Vaudeville – Some kinda history
After being asked to write a bit of band history,
I was ill prepared to remember many things.
The band began in the late Spring of 1978 with Alva Hill on vocals, Andy Hilfiger on bass, Tommy T on guitar, and Ronnie Mengel on drums. Tommy Hilfiger was instrumental in helping the band get together and finding a concept and look for them.
The name was taken from (and in honor of) New York City’s famous rock and roll clothing store Trash and Vaudeville. The band started out in a rehearsal space in the basement of the Elmira, New York location of the People’s Place, Tommy’s old retail chain in Upstate New York..
They dressed in punk rock clothes that came from Trash and Vaudeville, and although
The original song list didn’t really contain any true punk rock songs with the exception of The Dead Boy’s Sonic Reducer and the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop, they were still considered Elmira’s first punk rock band. More and more punk tunes were added as the band went on, but even the non-punk tunes were played with an edge never seen or heard in Elmira.
I returned home from my second year of college, that Spring of 1978, in time to be present at their first gig at a battle of the bands at the Chemung County Fairgrounds. I knew everybody in the band, and when I heard them, I knew I had to be in the band.
In those days, a band had to have it’s own PA system. Clubs weren’t equipped. My favorite band story to this day was when Alva, who lived on a farm out in the town of Chemung, sold one of his cows to by a PA.
Together, the band got tighter and expanded the set lists and eventually had three or four sets of songs that we could rotate or interchange. We only wrote a handful of original tunes, never recorded, and now lost to the mists of time.
Clubs such as The Bag, The Connection and other now long gone establishments took their chances on us and never regretted it. Some of the best sounding gigs were thanks to the Black Oak Arkansas soundman known only as Mississippi.
The band morphed itself through time with several different line ups, mostly changes in drummers. Amongst the drummers after Ronnie left the band were Tommy Lorden, Scott May, and Arty Zinnaman (later known as Arty Z in the band Glass Head and then Larry)
Singers after Alva left the band were Michael H and Rick Wrenn. Bassist Billy Christofaro picked up those chores after Andy moved to NYC.
There’s lots I don’t remember, so if anybody else would like to share their memories, please feel free to voice your recollections here!
Deek Skusting – Brooklyn USA
In loving memory of: Alva Hill, Ronnie Mengel, and Rick Wrenn
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