Here’s the ironic thing about Parousia performing at one of Buffalo’s premier gay clubs.  Our only gay band member, Kim Watts, was no longer in the band.  She quit back in May… nonetheless our hit song Miss Ogyny on the 97 Rock album opened the door to many new opportunities and this was one of them.  As a band we would never discriminate when it came to the color green.

. On July 1st the band was booked at the premier gay night club in Downtown Buffalo called City Lights. Parousia was paid $250.00 to perform on a Wednesday night and played from 11:00 PM to 2:45 AM.  We had the help of four roadies plus Mike Carroll on lights.  For some reason, Garth Huels was paid exactly $1.00 and Gerry was paid $5.00 (reimbursement for a new drum head maybe?).  Rick at Backstage took his 15%, ($38.00) and the rental-truck was $47.00.  We decided to “splurge” a little when we enhanced our light show with the purchase of a rotating gumball light for $40.00.  We would use the Gumball light effect during the song “Talk To You Later” by the Tubes.  Our expense for the evening totaled $233.00 leaving us with a massive profit of $17.00.  Hey, but that Gumball light was OURS 100%!

City Lights featured a lot of “Punk” and “New Wave” bands in 1981.  We played with many of them at clubs around town like McVan’s and the Masthead.  In 1979 we rehearsed with The Vores and Pauline and the Perils at an industrial building on Rano Ave. and we knew Stiff Mitten from the Music Mall in 1981.

City Lights had its own unique clientele.  The club had a distinct 1970’s vibe to it, like heavy disco.  It had velvet drapes and leather seats and the stage was up about two feet from the floor.  The audience liked a lot of our songs but we were a lot louder than they were expecting and we may have shattered a few volume records for loudest band at City Lights (Talas never played there as far as I know).

In 1983, Mayor Jimmy Griffin ordered the first of several raids on the downtown gay bar City Lights, referring to its customers as “faggots and fruits” and attempting to deny the establishment a liquor license.  Whoa, politically incorrect now-a-days or what??