Not too often do I uncover some mid-1970s Footstompin’ Music like this. Thanks to guitarist Gary Narducci, a REAL East Side Italian, for saving this stuff and allowing me to present it to you. The Stone Faces liked to play the East Side and the St. Croix Valley, with lots of stops at The Lamb’s Club on East 7th, The 9R Ranch in Wisconsin, & The RollingStone on Cottage Grove. Covers AND originals were the order of the day. The originals remind me of The James Gang or Blue Oyster Cult. ENJOY!
Bassist Paul Tobako recently shed some light on this enigmatic record. Paul and drummer Tim Flaherty were both from Brooklyn Center, the other band members were from various parts of town. Roxx were based on a farm on the east side of the Twin Cities metropolitan area for awhile, some members lived there from time to time. Paul claims he auditioned for the band there, when there was three feet of snow on the ground. The farm was “run down, but still nice enough”. They played quite a bit in Canada, traveling Highway 1 all the way from Thunder Bay to Edmonton. During a residency in St Louis, the band stayed in a condominium-like complex, and the songs for ‘Get Your Roxx Off’ were written in the pool room there. The band eventually got a vehicle for transport, a used Old Dutch Potato Chips delivery truck.
Thanks to Paul for giving me the go-ahead to present this stuff. Paul and Tim put out a CD in the early 1990s under the name Coldfire, here is some to check out on YouTube.
The ZINK LP was a studio project by some Minnesota bar band and studio veterans, recorded at Fed DeVir’s basement studio in St Paul, MN. Written and put together by deft guitarist Steve Wellens, it also featured vocals and drums by Paul “Rock” Ducharme, who was Warren Kendrick’s ‘hired gun’ drummer at Warren’s Audio City Studio a few years earlier. Steve was in a couple of bar bands Runner and Brazz (see the song “Bolero for Brazz” on the Zink LP), and Paul was in Rigel from 1977-81, and played on the ZOSER 7″ “Dark of the Morning” that Warren released on the Hexagon label, which also released the second Litter LP. Paul has some recent recordings made in his home studio up on SoundCloud here. Here is what Steve is up to now.
Thanks to Steve and Paul for the go-ahead to post these songs, what a cool obscure Twin Cities LP!
Sovreign were Harding High School’s greatest offering of 1970s rock and roll. They practiced in basements on Minnehaha & Howard St, then on Third Street across from the school, even in Mrs. Wilhelm’s basement for a year! The seven songs presented here are cover versions of songs made famous by Montrose, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath, The Rolling Stones, and Johnny Winter. The photos shown were taken at the Third St practice space- note the Zig Zag guy on the wall. Dino went on to drum for St Paul Power Poppers Smart Alex (see earlier blog posting), Marty had a career in the music biz for over a dozen years. These songs and photos present a better snapshot of that lost age of the East Side Rock than I ever could have hoped to show you. Thanks to Marty Kearney for giving me permission to present Sovreign to you again.
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND these are basement practice tapes from 1977, as played by high school-age musicians…the recordings are primitive, and I think they’re pretty great!
GJG is certainly the best place to buy a ton of records. We have 470,000 of them, and have been selling 'em for 29 years. GJG is also a blog: I like lo-fi analog sound (cassettes and vinyl, please) and lo-rez/highly-pixelated/blurry photographs of (mainly) Minnesota music and its related ephemera.
A word about the audio clips posted on this blog: ABSOLUTELY NO sound editing is used. No level boosting, no de-clicking, no 'cleaning up', no sweetening, no mastering. You can do that yourself if you like- we're trying to give you the actual sound from the item provided- warts and all.
TURN IT UP if you want to!
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