the deal was, that Jay suggested to Lars that they pool their efforts and start a band which would play the music they had been restrained from playing in the ol' high school band, HER COUSIN. Lars took the baton and contacted Goo, chanteuse extraordinaire, in the remote hopes that she might be interested. strangely enough, she was! Justin and Bern, who Lars had played with in the illustrious COMMUNAL GYM SHORTS, were recruited, and the proverbial ball was rolling. Brian TROSKO, noted graduate of Radnor High School, mentioned to Lars that somebody he knew down in Chapel Hill was having a big annual outdoor fest on his farm. yr narrator, being the highly motivated band promoter that he used to be, instantly asked rhetorically if they needed any more bands, and alas, they did! LAMPshADe:'s first gig was landed, and the band hadn't even formed yet!
the only minor problem was that Jay and Goo were still in school, and couldn't make it down to North Carolina to play. nor did we have a drummer. luckily, Rob VIOLA of HAYWOOD fame volunteered to play the traps for us, and volunteered his tried & true basement for our practice space. Erik EVOL of MANTA RAY fame offered his services as singer & last-minute arranger of chords. there were only 5 or 6 days until we had to cram into the car, so we took some lyrics Jay had e-mailed us, set them to music, learned Rob VIOLA's infamous "Billy's Bounce," and we were off.
we drove in two cars - me in a car with Brian TROSKO, and everyone else in another car. oh well. all i remember about the show itself was that we slept in tents, none of the other bands had the slightest to do with indie-rock, bern kept yelling "I'm from PHILLY!!!!!!!!!!", and that we were assininely referred to as "BOYS FROM PENN' instead of our chosen moniker, BENOIT PUNG. Erik fondly recalls that when we showed up, the night before our set, they were projecting the old startar wars parody, HARDWARE WARS, on a screen on the stage. we were the second band of the day - the first band kicked out "Take Me To The River." Erik, donning his KISS t-shirt, was drinking warm vodka heavily (it had been in a car trunk for days), perhaps to ward off the stage fright of singing lyrics which he hadn't really learned in front of an unrehearsed band which he wasn't really in, and i can still see him swinging open the passenger door and puking out into a parking lot. ROCK 'N ROLL!!!
oh boy. here we are - Greg GOFF and i in someone else's jeep with Justin and Mark (British) POWELL behind us in Ree's Blue Mazda, on route 2 traversing from Williamstown in the upper left hand of Mass. to Boston in the lower right hand corner of Mass., en route to our show tonight at the Middle East, already 45 minutes late for soundcheck, and a beebee or small pebble or something just put a hole in the windshield. i of course in my boundless stupidity remarked to Greg that this type of damage to a windshield was the most annoying kind, since the hole was only about yay big (*) and the whole windshield would apparently have to be replaced. instantly, as if an act of God or fate or God-fate, the windshield cracked downwards from the hole a good six inches. i of course almost shat myself and have since knocked on the wood of Greg's acoustic.
so the deal is this: Goo couldn't come up with us, Mike couldn't come up with us either, the Montreal show fell through, Mark agreed to drum for us, we couldn't fit his drum set in the Mazda, Greg volunteered to drive his set over across the state for us (a gesture of paramount kindness, i might add), his car was unfortunately knocked out of commision, the woman that he baby/housesits for let him borrow her jeep, and now we are proceeding to trash it while listening to WEEN and Jon S.'s blues exPLOsion. yee ha…
10:55 am, Tue. 21 June 1994
YES. we ended up getting there two and a half hours late after narrowly avoiding two accidents. the sound guy, upon our arrival, said that he had figured that we weren't playing and that he wasn't sure that we still could. my jaw sank, but it all worked out. we made up last minute flyers (which Justin and Greg handed out in Harvard Square and along Mass Ave.), ate free hummus and pita and falafel sandwiches, drank free dark beer, etc. i played guitar for a live interactive linkup with some guy named Jack in L.A. for the 21st Century vaudeville thing a ma jig in which he sang "run away. run. run. runaway." and we laughed. wa hoo.
the show: we were as tight as a skater fashion boy's shorts, the mikes insisted on feeding back incessantly, we whittled the crowd down from about twenty to about four, and we were sloppier than a college pro paint job. but: we had fun, we rocked out at points, and the otherwise incompetent soundman looped my bass feedback at the end of the set in a fantastically cool manner. i got to wiggle my butt to it and ended up breakdancing. so to top off the positives of the night, we actually got paid $10!
plus: as we were driving through NorthWestern Mass., Justin asked
"what was the name of that last song?" and i replied, "Spandex Tre--"
and just then we passed a sign on our left that said
also: while we were on Route 2 heading East, we were stuck in an aggravating line-up of cars stuck behind a truly bimboic couple going 35 in a 55 zone. so we had no choice but to put our lives in grave peril by passing a dozen cars at once. these things happen.
Wed. 22 June 1994?
i woke up with a hangover this morn. (morning after we crashed at Mark BARTLETT's place?)