There was a unique Roky Erickson Birthday Tribute earlier this week by several local musicians of note in San Francisco. GibbsMo emCee Parker Gibbs introduces Eric Moffatt’s JACKSHACK . This cover of Roky’s “Goodbye Sweet Dreams” was by the loose coalition known as JACKSHACK featuring Eric Moffatt on guitar & vocals, with Cindy Giuliani on bass, Ricky Wayne Garrett on drums, and Roman Yamilov on guitar.
Video is excerpted from footage I recorded at the recent Sad Bastard’s Club Roky Erickson Tribute Night held at The Make-Out Room in San Francisco July 15th 2019 … Eric Moffat insists on calling his rotating backup band JACKSHACK, and until he comes up with an even shittier name I guess I’ll let him. Personally I already suggested Chief Sour Mashantucket & His Pale White Jazz Hands but he wasn’t interested.
Video of Buck Bito and The Hall Sisters singing a beautifully bittersweet so long and farewell to a place and way of life that defined their youth along Islais Creek in SF. The song is called Cry Baby …
Sisters Laurie & Jennifer Hall musically meshed as dueling vocalists and rhythm section, with added dissonance contributed by guitarist Buck Bito were known as Ovarian Trolley.
Jennifer Hall Ovarian TrolleyBuck Bito & Laurie Hall
A 90’s era San Francisco based indie rock band, Ovarian Trolley released 3 full length CD albums, emerged from the ashes of their previous late 80’s combo Glorious Clitorious and recorded and toured from roughly 1992 thru 1998. This live video recording was made in September 8th 2018 at their a farewell show to their old San Francisco stomping grounds, a final gathering at Laurie’s Lost Door warehouse studio loft space on Islais Creek in San Francisco before eviction. The song was recorded some twenty years since they’d ostensibly ended their Ovarian Trolley musical project with Buck and moved on to other musical and creative pursuits.
Guess this news was off my radar last week, but I’ve just learned today that Jerome “Jerry” Lawson, the charming, but gritty voiced baritone singer and longtime frontman of The Persuasions, who recorded some two dozen albums with the vocal group over a 45 year span passed away at a hospice in Arizona on July 10th at age 75.
Jerry’s contributions to keeping the art of acapella singing alive were innumerable since that first Persuasions album arrived 50 years ago in 1969. His unlikely and long career includes being discovered by Frank Zappa singing to him over the phone, and then getting signed to the Straight/Bizarre label run by Zappa and Herb Cohen around the same time Alice Cooper and The GTO’s were also recording for the imprint. Soon The Persuasions were on the road opening for The Mothers Of Invention, and the first gig was in a segregated southern resort town… a place where none of the band members had ever dared go.
By 1971, now signed to Capitol, the Persuasions opened other shows for Zappa including The Mothers of Invention concerts at Carnegie Hall doing material found on their landmark break thru LP “We Came To Play”. Their sound was pure street vocal harmony, that combined elements of soul and gospel, but was not afraid of rock, in fact their repertoire included covers of songs by Lou Reed, Paul Simon and later even full acapella tribute albums to The Grateful Dead and The Beatles. Wrote future Persuasions’ album producer Rip Rense of the band in a 1986 profile for the LA Times, “They have Persuasioned everything from Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me” to Sam Cooke’s “Good Times” to Curtis Mayfield’s “Man Oh Man.” The recording of “Papa Oom Mow Mow” heard in “E.T.” was theirs.
Of those early informal years in the 1960’s before they were recording records, Jerry Lawson recalled after moving to Brooklyn from Florida that “We’d get a crowd around us. Boy, that harmony was lovely. People would sit around, and get popcorn and Crackerjacks, and just listen to us. Sometimes we would sing until 3 o’clock in the morning,” he told music writer Jim Harrington of Bay Area News Group in 2011. “We had a crowd, and we were singing, man — even the police were all in the crowd,” Lawson told Chris Hansen of the Mesa Az Tribune in 2007. “A lady yells out, ‘Boy, y’all sound good!’ Then she said ‘If you don’t know what you’re singing, it’s called a cappella.’ So that was the beginning right there.”The Persuasions who began performing professionally after so called “Doo-Wop” records had peaked, never wanted to be known as an oldies group and instead referred to their unique sound as “contemporary a capella”.
