 |
| Street Level shows were held in such low esteem...the song list is just scribbled on a piece of newpaper and inserted into the cassette case! |
A nice little listen! Because the shows were over before they even started, I don't gravitate towards tapes that say "Underworld" or "Street Level", but turns out we played pretty well at these showcases!
Now, if I thought The Underworld wasn't great, the Street Level had to have been my all-time least favorite place to play. Eventually it turned into Nice Guy Eddie's, anyone who lived in the Village through the 90s and early 00s will remember it. It had that embarrassing mural of Kiss on the building though, to be fair, Kiss was a New York band. But you'd think they'd put a mural of Johnny Thunders there, or Lou Reed or something. Very strange city for radio, New York. You'll never hear The New York Dolls, or The Velvet Underground, or even the Ramones on the radio. But any day of the week, you can turn on a New York station and you hear...."can't you see?....can't you see? ....what dat woman.....she been doin' to me". Curious. Embarrassing, also.
 |
| Nice Guy Eddie's, formerly "Street Level". The band would set up right in front of that big window. |
 |
| At the Street Level, you were lucky if you were only on a five-band grind! |
I must confess I did once see one of my favorite shows of all time at Street Level, oddly enough! Jimi Durso and Bob D'Amico from Piltdown Man were in a band called Pud, and they played at Street Level right after I moved into the city. The moshing was so fierce at this show that the crowd literally carried the lead singer off the stage mid-scream, and demolished the PA, literally attacking the big PA bins, dismantling them, pushing them over.....This caused Thom Jack, who was doing sound, to stop the show and stand in front of the mob shouting "Cool it! Cool it! What the fuck is wrong with you people!" Oh my gosh. It was a sight to see. Jimi was wearing a camouflage skirt I remember, and some mosher rolled onto the stage, rolled right over Jimi's pedal board, activating or de-activiating each one. Jimi, not missing a beat, just tapped each pedal in a row before ripping a typically demented solo. Wow. So Street Level, maybe it wasn't so bad after all!
On this show, things didn't get quite so wild, but that's not to say we didn't offer up our own brand of strangeness and dementia! We're joined by Louis DeVirgilio on trumpet. Lawrence plays trumpet in "Wintertime" and some other songs, but most of the trumpet on this show is Louis, and he sounds great.
We open with "Wintertime", obviously because it was the middle of January!
"I Owe" is pretty crazy and distinctive, must say! For the verse, Hubie changes the lyrics to "In my pocket...lots of beedies....."ha! He once got kicked out of a restaurant for smoking those (when you could still smoke in restaurants).
"Soon Come" sounds way more together than any of the other versions I've heard so far, this is a nice version. I always loved the way we ended this (it was my idea, ripped off from Fela), and I have to confess: I have since used it in my own shows, whenever i need an instant ending! Ha!
Nice little "Some Other", thanks boys......
"Dog Days" has Hubie playing some great guitar, I loved playing this song. This Ted song had been written back in 1989, and I really lobbied for us to do this one (we were always trying to get more Ted songs, and mine too, so that we didn't have to always sing "It's All Right"....looking back, maybe we should have just done only Hubie songs! God knows he had more than enough great ones and we were always at our most natural doing his stuff! But the band I came into had four different writers, and that's pretty much how it stayed during my tenure.) So, getting back to "Dog Days", this one had great harmonies to sing, and just a fun song to play.
And a great "Gimme Fun" to wrap it all up. Great percussion on this one.
This show was recorded at a very low level, had to do a bit of trickery to boost the level.
So, another half hour show, not one of our favorite venues.....but it's a nice kooky little listen!
 |
| Back before the net, you'd call the Village Voice phone line and listen to the bands that were playing that week. Here we are described as "world music", ha! |
Street Level, 1/14/93
Wintertime
I Owe ->
It's All Right
Soon Come
Some Other
We Both Wobble
Dog Days
Gimme Fun
Hubert Poole - guitar, vocal, percussion
Ted Schreiber - bass, vocal, percussion
Lawrence Krauser - electric piano, trumpet
Michael Goodman - drums, vocal
Steve Goodman - percussion, accordion
Louis DeVirgilio - trumpet
recorded by Chris Ivers
download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/nmgen8cilfgpmyi/1993-01-14+Street+Level.zip
or if you prefer Dropbox, use this link (it will expire in a couple of weeks):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2he0i9mj5crxrux/1993-01-14%20Street%20Level.zip?dl=0
