Cloaca Melodia

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..... The day of the show, the Milltown Brothers came by WHTG's studios for an interview with Matt Pinfield. A photo from that visit later turned up in trade magazine Radio & Records (misspelled my name, dammit).  

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. 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&M indirectly led to...

Waterloo Village, Stanhope, NJ.... Lollapalooza I 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..... Gang of Four was touring in support of their latest album Mall .  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.  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...

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 . 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 as well as Brenda...

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.... 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.    

Cat Club, New York, NY..... In part, I went to this show to see King Missile as the billed opener, but something happened and they didn't perform. It was a bummer, but the night ended up getting weirder and weirder. One member of the group I went to the show with was a very attractive woman, and at the show she met Jay Blumenfield, the guitarist for the band Too Much Joy. He bought her a number of Jagermeister shots during School of Fish's performance and she became more than a little bit drunk. She also knew School of Fish frontman Josh Clayton-Felt, and Josh invited us to come to an afterparty at the Limelight, the church-turned-music-venue on Sixth Avenue at West 20th Street. So my group, with Jay from Too Much Joy in tow, walked over to the Limelight for the afterparty. I was already starting to have misgivings about staying out too late, as it was a weeknight and I was on the air at WHTG at 6 AM the following morning. When we got to the Limelight, though, the bouncer woul...