By Steve Bunch, 5-17-21
Note: House Rent Records is guided by a team of 10 people. Steve Bunch is one of these people and a dear friend of the House Jumpers.
Also note: Steve submitted this article a couple of months back, and we just now got it posted, sorry Steve!
These are hard times for fans of live music, and even harder for the musicians who depend on live venues to connect with their audiences and celebrate their art. Until the pandemic lifts, I find myself remembering musical performances in my past, some of which are dimmed by age or by what back-in-the-day we called spiritual condiments.
- The Kingsmen played in my high school gym at about the time of their top 40 hit “The Jolly Green Giant.” Rumor had it that the principal warned them in advance to “keep it clean.” Because they seemed to have a rather thin songbook, they performed “Louie, Louie” and “Money” three times during the evening, which of course is what everyone came to hear, though my favorite was “Little Latin Lupe Lu.”
- As a freshman at Northwestern, I attended a couple of concerts, memorable for different reasons, again in a gymnasium. The first was memorable because it was the great Smokey Robinson and the Miracles performing all their Motown hits with that cool Motown choreography. On a weird note, the opening act was the Turtles. The other show was remarkable in that it was Simon and Garfunkel performing at their peak, but it was also eerie in that it occurred during the disturbances surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King. In the gym was the music, outside the sirens.
- Sometimes my memories are clouded by the fact that I felt I was in the presence of gods. One year, KU brought Dave Brubeck, with Gerry Mulligan, to Hoch Auditorium. I was so in awe at being in their presence that I remember almost nothing of the performance (except Mulligan really looked sharp). Similarly, one summer (1968?) the Schlitz Salute to Jazz came to Municipal Auditorium in K.C., featuring Thelonious Monk (!), the early Gary Burton Quartet with Larry Coryell, Dizzy Gillespie, the Ramsey Lewis Trio, and Dionne Warwick. If I’d been making a bucket list at the time, Monk would have been on it. Sadly, other jazz greats that I missed included Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Maybe in another life.
- Our first-born attended two concerts in utero. The first was Lou Reed at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas. It was fairy early in Lou’s post-Velvets career. He was dyed blonde and ditched his guitar in favor of dance moves. In the lobby, we saw a young guy in satin hotpants and a tanktop, flipping a switchblade. Later that year, we caught the Beach Boys at Allen Field House in Lawrence. Sadly, Brian wasn’t with the group at that time, but my wife reported that she could feel our son dancing.
- How about the original Mahavishnu Orchestra performing in Hoch Auditorium at KU? The opening act was the Charles Lloyd Quartet, but not the original line-up that included Keith Jarret and Jack DeJohnette. This longtime fan was disappointed, especially by the attention given to the drummer, who, as I recall, called himself Son Ship and had some kind of religious rap he wanted to lay on us. When McLaughlin and company came out, the stellar guitarist asked the audience to observe one minute of silence. Then came an ear-splitting chord-crush that blew out the candles burning on the stage in front of the speakers. My wife retreated to the lobby to listen. I stayed to face the music. (Why are my ears still ringing today?)
I’m thankful for the good fortune to have attended such performances, including others by Richard Thompson, Dexter Gordon, Joan Baez, Paul Simon, the Grateful Dead, Hot Tuna, Judy Collins, Kronos Quartet, Patti Smith (she danced barefoot among the audience), Laurie Anderson, Dave Alvin, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Young, Pat Metheny, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Herbie Hancock, Lucinda Williams, Little Feat (sadly post-Lowell George), and so many others. May we soon see the return of live music. Meanwhile, you shoulda been there. What are your memories?