1968...
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Soft White Underbelly: February 2, 1968. Yiddish Anderson Theater.
"In spite of their marvelous name, this is a rather undistinguished group that appeared not to know what to do with themselves most of the concert.
A tall pretty fellow, in an antique costume, placed himself on the the stage where the lead singer belongs, but he hardly sang - in one piece playing saxophone instead.
The group's leader appeared to be a pint-sized guy, dressed in a cossack shirt, who is enormously adept on guitar. Either they were missing something that evening, or I was."
from "The Fillmore East - Recollections of Rock Theater" by Richard Kostelanetz, and Raeanne Rubenstein (Photographer)
"Stony Brook's Underbelly Hits The Big Time"
Opening of the Anderson-Crawdaddy Theater: Country Joe and the Fish, Jim Kweskin Jug Band, and our own boys, the already awesome Soft White Underbelly. Country Joe and the Fish alone would have packed the place twice. But the A-C Theater presented a second act, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, which sold out at Town Hall recently, and a fantastic up and coming second group with whom we at Stony Brook are all acquainted with, the Soft White Underbelly.
The Soft White Underbelly opened the show. The audience was pleasantly surprised. The Underbelly received moderate applause and only a few catcalls from Kweskin fans, the same few people who walked out when Country Joe came on.
The Underbelly is unquestionably one of the strongest instrumental groups to play in New York since the Cream whom they have surpassed in technical virtuosity. Their major flaw was a weak vocal showing, which improved in the second show. "You" was superb. Jeff and Albert did amazingly well with their voices.
Albert's drumming and Don's lead guitar were out of sight. "Hangin' Round", a song about draft boards, had some of the clearest, most integrated organ of the night. "Green" is a beautiful folksy piece. It was followed by a tight hard rock number, "All Night Gas Station", which introduced Jeff on a tastefully used saxophone.
They do what few rock bands can do: add a saxophone in a non-raucous manner. "Alan's Song" was the weakest piece. "Rain is Falling", a soul song, was fantastic, enlivened by Don's unsurpassed guitar rushes.
The Jim Kweskin Jug Band, the best of that type of music around, was tumultously received. As a second act, it was one of the biggest successes around. As usual, the breaks between the numbers were an integral part of the show.
The band generated a warm friendly feeling and the crowd, geared to rock, ate them up. "Gwabe, Gwabe," an African folk song and "Kicking the Gong Around" were excellent, but without a doubt the two best Kweskin numbers were "Never Swat a Fly," and "I'm a Woman."
In both, Marie's vocals were fabulous, but in the latter the electric violin solo was one of the best things done by any jug band.
The stage work accompanying the change from Kweskin to Country Joe was the most professional that I've ever seen. The sparkling clear and radiant introduction was followed by Barry Melton's voice and guitar dominating the song "Love." The harp in "Masked Marauder" was perfect and the organ was just incredible.
"Thursday," by Chicken and Dave, is filled with perfect examples of the Meltzerian tongue categorizations. When Country Joe announced satirically that he was dedicating "Superbird" to President Johnson, he brought the house down.
After "Acid Commercial," they went back to some more political rock, dedicating "I-feel-like-I'm-fixin-to- die" to Che Guevera. With Barry on kazoo and everybody in a real good time music spirit, the song was better Jug band music than Kweskin's stuff.
"Death Sound Blues" is the best American rock has to offer in the way of harmonious instrumental virtuosity. The next song could be called psychedelic soul because of the James Brown influence.
Applause to "Not So Sweet," and "Thought Dream" was unrestrained. They knew what they were doing, and one sort of got the feeling that the whole thing was a show.
from "The Statesman" (9 Feb 1968) by Howie Klein
Howie's line "Their major flaw was a weak vocal showing, which improved in the second show" not only high-lighted the need for a frontman in the form of Les Braunstein, it also indicated that there were two shows from The Underbelly - and, presumably, everyone else too.
The Tea Smoking Party took place, but SWU apparently "weren't able to show up" (see second clipping above)...
When I was a student at Stony Brook University in the fall of 1967 young Sandy Pearlman started bringing the boys around to the college. At first they would jam in the dorm lounges. One Saturday night in November 1967 a Hendrix-Cream copy band named Alice was playing in one of these lounges. The boys and Sandy were hanging out listening.
