El Protoolio wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 11:38 am My Emerson college friend Anthony Deluca played drums in Blake Babies right at the end. He was also in Ambulance Driver and the Swirlies and apparently Unsane at some point after college.

We (Chloe) played with Ambulance Driver and Queer at Sarah Lawrence College. Or hampshire, or one of those ones out by Amherst.

One of our worst shows ever, and one of my worst nights. I got completely shitfaced in the van on the way to the show, and then we set up in like a dining hall or something, with linoleum floors and concrete walls - and we played way too loud, couldnt hear shit, I was sloppy drooling drunk. Almost threw up in the van on the way home. Ugh it was awful. I'm embarrassed even now.

So if you ever talk to the Ambulance Driver guy - they were great, and I am sorry we sucked so hard. Like we often sucked, but that was I think probably the worst show we ever played.

motorbike guy wrote: Sat Apr 02, 2022 5:14 pm We (Chloe)

Chloe were great. I'm going to have to dig out that 7" tomorrow.

I may even have photos of a show from the Middle East...can't remember who you played with...maybe Slower or Chevy Heston.

Bro, we have 2 singles. Send me your address, I will send you one of each.

We must have played the Middle East two dozen times. Billy loved us. Probably because Sam.


Another Boston band:

Victory at Sea - I am a huge Mona fan.

I saw Chloe a bunch and recorded some music with Sam when he had his studio. Which instrument did you play, FM motorbike guy? My recollection of the other members is a bit dodgy, pardon me.

Mona and her partner are in VT now doing some cool craft stuff: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GoldhouseVT

and yeah her music was consistently awesome

I was the other guitar player. Ham fisted downstrokes only rhythm guitar....

Sam and I started the band in 1988 with his then-girlfriend on bass and with a drum machine.

She did not work out (and they broke up) and we found Scott P. We went through several drummers, most notably Chris Guttumacher and several others until we settled on Bob Daley (Cluster, Black Salad - others).

I saw Come play a reunion show the other night up in Portland ME. (They're playing LA and SF this weekend) They still sound great and played stuff from the first couple records, both of which are really special to me. It was at this little place called Sun Tiki Studios (also recommended if you're in the area), and it was a great time. Partly because Portland ME is this smaller music market so it wasn't just college DJs there moping around with their hands in their pockets. They had an opener that was, I guess indie art school party music? I really wondered how that crowd would deal with Come and their serious music, but people loved them, perhaps in part because they were predisposed to go out and have a joyful evening? So it was a younger crowd and it was weird to see people moshing to "Brand new Vein" and "Dead Molly" but hey why not?

Boston not only doesn't have those weird-but-fun-eclectic shows, but also just doesn't have that 100-200 person capacity club scene like we once did. We have the pub places with 50-80 folks, but they're mostly local music focused and kind of book more trad stuff. The bigger places are pretty corporate and they're run professionally and have lots of subwoofers and expensive drinks and get touring bands but they managed to wring every whiff of punk/indie/diy out of the experience.

That kind of small venue that runs on handshake deals but still books out of town bands has nearly collapsed here. There's like the Middle East and Sonia (formerly TTs) and that's it. Even before Covid that venue model was dying, which is too bad because for every band mentioned in this thread, that kind of club was essential to their success. I'm hopeful some enterprising, artist-centric folks can find some way to fill that gap, someday.

Ha! Black Salad. A friend just posted a picture of their cassette "Amateurs of Reality". Side B is Side A backwards. I saw them play an after party at the Rat opening for Slo Burn.

Justin mentioned Hydrahead and Tortuga. The first Tortuga release in 1997 was my band's seven inch. The Gersch. Mark who started the label while still working for Ken Cmar at Wonderdrug and who then worked for Aaron at HH for a long time is an old friend from Emerson College. He also released our CD in 2006 on Tortuga.