Category: News

One of the perks of being in a rock band that you don’t hear about that often is that only very rarely is one called upon to submit a grant application.  Yet that’s just what we did in advance of our UK tour of May 2000.  A national arts council with money to allocate wanted to know what uniquely English thing we’d do with it.  Persuaded that our first concept, a rock opera starring Susanna Hoffs and Jamie Farr entitled Bangles and M*A*S*H, was a nonstarter, we decided instead to add a couple of Brits to the lineup.  We had done something similar in the U.S. in February/March with our friends, Mac McCaughan and David Kilgour.  But in this case, we went further afield.  It was hard to imagine what Neil Innes and Sonic Boom had in common, other than that we were fans of them.  (And in the case of Neil Innes, that’s an understatement–I had been obsessed with the Bonzo Dog Band since high school.  As much as I liked Monty Python, I went to their NYC live show strictly because Neil was part of it.)  A week into a European tour, we scheduled two days in London for intensive rehearsal before our show in Cambridge, on this day fourteen years ago.  The two-set performance ran close to three hours, with both Neil and Sonic singing a few of their songs (as well as us singing Spacemen 3’s “Walkin’ with Jesus” and the Bonzos’ “Ready-Mades”).

Following our Toronto show, we had an off day to drive home, after which we were to play with Hypnolovewheel at the Knitting Factory on this day in 1992.  It was an eerie trip as we followed the reaction to the Rodney King verdict on the radio, not knowing what we’d find when we got back to New York.  We didn’t think it possible to ignore what was going on around us, so we opened our first set with “(You Caught Me) Smilin'” and our second set with some improvised attempt to convey fear, confusion and anger, though I suspect we mostly communicated confusion.  Hopefully the mood was lighter, though probably no less confused, at a Wellesley College matinee in 1998 when we invited our nine-year-old nephew to take a Farfisa solo on “Emulsified,” no prior training required.  Making our way to northern California, we spent a delightful day in Sonoma County in 2012, playing an afternoon set at The Last Record Store and Freewheeling in the evening in Petaluma.  Last/not least: Electr-o-pura released on May 2, 1995.

Eleven years and one week after debuting The Sounds of Science, we return to the San Francisco International Film Festival.   At the end of 2011, documentarian Sam Green asked us to compose and perform music for a “live documentary” about R. Buckminster Fuller.  Rehearsals were primarily in April, in between Sam’s and our other obligations.  In other words, when we got to SF MOMA early in the day on the 1st, there remained all kinds of uncertainty: where precisely we’d set up, how our music would mesh through the p.a. with some of the archival footage, not to mention the question of whether we’d remember how it went.  Ultimately, we were happy with the two shows, and set about finding other opportunities to do the piece again.

In the early years of our band, the only time we had ever been to Canada was a single 1990 show in Toronto, supporting the Sundays.   So we were especially excited about ending our April 1992 tour at the Horseshoe in Toronto.  Sure, we were once again the opener, but none of us had ever heard of the Waltons, and consequently were completely taken aback when we arrived and appeared to be nothing but an anonymous nuisance to the club.  We were told by the house soundman (and we were no longer traveling with our own) that not only wouldn’t the headliners move any of their equipment on the small stage to accommodate us, we wouldn’t even get a soundcheck.  Neither was unheard of, but the combination of how-dare-we-expect-more and the glorified dive ambience of the Horseshoe was infuriating.  (And don’t get me wrong–I mean glorified dive as a description, not an insult.  I’d characterize Maxwell’s the same way.)  The Waltons were the headliner, end of story: “It’s their night,” we were told.  We tracked down our booking agent, who got ahold of his Canadian counterpart, who in turn sent someone to run interference for us (and found someone else to mix us, because by then we were definitely off the house guy’s Christmas card list).  But meanwhile, we were instructed that if we weren’t happy, we should leave without playing, and we’d be paid either way.  But after traveling all the way to Toronto, who wants to leave without playing?  It’s not like there was an all-night SCTV museum to distract us.  Things gradually improved, although our local booking agency representative never lost the look of someone who’d eaten some bad poutine.  Our set went fantastically well, but there was no thought of an encore, not on the Waltons’ night.  So as the house music played, James, Georgia, Joe and I set about breaking down our equipment . . . while the audience continued to cheer and cheer.  Finally–and I have no recollection of whether we were told to do this, or it was so obvious that no one stopped us–we plugged the bass and guitar amps back in and Georgia sang “Cast a Shadow.”  We had our first experience with the toothsome Toronto hot dog cart, and hightailed it out of Canada, with a little too much gusto, as Georgia got nailed with a speeding ticket.

Lots of college dates over the years on April 29.  In 1989 it’s but a short drive from Cambridge to Storrs, CT, and a good thing, for it’s pouring rain and our station wagon is missing the passenger-side windshield wiper.  All that remains is a stump wrapped by a t-shirt, which is kinda hilarious, but 100% ineffective.  Also kinda hilarious is the show, held at the UConn field house and attended by slightly less people than a typical Huskies game, despite a bill that includes Otis Day & the Knights.  Without question, the highlight is that we can drive ride up to the stage for an easy–and dry–load-in and especially -out.  Five years later, we travel to SUNY Buffalo with Rick Brown and play as a quartet.  The next year it’s Haverford with Luna.  Don’t remember much about that show, unlike the following year, when we play with Luna again, this time at the Tunnel in NYC, at a party for the opening of I Shot Andy Warhol.   We’re a quintet: Tara Key who you’ll remember from such films as I Shot Andy Warhol , is on hand, as is Hamish Kilgour.  Method actors to the end, our set is comprised entirely of Exploding Plastic Inevitable-esque instrumental freakout, resolving into “Demons,” our song that plays over the movie’s closing credits.

On this day in 1989, we perform at Harvard University.  I don’t remember much about this show, except that we had some friends in the audience, including visiting dignitary Phil Morrison, destined to be a director of such music videos as “Sugarcube,” “Tom Courtenay” and “I’ll Be Around,” but at the time in the employ of our booking agency, the Labor Board.  He spies someone in the audience wearing a t-shirt promoting a Camp Lawton, which just happens to be the namesake of his boss, and works out a trade of some YLT merch for literally the shirt off this guy’s back.  Two years later, we’re in Albany, on a bill with Boston’s Big Dipper, with whom we’d played roughly a half dozen times before.  Original bassist, Steve Michener, whose name may very well re-enter these pages next month, was no longer part of the band; in fact, this was to be drummer Jeff Oliphant’s final show.  I have an awkward recollection of both groups appearing at WCDB at SUNY Albany, of Jeff not being remotely shy about how happy he was to be free, contrasted by Gary Waleik slumped in a chair, not bothering to remove his sunglasses.  Georgia and I sang “Balancing Act” by his first band, Volcano Suns.