Cloaca Melodia

Wetlands, New York, NY sorry, I haven't yet written about this show... feel free to post your own recollections if you were there! photos

Lonestar Roadhouse, New York, NY sorry, Mike has not yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!

Max's, Ithaca, NY This concert was part of my friend Kathy and my "Fall Rampage," as we dubbed it, an impulsive roadtrip to see King Missile twice on successive nights. Since I lived in Ithaca as a college student just a few years prior and Kathy had a friend then attending Cornell and could (presumably) bum rooms for the night, this show was the primary reason we made the trip. The Buffalo show was just icing. Had a great time as usual during KM's set; I remember particularly great versions of "Wuss" and one of the few covers the band ever did, Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." After their set, I had a conversation with drummer Roger Murdock. We talked about the dance remix of "My Heart Is a Flower" that got a lot of airplay earlier on alt-rock and college radio. The dance-beat versions (by producer Ivan Ivan ) were labeled "The Against Our Will" remix on the single and showed the band bound, gagged, and ...

The Icon, Buffalo, NY My friend Kathy and I decided to go on a weekend King Missile road trip. We drove from New Jersey to Buffalo for this show and then continued on to see them in Ithaca the following night. All I recall from this show is a memorable version of "Jesus Was Way Cool" and this venue had an odd way to separate the under-21 audience from the drinking crowd. We didn't talk to the band at this show, since we knew we were going to be seeing them the following night, so as soon as it was over, we headed across the border at Niagara Falls and stayed at a hotel on the Canadian side.

CBGB's, New York, NY Fairly sure, but not 100% certain about the date.

Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ This is probably not the correct date for this show.

WHTG, Eatontown, NJ An in-studio performance by Hitchcock, Andy Metcalfe, and Morris Windsor. Interview by Brian Billy. Songs performed: Ultra Unbelievable Love Alright Yeah Silence of the Damaged Rays Child of the Universe Raymond Chandler Evening

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ   This was one of the most fun concerts I've ever attended. I've been to perhaps better concerts, on a number of criteria, but rarely have I enjoyed myself more at a show. post continues.... This was an outdoor concert at Deiner Park, a lawn built over Route 18 and overlooking the Raritan River. It was beautiful September night, with that sort of coolness which, when mixed with activity, is neither chilly nor hot. Mick Jones' B.A.D. II's album The Globe had just connected with the cultural zeitgeist in a way that he hadn't managed since his days with The Clash (and, at this writing, he was not to do so again). Fueled by the big-beat dance-rock sound that was soaring to ascendency during 1991 (in what was also to be effectively its swan-song, as the hammer was even then being cocked to fire grunge's gun square at American musical tastes), "Rush" was just then becoming Jones' only U.S. post-Clash Top 40 hit;...

Fastlane, Asbury Park, NJ sorry, I haven't yet written about this show... feel free to post your own recollections if you were there!

Tramps, New York, NY This was a showcase for Hitchcock's new album, Perspex Island . Most of the audience was radio people, journalists, A&M Records staff, various music industry types, and 25 members of Hitchcock's fan club. As a radio DJ, a former A&M employee (mail room), an a bona fide Robyn Hitchcock fan, I was in my element. post continues.... Prior to the show, A&M's promotions staff had a dinner for radio guests at a restaurant up the street from Tramps. It was the first time I was able to see some of my former A&M co-workers. I saw Wayne Isaak there, who ran the New York A&M office (then located in the Fuller Building, at 57th Street and Madison Avenue) and who reluctantly had to fire me when they had budget cuts. I was able to tell him with absolutely no rancor, "Remember when you let me go, you said 'This might be the best thing that ever happened to you'? Well, it was! So thanks!" And it was true, since my firing at A&...

Jane's Addiction/Nine Inch Nails/Living Colour/Rollins Band/Body Count/Butthole Surfers Waterloo Village, Stanhope, NJ Jane's Addiction setlist: 1. Up the Beach 2. Whores 3. No One's Leaving 4. Ain't No Right 5. Thank you Boys 6. Three Days (11:50) 7. Been Caught Stealing 8. Pigs in Zen 9. Ted, Just Admit It 10. Then She Did 11. Mountain Song 12. Stop 13. Classic Girl 14. Ocean Size

Danceteria, New York, NY [UPDATE: I finally tracked down the date and venue of this show!] I don't recall the exact date nor the venue, but it was a late show with King Missile as part of the New Music Seminar. My friend Kathy and I drove into the city and, naturally, there was a guest list problem. Earlier that evening, we had gone to an unusual performance space called The Gas Station (at Avenue B and 2nd Street), a barely-renovated abandoned gas station with an ample outdoor space surrounded by chain-link fence. The place was being used as a showcase for Baltimore-based record label Merkin Records. They had their bands Monkeyspank, Buttsteak, and Antic Hay performing but I didn't include an entry on this blog for them because I honestly don't recall which, if any, of the bands we saw play. I primarily remember someone going around with a basket of loose cigarettes labeled "have a cigarette, leave a cigarette, need a cigarette, take a cigarette" and a chair f...

Melody Bar, New Brunswick, NJ Actually, this was a Miles Hunt solo performance not the whole band. A noteworthy one though, since it was filmed for inclusion in the group's documentary Welcome to the Cheap Seats .

Fastlane, Asbury Park, NJ The date is confirmed.... add your own comments if you were also there!

