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Current mood:  exhausted
Wow, 25 years. We’d better do something special. But how do we top that huge 20th anniversary show we did in Seattle at the Crocodile? Four hundred people in Archie McPhee dayglo wigs and super-promo by our good friend Peter English would have been impossible to top. Then we played two shows, the one in Seattle with the Fallouts and the Razzle Dazzle Gang and one in Olympia with Head and Combover. Both featured a few songs with David Duet who’d joined us for almost a year during the “K.P. Kendall Melt-Down” era (1985).
While it was an awesome 20th anniversary, our one regret was that we didn’t play in our hometown. Tacoma was a little club-shy five years ago when we set those shows up. This time we wanted to rectify that unfortunate reality. Our idea was to pretty much take over somebody’s bar and play a free show (just us) for all those people who’d supported us all those years. Nowadays there are great Tacoma clubs to choose from, but we had to pick one who’d go along with all the details of our goofy plan.
The New Frontier Lounge was the perfect choice. Not only have we known owner Neil Harris for most of those 25 years, but along with New Frontier co-assistant Lesley, he seemed willing to let us take over his establishment. Besides all that, the New Frontier has a very cool A/V set-up and showing old photos and video was part of our plan.
On Friday, March 13th we got to the New Frontier early and already people were showing up! Immediately we started rearranging the furniture (hey, we warned them we were taking over) to have a big enough dance area in front of the stage. The NF sound system is purposely “bare-bones” because the sound of that room is amazing. The old high ceiling and wood walls and floor makes for the perfect live sound. We got many compliments on how good it sounded and that was due to Neil knowing how to not overdo the PA. Kudos to Neil!
More people started arriving so we decided to launch our photo onslaught. The New Frontier Wii player was able to dramatically pan and scan through the photos we’d brought. It was hilarious in its dramatic effect. Dale and I worked about two weeks going through all our old photos, scanning them and loading them onto a tiny chip about the size of a postage stamp! Amazing. Everybody was a little shocked when the title “420 Photos” appeared on the screen (and we still hadn’t been able to scan hundreds more!).
You tend to gather a lot of photos over a 25 year span and we had everything from our very first show, to the old 56th Street House, tours we’ve done, old posed band photos in places that no longer exist, audiences and friends. Many in the crowd were surprised to see themselves up on the big NF screen. I thought this would just be a backdrop to background music and gabbing but the room got very quiet as people watched photos flash by. And it is interesting to note that probably about 75 percent of those photos were taken by our own Tim Olsen.
Teen Time’s Stu Michael’s got the first set off with a rousing introduction. Our plan was to play (or at least recreate) that first set we did back at the Ft. Steilicoom Community College Battle of the Bands (and no, it was not a ticket-selling pay-to-play battle!). That set was all covers, many we hadn’t played in 20 years but we managed to pull it off. By this time the club was packed with people. We saw smiling faces we hadn’t seen in years. It was truly amazing how many old friends showed up. We will list the complete song lists below but it was really fun to play all those old songs. During practice we were sort of amazed at what guts we had to try and pull off some of those tunes with our extremely limited musicianship. I guess it proves we’ve gotten better because we are now good enough to know we shouldn’t have been attempting some of those songs! People really started dancing. Nobody seemed too old in that crowd. It was like they were all still at the Tropicana. During this set we decided to make our one presentation of the evening. We gave Tim and Deb Olsen a Certificate of Merit for all those 25 years of record-producing, photography, and just about everything else you could name (including making the official GT tour food, the famous spam and pickles). They probably didn’t want to get up on stage but we forced them and the crowd gave them a well deserved hand. It only took them 25 solid years of helping us out to receive a framed piece of paper with their names on it. Do we know how to “pay back” or what?
Naming everybody in that crowd would be impossible. So many people were there, it was a revolving door of friends. But we should mention that the “Miles most traveled” award goes to Paul Cangelosi for flying from New Paltz, NY to see that show. We took him to the Harvester for lunch the next day. Again, we know how to “pay back”! And the “Hours most traveled” goes to the Electric Children. This southern California band decided in advance to cancel a show on their West Coast tour and drove 19 hours to see us! Talk about being young and impulsive, we were thrilled to see them. Our own Karl Kendall (GT supporter and KP’s brother) ended up giving them a place to stay so it was a total blast of T-town exposure for them. We can only hope they survived the experience!