Whether they planned it or not, by the early 1970’s, The Persuasions, whose career began a decade earlier as just a group of friends singing outside on the basketball courts and front stoops of Brooklyn, were almost single handedly keeping the youthful improvisational spirit of street corner “Doo Wop” alive yet via major label records and tours in a music industry that mostly favored “dance” records, and thought vocal groups were not worthy of airtime or promotion. Jerry was always interested in expanding the horizons of vocal music, not being boxed in, and stayed emphatic that The Persuasions not play any “Doo-Wop” oldies shows, and insisted that booking agents turn down all offers to perform or participate in any nostalgic “Doo Wop” revues.
By the 1970’s The Persuasions were putting out some two albums a year, some were great, memorable charting titles including 1972’s “Street Corner Symphony” with its stunning “Temptations Jam” medley, and the funky drums and electric piano arrangements on “More Than Before” that arrived via A M in 1974. By 1977 they’d moved on to Elektra, and fortunes waned and soon by the 80’s they were on indie labels like Rounder, but still over the years they soldiered on, and Lawson got to record and share stages with an array of artists ranging from Joni Mitchell to Ellen McIlwaine, Stevie Wonder to Rod Stewart, Garland Jeffreys to Ray Charles, Paul Pena to David Essex, Leon Redbone, Sheryl Crow and even Liza Minnelli.
Spike Lee featured Jerry and The Persuasions in a 1990 documentary film he put together called “Do It A Capella” where they told some of their group history.
After 40 years with the group, a tired, bitter and worn out Lawson walked away from The Persuasions in the early 2000’s. Jerry moved to Arizona, and thinking he’d given up acapella singing for good, listening to the Johnny Otis radio show on KPFA, he’d soon stumbled upon a Bay Area group called Talk Of The Town that re-inspired him and they joined forces. The group recorded an album, toured and found a niche and can be seen performing with Jerry here on a nationally televised NBC TV show in 2010.
It wasn’t until 2015 Lawson released his own debut solo album, Jerry Lawson “Just A Mortal Man”, on Nashville based Red Beet Records that includes contributions from Jim Lauderdale. The title is a nod to a 1973 song that was sung by one of his biggest influences, the late David Ruffin of The Temptations.
Here’s a video of Jerry rehearsing “Woman in White,” a song co-written by Lawson with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter for the solo album he recorded with producer Eric Brace at a studio in Chandler Arizona in 2015.
Over the years Lawson made some remarkable music and brought joy to hundreds of thousands of people in concert on the road or through recordings, radio and tv appearances. In 2017, his hometown of Apoka Florida honored him with a special street designation, “Jerry Lawson Way”.
Aside from the street naming, and his solo album release, one of the last accomplishments he was proud of was having his Persuasions’ recordings used in advertisements, like the sample of his voice on “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times)” by Jamie XX that was used in a 2015 Apple I-Phone spot. Another was the Persuasions’ version of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” that was chosen as soundtrack to a 2018 Winter Olympics promo spot that aired all over the country featuring young athletes preparing to head to the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang South Korea. The ad was produced by 72andSunny, a Los Angeles based advertising agency
In the years prior to his death, Jerry was excited that a documentary film was in the works that would tell his life story. That film “Jerry Lawson – Just A Mortal Man” is as yet unreleased, but will tell the story as Jerry went from street corner singer, to internationally renowned recording artist, and into his later life, when after beating alcoholism, he was a renaissance man, who became a humble, yet proud counselor and caregiver to developmentally disabled adults he referred to as “his kids”. Lawson is survived by his wife Julie, his children, and has two official personal websites that document his storied career
Live footage of The Buttertones in San Francisco performing Life Coach, an original song that appears on their 2016 self released “American Brunch” LP.
The cinematic surf noir of The Buttertones captured on multiple foggy lensed cameras in a darkly lit crowded low ceilinged basement full of hysterical sweaty shrieking females, whats not to like?
This video is a multi-cam clip from their 2017 summer tour which I captured below the Swedish American Hall on Market St at the nocturnal retreat otherwise known as DuNord.
