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Well, the card says it all, doesn't it! No cover.....and dollar Budweisers! Oh boy!
When we played our first show at the Nightingale Bar, we were seen by members of The Dreyer Brothers. Apparently liking what they saw and heard, they invited us to open for them for a couple of gigs at a mid-town Irish bar called Desmond's.
One of the cool things about Desmond's was that there was no cover; the band got paid by the bar. That, we liked! As far as the place itself...I suppose it was ok. Or I should say "is", as it still is open for business! As usual, we had sound problems. And I can remember one particularly nasty incident where this girl Lawrence was seeing got him into a situation where a lowlife was trying to pick a fight with him. That may have colored my memories of Desmond's and it's clientele.
But we did play there a bunch of times, and some not bad shows to boot. Case in point: these two shows, our first two, opening for the Dreyer Brothers. I wouldn't say these are great shows, but they are definitely good shows.
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| I think had we known there were going to be the Rodney King riots that night, we would have omitted the police badge... |
We certainly got off to a dramatic start! For the night of the 30th, riots had broken out all over the country in response to the Rodney King verdict. It turned out that NYC kept it together but still, we steeled ourselves up for the worse, driving into the city. I didn't feel too nervous....after all, we had a Fender Rhodes in the car! Nothing's more intimidating than a big heavy Fender Rhodes!
My enduring memory of the night, though, has nothing to do with LOOB and everything to do with the Dreyer Brothers. I was very impressed - even jealous - that they dropped into their set the Frank Zappa song "Trouble Every Day". Frankly (no pun intended), as good as LOOB might have been that night, you'd be better off listening to "Trouble Every Day" right now! What a song, and wow, ain't it the truth: "No way to delay that trouble coming every day." "Trouble Every Day" had been written during the Watts riots of 1965. Uncanny as it might seem, the original lyrics actually say "On Wednesday, I watched the riots....." and sure enough, that's when they broke out again in 1992, on a Wednesday. So you have to hand it to the Dreyer Brothers on that one, a masterful choice of material and, unfortunately, it's a song that remains as potent and relevant and pertinent today as it was in 1966, as it was in 1992.
Life Out Of Balance also commented on the riots in its own obscure way: we opened with "Thundersong" ("there's a storm outside") and for the intro of "Smile", we played a 1927 recording of a Black Billy Sunday sermon: "The World Is In A Hell Of A Fix". Not that anyone probably noticed, as they were all enjoying their dollar Budweisers!
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| Both of these flyers were made by Ted. |
On May 7th, we returned to Desmond's for another opening slot with the Dreyer Brothers. My notes on the tape box seem to prefer this show to the one on the 30th. I didn't jot down any thoughts about either set when I digitized them, but I think both shows are solid "good" shows, musically. What I love about the show on the 7th is hearing Chris, Ward & Lisa talking about us taking forever to set up, the sound, the club and Johnny Jones (who would soon book us into his new club, The Lion's Den). Apparently Johnny Jones was giving Ward grief over something or other.
But we must have gone over ok as the next time we played Desmond's (later that month), we played two sets, with no other act.
Desmond's 4/30/92
Thundersong
Wintertime
I Owe ->
It's All Right
Caught In The Rain
Smile ->
Someone's In My Head
It's Warm Outside
download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/f0uwve198bjmymg/1992-04-30+Desmonds.zip
Desmonds 5/7/92
We Both Wobble
I Owe ->
It's All Right ->
Thundersong
Bambaleda
Caught In The Rain
Smile ->
Someone's In My Head
download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/m1qxc5tt813pdra/1992-05-07+Desmond%27s.zip#39;s.zip
Hubert Poole - guitar, vocal, percussion
Ted Schreiber - bass, vocal, percussion
Lawrence Krauser - electric piano, synth, trumpet
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal
Steven Goodman - percussion, accordion
both shows recorded by Chris Ivers on his D-6 cassette deck with an ECM-101 condenser mic.
