We were downtown for another reason but grabbed a parking space near the back of the Little Theatre and walked through the Café on the way to our event. We stopped long enough to hear two songs by Trio East, all professors at Eastman School of Music, so accomplished they can do a gig as Trio East even when none of the three principals are available (thanks to their Eastman students sitting in for them). We witnessed one such show a few years ago. They have been playing here longer than Margaret Explosion.
Rich Thompson appears to be the leader. He had the set list, all standards, on his bass drum. Jeff Campbell plays bass and Mike Kaupa (filling in for Clay Jenkins) on trumpet and flugelhorn). They are masters of their instruments and it is a joy to listen to them play. Rich makes his drums sing. Sweeping his snare with his left hand and playing the beat with his right, then riding one of his two perfectly tuned cymbals between quick rolls on his toms, he keeps time with his left foot and hi-hat and accents the one on the floor. A master class.
Steve Hoy, Karen Mahoney and Paul Dodd in still from Personal Effects “Bring Out The Jazz” video
Arpad has been mastering Margaret Explosion files for our new cd and sending them across town for us to review. We listen to some in the car, some on the small speakers connected to my desktop machine and most on the stereo in the living room. The files we sent him were just live stereo recordings and there is only so much you can do but Arpad works wonders.
At the same time Bob Martin in Chicago has been remixing songs we recorded as Personal Effects in 1984. The album, “This Is It,” was recorded forty years ago so this re-release will be the Special 40th Anniversary issue. In this case, there is a lot Bob can do to affect the mixes.
We recorded the album in our house on Hall Street where we used to rehearse. We borrowed equipment from Whirlwind where Bob was working. We ran a snake down our laundry shoot and Duane Sherwood sat behind the board in our spare bedroom while we played in the basement. We recorded on used half inch, eight track tapes that we bought from someone at the Eastman School of Music. Twenty years ago Bob transferred those eight tracks to DAT and today he is remixing the lp.
We have had a string of house guests and it has been hard to keep up with the remixes. When Bob sent the latest batch we told him it would take us a bit to get to the files because Steve Hoy was in town. He asked if it was Steve from the “Bring Out The Jazz” video (coincidentally a song from “This Is It.”) When we said it was, Bob sent us the still (above.)
We don’t remember who did the video. It was shot in our house on Hall Street and someone rounded up a lot of people. It is so bad it is good.
Note left in top jar after 08.22.24 Margaret Explosion gig
New Math was playing across town at Record Archive on Thursday. I was in that band up until their first record and Propeller has just reissued it so they are back at it. Marc Ribot was playing in the Little Theatre next door to the Café where we were playing. And on top of that it was a beautiful summer evening.
Marc Weinstein and his wife drove in from Buffalo for the Ribot show and they caught our first set. He told us he remembered seeing our old band playing in Buffalo back in the eighties. I tried listing all the Buffalo bands we played with back then and mentioned the bands Tony Biloni was in and the next thing you know Tony showed up. He said something about playing sax with Peggi on a James Brown song and Peggi didn’t even know who he was. It’s only been about forty years.
Marc owned Fantasy Records, a shop on Monroe Avenue, next door to where my uncle’s grocery store was, back in the eighties. I bought records from him back then but didn’t know him. He moved out west and opened Amoeba Reords in LA and SF. My friend, Dave Mahoney, worked for him. When Dave died Marc played drums on “So Clear‘” one of our favorite MX-80 tracks.
it got pretty quiet when half the room left for the Ribot show so I think we got a good recording of the gig. I’m exporting the files from our Zoom recorder as I make this entry.
I always thought the name of that song was “When I Was Seventeen.” It is the key line and that is about the age I was when I first heard The Turtles version. But Frank owns the song and I was happy to find a copy on the 45 table in the back of the Bop Shop. The boxes were overstuffed at the beginning of the sale and it was difficult to flip through. They got cheaper as the sale went on and by the last day you could help yourself. Peggi and I took home a few boxes and we sorted the sleeves by label.
Peggi and I both hung onto our singles from the sixties and continued to buy 45s. When we dumped our lps and cds we hung onto the seven inchers. The two shelves aren’t getting any bigger though so we have continued to prune. The ones from the 70s and 80s brought a decent return and I used the store credit to pick from the mint copies that Tom keeps in the brown sleeves. They look like they came out of a library or something. I’d rather see them in the company sleeve and I am preparing to remedy that now.