The Buttertones, an educated and enigmatic five-piece combo that arose from the Los Angeles basin at the time consisting of Richard Araiza (vocals/guitar), Sean Redman (bass), Modesto Cobian (drums), London Guzmán (saxophone) and Dakota Böettcher (guitar). I have just read that as of July 2019, guitarist Dakota has left the group, so it should interesting as they forge ahead without his additional musical influence.
On the occasion of the band’s 40th Anniversary, the noise mongers collectively known as Flipper assembled on the stage at The Great American Music Hall shortly after 11 pm to deliver their sonic sermon last night.
Prompt , showered and shaved, frontman for the occasion, Mr David Yow greeted some people beside the stage including a bored 15 year old brought 1500 miles by her mother.
After the pleasantries, our cameras turn to capture the opening feedback salvo from Ted, a brief intro of the Flipper as the “the greatest band in the history of forever” be a young female fan in the audience, and Yow & Co take over. David soon leaps into the sold out crowd of some 500 attendees and we’re officially off!
The joyous din kept going until well after midnight. Here are the first few moments of some of the nihilistic nostalgia and friendly frenzy that ensued.
Above is the version from last night, followed below by a video from 2006 of the band featuring original vocalist Bruce Loose at Cafe DuNord in San Francisco with Kris Novoselic on bass.
Gary Floyd’s Black Kali Ma band shot live at the Fillmore in San Francisco joined onstage by the large and lovely Stinky’s Peep Show Go-Go Dancers.
Black Kali Ma was a hard rock band fronted by singer Gary Floyd and at the time of this recording consisted of drummer Bruce Ducheneaux (BOMB, Assassins Of God), bassist JT Antonopoulos (RHYTHM PIGS), and guitarists Matt Margolin (SMOKIN’ RHYTHM PRAWNS), and Danny Roman (SISTER DOUBLE HAPPINESS, THE GARY FLOYD BAND). The hard rocking San Francisco based group, which originally featured ex-Sister Double Happiness bassist Miles Montalbano was formed to build upon the bluesy punk spirit of Floyd’s previous bands and Jello Biafra released their album “You Ride the Pony, I’ll Be the Bunny” on his Alternative Tentacles label in 2000.
Big voiced and big bear-like frontman Gary Floyd first emerged with seminal Austin, TX “commie-fag” band the Dicks in 1980 who later relocated to San Francisco. After the 80’s hardcore scene grew tiresome, Gary resurfaced in Sister Double Happiness, a San Francisco band with a solid, bluesy roots rock sound built around Gary’s passionate emotive vocals and perhaps the first band to create rock music peppered by lyrics influenced by the AIDS epidemic. At the height of their post punk buzz and after their first album came out on SST Gary quit the group and pursued what he calls a “spiritual journey.” While he was studying Hindu deities and considering joining a monastery, but soon major label A&R came sniffing around, Gary reformed the group and dismissed the prospects of a monk like life. He told SF weekly in 1999 “I figured if I joined a monastery I’d probably end up being a pretty bad monk. Miserable me, you know, fucking fag sitting around a monastery pissed off at everyone.” With his group signed to a major label at the crux of the rise of “Alternative rock”, they were on the road opening shows for Nirvana and the future looked bright. Despite promising press coverage, it became clear their reputation as a live band far surpassed their album sales, and after touring the US and Europe multiple times with multiple bassists and releasing albums on a slew of labels, including the aforementioned SST, as well as Warner Brothers, Dutch East India they hung it up as a unit.
Gary continued writing and performing music, doing several solo albums as a blues singer, many of the tunes of which he still does to this day. His life story is told in his published memoir Please Bee Nice,My Life Up ‘Til Now: A Gary Floyd Memoir
now available at this link: evnt.bz/BeeNice
Click his name for links to past performances by Gary Floyd, as I’ve been documenting shows by this gentleman for decades and likely have one of the largest repositories of his live music videos to be seen anywhere. You’ll catch videos of him performing in combos such as The Dicks, Sister Double Happiness, Black Kali Ma, and his most recent group The Buddha Brothers.
