Dave (Not that Dave) just sent me this email – I have to share it with you all!
Don says to get in touch with you so here I are!
I saw the band last night in Minneapolis at the Cabooze and had a great time. Here’s a bit of what I’ve written elsewhere… (forgive the few smilies in the text)
Was(Not Was) was great last night. I had a fleeting interest and knowledge of their work from having lived through the ’80s, and have always enjoyed a good R&B/Funk band but had never bought any of their LPs or seen them live or on MTV. I caught this thread so I go to tape. [a reference to another BBS for tapers]
As is my want, I got there plenty early to set up and managed to see someone who looked like he was affiliated with the band preparing to slip out the back door to the bus at around 8:15. The guy was sporting nasty dreads and a straw cowboy hat and had a very workman like set of threads hanging on him… Roadie maybe.… I approach and ask him, A) are you with the band, W(NW) and 2) are you/they still OK with taping. He sort of grinned and said, “OH, yeah sure. That would be great, just let us know where you’re going to post the show.”
I get set up and suffer through Todd Snyder, only because I’d failed to have a handle on the space left on my JB3 and it ran out mid set. 😛 and get ready for the big show to come. The band gets on stage and low and behold, the guy I’d asked permission turned out to be the bass player. Now I know nothing about who plays what in this band and in fact had thought the principals in the band were “brothers”… not siblings… “Brothers” so imagine the intensity of my head slap when it becomes apparent that the man I’d talked to was none other than Don Was. D’oh! I later confessed to him my ignorance and apologized for not having a better handle on the band’s history and promised to get the show out soon. He was very nice about it and seemed to get a little kick out of my “error”. He was very easy to talk to and seemed very high on the concept of audience taping and sharing. In fact, he made a point to announce during the show that there is a recording being made and that it will be available on the internet …”Where is it going to be posted?” he hollers out to me. It’s all on tape. ;D
It looks like the same set list that they followed at the 5-3 Ram’s Head show that is on the LMA/archive.org but I think we got an additional two encore tunes out of them. The crowd was pretty light on a Tuesday and actually fell off some when the opener was done with his set, but those who remained had a the pleasure of hearing some great singing and playing. I hope they can stay on the road.
The recording will not likely hit the LMA for a few days as I’m now in the process of moving, but it will eventually get posted.
All for now, I gotta go.
Thanks to Red
I am one of the lucky few who experienced an intimate, powerful show in Columbus,Ohio in The Basement. The band was phenomenal and the energy for what had to be less than 100 in the audience was great. I waited 19 years or so for the opportunity and the experience was far better than anything I could have hoped for. I have found it hard to describe to my friends but I am looking ahead on your tour to make sure anyone I know near a show gets plenty of encouragement to go. I still hear you playing in my head and having been able to stand next to the band during the performance I have visuals to accompany the sound track jamming thru my brain. Best show of the year anywhere
with musicians who really feel it no matter what the venue is like.
Thank you Michael!
Just in from Sleepypedro:
“My recording of the 5/3/08 (annapolis) is up on archive.org now. please tell the world!”
He has made it available as 24-bit or 16-bit recording.
If you want an MP3 version please ask on the Discussion Group
Thanks Sleepypedro!
“What we were doing was just out of vogue,” says Don Was. “Nobody was saying, ‘Yeah, keep going.’ It felt like we were lost. I once read this quote in a Bob Dylan interview: He was saying sometimes it’s just not your time, and there’s no sense in fighting it. You don’t want to compromise what you’re doing and chase fashion.”
Interview with Don in The Detroit Free Press
Full transcript of Don Was interview
The breakthrough happened when Dylan was in the studio cutting a vocal. “It was all right — not bad.” Weiss says. “Don says, ‘Great vocal, Bob.’ Bob says, ‘Great? You thought that was great?’ And Don hedges. ‘Well, you could do it again…but yeah, some good stuff on there.’
“A silence descended,” David says, “and what seemed like 100 years passed. I said these words: ‘Yeah Bob, there was something special in the air here tonight. I got the feeling, while you were singing, that had Al Martino walked in here, the two of you could have created a very special magic together.’
” ‘Al Martino?’ Dylan said. ‘Al Martino?’ Then: ‘Al Martino wouldn’t walk into a room unless it had a ceiling fan in it.’ ”
Interview with the Brothers on The Detroit News website.
“At the Birchmere, the set was occasionally weakened by stereotypical arrangements with obligatory guitar solos and generic saxophone interludes. The combo sounded best when the focus was on the vocalists: the raspy soul of Sweet Pea Atkinson, the middle range of Sir Harry Bowens, and the falsetto of Donald Ray Mitchell. Mitchell’s lead made the new tragic ballad “From the Head to the Heart” work, while the three added church-rooted harmonies on several cuts.”
Review by Steve Kiviat at The Washington Post
With thanks to Dan you can get a recording of this show on MP3 from his website, or ask him about a FLAC copy which has much better audio quality.
An interview with Don appears on the Total Music Magazine website.
“So Friday night at World Cafe Live, where a reactivated Was (Not Was) kicked out the Motor City jams for a loyal, if not quite teeming, crowd of revelers, I walked in persuadable and walked out persuaded.”
Philadelphia Show review from Jonathan Valania In The Inquirer
“You’d be hard-pressed to unearth a more unlikely band of ’80s hitmakers than Was (Not Was), the Detroit funk-soul-bebop-rock band masterminded by fake brothers Don and David Was and fronted by powerhouse R&B vocalists Sweet Pea Atkinson and Sir Harry Bowens, who had both “Walk the Dinosaur” and “Spy in The House Of Love” land in the top 20 from their 1988 album What Up, Dog?”
Interview with Dan DeLuca in the Inquirer
ok saw was not was in philly last night
i saw the show at the trocedero in 2005 and this show was just as good. having seen the band 7 or 8 times now i went with some trepidation due to the missing david mcmurray and james gadson no worries these guys are probably the tightest funkiest band on the road right now. great song choices a medley of older songs was awesome, i never expected to hear wheel me out again live. with 3 lead singers i was hoping for anytime lisa i truly love this band. if you can please go see this band they are well worth any price. i am going to see them in virginia on tues so i am twice as excited to see them again.
Thanks To Michael
WHEN A BAND takes off 18 years between albums and then the members try to recapture in their 50s the magic they had in their 30s, the results are usually embarrassing. But “Boo!,” the first Was (Not Was) album of new songs since 1990, is full of improbably catchy songs.
Geoffrey Himes – Washington Post
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