Edith Piaf and Giulietta Masina check out new Joywave lp
The store was pretty crowded on Sunday afternoon. I said hello to Tom and went straight to the back of the store where I joined a couple of Black guys, about the same age as me, at the 45 table. They were filling a box and laughing at song titles and singles by Eydie Gormé and Engelbert Humperdinck.
I had already been in the store earlier in the week for the week long “Bop Shop Sidewalk Sale” but I didn’t have anywhere near enough time to work my way through the stacks. The boxes were overstuffed so it made flipping through them rough. Luckily I had to drop a tape for Matt to transfer and it gave me an excuse to flip through the rest. I was there a couple of hour and couldn’t make it to the bottom. The two other guys were still there when I left. The cashier saw my stack and said, “You better get your wallet out.” He didn’t even count them and charged me two bucks even.
Cover of April 1984 issue of Pat Thomas zine “The Notebook.” Cover picture shows Pat Thomas interviewing Allan Ginsberg.
We reconnected with Pat Thomas when he gave a talk at Record Archive about his recent books on Allen Ginsberg and Jerry Rubin. Pat lives in the Bay Area now and told the crowd that he quit his job at Kodak when he realized “the world was much bigger than Rochester,” something that never dawned on us. I was thinking back to Pat’s magazine from his time here and I remembered keeping a copy of one issue where he reviewed one of our records. When I got back home I found it and this picture of Pat interviewing Allen in Rochester in “84.
Marc Weinstein was at Pat’s talk. He has recently moved back to Buffalo but he still plays in Pat’s band “Mushroom.” Their recent double lp has a fabulous 18 minute track on it entitled, “Marc Moved to Buffalo.” Pat’s Ginsberg book, “Material Wealth,” is fascinating. Pat came over for dinner the following night and I showed him my copy of his magazine.
Personal Effects album “This Is It” on Earring Records 1984 EAR 1
PERSONAL EFFECTS “THIS IS IT” BY PAT THOMAS APRIL 1984
“Personal Effects new album “This Is It” is a pop masterpiece in its own right. Recorded by the band themselves at home, the production is basic, yet smooth and flowing. The songwriting and musicianship is first rate, the lyrics and music complementing each other throughout the album.
A catchy guitar riff with a haunting organ background starts off “I Had Everything,” the opening song and one of the album’s more memorable melodic songs. (And one that I would strongly recommend for airplay.)
The alienation concepts of “No One Can Get To You” are lyrically, reminiscent of Jack Kerouac’s “The Dharma Bums,” “sit in the woods for three days.
One of Personal Effects’ more popular songs follows, “Bring Out The Jazz,” a happy upbeat tune celebrating the joys of life with Paul’s vocal perfectly projecting the mood of the song. “Bring Out The Jazz” sums up what Personal Effects are all about. A fun, creative band without pretensions or falsehoods that make good, danceable, intellectually and physically stimulating and satisfying, pop music.
Other highlights include “Drifting Apart” – easily the best song on the album with its psychedelic feel, low-volume guitar providing just the right touch – a great mix and production that captures the spirit of the band and their live performances.
Another surprise follows, “What’s The Attraction.” Bernie’s lethargic vocal and intelligent lyrics tell an increasingly intense story of a religious-cult gathering or concert. The vocal line builds and builds as Bernie works himself into a nervous frenzy that is fantastic and genius.
In rock music’s existence, musicans and bands have influenced each other time and time again, sometimes to the point that everything begins to jell into one, evident thru MTV and FM-Top 40 radio stations. The best thing about Personal Effects and “This Is It” is summed up in one word; “UNIQUE.”
Duane Sherwood at the board in our spare bedroom on Hall Street. Bob Martin is listening to playback of “This Is It” sessions.
The liner notes on the back of This Is It read: “This record was recorded and mixed at home on borrowed equipment by Personal Effects with help from Duane Sherwood.” Duane sat up in our spare bedroom with a borrowed board and a half inch eight track recorder. Bob borrowed a snake from Whirlwind where he worked and we ran it down the laundry shoot of our Hall Street house to the basement where the band played. Duane has our cat, Pia, in his arms.