July 11 1972 – Remember that time Alice Cooper was busy having a few more drinks backstage at a baseball stadium and 40,000 teenagers got restless in Pittsburgh and a whole bunch stormed the field and dugouts? Humble Pie was finishing up Hot & Nasty and Steve Marriott so inspired the fired up concert goers that security could no longer keep the fans in the bleachers off the MLB baseball diamond. This Alice Cooper / Humble Pie outdoor concert was one of the very first to ever get booked into then fairly new Three Rivers Stadium, the now torn down ballpark was only in its second year of business when promoter Pat DiCesare booked ’em for what was then the largest rock concert in the state’s history!
Cooper’s show had been postponed from a few week earlier when the remnants of Hurricane Agnes had sent rain up and across the country and flooded out some other scheduled outdoor shows that June weekend in Ohio as well.
Pat’s memoir is where where he tells of being told in 1964 to drop off $5,000 bucks in a brown paper bag to a bartender in Brooklyn to secure the Beatles only ever show in Pittsburgh. DiCesare was a pioneer of the rock n roll industry, going from street corner Doo-Wop singer to promoting a 1962 Four Freshman show in Youngstown Ohio and eventually helping define the early days of what we now blithely call “stadium rock”. In the 50’s, Pat was a singer himself, wrote a couple tunes for the Del Vikings, worked at Coral Records label, and and by 1958, DiCesare had formed Bobby Records, named after Bobby Vinton, his label’s first recording artist.
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Circa 1963, Pat was a college student helping out at a jukebox and LP distribution one-stop outlet in Pittsburgh called Regal Records (affiliated with Nick Cenci’s Fenway Recordings) and noticed the Beatles were a hot act. DiCesare saw stores clamoring to get their discs before the competition and sensed opportunity if the band were to tour. “Back then if an artist sold a million records countrywide, we could sell about 50,000 of that release in the Pittsburgh trading area. If they followed up with an LP, we could sell about 5000 of the 12″ vinyl in Pittsburgh. The Beatles had three hit singles out at the same time, which was unprecedented. There was also a fourth song that was only available on an LP that Capitol Records had released. That meant that if a Beatles’ fan wanted that particular song, they had to buy the entire LP. I had never seen this before, but the LP was selling like a hot single.” So Pat DiCesare knew the Beatles were a sure thing, the only problem was convincing some business partners who could pony up the cash to secure the band’s Pittsburgh debut. They got a tip through someone who worked at William Morris agency that if a $5k cash deposit was left with a certain bartender in Brooklyn at Club Elegant, they would be given first dibs on the show.
With DiCesare basically broke & despondent that no one in the music biz he knew was willing to put up a $5,000 deposit to secure the Beatles concert, he turned to his father who had a lowly shipping department gig at Westinghouse. Seeing his son’s desperation, Pat’s dad, with 9 kids, put a lien on their family house to secure a $5000 loan and sent his son off with only a mysterious bartender in Brooklyn as a lead. Eventually, a few phone calls were made and Pat just wired the funds via Western Union, and got a date held. Then the agents in NYC said the $5000 was just a deposit, and they’d need to guarantee the band $35,000 total, about 10x what a normal teen dance headlining act was getting at the time. Pat and his partner figured they’d need to sell the tickets at 2x to 3x normal concert prices to make The Beatles guarantee, as the band’s agents were shrewd and put in a term that they’d take a guarantee vs 60% of the gross, whichever was higher. This was the first time a rock act demanded and received a percentage of the gate as well as a guarantee. Then there was negotiating with Pitsburgh’s Chief of Police, who said that 100 cops would be needed at the show, and he wanted $5000 in cash up front to pay each man $50 (truth was everyone swears there were way less than 100 cops and those asked said they got $20 or a free ticket or not the $50 Chief Slusser had pocketed on their behalf).
While they needed no opening acts to sell the 17,500 tickets at the then unheard of price of nearly $6 each, the September 14h, 1964 gig also had Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Jackie DeShannon, The Exciters, and the Bill Black Combo as special guests, mostly to stall for time.