Fastlane, Asbury Park, NJ This was the first of many times I saw King Missile live. We had been playing "My Heart Is a Flower" as a single advance of the band's Atlantic Record's debut CD The Way to Salvation , and I loved the song but didn't know anything about the band. When the full CD arrived around it's mid April 1991 release, I looked at the pictures of the band and release that I had seen frontman John S. Hall do spoken word performances in the East Village when I lived in Chelsea in 1990. So I was even more intrigued to see the band perform. post continues.... At WHTG, a summer intern named Kathy just started and it turned out she was enthusiastic about King Missile as well. By then we had started to play a dance remix of "My Heart Is a Flower" (by Ivan Ivan). She told me that she had seen people dancing to the song in a club with their arms held high up in a sort of a "U" shape so that they looked like giant bouncing flowers...

Madison Square Garden, New York, NY.... Elvis had just released his Mighty Like a Rose album (which kicked off his '90s "wandering in the wilderness" period) about a month prior, and we were playing "The Other Side of Summer" quite a lot at WHTG. I had seen Elvis live before in two very memorable concerts (on the spinning songwheel tour in '86, and an outdoor show on Elvis' birthday in '89), so I was psyched to catch him again. The tour was dubbed the "Come Back in a Million Years Tour 1991," and it would feel like a million years before I was to see him live again . post continues.... As icing on the cake, The Replacements were, somewhat oddly, the opening act for the show. I had just seen The 'Mats back in March , and they were terrific, so seeing them yet again would also welcome. I had no idea that drummer Chris Mars had already left the band (replaced on tour by Steve Foley, who later worked with Tommy Stinson's Bash & Pop...

The Marquee, New York, NY Me and my friend Kathy scurried over to this show after catching Elvis Costello and The Replacements at Madison Square Garden , making this quite the music-packed evening. We, unfortunately, missed most of King Missile's set due to this two-show gambit, which was a shame since we were both big King Missile fans (we attended six KM shows together in four different cities throughout 1991). post continues.... Bongwater was terrific, though, and the packed house was fully appreciative. I seem to recall Kramer playing bass with the instrument loose, no guitar strap. It seemed rather unwieldy. One of the most memorable moments in the show was when Ann Magnuson addressed the crowd. "Let me introduce you to my friends. This here is Thelma," she declared, pointing to one of her breasts as the audience wildly cheered the reference to Geena Davis' character in the just-released film. She indicated the other one. "And this is Louise." Pause a b...

The Fastlane, Asbury Park, NJ   post continues....     My WHTG colleague John Yarusi was DJing between band sets. When School of Fish was ready to go, he introduced them from the DJ booth as "Columbia recording artists, School of Fish." The band, signed to Capitol Records, was either amused or annoyed at this and the made a bunch of comments about how they must have been signed to a new label without them knowing. The incident made me terrified for years about introducing a band incorrectly when I would make stage announcements for concerts.

Fastlane, Asbury Park, NJ This is the show that I discussed in Gary Wein's book Beyond the Palace . Harding was late for his own gig as he had reportedly skipped over the Stone Pony to catch part of a Little Steven show and hopefully catch a rumored "surprise" Springsteen appearance. At least, that was the word from the promoter's people.

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ Setlist I Don't Know I Will Dare Achin' to Be Bent Out of Shape Another Girl, Another Planet Merry Go Round Satellite Happy Town Swingin Party One Wink at a Time Waitress in the Sky Skyway When It Began Nightclub Jitters Someone Take the Wheel Kiss Me on the Bus Talent Show Asking Me Lies Nobody Color Me Impressed Within Your Reach Unsatisfied/Sadly Beautiful Can't Hardly Wait The Ledge All Right Now (brief snippet) I'll Be You Bastards of Young Left of the Dial Alex Chilton

Brendan Byrne Arena, E. Rutherford, NJ It was a couple years before Neil was bestowed the "Godfather of Grunge" moniker, but this tour made clear he had an affinity with noisy, scruffy bands of younger vintage. A great show all around. It was my first time seeing Neil, so I was pretty psyched. He had snapped out of his weird '80s era with a vengeance on 1989's Freedom and 1990's Ragged Glory albums. I was pretty blown away with how hard he rocked at the show. My most vivid memory of the concert was a giant microphone with a yellow ribbon on it getting a lot of applause (due to the Gulf War being still in progress at the time). The opening acts were pretty memorable as well. I was struck with how low-slung Mike Ness played his guitar. And during Sonic Youth's feedback-drenched finale, Thurston Moore used his guitar as a bridge between the front of the stage and a security barrier and he carefully shimmied across it, all the while spewing caterwauling noise wi...

Continental Airlines Arena/Meadowlands Arena/Brendan Byrne Arena, E. Rutherford, NJ I had just reported for work at WHTG as the Production Director two days before this show, and was suddenly handed tickets to both this show and for Neil Young , both taking place the same weekend at the same arena. On top of it, the previous morning show host (Bart Cross-Tierney, who I later got along quite well with when he returned to FM 106.3 with his own specialty show) had departed on my first day on the job and I was asked to fill in on the morning show during the following week (and a week turned into eight years). post continues.... So I decided that I really liked this job. INXS was at the very peak of their success during this tour (The "X Factor World Tour"). The X album's second single, "Disappear," was a top ten hit just then. No small amount of the crowd was teenage girls, swoony at the drop of a beat for Michael Hutchence and his Jim Morrisonesque looks . So I fo...

Beacon Theater, 74th & Broadway, New York, NY One of the main things I remember about this show was sitting a few rows behind Dennis Miller (or someone who looked remarkably like him!). post continues.... I also recall the lights going down halfway through the set, and then hearing the distictive opening chords from Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" (in a way, it's like rock 'n' roll's own Beethoven's 5th). As the lights blaze back on, Sting and his band pull off a fairly fiery version of the classic. I got the call to start my new job as production director at WHTG the very next morning. I would show up and discover the Program Director doing the morning show, having just fired the DJ. The PD would ask me to fill in on AM drive for the following week, and I ended up "filling in" for eight years.

Chameleon Bar, New York, NY sorry, Mike has not yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!