in 1982 i started a band, called ‘awol’, with some friends in darien, ct.
at the time i was obsessed with joy division and echo and the bunnymen and i did everything in my power to make awol sound like joy division and/or echo and the bunnymen.
we had some good and successful shows, but i would like to reminisce here about one of our slightly less successful shows.
there was a chinese restaurant, called ‘dc cafe’, in a shopping mall in norwalk, connecticut (across the street from twin donut, if memory serves). in the summer after i graduated high school i talked to the owner of dc cafe and he agreed to let us play in his restaurant.
there was no stage, and no p.a. just a room with some tables that could be pushed to the side.
at this point you might be thinking that this story is going to end in some big, dramatic punk rock anecdote, with hundreds of kids dancing along to our earnest proto-emo. well, that would’ve been a nice story. certainly it’s what we desired.
so i made up tons of flyers and put them up all over fairfield county, and then the day of the show came and we packed up our equipment and headed off for the glamorous dc cafe.
and we arrived at the glamorous dc dafe.
and we saw that 3 people had come to our show.
well, in fairness it was only 1 person, paul yates. but he brought his friend scott, and scott’s mom, as well. and the owner of dc cafe forced paul and scott and scott’s mom to order chinese food while they waited.
so rather than set up our equipment and play to 3 people eating chinese food we invited paul and scott and scott’s mom back to andrew dearaujo’s house where we would play for them for free. we often rehearsed in andrew’s mom’s living room. or paul johnsons (bass player) parents basement. or my mom’s basement.
we did eventually play some shows that were actually attended by more than 3 people, but playing in punk rock and alternative bands in the suburbs when i was in high school invariably meant playing shows for audiences in the single digits.
ok, more later.
moby