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Personal Effects Gettin' Trippy on the Scorgie's Stage, 1983

Seems like when I DO have the rare opportunity to Blog on "Drew-Who: Boston Rock Stories" the topic has often been something that didn't happen in Boston. This posting, like a few others, pre-dates me living here in The Hub. It's funny how your recollections reach farther and farther back as you get older.

In the ealy '80s, I was immersed in the Rochester, NY New Music scene. "Rochester, NY," you may ask, "What ever happened there?" Well, for a few brightly burning years Rochester had an underground music scene as important and vibrant as any in the US, or even Europe for that matter. It was a perfect place for a 20-year-old college kid like me.

The bands that blazed were New Math, The Chesterfield Kings, Personal Effects, The PressTones, Absolute Grey, The Cliches, and many others.

Ground Zero for this scene was a old night-club called Scorgie's. Scorgie's was the CBGB or The Rat of Rochester. Like Boston's Rat, it was a bar upstairs, and the stage was down in the low-ceiling cellar. In fact, NY and Boston acts like Willie Alexander, Johnny Thunders and even The Ramones played Scorgie's. The Cramps, Rockats, Go Go's, Bangles and many others played at Scorgie's, too. The bar became a major stop on the "underground railroad" on which punk and new wave bands toured. It had a fantastic stage with great lights and a sound-system that blew away the ones at CB's and The Rat. Another plus was that the drinking age was 18 back then, which really helped the scene thrive.

One of the bands that resided at Scorgie's (and I say "resided" because they played there at least monthly for years) was Personal Effects. The singer for Personal Effects was a muse and multi-instrumentalist by the name of Peggi Fornier. She and her husband Paul Dodd wrote and directed PE's journey in to an arty, trippy kind of boho-rock where space-delayed saxophone and tremulous keyboards floated from a smoky stage. The show itself was filled with lights and projected images. It was like an Andy Warhol art-loft show, 1980's version. Funny thing was, about 4 years before Personal Effects emerged, Peggi Fornier had been my high-school Spanish teacher. Yes! And she was not a fan of me - and deservedly so. But that's another story. So naturally, I wanted to see what her band was all about. I became a huge fan, ultimately attending the release party for their debut EP, just prior to departing Rochester for good in 1983.

So here we are today (25 years on) living in the era of blogs and web-sites, where 40 and 50-somethings are rebuilding the past on-line, admittedly with a rose-tint to the view; a soft focus dailed-in by nostalgia. In 1994, Scorgie's went the way of CBGB's and The Rat, but it lives on today in cyberspace. There are dozens af blogs and sites related to the club and the early '80s Rochester Scene. (Let's face it, with Rochester weather being what it is, people have a lot of inside time to blog about the past). Last November, a genuine Scorgie's Reunion took place in Rochester, and even Kevin Patrick, for decades now a major-label A&R guru*, returned to reprise his role as lead singer of New Math. CORRECTION (per Peggi Fournier): Another singer stood-in for Kevin, channeling him astonishingly well.

Here's a Scorgie's Hub Site from where you can navigate to many other Rochester 80's sites, including current sites by the bands themselves. Scorgie's Blog

Personal Effects Video, "Low Riders" filmed at Scorgie's 1983

New Math Back Then

New Math Now (at Scorgie's Reunion, 2008)

* A funny side-bar: When I was working on Heretix' Island Records sessions in '88 and '89, Keven Patrick was the A&R guy. He was on the phone with the studio every day checking on progress and making sure we were sending daily DAT roughs of our work.

November 22

My parents moved my sister and me to Dallas from Upstate NY in October of '63. We were there only a month when Kennedy was shot. My Dad, who worked in a downtown building, actually watched from street level as the President's motorcade passed. By the time he returned to his office on the third floor, it had happened. My earliest memory of childhood was seeing my mom sobbing in front of the TV set. I asked, "Mommy, why are you crying?" I was three. The first person whose name I knew, other than mommy, daddy, grammy and Capt Kangaroo, was President Kennedy. As we got older, Dad would take us to Dealey Plaza. By the age of six I could point to the window on the Depository Building from where the shots were fired. In 1967 I remember sitting on one of the plaza's stone colonnade arches --Dad lifted us up there -- and watching a TV crew film a documentary of the event. They were interviewing eye-witnesses. The old Texan man being interviewed said, "I heard pop, pop, pop." Whenever we went by the Plaza up on the Stemmons Freeway, we'd look at the big yellow Hertz Rent-a-Car sign with the digital clock on it, which of course stood atop the Depository. It drew your attention to the site like a, well, like a big yellow billboard! (They finally removed it, but not until decades later).

I still have the complete Dallas Morning News paper from Saturday the 23rd. Never a November 22nd ever goes by without me reflecting on the events of that, sad sad day.

In some ways I wonder how much effect that event had on my life. It was sort of the launch-pad of my awareness. I think to be certain, the Kennedy Assasination has cast a very long shadow over my life, and I’m sure there are many others who feel the same.

Last year, on November 22, 2007, Thanksgiving Day, Bernadette's beloved mother lost her battle with cancer. My poor wife has barely had time to grieve. Neither of us can believe it has been a year already.

November 22nd. A day of mourning for The Townsons.

Feelin' it With Joe Ely

Ely Tellin' Texas Tales as Tall as a Ten-Gallon Hat

One of the best gigs I ever had with the Derangers was in 1997 at Mama Kin on Landsdowne, when we opened for the great Texas Balladeer, Joe Ely. Joe Ely Homepage

We got to hang with him back stage and got his autograph. He signed my (vinyl 12") copy of Lord of The Highway, writing, "Beware of El Tarantula!" Bern and I had recounted to him the story of how we had just moved to a new apartment, and how I had gotten produce boxes from a local grocery store, and how when I opened the banana box, now containing CDs, there was a giant hairy tarantula in there. Ely was like, "Didja keep 'im? What didja name 'im?"


Times They Were a-Twangin' with The Derangers and My 1961 Stratocaster!

The best part was, we were to play first of three bands, but the middle band didn't show up, so we got bumped up to right before Ely. By the time we went on, like ten-ish, the place had filled up with Ely fans, who really dug what we were doing. We were at the top of our game by that point, so that was a really good night for us.

And Ely and his band were amazing, of course.