“While the show is going on, unfortunately, the promoter is in the box office doing the accounting work with the arena who gets their take, the city who gets their taxes, other vendors and most importantly the artists representative” said DiCesare “We call this “settling a show.” The Beatles team took in $37,000 from the box-office receipts, DiCesare and his partner Tim Tormey, (who was initially reluctant to help put up the initial deposit) split $8,800.00. DiCesare was drafted into the Army at the time, where he had his partner send him $100 a week from his $4,400 proceeds at Fort Sill where he claims “he was the richest soldier in the Army” there.
Write Up On Promoter Pat DiCesare from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette
When DiCesare got out of the Army, he began promoting full time, giving up a $300 a month “stable” career as a school teacher to join a risky business where the nightly payouts could be in the thousands. In addition to the Beatles, he presented all the early Rolling Stones concerts, and had to work backstage magic to broker peace with Mick Jagger who threatened to walk out if influential local AM radio station DJ’s Pat had invited were allowed to introduce the band.
Pat was also involved with the infamous “breaking” of the then unknown Tommy James as a hit act in Pittsburgh, and provided him up with new Shondells when it was discovered his old band no longer existed. (Tommy goes into great detail how this happened in his book: Me, The Mob and The Music One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & The Shondells)
In his book Pat recounts flying out, buying a ticket and awkwardly sitting through a Sly Stone concert in another city just to insure Sly Stone made it to the plane for the next concert that DiCesare’s life savings was riding on should Sly not show up for in Pittsburgh the next day. “If there was anything I hated it was sitting in the audience watching a concert. I never did that at any of my shows. This was business, not pleasure. To me a concert was work, not entertainment.”
During the 1960s’ and early 1970’s DiCesare promoted most of the big name concerts at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena and Three Rivers including shows with Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Who, Three Dog Night etc. However, with the music business changing in the 70’s, DiCesare who was not as fond of the changing music biz as he was with his new found real estate investments, and knowing he needed more help tapping into the youth market, as well as mitigate risk, made an offer to a younger local rock drummer who’d become a viable competitor with a campus concert promotion company called Go Attractions, later known as Command Performance Agency. That fella was Rich Engler, who played drums on The Vogues 1965 hit “5′ O’clock World”, but by 1973 had quit his band to focus on the concert business after getting chewed out by Yes’ manager for playing drums in the opening act and not focusing on the overall event production. The ambitious Engler needed access to venues Pat had a lock on, and took the offer to team up with one of his main competitors to co-found the 50/50 split DiCesare-Engler Productions. Over the next two decades Pat & Rich then promoted pretty much every major entertainment act that came to Western Pennsylvania during the last half of the 20th century from Bob Marley to Bob Seger, New Kids On The Block to Kid Rock.
In 1977, the thriving DiCesare-Engler Productions purchased an old movie palace called the Stanley Theater and would pack over 3500 people in it, making it one of the nation’s top mid size concert halls. (That venue is now a focal point of Pittsburgh cultural scene, has under gone $43 million in further renovations and is operated by a community trusts that has renamed it the Benedum Center and hosts The Symphony and touring Broadway shows for a more civilized ADA accessible 2500 ticket holders). Other venues the men used to put on shows included The Syria Mosque, Club Metropol, the AJ Palumbo Center, the I.C. Light Amphitheater, the Civic Arena with retractable roof, and in the 1990’s the Star Lake Amphitheater, The Bud Light Amphitheatre in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and even The Aladdin Theater in Las Vegas.
Long considered one of the top grossing concert promoters in the country, with Engler now doing most of the artist relations, their company packed theaters, arenas and stadiums, and were ranked in revenues right behind Bill Graham by 1978, doing many promotions using popular local radio stations like WDVE and even TV spots like this one from 1994 to get the word out.
Up until 21st century industry consolidation creep by the corporations that would become Live Nation, DiCesare-Engler Productions was the main regional concert promoter in the Pittsburgh area. Pat & Rich’s homegrown based company facilitated shows and help break acts of nearly every conceivable genre: Rush, Queen, Pavorotti, Kiss, Kansas, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Devo, The Pretenders, AC/DC, Van Halen, Ozzy, Bruce Springsteen, Steely Dan, George Duke , Bob Marley, Atlantic Starr, Judas Priest, The Tubes, Elvis Costello, The Police, Talking Heads, Prince, The Replacements, and The Clash.
