I Remember Scorgies

Press Tones - Not Any Older

The Press Tones played Scorgies 11,652 times. I think. It may have been more. The Pistoleros played Scorgies twice. Not sure, I can’t remember. The Crypt Kids didn’t play at Scorgies but we sure hung out there alot. I know ‘Open Season on Jim Freeze’ didn’t play Scorgies, I think Jim was banned from the bar at that point. The Folk Explosion may have played Scorgies, don’t remember. The Chinchillas played at Scorgies a few times when it reopened later on. We played downstairs in 1992 or 1993 and we had our CD release party for “Retro” upstairs in the bar. It 1999 or 2000 and they may have changed the name to ‘Token Joes’.

I don’t have any pictures from the early days. I was studying photography at school and I didn’t even carry around a camera. Oh well.

I met Richard Kaza at Scorgies. He managed The Press Tones and also brought in many national acts to the club. He opened and managed Idols and Freakazoid later on. It was great to see him when The Press Tones played at Abilene this past August.

At the Scorgies reunion show tomorrow I know I will see many people I haven’t seen in a long time, and I probably won’t remember them, but it should be an interesting evening.

Loving this blog. I really wish I could be at the show 11/21, but … can’t. It all started so innocently. My friend Rick Birch intro’d me to Scorgies and New Math back in the day, I don’t know, 1978 maybe? Big Daddy’s? Got to meet some of these music people in Roch. Old friend Danny Deutsch was a part of it. I remember a party where Kevin Patrick was promising to buy a new stylus for the host if he would just play “Volunteers of America” one time.

But then in late 79 or 80, I came back from Calif. and met Paul and Peggi and reconnected with Martin — whom I’d known since before he got his first Nehru jacket — and we started talking about songs and ideas. Next thing you know, we’re down in that basement six or seven days a week for most of the next two years. It was such a rich and rewarding time. We’d come up with ideas, work ’em out together, add ’em to a set list  and blast them out there. And people liked it! Eclectic, eccentric, Hi-Techs was a weird little rock n roll band, but the kids would dance, usually. We were together so much, it felt like family. And there were so many great friends in that crowd, in bands and the clubs and all the people around the whole “scene.” I’m tempted to name all these names, but that would be pointless. You’re mostly here.

So you look back 25 or 30 years to a little stretch you did between things — after college and California, before grad school, marriage and kids (and divorce) — and you think, that was special. That was a highlight. That was truly fine.

Around the last year Scorgies was open I joined the “Beers of the World” club.  I believe if you drank 100 different beers from around the world in 100 days or less, you got a case of different beers from breweries around the planet. You also got your name on a plaque which was put up with all the other people who became members and drank the 100 beers. I remember being very bummed when someone pried my name plaque off the board. I never found out why it was taken or whoever took it. Now’s your chance to come clean!

I also remember one of my birthdays on New Year’s Eve (not sure what year) when the Chesterfield Kings were playing in the basement.  Lead singer Greg Prevost somehow ended up on my shoulders and while carrying him all over the place he was pulling down the ceiling tiles (Scorgie loved this.) It was one of the most fun Birthdays I ever had.  It was a great bar and I miss it.

Fred Armstrong

Editor’s note, check out this GREAT article on the Chesterfield Kings (circa mid-nineties).

MUSIC TO REUNIONIZE BY:

New Math: Hot Sounds
Swing Set: You That I Want
The Insiders: Leave Me Alone
The BBBs: Tired Of Waiting (live at Penny Arcade, ’82)
The Fadeaways: Trust
The Young Idea: My Baby’s In Love
The Fugitives: Last Time (live)
The Ferrets: Play With Fire
Cousin Al & the New Generation: Zombie Twist
Invisible Party: Can’t Seem To Make You Mine (live at Scorgies, ’84)
The Essentials: Wild Romance
Colorblind James Experience: First Day Of Spring (live at Jazzberry’s ’85)
Hi-Techs: A Woman’s Revenge
The Rumbles: Hourglass Reunion
New Math: Older Women

[audio:http://earcandyarchive.podbean.com/medias/web/aHR0cDovL21lZGlhMi5wb2RiZWFuLmNvbS80MzUwNy91L0VwaXNvZGUxZ2FyYmFnZXBsYXRlLm1wMw/Episode1garbageplate.mp3]

46:51 length

You can also listen to Episode 1 of the Flower City Jukebox here:

Weekends by Scorgies

I see that on some of the posters (even a few I made) But I can’t remember why it was Weekends By Scorgies!

Anyone remember?

the summer of ’82…MTV came to Rochester. We had never seen anything so cool. I came back from sophomore year at SUNY Fredonia to work at Kodak. This guy my sister, Beanie( a Scorgies regular) knew from St. John Fisher came and sat down at our table and announced we would be working together in Bldg 9. I remembered him from Halloween 81.  He had gone as some guy named rock and roll Joel and was totally rude. I hated him immediately. whatever…By June 18 we had shared our first kiss as he dropped me off after the Comateens show. We have been married for almost 20 years.

Anyhow-every night out started or ended at Scorgies that summer, and usually we never left. It was dark and woody. the other side never really got the same seasoning. It was too bright. I remember: George, Planet Claire, the Keith Richards guy, Luke Warm, Jimmy Jazz, doing the Riverview dance onstage with the Cliches, dancing to Radio Clash with Andi, Beanie and Affee downstairs, innumerable bathroom trips in various stages of intoxication, Angelo pouring beer on himself, Rudy Valentino using a drumstick on his guitar during a solo with the Majestics (that was later), Joe “king” Carrasco, the Press Tones. I remember being smushed in front of that tiny stage during a New Math show and thinking this is it, man. I didn’t think life could get any better. We were the coolest.

Aug 8 that summer Kelly Grant got killed by losing control of her car and hitting a tree on 490. We drove past the accident on our way home. I knew somebody had died. I found out the next day it was her. She had looked so pretty that night, standing in the amber light. she had on a striped blouse and knickers. People were waiting for her at her house for the “after Party”. It was a horrible week as we staggered through her wake and funeral. I still look for the tree every single time I drive 490. There is a cross there now. My daughter is named Kelly and she is 17.