Tales of a Rock 'n' Roll Never Was

Here's how I remember it: I don't remember the first time I actually heard Motörhead... I remember hearing *of* them for ages, but I can't pinpoint the exact time Lemmy first molested my earholes.  MAYBE their appearance on The Young Ones? but logic dictates that I had heard them before 1985. I probably owned a comp or 3 that had  Motörhead on it... Catch A Wave, Geef Vor New Wave, Chiswick Chartbusters? Whatever, I was familiar enough with them that I totally geeked out when, in early 1987, I heard that they were going to play an all ages show on Easter Sunday of that year. In 1987 I was 19 years old and had missed the change in the drinking age from 19 to 21 by a mere 3 months. I was at the big family Easter dinner and had just finished eating when I excused myself and told everyone that I had plans to go see Motörhead. Puzzled looks fell on the faces of my entire family and a few were wondering who would go to a car show on Easter...          As usual I don't remembe

 DEVO First Avenue Nov. 1 1988 Photos courtesy of the DEVO Live Guide Here's how I remember it: 6-8 years earlier DEVO was the only reason I existed.  They were far and above my favorite band at the time. But time marched on and I grew from being a spotty young teen to a jaded spotty young adult and DEVO didn't hold quite as much sway in my life any more. But I wasn't going to let that stop me from seeing them at First Avenue!!! What WAS going to stop me was the recent change in the drinking age from 19 to 21, a change that I missed by a mere 3 months. So here I was, 20 years old, and unable to gain legal entry to see DEVO. What to do, what to do? Well, I did what any good young punk would do, I scammed my way in!  I had just started my role as vocalist #4 in my favorite band, Iron Fist , a few months earlier, and we were darlings at First Avenue. To the point where they painted our logo on the outside of the building. This was right before they painted all the silver st

My 4th time seeing my all-time favorite band ever, Kraftwerk. I had seen them in Chicago in 1998 and 2005, and at The Myth nightclub in a Minneapolis suburb in 2008. This was the first time witnessing the 3-D show and it was pretty impressive. I traded my co-conspirator in The Trapezoids a bunch of vinyl for a $90 ticket in the balcony as at the time I was drinking air and eating dirt I was so broke.  As fate would have it I just happened to have my Zoom H2 along with me that just happened to have a fresh set of batteries and an empty SD card. Also, conveniently, the seat next to me was empty and I was able to use it to store my jacket that had the recorder in it. Apparently when I set my jacket on the seat it just happened to start recording (COMPLETELY accidentally of course!). Lo and behold a surreptitious recording of the night's festivities.  A few days after the show I posted the accidental recording on the earlier version of this blog, but took it down shortly after. Howeve

 Here's how I remember it: Late March of 1991, I was driving a courier van as a day job, had just quit the first "real" band I was in, and was shacking up with my then-girlfriend Ms. Polly Purebread.  While finishing my route one sunny Thursday afternoon I drove past the Orpheum Theater and saw posted on their marquee that The Sisters Of Mercy with special guest Danielle Dax were playing soon. Tickets were going on sale that coming Saturday. I nearly jumped out of my van in excitement. The Sisters AND Danielle Dax?!? Two of my favorite bands at the time, together, in concert!!! I quickly rolled back to the garage and dropped off my courier van and then high-tailed it to see Polly at her place of employment to tell her the news. She was just as excited as I was, until she brought up the question of how we were going to get tickets... This, obviously, was well before the days of online ticket purchasing, and neither of us had a credit card, so trying to get tickets on the p