Engler is proud of his many “firsts”, one such artist he first introduced to central PA was David Bowie (whom he eventually sued when he was a no show to a 1974 stadium gig in Cleveland). The band Genesis, is another fave find of Engler, who he reluctantly booked as an opener in 1972 on their first US tour. He told Ron Conroy of the Penn State Journal in 2014 “Back in 1972, I was promoting a Lou Reed show at the Alpine Ice Arena at the Forest City exit…and the agent told me that I had to take this other act from England and they were called Genesis.”
The risk was low to Engler, so he shlled out the guarantee—“either $500 or $750” and his concerns went away once the act took the stage. “So the show starts, Peter Gabriel walks onstage and he has the flower outfit with the big head and the big yellow petals,” he says. “And people—back then, this was the drug era, man—they were, like, totally freaked out and the band just went over like gangbusters.” He laughs at the memory, but at that point he knew he was onto something. “I knew this band was destined to superstardom and I jumped on their bandwagon. I couldn’t wait to call the next day and say, ‘Hey, when can I get Genesis back?’ And [the agent said], “How was Lou?” And I said, “Lou was Lou and it was great, but I want Genesis again.”
– 2015 PSU journal article by Rob Conroy
That early Genesis gig formed a fortuitous relationship and Engler adds “we did multiples at Mellon Arena, had them at the Syria Mosque and I had them at the Stanley Theatre, then the big one at Three Rivers Stadium did 55,000 people.”
Rich Engler was also proud to have seized early upon the 70’s TV success of Sha Na Na’s syndicated variety show and saw the opportunity to take the retro oldies act from 3 sold out Pittsburgh Stanley Theater shows held on the the same day, onto the rest of the country via a 30 market tour that went as far south as Louisiana where the band played to 15,000 fans in Baton Rouge, not quite Woodstock but still a sweet gig for a cover band.
Rich Engler backstage in the late 70’s with Judas Priest at a sold out Stanley Theater show
Both promoters having sold out for big bucks have mostly retired from the business they helped create. Pat’s DiCesare’s book, “Hard Days Hard Nights” , recountsactde experiences in the early days of rock n roll concert business via his memoir that was named the 2014 Independent Book of the Year, as well as Grand Prize Winner at the 2014 Great Midwest Book Festival. Rich Engler wrote one as well called “Behind The Stage Door” that recounts his decades spent concert promoting before he went on to work for a coal mining company.
Rich Engler presents a plaque of appreciation to Bob Marley & The Wailers in 1980
Rich Engler, who ended up producing over 5000 shows before stepping away, used his his book called “Behind The Stage Door” to tell of his days as a hippie musician that turned into a major industry figure, yet one who kept personal relationships at the fore of his business dealings. Rich’s book contains stories galore of the heady 70’s era when fake Fleetwood Mac’s were competing with the real one, and when intoxicated difficult rock stars were the norm, not the exception. There’s red wine chugging Joe Cocker projectile vomiting on the crowd in Allentown, Clapton unable to walk but playing beautifully from muscle memory. Fans who tried to sneak in through the rafters at a 1975 Nazareth show and had to be rescued as they dangled through the ceiling, or fans whose foot stompin’ caused the floor to collapse and ladders were needed again to bring them out of the orchestra pit at a packed Pat Travers show.
Beyond sorting the brown M&M’s, the stories of outrageous demands from artists only get worse as the years go on, when Madonna’s contract insists no one amongst hundreds working at a 17,500 capacity arena ever look at her. There was irascible Chuck Berry, who took his money upfront and jumped a curb in his Cadillac to escape a stadium gig without playing. There was debauched Aerosmith trashing trailers because their opening band font size on the ZZ Top poster was too small, and Axl Rose who demanded $15,000 be set aside to recreate a “Greek orgy” in the Steelers’ locker room. A Kiss’ reunion contract rider demanded the promoter dress as a Kiss member or be fined $2,500 or that night Sebastian Bach got arrested before performing after he picked a fight with the wrong cop in Johnstown PA.