After our first set we started showing the video that we’ve collected over the years. This ranged from an early Tropicana show, to Granny Go-Go’s last dance at the Swiss, to Troublettes go-go dancers at Bumbershoot, to rare never-before-seen footage of the outtakes from the Cold Shoulder video. Lesley, Neil and the new bartender were going non-stop (aka working their asses off) to provide all the necessary refreshments that the crowd required.
By the second set, those beverages had kicked in and everybody was ready for action. The floor actually shook with the amount of dancing. We decided to play a few songs that we haven’t played in years and that everybody requests. We brought our pal Bill Schlanbusch up, who got the distinction of the guy who’s seen Girl Trouble more than anybody. He’s been to so many shows, he could probably have played all the parts of this show himself. We played one of his most requested GT songs, “Groove Detector” which is a song his band, The Plastards do an awesome job of performing (probably better than we do!). Once again the crowd danced like maniacs. It was really impressive.
As the third set came around, we noticed that some people had left and others had just gotten in. This was our hope for the night. The New Frontier is a small place but we planned for a revolving door of a crowd. Looked like it was working. They were more revved up than the previous bunch. We kept that set for our favorite dance songs and we brought dancer extraordinare, Deirdre Reinert up for a song. Of course the big question was would K.P. Kendall take off his shirt for every set. Well, of course he would! He didn’t want to deny anybody another gander at that GT love-belly. But this time he challenged any of the gentlemen in attendance to join him on stage if they were “man enough” to take their shirts off too. About seven or eight hearty souls, including our pal and birthday boy Jon Peterson, got up on stage and stood up to the “KP Kendall Man-Challenge”. It was a testosteroned sight I don’t know if I could handle again. The climax came when Jon got the super-wedgy of the century! Holy shit! By the time we played our last song, everybody was jumping up and down and dancing on stage. Good thing we quit when we did. I don’t know how long the building could have stood that amount of gyration.
Teen Time’s Stu Michaels got up at the end and told everyone to meet us back at the New Frontier in 2034 for the 50th anniversary. Really? I’ll only be 81. I think that’s do-able. Hell, Granny was 85 when she was dancing with us.
Of course we have the “thank-yous”. We want to especially thank Neil and Lesley at the New Frontier for being the best hosts ever. We want to thank Stu Michaels for another great job as master of ceremonies. We want to thank Matt Driscoll, and everybody at the Weekly Volcano for the nice coverage (if you haven’t checked out that cover with us fighting Don’t Tell Sophie, check it out!) and EJ from the Tacoma News Tribune. We want to thank Mr. Ed and Tim Olsen for tech help. We want to thank Jerry Clayworth at S.A. Music Grinder for the coolest poster on the planet! But mostly we want to thank all of you for 25 awesome years. We couldn’t have done this without you and we don’t intend to stop now. Like I say, see us back for the 50th...or at least the 30th. We love you guys!
FIRST SET
Out of Limits
Tell Us the Truth
Domino
Lonesome Train
Good Guys Don’t Wear White
White Girl
I Got My Mojo Working
Goo Goo Muck
New Kind of Kick
Sexbeat
Born to Lose
SECOND SET
Tarantula
Gonna Find a Cave
Dancing Girls
Primeval
Groove Detector
Riverbed
(two sax w/ Kahuna vocals)
Leaving Here
Mrs. Jones
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Neko Loves Rock and Roll
The Skin
Hurt Your Heart
She No Rattle My Cage
Who Do You Think You’re Foolin’
THIRD SET
Gospel Zone
Argue
Railroad to Tears
Make It Mine
Whostello
Rockin’ Good Way
(two sax songs w/ KP vocal)
Going For It
Girls Girls Girls
Go Metropolitan
When Opposites Attract
Cold Shoulder
Spinout
My Hometown
ENCORE / REQUEST
Sexbeat
Born To Lose
Homework
4:06 AM
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