Cloaca Melodia

Court Tavern, New Brunswick, NJ.... sorry, Mike has not yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!

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

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, ...

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.

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...

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.  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. (I know: very...

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...