1n the summer of 1974 DiCesare and Engler guaranteed Clapton $100,00 and the Band $50,000 to appear at 3 Rivers Stadium. Clapton could barely climb the stairs to the stage by the time he went on, but didnt miss a note according to witnesses, and the promoters didnt lose any money.
The DiCesare-Engler partners were generally making money despite the moronic mischief of both bands and fans, but as time wore on artists demanded up to 90 to 95 % of the gross, leaving the promoters to eek out a margin on the parking or concessions. Occasionally, despite winning looking bills, they were coming up short, like the time they lost almost half a million presenting Van Halen & Metallica’s “Monsters of Rock” tour in Pittsburgh.
Here’s a 1980’s era 20 minute video production feature on what a Day In the Life of concert promoter Rich Engler and his staff was like that originally aired in North & Central PA cable TV
Shot in late 1988 it aired 1/20/89 It also features interviews with Winger & Bad Company filmed by Clarion University
Here’s an interview Rich Engler, Pat DiCesare and their partner Ed Travesari did with a local Pittsburgh TV station talking about some memories they had producing shows at the the old Pittsburgh Civic Arena
The Deluxe on Haight St was a happening hurricane of activity on a January 2002 evening when our camera was there to catch the encore of seasoned San Francisco rock n roll soldier Bone Cootes and his bad azz bar room blasting band.
He starts off in this gritty unedited live clip with “Little Bird” , a tavern tested tune that would later appear on his Bone Cootes “Blow Out The Curses” CD and finishes here with a ribald ripper by the late great Andre Williams, “Bacon Fat”.
Bones band the Living Wrecks, featuring debonair dudes like Austin DeLone on the keys, six string pluckin’ birthday boy Kevin Ink in another corner and Joe Kyle Jr on the standup bass were all easily tossin’ out grooves and licks to spare. On fire with their unique amalgam of country fried blues, swanky angular urbane jazz attack and ol’ fashioned pub rock, they were inciting hip grinding drunken dancefloor mayhem. Through the magic of time travelin’ digital video…it’s like now you are there too!
Flipper’s 40th anniversary is this year and they are playing later this week in their hometown of San Francisco at Great American Music Hall. I guess I gotta shell out the big bucks if I wanna see ’em again. Should I do it? It will be sorta like a family reunion, in that not everyone will be there, and those that are, might not even be recognizable the way you remembered them, or even the members you’d want to see the most.
Here’s live video clips I made featuring songs made infamous during Flipper’s early years…
One further down below is newer from the 21st century, featuring current vocalist David Yow doing Love Canal and Ha Ha Ha which were on an early single. The other just below is about 20 years older, you hear part of their final Subterranean single “Someday” and the closing song “Way Of The World” from a daytime outdoor show in the early 90’s when the reconstituted band soldiered on after the death of original member Will Shatter. At the time a guy named John Dougherty was brought in on bass, and just like Will, Dougherty too would also die of a heroin overdose shortly after this 8mm footage was shot.
Here’s a more recent live lineup performing past glories from the band’s break-thru single originally released on Subterranean Records in 1981
Both songs are masterfully jaded methed up narcoleptic noise rock takes on the American Dream gone awry, setting the tone for the emerging ennui amidst a painful wasteland of suburban consumer conformity and corporate malfeasance that would be known as the 1980’s.
For a year or two in the late eighties, I used to answer Flipper’s fan mail, not for the money, uh, just for the glory I think… besides they were too lazy. Their singer Will Shatter would show up and sit beside me at the Subterranean record label store front on Valencia St circa 10 am with a Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler in hand. He was really just hoping to cash spare royalty checks before the rest of his bandmates, and seemed disinterested in the fan mail I showed him from geeky kids in far off Poland and Kentucky. The label guy would maybe throw him a few bucks to get rid of him lurking around the storefront, and Will might even pilfer a couple 7″s on his way out to sell somewhere else. But Will was a beatnik poet, and really just a guy from Gilroy, and he died soon after of an OD…
me on day will shatter’s death hit the news
The Flippant Men Who Make The, Uh, I Guess You’d Call It “Music”
Steve DePace is the entrepreneurial mercenary and life force trying to preserve the band’s legacy, Ted is more chill, a laconic Vietnam Vet, frazzled and still the easiest to be around to this day. I think Will was the sweetest of the bunch, while Bruce, now put out to pasture, was obviously the most mischievous, which is kinda cute when you’re young, less so as you creep into middle age.