Peggi recording Farfisa track for Personal Effects lp “This Is It” Leave a comment
Cover to “Personal Effects Nothing Lasts Forever – A Collection Part 2” Digital release August 6, 2024
Today, August 6, “Personal Effects – Nothing Lasts Forever” drops on all the streaming platforms. The song itself is forty years old and the band members are even older (coincidentally Bob turns seventy today). The band released five albums in the early eighties and nineteen of those songs were collected for a cd/digital release in 2008. Nothing Lasts Forever includes eighteen more songs from the same period.
Personal Effects Nothing Lasts Forever – A Collection Part 2 can be streamed at Apple Music and Spotify and all the streaming services.
Listen to “Nothing Lasts Forever” by Personal Effects
Personal Effects’ “A Collection” CD on Earring Records released in 2008
Cover to “Personal Effects Nothing Lasts Forever – A Collection Part 2” Digital release August 6, 2024
Kevin and Jeanne went back to Nashville today. They were up in Rochester for the last month, staying at an airbnb in our old neighborhood, the neighborhood that got so hip after we left. We were there for 27 years and I preferred it when it wasn’t hip but it’s nice to see such a resurgence. We visited them at their place and had them over for dinner a few times. We went out to eat with them and met them at the Little to see a couple of bands. We heard Bernie, who played bass in Personal Effects for a while, playing guitar with the Paul Nunes Band and we heard Pete playing drums with the Debbie Kendrick Project.
Kevin used to do sound for the Hi-Techs and Personal Effects and he played bass on Personal Effects’ last two records. We FaceTimed Bob Martin when Kevin was over. Bob played guitar with Personal Effects and has been working on a remix of the “This Is It” sessions. Kevin gave Bob his secret for mixing my snare in live situations and wrote down the formula. “Pre-delay the snare by about 80 ms and send the delayed signal into the reverb (of course Kevin traveled with his own spring reverb unit). That way the reverb doesn’t obscure the actual snare sound.”
The studio version of “Single Minded” was recorded in 1985 for Personal Effects’ “Mana Fiesta” lp. It and another song didn’t fit on the lp so Restless Records suggested putting them on the cassette version. It is almost forty years old and I only wish I could be as single minded as the theme of this song.
We finished cleaning the windows in our bathroom and I moved on to the next item on the to-do list. I went out to the garage to get a spare light bulb for a light in our kitchen. I turned the light on in the garage and stood there for like five minutes before I could remember why I was out there.
The first Ornette album I bought was “Science Fiction.” It blew my mind. I bought every album he made after that. Ornette had a singular voice and he was supported by the best drummer in the world, Ed Blackwell, and best bass player, Charlie Haden. It was like a religious experience hearing him play live in New York. This one song from one of his last albums captures the joyous spirit of his music.
We usually included one cover song when we played and this Skeeter Davis song was a favorite in ’83/84. I have a folder of movies from those days and no idea who took most of them. With long distance help from Bob Martin I located three performances that included this song. Two were labeled Scorgie’s Early ’83 and just Scorgie’s ’83 and the third video was a complete mystery. It looked like a sound check somewhere. I put some of that footage at the front of this (above).
The one I liked the best showed Peggi singing the song without playing her Farfisa. The resolution was rough and the camera person loses track of Peggi a few times. She floats out of the frame but you can hear the crowd and just barely make out bodies moving in front of the band. I used that audio but the video and audio cuts out when we get to the bridge so I had to cut to another version for the audio. I patched it all together by overlapping the three versions of the visuals and Peggi and I struggled to get them all in sync. But, if it really is the end of the world it doesn’t matter much.
We stopped out to see Brad yesterday. He was playing songs from a playlist on his laptop which he has wired to his monster stereo system and we found him in good spirits. I looked at the playlist and it was all Spyro Gyra songs from various albums. He told us they were his favorite band. Peggi brought along her electronic sax and she played examples of twenty or so different settings. Brad liked the baritone sax the best.
We’ve been editing songs for a new cd and I wanted to hear a couple of them on Brad’s system but I struggled to AirPlay the songs from my iPad over to his Roku setup. I went to my Dropbox page on his laptop and streamed them from there. I was really struck by how rough the live, improvised music from Margaret Explosion sounded compared to Spyro Gyra. We sounded like a punk rock band.
