|
REVIEWED! Our recent show at Cantab! READ IT HERE >>
| NEXT SHOW: coming up... |
|
READ THE LATEST: Boston's METRO paper examines the antics of America's favorite husband-and-wife rock extravaganza.
|
|
| Ben 'n' Lisa let loose at TT the Bear's, 2008 |
Hope Springs Infernal:
Varsity Drag and the persistence of rawk
It is said that you can't keep a good man down. Apparently, this applies equally to those of us without any such moral credentials.
I mean, heck, look at ME--after all these years, playing in a band, having a record out, and actually having people show up
and listen! I tell ya, it's more fun than a barrel full of anthrax.
Yep, it's all true: Varsity Drag represents the latest free-form Deily-based musical enterprise, rooted in the pre-grunge
pop punk and "alternative" (back when there was such a thing) music of our collective youth, and hurled with cheerful
defiance at the new millennium.
With origins shrouded in the not-terribly-distant haze of the San Francisco Bay area, in the last few years we've been
doggedly pursued by a UK record label who kindly insisted on putting out our record, got ourselves distributed all over the
world, and found ourselves careening off on a 25-city European tour--all without quitting our day jobs.
|
|
| Dover Brickhouse, all-ages show. (2007) |
We play our own new tunes. We play my tunes from the old (heretofore retired) TAANG!-era Lemonheads catalogue. We play any
kinda nonsense we can get away with.
The current lineup consists of yours truly,
my hyper-talented wife (and the band's only Screen Actor's Guild member) Lisa, and drummer extraordinaire Mike “Panama” Quinn. Past
members have included Greg Randall and Will Anderson (Unbalanced), Pat Spurgeon (Rogue Wave, Antenna), Ian G. Miller (Splayed
Innards), Andrew Perfetto (Zug Zug), Bob Spector (The Specs, Zachariah)...not to mention former Lemonheads-fill-in drummer and kid brother Jonno.
|
|
| Cutting a rug at the Midway, Boston MA. |
Down below, you'll find the fractured remains of a Varsity Drag "history," lotsa photos, and some MP3s for download. And up
here, you get my solemn promise to organize this better one of these days. Meanwhile, the MySpace page is always current, our tour videos are on YouTube, and we're still waiting for some enterprising soul to create a wikipedia page to accompany the growing number of references to us ...
For the nonce, prepare to scroll!
--BD, Spring 2008
varsity drag discography
* "for crying out loud" (CD, colored 10" vinyl with bonus track), BOSS TUNEAGE 2006
* "for crying out loud" CD, limited run (hand-made)
* "miles of ocean," on BOSS TUNEAGE sampler
* various bootlegs, known and unknown
MORE varsity drag... >>
EURO TOUR 2007 UPDATE:
| Hey! It's almost just like a real poster! |
|
|
NEW! Varsity Drag TOUR news page updated with new videos, article! HAVE A LOOK >>
Um, well, it happened. It's over. Wow.
We're currently going through the video, stills, and live audio, tryin' to get it all together in an entertaining form--as
soon as we do, it'll be posted up here...
Meanwhile, check out this cool review of the Cambridge, UK show:
>>review from Disposable Media (PDF):
>> Watch "skinny ties" LIVE in Hamburg
And be sure 'n' check out the TOUR DIARY entries on our MySpace blog, spanning January 18 to February 22...
Anyhoo, here was where we went:
|
| Who loves his T-shirt? THIS guy. (Spain.) |
19.01.2007 D-Frankfurt, Au
20.01.2007 D-Koeln, Tsunami Club
22.01.2007 UK-London, Islington Bar Academy
23.01.2007 UK-Exeter, Cavern Club
24.01.2007 UK-Birmingham, Bar Academy
25.01.2007 UK-Cambridge, Portland Arms
26.01.2007 UK-Wakefield, The Jockey
27.01.2007 UK-Newport, Le Pub
28.01.2007 UK-Bristol, The Junction
30.01.2007 F-Bordeaux, El Inca
01.02.2007 E-Vitoria, Kitsch Pop Club
02.02.2007 E-Barcelona, La [2]
03.02.2007 E-Don Benito, Bar Rincon Pio Sound
04.02.2007 E-Don Benito, Bar Rincon Pio Sound
06.02.2007 F-Clermont-Ferrand, L'Escapade
07.02.2007 D-Freiburg, KTS
08.02.2007 A-Innsbruck, Weekender Club
09.02.2007 A-Berg im Drautal, Q Bar
10.02.2007 A-Vienna, TÜWI
11.02.2007 D-Berlin, Wild at Heart
13.02.2007 D-Muenster, Gleis 22
14.02.2007 D-Wilhelmshaven, Kling Klang
15.02.2007 D-Hamburg, Hafenklang
16.02.2007 D-Flensburg, Volksbad
17.02.2007 D-Bremen, Tower Bar
Check out Ben's (faily) recent Lunakafe interview.
All this stuff down here, I'm getting around to it. :-)
|
|
| >>Join the social networking clusterf*ck! |
BELOW: THE VIRTUAL ON-LINE Varsity Drag MUSEUM
(The old write-up, preserved for your edification.)
Will this d*mned scrolling never end?
:-)
|
|
| Ben 'n' Greg: dragsters in full effect. |
"rock & roll
is such a hassle"
varsity drag and the great dot-com swindle
Salaries paid in stock options. Businesses launched on a swoosh logo and a bad idea. All perched on a matrix of geological
fault lines that would make yer State Farm guy sweat bullets. Yes, it's San Francisco in the not-too-long-ago.
It was against this backdrop that we tumbled into being: four fellahs with everything better to do with our free time, but
forced together by a collective jones for music that would not be denied. Named after a 1920's dance craze, and proudly embracing
a credo of hard-won 30-something wisdom ("Rock & Roll is Such a Hassle"), we burned up the San Francisco bay
area around the turn of the millennium. Our gods were the Replacements, Big Star, Beatles and Beach Boys. Our method was collaborative
and free-form. Our days, of course, were numbered. [Or so we thought at the time. :-) BD, 2008]
A brief aside: As has already been firmly established--by ex-girlfriends, musical collaborators and people who've loaned me
money--I posses a somewhat selective memory. And sure, I'm the first to admit that my recollection and judgement can be a
little hit or miss. THAT having been said, I know this much is true:
THE DRAG RULED ALL OF YER CANDY ASSES--and we might again, if you don't behave. Definitely the best live band I've ever
been party to, and the most fun. Um, I guess those things are supposed to go together. (Too bad I didn't figure that out for
the first decade or more of my musical "career," heh heh. Sigh.) And hey, best of all, we got a record down before
everyone stopped speaking and was scattered to the four corners of the earth.
Anyhow, I have (surprisingly) little more to say on the subject. I shall let these archival photos conjure up a bit of flavah,
and for the rest, let the MUSIC do the talkin'.
-- BD, Summer 2005
NB: Ahem. Needless to say, in the interim (since the above was composed) it would seem that we HAVE returned to rock said
candy asses of yourne. Excelsior!
--BD, Winter 2007
|