When Flipper Kinda Lost Its Way In The World …
By the early 90’s Bruce’s drug taking manifested itself beyond pranks into petty feuds and worse, he became such a jerk, that after Will died, he was actually caught climbing through the ceiling vents of his own indie label warehouse to steal his own master tapes. It was all part of a coked up cash-in ploy and they sold the reels to Rick Rubin and Henry Rollins for chump change.
Bruce “Loose” Calderwood on stage 1994
Selling the tapes got a cash infusion, but sorta proved to be a stupid move, as not only did they burn the true foundational business bridge to their past glories, as soon they took the new money from Rubin, (an amount that barely woulda bought a decent new van), all the early Flipper tapes & LPs were soon out of print. Most of their legacy material was basically lost to the netherworlds of corporate negligence… They put out one new record on a major label in 1993 that stiffed, and I think Steve DePace had to sue to buy back their own music from Sony or whomever ended up owned and kept it dormant for well over a decade into the 21st century long after iTunes and eMusic downloads were already in decline.
Flipper mighta been a buncha drug ravaged idiots, but they were also brutally inspired artists without fear who made a definite caustic sonic mark on the rock music world. Really a band with no apologies, and a legacy of noise that still always makes me smile despite actually knowing the muther fuckers. Original singer Bruce “loose” Calderwood is a more than half crazy old mountain man misanthrope, constantly complaining online about his back, lashing out in recriminating rants while David Yow of Jesus Lizard cavorts the globe singing the songs Bruce made famous, much to Bruce’s chagrin and anger.
They were one of the great band’s of the early 80’s post-punk scene, and the only thing that held them back was everything. especially their own dysfunctionality. I consider them America’s nasty little answer to the pomp & circumspect Public Image Limited., but with much more sincerity, true grit and heart. They made dark deep wounding records that still stand the test of time, and their songs churn away in the background like psychic sewer dweller anthems. As Krist Novoselic of Nirvana has said of the band he briefly joined “Their music drew me into a universe where bleak was beautiful. I realized the work was as heavy and transcendent as anything in the rock echelon. Mainstream convention was shattered. Flipper were too weird and dangerous for the world. And if the world didn’t get it, that was just another loss for humanity. “
Apparently the world as another chance to catch on. Steve DePace mentioned to me in April when I inquired about the band’s 40th anniversary tour, and working on a documentary of their career “The time is right! I am going to get it all done over the next year or two! We will be rebuilding and relaunching the brand and the band in a big way. Lots of shows and many other things…”
On a Sunday afternoon in the fall of 2015 the Public Flipper Limited corporation reconvened their bored members and brought the beast out for a walk. David Yow (best known as frontman of Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid) took the lead vocal mic for a brief tour that saw the band play San Francisco, Southern California, Brooklyn, Philly and I believe some tempting gigs in Italy that were the real date bait.
Here’s some footage from the show I was able to capture, it was pretty dark but the sound was good and gives ya an idea of how it went.
The lineup also consisted of Bruno DeSmartAss (also of Flipper pals band The Sluglords) on bass, original skinsman Steve DePace , and veteran guitarrorist Ted Falconi plucking the six strings…
“Ever” is a dark Will Shatter era classic from their 1981 “Generic Flipper’ LP, seen here performed at The Bottom Of The Hill in SF 10/10/2015.
Ever live a life that’s real
Full of zest, but no appeal
Ever want to cry so much
You want to die
Ever feel that you’ve been had
Had so much that you turn mad
Ever been depressed that (to) those you turn to, you bring distress
Ever sit in tormenting silence
That turns so loud, you start to scream
Ever take control of a dream
And play all the parts and set all the scenes
Ever do nothing and gain nothing from it
Ever feel stupid and then know that you really are
Ever think you’re smart and then find out you aren’t
Ever play the fool and then find out that you’re worse
Ever look at a flower and hate it
Ever see a couple kissing and get sickened by it
Ever wish the human race didn’t exist
And then realize you’re one too Well, have you … ever .. I have
So what
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