Invisible Idiot (aka Margaret Explosion) “Outta Sight, Outta Mind” black, blind embossed cd cover 1998
Invisible Idiot (aka Margaret Explosion) “Outta Sight, Outta Mind” digital cd cover 1998
Although the 1998 Invisible Idiot cd has been a steady seller at our gigs, it never received digital distribution until now. The album has always been something of a dark horse but it is still one of our favorites. It features the original Margaret Explosion lineup (Peggi on sax, Pete LaBonne on bass, Jack Schaefer on guitar etc., me on drums and Shelley on shakers.) We played every Friday evening at the Bug Jar that summer but we didn’t find time to record until later in the year. By then we had a different Margaret Explosion line-up for our live gigs so we recorded as Invisible Idiot and called the cd “Outta Sight, Outta Mind.”
listen to “Son of Telly Savalas” first song on Margaret Explosion cd “Invisible Idiot”
Invisible Idiot is now available at all the streaming services Spotify | Amazon | Apple
As beautiful as the setting sun is tonight we are told a strong solar storm could disrupt power and communications. It also may set the stage for a northern lights viewing. Years ago we were down at Marge’s with our friend, Duane, and we caught a sensational display of green light. So we might just head down to the lake, for the second time today, once the sun goes down. I don’t think I can handle Marge’s though. We’ll head right to the beach and look toward Canada.
For the last. month I’ve been bearing down on a project that has sat around long enough. We usually record our Margaret Explosion performances and we put all the songs in a big playlist. Most don’t stay in there long though. We keep the ones we particularly like and dump the rest. We recently got a little more aggressive with our pruning and we got the list down to thirty songs.
I have been addressing one song a day and I have just a few left. You might wonder what there is to do with a live track but there is so much tidying up I can do in Garage Band. I dodge the wild peaks, mostly my errant percussion. Since the music is improvised we stumble into both the song and the arrangement so I often grab the bass and drum intro and then cut to the first solid section. Once the tune is established there are middle sections that can get halved. If the song goes on too long I remove the wank. Sometimes any editing at all disturbs the flow of the piece. The songs on our “per la prima’ album were like that, six or seven minute organic constructions. This time, with pieces on the virtual editing room floor, the songs are all around the three or four minute mark. From these edited finals we’ll prune the group further and put the rest on a cd. Working title: “Cloud Library.”
I like to think the Rochester Red Wings are named after the Red winged black birds that hang around in the tall weeds of the Hoffman Road marsh in Spring but I know if I looked it up I would be disappointed. They are a joy to watch as they open their wings with each call to one another and then fly to a nearby cattail, gently bending the weed as they land.
We intended to water our garden for the first time this year but we couldn’t figure out how to turn the water on. A Baltimore Oriole overhead as we looked for kink in the hose. Our early greens were tall enough to pick a few sprigs for dinner, a mixture of Prance lettuce, arugula and spinach.
Peggi is playing sax now and I’m headed down to play with her.
Rorbach’s “Different Animal IPA” and “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus” may seem like an unlikely paining but it worked for us last night. The deeply meditative movie was screened in Little Theatre 1 last night and Peggi and I had perfect seats, dead center just eight rows back. It felt like we sitting next to Sakamoto on his piano bench. We had been fans of his since Yellow Magic Orchestra days and this beautiful b&w solo performance was how he chose to say goodbye.
No matter how big tvs get movies are still better in the theater. We saw “Civil War” on Friday, a completely different experience. The seriously dystopian movie is either a warning of how easily these things happen can all over the world or just a preview of what’s around the corner. The open scenes unfolded to an Arthur Russel track and two Suicide songs were played in their entirety while the action unfolded. Only took the world fifty years to catch up to their genius.
There was one item on the RSD list I had to have, a Pharaoh Sanders 45, an edited version of my favorite piece by him, “HarvestTime.“ So I headed over to House of Guitars when they opened at 9. They were open but only so many people were allowed to enter at one time. I stood in line with Stan Merrell and we caught up on world affairs. My neighbor Rick was in line ahead of us and snagged the only copy of the 45 the HOG got. It is a serious slab of vinyl, seems more than 180, and it sounds great.
A previous generation claimed the title but this is the golden age of radio.
