If you search for “Blair Buscareno” on Google you will (hopefully) find his posts on the BOMP mail lists and text archives of articles he wrote for his fanzine, “Teen Scene.” Here’s his post from the “Do You Remember Scorgies?” blog:

“I’m fairly sure my first trip to Scorgie’s would’ve been in the early Fall of ’84, as a sophomore at the U of R. (Freshman year, I’d seen the BBBs and a couple other local bands on campus, but didn’t have anyone to go to shows with off-campus. In the summer of ’84, however, I ran into Matthew Kaplan at a Mosquitos/Lyres show at Irving Plaza in NYC. When school started up again that fall, we went to tons of shows.)

As I think back, things kind of blur together…Some absolutely mindblowing Chesterfield Kings’ shows, with Janice going nuts. The Vipers a couple times, once with the Mosquitos. The Lyres. Rain Parade, Long Ryders… So many amazing shows.

The time I showed up to see Absolute Grey w/the Cucumbers and saw The Cucumbers onstage when I arrived. I thought I’d missed the Grey, but when I saw Pat, he said, “Oh no…*We’re* headlining.” I’d automatically assumed the out-of-town band would be on top of the bill, never even considering that it was the Grey everyone would really be paying to see.

I met tons of wonderful people at Scorgie’s: Lynn Dell, Chaz Lockwood, Anna Christian, Suzie Mainzer, Olivia Smith, Dave Anderson, Brian Goodman…The list goes on.

I loved many things about Scorgie’s…Walking in by the bar, going back to a jukebox that had records by the Chesterfield Kings, the Lyres, the Vipers, etc. Being able to get bar food. (Living as I do in the NYC area, bar food is extremely rare.) Then going downstairs for the shows. The set-up down there was fantastic, too. The tables on both sides of the dance floor. The stage in front and bar in back. And I remember Scorgie’s as the first place I ever saw 60s TV show clips with rock’n’roll bands on them. Stuff like The Seeds on the Mothers-In-Law.

I also remember the mid-80s as a great time for live music in New York State, in part because the drinking age was still low enough (18, then 19) that just about anyone could get in somehow. (It didn’t hurt that the driver’s license was an unlaminated piece of cardboard with no picture!) And girls had even less of a problem. Geez, I look back at that list of people I met at Scorgie’s and it hits me that *none* of those girls was of legal drinking age when I met them. In fact, I think Olivia was 14.

Things never seemed the same to me after Scorgie’s closed. And, really, I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a rock club that appealed to me in the same way. (And this is from someone who’s spent his entire adult life constantly going to shows.) Even now, I know for a fact that Scorgie’s is one of the greatest clubs I’ve ever been to. And I’ve hung out in some great ones…Maxwells in Hoboken, CBGB’s, Magnetic Field in Brooklyn, various venues throughout the Northeast on a regular basis, as well as ones in many other places. But Scorgie’s was something special.”