Slam Tour Diary: July 28, 1990-The Last Waltz

About 8 1/2 years before tonight’s show, I met Gary Waleik through an ad that I had placed in the Boston Phoenix classifieds. I was looking for musicians to form a band in the style of, if memory serves, Mission of Burma, Buzzcocks, Flipper, and The Monochrome Set. He answered the ad and showed up with his bass and immediately proved to me that he was a consummate musician so I had him be the drummer. (I was a very confused 21-year-old and he was a flexible 19). Our first show was a ‘New Band Night’ at the Channel that was a leftover booking from my previous band, Patio Act. I decided to keep the gig and use it as an audition for the new guys: if they were game enough to play the show with a couple of rehearsals, these were people that I wanted to play music with. The show was shambolic, in fact, we may have invented the cliche that night, but it was fun and the band quickly morphed into Terror Train, playing a couple of shows with Bob, a guitarist who was definitely on the Spectrum and unable to play anything the same way twice. Soon thereafter, we ditched Bob and joined up with Peter, with Gary picking up the guitar, and things went into overdrive. Fast forward to 1990 and, after many permutations of musicians, he and I are playing together for the (seemingly) last time on that very same stage where we started. The show was booked in April as a triumphant return home after our successful major label tour but, as you’ve been reading for the past couple of months, things didn’t go as planned. At the record release party on May 19th at the Paradise, our spirits were high, but now, the gig is a reminder that bands are difficult and fragile entities and we all just need to get through the night and get on with the rest of our lives. Happily, the club is packed and everyone, including me, is getting well-lubricated. In spite of the circumstances of my leaving, I’m very proud that the band can pack a major venue like the Channel, even after the relative failure of the latest record. ‘Love Barge’ and ‘Impossible Things’ had enjoyed decent airplay on WBCN and WFNX and the band hadn’t lost the hometown crowd. Besides, everyone likes a potential train wreck, and a band member’s last show promised at least some drama, right?The excellent Channel history website (https://bostonsbestliverock.com/?page_id=543) tells me that the opening bands were The Piv Nerts (no idea), followed by Yo La Tengo, a husband-wife combo out of Hoboken. When I had told Ira and Georgia about my leaving the band at our NY show a couple of weeks prior, they had been upset and promised to dedicate a song to me at my last show. Ever since I had met those two back in the Volcano Suns days, they had been great friends who always had my back. As usual, they put on a great set that night and had earned an encore but the dickhead staff at the club decided that they wouldn’t get one and turned up the lights and started the DJ music as soon as they left the stage. Ira was livid, as was I. “We didn’t get a chance to play the song for you” he complained and I apologized on behalf of the band. They had to pack up and head back to New Jersey as they had another show the next night, so we said our goodbyes. Meanwhile, to quell my nerves, I was taking full advantage of the free beer backstage and, by the time we started our set, I was well into my cups. I quickly realized that it was a mistake as I wasn’t used to playing drunk. When it came time for ‘Easter Eve’, I sincerely wanted it to rip, but the beer didn’t help my already challenged vocal stylings, and I felt bad that I wasn’t able to give a decent performance. Of course, the crowd didn’t care; it was a Saturday night in the summer and the people were just there for a good time. For our encore, we decided to reprise the solo ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ schtick from Columbus and I announced it by saying “this is what I get.” It was a drunken mess but, the crowd was in a charitable mood, given the circumstances, and ate it up. The band rejoined me on stage for the rest of the encore and Gary let me know that it wasn’t ‘all I got’, as I would, of course, be buried in the Big Dipper National Cemetery. The show complete, we hugged and I went out to say goodbye to the many friends, family, and well-wishers who had come out that night. That part of my life was over and I felt like I had gone out with a bang. In 10 days, I’d be on a plane to San Francisco and soon after, with a few distractions thrown in, be going to college for the first time in my life. It would turn out to be one of the best decisions that I made in my life but, as you can tell from this diary, I still look back fondly on the music and the friendship of those days. Oh, and here’s the song that Yo La Tengo had planned to encore with that night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvhjSK1gVLc&fbclid=IwAR30B8Gs0hgaYZvtJb6LCCAoGr18WHy_07u9UFXJUwvIcMnunEdN1ZrSC_Q