I sat down to clean up some Margaret Explosion recordings this afternoon, just trimming the front ends and drawn out endings – maybe dropping a few middle bars, but I still had WAYO window open and I clicked on the live button. I was drawn into Alla Boara playing live in the studio. They are a Cleveland band that does modern arrangements of Italian folk songs and they’re playing tonight at the Lovin’ Cup, another Bop Shop sponsored show. Kyle Brown’s “Up on the Roof” (soul, jazz, doo-wop, rhythm and blues, instrumentals and other oldies-but-goodies) sucked us in for the next hour and led right into Jason Wilder‘s “Fantastic Voyage.” Jason had reached out to me yesterday to say he was planning to play a Margaret Explosion song and he wanted me to suggest a Sun Ra song to follow it up with. I chose “Lanquidity.”
We regularly listen to our brother-in-law’s WAYO “Magic Radio” show on Wednesday’s and sometimes Joe Tunis’s show on Fridays. Our neighbor, Rick, has a cool show on WITR. Then there is Howard Thompson’s “Pure” show on WPKN and Kevin Patrick’s late night “So Many Records.” Armand Schaubroeck’s show on Rochester Free Radio is always a blast. Long live radio!
Doug Rice often comes to the Margaret Explosion shows so he is on our mailing list. When we emailed him about Wednesday’s gig we included a link to the video from our last gig at Skylark and Doug emailed back. “you sound better without a sound system.” Doug used to do sound professionally at big shows in the park in Brooklyn and for bands at Mass MoCA. Last night, at the Little, we played without a sound system. Travel warnings about the ice and snow made for a really quiet night. The twenty five or so people who were there were quiet and listening. The music was better and strangely, we sold more cds (no lps) than we have in long while.
Pete Monacelli was there and he sent us a poem he wrote while listening.
the little Margaret Explosion dinner bottled water + the explosion of silence the explosion of quiet the explosion of soft the explosion of… + lament in time lament anger lament self-destruction lament + reach for light face pressed against glass yearning for life’s meaning
Pat Moschiano performing with Frying Pan at Skylark Lounge in Rochester
Pat Moschiano organized a gig for four bands at Skylark. The show was dedicated to Dave Ripton and the proceeds went to his favorite charity, AA. Pat’s band, Frying Pan, went first. He was backed by Phil and Ken from Margaret Explosion and Brian from Nod (on the drum riser). Pat delivers his Kerouac-like lyrics like Mark E. Smith from The Fall or James Murphy in LCD Soundsystem while the band mines Chicago blues. We were thrilled to be able to hear the lyrics this time.
The place had filled up by the time Annie Wells took the stage, with people who had not been in the same room together in a long time. Stan Merrill showed me his scratching technique for making swinging sixties style movies. He moves his finger up and down on the lens dial as he shoots. Don Blair gave us a recording of Ripton reading four poems in the 80’s in this very same room. The place was called Mothers. Annie played three of Dave’s songs but it was hard to hear them. Still this one was the best thing I heard all night.
Margaret Explosion played next. Ken’s electric bass gave us an especially full sound. I set about half of Brian’s drums aside and played the rest. I kept getting my foot stuck under the bag of sticks that was hanging off the tom tom. We are used to playing without a sound system so Peggi’s sound is a 50/50 mix of natural sax sound in the room and the pickup to amp with some digital delay. Here the room sound was lost and her pickup collected the whole band and sent that through her effects and out her amp (which was miced) and into the PA. We could have made it all work with a sound check but none of that mattered. We were there for Dave. Through tears Dave’s daughter told us the last place she went with her dad was to Margaret Explosion at the Little.
I looked through my pictures of Nod before the gig, inspecting Brian’s kit before sharing it. I did a file search for Nod and came across a photo I took years ago of the Penfield Road underpass. I was confused as to why that photo was in with all the Nod photos and then realized the graffiti on the bridge read “No Draft.”
Melissa Davis playing cello at the Little Theatre Café
“Command I” in PS Elements nicely altered the photo I took on Monday night of Melissa Davies and her cello. She was playing with Andrew in their duo, “Wren Cove” and she will playing there tonight with Margaret Explosion. We hope. Part of the fun is wondering who will be available for gigs. In the last year alone we’ve played gigs without the cello, without Peggi’s sax, without Ken’s bass and for the last two month’s without Phil on guitar. And the wild card is Jack on bass clarinet or guitar. He would like to be there every gig but only manages a few.
Wren Cove sounded otherworldly on Monday. Their best songs, often improvised and always in minor keys, completely sweep me away. They both loop fragments of their instrument’s sounds and play on top to create rich, gentle soundscapes. They are playing Friday night at Red, White, and Brew on State Street.
