Although Richard professed that this was "dance" music, most of it is in odd and shifting meters and crowds tended to stand up front and stare in bewilderment. This was due in large part to the fact the band played the punk/new wave hipster scene and eschewed the jazz and stuffy new music scene.
The band did quite a few memorable shows in SF at such venues as the Oasis, the IBeam, and had a reisdency in the dank basement of the Phillips Hotel at the not too cleverly named Underground. A few small tours to LA included a memorable evening at an "Anti-Club" gig in a hijacked downtown Chinese resteraunt with Jodie Foster in attendance. Sigh.........
After the departure of Snakefinger and Eric (and reaching a dead end as a club attraction) the band evolved into accompanying silent films and achieved it's gratest success. However, it must be said that the notoriety and name recognition was established by this particular group and later versions of the band-while perhaps more musically facile-didn't ever quite titilate nor excite (nor probably imbibe!!!) quite as much as the OG bunch.The first two Ralph records are available via Rastacan Records run by the great percussionist/composer Gino Robair who was in later versions of the band. Click him in the top 8 and he can hook you up with this rare and overlooked music!
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