The Next Big Thing

Brother Don's been out on the town in old SF....

"just back from Magic Christian at the Great American Music Hall. they opened for Tainted....excuse me... Tinted Windows. quite a night! after a pit stop up the street at the edinburgh castle (where they no longer serve belhaven... what kind of scot bar doesn't at least have belhaven? i mean, i said, "so you have no beer from scotland at all any more? and the guy says, "we have newcastle". i said, "just give me a bass and some fish n' chips please" anyways...

from there down to the music hall where MC pretty much blew the roof off the joint. drummer clem burke was particularly jazzed. for some reason he was off to the side rather than the back middle and this seemed to quite literally supercharge him... he was tossing his sticks nearly to the ceiling all night (and catching them each time). they did all heir stuff..."tomorrow never comes", "all the stars" among the originals, "anytime at all", "out in the street", among the covers. totally won over the audience which included none other than roy loney. cyril gave roy a shoutout and paul dedicated "teenage head" to him. that was a surprise! they were pretty much in control by the time they got to the DC5's "anyway you want it".

cyril had his trademark dan armstrong plexi while eddie sported a brand new dan electro longhorn bass that looks just like one you would've picked up in '58. cyril used a piggyback fender supersonic amp. paul banged a tambourine and played some great harmonica here and there. they got an encore and did "shake some action" on which they were joined by this guy Mike who came all the way from Pennsylvania. this is the cat from the Parallax Project who cut the Who's "It's Not True" with the band (i think it's on the next album but i'm not sure).

me and tom had a blast hanging with cyril and the guys backstage after. i checked out eddie's bass. it's just like my dano aside from the color and it has different knobs. and it was great talking with roy too. outside afterwards there were tons of chicks waiting for the Hanson guy (who sings for the Windows). and waiting in vain... you should've seen their faces when Cyril told them their hearthrob had long ago left the building via the back door! but Cyril-- ever the crowd pleaser -- hung around and signed everything in sight.

very successful show i thought. good turnout for MC despite the high cover charge."

Whilst we’re on the subject, score the upcoming Dirty Water release by Magic Christian here!