30 Bands I’ve Shared a Stage With

1. Baby Flamehead
2. Ben Vaughn Combo
3. Beretta76
4. Bob’s Revenge
5. The Chowderheads
6. Dead Milkmen
7. The Donuts
8. Electric Love Muffin
9. Sky Grits
10. The Wishniaks

1 Band That Let My Band Share Its Rider-Supplied Crock Pot of Hot Roast Beef Backstage, After Soundcheck:

1. Circle Jerks (also the sole entry on the list of Bands That One of Our Band Members Regrettably, Falsely Accused of Having Stolen His Guitar When, In Fact, Another One of Our Band Members Packed it in His Car and Drove it to Washington, DC)

4 Out-of-Town Bands My Band Shared a Stage With Before Said Bands No Longer Had to Work Day Jobs (or So I Would Imagine):

1. Flaming Lips (amazing show at Revival, with the bassist working a light show with foot pedals)
2. Goo Goo Dolls (a poor man’s, teenage Electric Love Muffin)
3. The Lemonheads
4. Galaxie 500

(The last 2 on the same bill – the former put on one of the worst shows I’ve ever witnessed, while the latter was decent but struck me as dime-as-dozen third-rate Velvets collectors.)

2 Headliner Bands That Jeopardized Our Soundcheck Owing to Weird, Egotistical Power Plays:

1. Miracle Legion (we got little more than a line check thanks to the 45 minutes Mark Mulcahy spent setting up some puppets)
2. The Lime Spiders (roadie tried to push our big-boned 5-piece band into a 5-ft square spot in front of their equipment; we resisted and booking ace Bob Denney backed us up*)

1 Band That Royally Kicked Our Butt After Showing Up Last Minute, Owing to a Broken-Down Van, Doing So While Using Our Equipment, Which They’d Never Had a Chance to Play Before, Not Even for a Soundcheck:

1. Royal Crescent Mob

1 Band That Also Showed Up 5 Minutes Before Showtime and Played Really Well on the Crappiest Old Equipment I’ve Ever Seen a Band Carry Onstage:

1. James White & the Blacks

1 Band That Was Impressively Louder Than Any Other Band We Ever Shared a Stage With:

1. The Godfathers

1 Band We Liked a Lot But Felt We Played Better Than the Night We Shared a Stage With Them:

1. The Fleshtones

1 Band We Shared a Creepy Elevator Ride With on a Festival Show, in Which We Were Separated by 8 Acts:

1. The Ramones

1 Band I Enjoyed Sharing a Stage With Multiple Times, Although I Was Usually in a Bad Mood Because I Didn’t Think We Were Playing Well at the Time:

1. The Original Sins

5 Local Offshoot Bands I Loved Sharing a Stage With:

1. Autumn Carousel
2. Heavy Indigo
3. Ornamental Wigwam
4. Powderhorn Jones
5. The Sultans of Hell

1 Band We Were Supposed to Have Shared a Stage With But Didn’t, at the Last Minute, for Some Reason I Can’t Recall:

1. The Rollins Band

A Bevvy of Cool Artists We Shared a Stage With at Our Stiff Generation Record Release Show at Maxwell’s:

1. Amy Rigby, The Anderson Council, The Bigger Lovers, Photon Band…

*Through the Facebook post, one of our old friends and advisers, Brenda Siegelman, who worked the lights the night of the Lime Spiders show and who is a longtime contributor to that behind-the-scenes world of puttin’ on a rock show, filled me in on the details of our run-in with the roadie, who was known as Jumbo, it turns out appropriately enough, as I recall us staring each other down, belly to belly. This story is really worth the price of admission. Read on…