The end of PG13

In 1986, PG13 had just released our "Album", and spent the summer playing for drunk frat brothers. In the previous year of our existence, we had done a bunch of shows where we would rent out a VFW hall or a park center, and would have a show for underage friends.... but this final year, we were too "big" for that, so we played bigger shows - once at First Avenue... lots of college parties.

In this time we grew VERY far apart, and split into a few factions:
- The Clique: Myself, Mike the Singer, and Tim the Replacement Bassist (who I went to art school with).
- The Oblivious: Jon the Drummer was deeply into collegiate drug stupor.
- The Resentful: Dan the guitarist and Matt the Sax just hated us.

Our final gig was in August 1986: We played a Bath Mitzvah: We were set up in an aerobicize room in a health club... and were playing to semi-adoring 13 year olds. We were mostly drunk and totally hating eachother by this point. For the final gig, Paul the original Bassist came back in, though Tim the Replacement Bassist (V2, actually there was an interim Tim the Replacement Bassist as well, but he didn't work out)

In the end, Mike wound up stealing Paul the Original Bassist's Bass Amp. The kids were disappointed because we were mostly drunk and very spiteful - we thought we should have been STARS - we had a VINYL ALBUM for crisssakes.

But out of this, were born two new bands formed by The Clique: KARL was a thought experiment - we did street busking for money, and throughout 1986-87, we actually got a LOT of gigs. We were a garage funk outfit, and I played drum. Just a ride and a cymbal is all they gave me. Karl kept on going for two years, following me to College where we played many many parties. The other band was "The Great Divide", which was us trying to be serious pop people.

For more on The Great Divide, I point interested parties to my other site at:
http://ppgwave.com/Divide.html

Karl was regrettably never properly recorded - but it's likely for the best. you sort of had to be there.

To close this blog on PG13, I point to a quote given to me by Mike, who is now singing with the Derek Trucks band: "You are very kind to tip-toe around the 800 lbs. gorilla in the room -- after a few heroic tries, we just ended up sucking."

So true. So true.