Alice lent them their instruments and let them sit in. They had no singer then. They jammed like you and I breathe - every waking moment it seemed. SWU let me sing a Doors song "My Eyes Have Seen You" during that set, which they expanded into a long jam after the second verse. I stood right next to Donald and Andy Winters, their original bassist, who was quite good. Donald was all over his guitar, as the saying goes. He flew. The room tripped out with them playing in it. The boys were tight and fast and rocked hard even then. This was 1967. Pearlman knew exactly what he had.
They began opening for every rock concert at Stony Brook. One of their best performances was at the Grateful Dead concert in the gym. After their set the Dead were rigging up. Bob Weir set his Gibson SG against his amp. When he walked away the guitar fell over and the sound of the neck cracking filled the gym. Weir was upset to say the least. Donald also played an SG so guess whose guitar Weir used that night? Mr. Roeser at his kindest.
The boys lived in a house on Lake Avenue in Saint James, the next town over from Stony Brook. I hung out with them a couple of times. The walls of the rooms were painted black. They practiced in a spare room. One bedroom had a fabulous mural of Jim Morrison and the Doors, artist unknown to me. Jim was depicted as a strutting lion.
I asked them if they needed songs--I had started writing some of my own. No, they said, they had plenty. I asked them if they needed a singer. No, they'd found one--probably Les. One thing I remember is the boys were always kind, even in rejection. Polite and kind. They got the success they deserved.
Summer of 1968. I was asked to join guitarist Eddie Schrager's band as bassist and singer. Eddie borrowed the SWU's amps when came time for our Stony Brook gym concert. I remember driving to their house in Great Neck with Eddie in my '60 Chevy to pick them up--three Fender Twins. The boys were still asleep but for one, who let us into the basement studio to fetch the amps.
That's all I can remember about the boys for now. These are sweet memories indeed--happy to share them with you...
I did wonder which of the Stonybrook Dead shows was it that SWU played on... The Dead played there three times:
Anyway, I now know that it was this gig - thanks to Jane Alcorn, who also provided the above ticket - that it was definitely the 1968 gig with The Incredible String Band as she noted the fact in her scrapbook.
It's annoying that SWU never got billing on these gigs - not even the reviews in the college magazine mention them...
I don't have much recollection about the Dead show, you might ask Albert, he may have a better memory for it.
I don't remember loaning my SG to Bob Weir, although I certainly would have. Most likely it was the '68 show. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't have billing on either of those shows.
I don't know of any gigs in Sept 1968 - do you?
Going purely on the adverts from The Statesman above, this series of gigs seems to have undergone some form of mutation.
The first ad published on page 5 in the 18 October issue has this info:
Tue 23 Oct: (should obviously be 22nd)
Procul Harum
The Chrills (obviously should be "Churls")
Wed 23 Oct:
Blood Sweat & Tears
Rhinoceros, (Moby Grape?)
Thu 24 Oct:
Ten Years After
Soft White Underbelly
So - that's three gigs on consecutive days - but some of the info is clearly wrong/mis-labelled.
Anyway, the second ad that came out 3 days later on page 7 of the 21 Oct edition of The Statesman had this info (now with no mention of the "Three Days Concerts" - presumably it was now "The Two Days Concerts"):
Tue 22 Oct: [9pm Gym]
Procul Harum
Moby Grape
The Chrills (again, obviously should be "Churls")
Wed 23 Oct: [7pm Gym]
Blood Sweat & Tears
Ten Years After
Rhinoceros
Soft White Underbelly
So, that now looks like they'd taken 3 gigs and "squashed them" into two, putting Moby Grape onto the Procul Harum bill on the Tuesday and jamming 10 Years After and the Underbelly into the Wednesday Blood Sweat & Tears show.
An article in 29th October issue of The Statesman confirmed it was definitely two days of concerts, and not three.
I initially had a problem with this date because the first ad for the 23rd Oct gig (above) says SWU supported Ten Years After on the 24th Oct, but the second ad provided the correction, so I'm now reasonably happy SWU supported Todd Rundgren's Nazz on this date.