schoolchild knows that Krautmiser would be in Davy Jones’ locker at the bottom of the Challenger Deep had not Puck single-handedly outwitted the merciless Emperor Gionko and his cadre of pinochle-playing robots at their own game. The beloved tale was produced by Universal Studios as a full-length motion picture, starring Emmanuel Lewis as Puck, the Facts of Life girls as Krautmiser, and the 1985 Chicago Bears as the scheming yet fickle Emperor whose lust for potpourri spray and brass knickknacks was—ironically enough—his own undoing.
see also:
Krautmiser on MySpace
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)