Saturday, December 5, 2009

Here's a rarity for you...a photo of the first "new wave" band in Buffalo, The Blue Reimondos. On the right is Pete LaBonne. He had a lead role in the book as you might remember. I'm in the middle and our bass player John B. King is on the left. And no, blue Lacoste shirts and khakis were not our uniform although that's approximately what we always wore and never changed into rock and roll /punk attire for performances. In the background you can see the every expanding audience of empty Stroh's bottles that we performed for several nights a week in Pete's basement. We were diligent about practicing but couldn't get many gigs because we had graduated from covers to nearly all original (Pete's material). This was '75-'77. By the time new wave / punk started to get accepted we were done - only to get back together (with the wonderful Deb Parker on bass) in '79 and back up Alex for that one monumental gig.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I've heard many tapes of you guys & you were great! New band was called the Phila Party Nuggets & a real bass player I was not - but Pete liked the fact I would play the songs exactly the way he taught me.

sam said...

Ah Pete...I remember jamming with him in Boston in the early 80's after Bill P. had talked him up to a legendary status(even bigger than Chilton) to me. And I also remember what a great guy he was to this little ass punk that I was. Can't remember if this is when you were Bruce or not. Clue me.

sam said...

What I meant to say is I can't remember if you were there Bruce when Pete was there.

B. E. said...

Sam - Was never there when Pete was there. He now lives in upstate New York near Fort Ticonderoga / the Vermont border. Haven't seen him in a few years and I really miss the magic that he just throws off so casually.

Deb - I would say that a real bass player is one who plays just what the song calls for. Wish we had more tapes from back then.