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Post by duckbarman on May 9, 2018 19:14:32 GMT
Buck - any recall on this show? - This is clipped from the 8th Feb 1968 "Daily News", so this gig obviously happened earlier than that, but the full article had this at the end: "(1967 by News Syndicate Co. Inc.)" - so maybe it was even earlier...?  |
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Post by Buck on May 9, 2018 20:24:57 GMT
Yes. It was a party at Marietta Tree's brownstone in upper east side Manhattan. We were hired as the 'new hip band' to play at a party for Penelope Tree, the daughter who was coming out in NYC society. Nice residence. Couple famous people there, actors Jason Robards and Kevin McCarthy. They got loaded and laughed a lot and talked loud.
We were pretty much ignored by the party crowd, we did a relatively short set. It was the Les era. Marietta Tree was understood to have been the mistress of Adlai Stevenson, a politician who lost the presidency twice to Dwight Eisenhower in the '50's. Don't know about Ronald, if he was even there. They had servants.
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Post by tom on May 9, 2018 21:06:09 GMT
How do you remember all these facts-I can't remember what happened last week lol
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Post by duckbarman on May 9, 2018 21:35:32 GMT
Thanks for the additional info - one thing though: > It was the Les era.
By that, do you mean Les DEFFO sang at that shindig, or Les was just there...? The thing that's twisting my melon is that I can't make the dates stack up. 02 Feb 1968: SWU play the Anderson with Country Joe/Jim Kweskin - Les watches the gig and says afterwards, Sandy P approached him officially and asked him to be the singer. 27 Feb 1968: SWU play the "Pot Bust Benefit" at the gates of SBU with the Fugs and Country Joe - Les says this was his first performance with the band. And yet... the above Tree Party clipping was syndicated across a number of newspapers in early to mid-Feb '68 but the earliest I could find was dated 8 Feb 1968. Thus the gig must obviously have happened sometime before that date. But that'd be - at least - around a month before Les fronted his first SWU gig (according to him)... Any thoughts that might help untwist my melon would be gratefully received... :-) |
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Post by Buck on May 9, 2018 21:38:48 GMT
I don't remember much of the gig at all. But the circumstance is easy to recall. We were playing in someone's house. It probably was too loud. I think I recall that Lester Lannon's society dance band was also hired for the gig. The Tree's were rich, and were high society. The kind of people who would never accept someone like Donald Trump in their crowd no matter how many buildings he built in Manhattan.
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Post by Buck on May 9, 2018 21:58:40 GMT
I assume we'd been hired because of mentions in "Crawdaddy" or we'd been signed by Elektra by then. Before Les, we'd had Meltzer as a singer, then Jeff Richards. Neither of them were singing at that party to my recollection. I'll ask Jeff and maybe Ronnie (Hoffman) Duncan, at the time Richard Meltzer's girlfriend, if she remembers. I just talked to Jeff, he wasn't there. I'm thinking it was Les, and he'd just have joined the band. Probably Les wouldn't count the party as a real gig, although he'd remember if he did it or not.
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Post by duckbarman on May 9, 2018 22:10:57 GMT
OK - thanks - I'd appreciate that.
Oh, by the way, the Lester Lanin thing was later (around June 1969) - that was at a deb's party in Riverside CT - that was the gig you were using to "break" Eric in before the big Fillmore show... :-)
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Post by Buck on May 9, 2018 23:45:21 GMT
Ah, now I'd forgotten about that one, if you hadn't reminded me.
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Post by robreich on May 12, 2018 17:53:40 GMT
Ralph,
You are amazing. This stuff is awesome.
Rob
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