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1999-11-24
This is me on stage at the Jockey Club in Newport, KY, circa. 1984-5. The Jockey Club was a huge warehouse of a club that had previously been the Flamingo Club, a gangster hangout, where legend has it Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and others performed when they were on tour back in the days of the RatPack. The JC was home base for Musical Suicide. It was where we first met and where we played our first gig and where we got our name. Let me tell you about that. I met Jakki, our bass player at the Jockey Club when one of the bookers at the club introduced us. My pal Stevie and I were looking to get a punk band together and Jakki was looking for a band. We agreed we'd do something and started looking for a drummer. By the time we found a drummer Stevie had bailed on us because he thought punk was dead and rockabilly was going to be the next big thing. He ended up playing in a number of bands in Cinti including the HopHeads (rockabilly), The Warsaw Falcons (R&B club/party band) and others. He ended up back in Seattle, WA playing with a psychadelic band called the Green Pajamas. They did the original version of Kim the Waitress that Material Issue did a few years back. The Green PJ's did is better. Anyway, back to the story. We found another guitarist, Ben, and started practicing in my parent's garage. We had already told Billy Blank, one of the bookers for the JC that we'd be able to open for the Circle Jerks who were playing in a couple of weeks. We couldn't agree on a name so at the last minute Jakki made up some flyers calling us the "The Cajuns". So we had no name and three or four practices under our belt when we got onstage as the opening act for the Circle Jerks. We had about a 7 minute set which we played twice. We sucked. After we got off the stage Jakki and I were discussing our little crash and burn with Billy Blank and one of us remarked that we had just committed musical suicide. Then we looked at each other and realized we had just come up with our name. Funny how things work. |
