Comments on: JOHNNY’S DIARY : WHAT DID YOU DO IN 1977 DADDY?

By: Kris DiLorenzo

Kris DiLorenzo — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:54:01 +0000

DUH! I should’ve kept a list!! My entire social life in the 70s and half the 80s consisted of shows–working in the music bizz was one great big freebie. And yeah, I have tearsheets in my files about gigs I sure don’t remember. Kiss? Pavlov’s Dog? The Cars? OY!!

I’ve got a trunk full of diaries galore, and periodically I unearth some and save the good pages (trashing the really embarrassing episodes). If I come up with any goodies, I’ll post them on my blog here.

I gnash my teeth when I remember that as a teenager I went to Woodstock–one of those who bought tickets before it became the nation’s greatest free-for-all. I threw them out but kept the poster, which is a bit worse for wear from being in the boot and getting slightly rained on, but it’s going up on my wall (eventually).

Anyone remember No Dice? Whatever happened to them? They were a great band with a record label who had no clue as to how to market them.

Fortunately, I have many Willy DeVille memories, having seen him in several incarnations and having a friend who was in the band for a while. Willy was an artist you don’t forget.

By: Mark Pringle

Mark Pringle — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:59:10 +0000

Ah, Fred my man. I was a Roogalator obsessive, right down to my yay yang. All aboard!!

By: fred shuster

fred shuster — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:16:23 +0000

i remember seeing elvis costello opening for the very wonderful roogalator at the nashville and have no memory of of him at all. so, you’re not alone, johnny.

By: JoE

JoE — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:36:45 +0000

Johnny…have a question re: your list. Can you drop me a line? JoE

By: Paul Maher

Paul Maher — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:50:27 +0000

Johnny, how do I get permission to publish an old interview of yours with Tom Waits?

Thanks, Paul

By: Leyla Sanai

Leyla Sanai — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 09:46:01 +0000

I wish I had kept a log, Johnny, or stuck my tickets in a scrapbook or something. There are some fabulous names there.
Don’t worry about your fading memory; I have a similar experience if I ever come across my NME scrapbooks and see some of the gigs I reviewed. Who he? Who they? etc. The same thing happened when I was going through my Cds the other day; I was surprised to find several Martin Stephenson and the Daintees Cds there as well as Waterboys and all sorts of other bands I’d forgotten ever liking.
As for Costello, I saw him at Dingwalls in the early ’80s and also can’t recall anything about his performance. Maybe it was because it was packed or maybe Costello didn’t play as much from my favourite LPs of his (My Aim Is True, Armed Forces) as I’d have liked.
Anyhow, thanks for posting up your list, it brought back lots of warm nostalgic memories for me, even though I didn’t go to my first gig until ’79.

By: Jeremy Gluck

Jeremy Gluck — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:35:11 +0000

Cool Yeah, gigs…the 1st time I came to LDN I kept a list, I saw several dozen bands in 6 weeks incl some seminal shows. What a time. All time fave gig of the underground: Dear departed Nikki Sudden and his living pard Dave Kusworth drunk totally playing a set in some dump that was rock n roll beyond belief.

By: Johnny Black

Johnny Black — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:18:19 +0000

Hey Gary,

I’m proud to say that The Barracudas became good friends with me and my wife Carol back in those heady days. I have fond memories of a meal in Tootsie’s hamburger joint in Holland Park where they teased the waitress mercilessly. She was a very pretty girl, so the band kept thinking up questions to ask about the various items on the menu, so they could call her over again and engage her in conversation. The poor girl was new to the place so she never knew the answers and always had to trot off to the kitchen and come back with the answer, only to be confronted with another daft question.

My proudest ‘Cuda connection, though, is that I alterted them to the Ba-ba-ra-ra-cu-cu-da-da advert on one of the Cruisin’ series of albums, which they lifted and used atthe start of one of theor songs – I Wish It Could Be 1965 Again, if I remember rightly.

Like The Sonics they were four great guys with three great chords.

Johnny B

By: Peter Makowski

Peter Makowski — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:18:09 +0000

My God,I wish I kept a list of the gigs I went to.Unfortunately I did over indulge and never kept a diary.My memory used to be razor sharp but now I bumble along like a amnesiac goldfish.I have recently been looking through my old features to find stuff for RBP’s and have come across articles with artists I have no recollection ever meeting.Thank god for the internet and Google,I’d be well and truly f**ked without these when I go and interviews.
Johnny I have to say the entries I am most impressed with are Lemmy’s Motorhead,The Only Ones and the fabulous Lightening Raiders-a veritable Ladbroke Grove supergroup.

Long may you gig(and keep a record of it all)

By: Gary Pig Gold

Gary Pig Gold — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:36:52 +0000

The Barracudas !!!

Fresh from “The Pig Paper”
in Toronto….

must’ve been
one of their Very first gigs,
Johnny.