Here’s are live audio recordings of the band Parousia covering “White Punks On Dope” (a song written by the Tubes) and “Cross Eyed Mary (by Jethro Tull) recorded live at a D’Youville College, Buffalo NY. November 2, 1979. A non-typical band playing at a typical college mixer. The crowd is amazing as Barry works them into frenzy! Ah-h-h, good times.
Parousia booked this show at D’Youville thanks to Cheryl Hooven and her friend Terry.
This night led to some big trouble for us. We played well, but our lighting technician Lenny K. “accidentally” took two lights that belonged to D’Youville that were attached to their ceiling. Consequently, D’Youville began court proceedings to sue Parousia for the value of the lights. We had to prove to D’Youville that Lenny was a contracted technician for the band and not a band member. After several days of trying to get Lenny to come to the phone, he finally admitted having one of the lights and eventually returned it. What happened to the other light? Nobody knows.
Parousia rocks the PVR Room at D’Youville College
This show was Keyboardist Dave Maltbie’s last gig with Parousia. Dave moved on to become a “shill for the man” (now he’s a big shot corporate scientist for P&G, I think. Sorry Dave, just having some fun at your expense, congrats and hope your family is well)! In the lower left corner of the photo there is a great view of the classic Moog Sonic Six Synthesizer.
Notice the Hanged-man puppet on the front of Gerry’s drum riser.
Bruce Decker, Talented Keyboardist who moonlighted as Parousia’s sound engineer at D’Youville College
The sound for this show was provided by our friend and fellow Music Mall musician, Bruce Decker, who at that time was playing in his own band, “Stross Fletcher”. Stross Fletcher wrote good original rock with a heavy progressive influence, if you search the web you can still listen to their local hit “Susan Bannister” among others. And Bruce was just plain cool.
Flyer Created on the D’Youville College Mimeograph Machine
D’Youville College Ctr & PVR room
Gerry with Cheryl Hooven
I bumped into Lenny at a meat raffle tonite in Sloan NY near the Keith Gregor Music mall. He used to work lights for Parousia. I used to be in the Band as a keyboard player. He remembers all of us. Funny thing is that I have bumped into Lenny quite a few times over the last 8 years as my son went to the same school as his kids. I have met him at parties through a mutual friend and BAM!!!! like a freakin ton a bricks it just hit me one day “ I cannot believe where I know his guy from…..Then I see him tonite and ask him …..I had to ask him….what do you think I had to ask him….what….? where are the F#$%^&*( lights?? from that gig.
I remember being very excited after being told by my brother Jerry (the drummer in our band Parousia) that we got the gig at D’Youville College “back in the day” (Nov. 1979). Again, like the WWE wrestlers would eloquently sate: “AAAAAAh, What a Rush!” Thank God my brother was going out with a girl ( her name being Cheryl Hooven) who was on their student council and “helped pull some strings” to get us this job (yeah, you know that’s the Western N.Y. way; especially when it comes to corrupt politicians that would and still do this all the time. OOOPS, did I say that? Musta’ slipped right out. Tee Hee). Well, anyway, getting back to my story; we got the job; that was the important thing. The hell with the other bands that’s what I say! There I go again; “slip sliding away.” Hmmm, almost sounds like a popular song title by a certain famous duet; oh, I don’t know, maybe Simon and Garfunkel. I’m just saying players! Switching back to my story again; I remember this show went off real well; with us mesmerizing the crowd with our Supertramp songs (“School” and “Dreamer”), as well as “Hocus Pocus” by Focus; “Cross Eyed Mary” by Jethro Tull, and “White Punks on Dope” (aka: Lenny K. our very “shady” light man that night. I just couldn’t resist this “slamming opportunity” dogs) by the Tubes. Later, we were informed by Cheryl that the student council really wanted the band “Lance Diamond” to perform at their Mixer, and that our songs we were a bit too “intense” for them. Boo Hoo Hoo, poor babies; my heart bleeds for damaging their whimpy ears, and corrupting their puritan-like souls! “Welcome to the REAL WORLD of INTENSE rock and roll, bitches” Snooky would probably proud of this statement. ‘Nuff said! Cool show!
Signed,
Da Dimwitted Guitarist,
Barrymannia!
Here’s the story of how we got to play at D’Youville:
My girlfriend Cheryl Hooven was on the student council at the college. Cheryl solicited the help of Terry, her student council buddy, to try and help us land this gig at the social-hall knowing they both had to stick out their necks pretty far in order to convince the rest of the gals on the council that Parousia should be the band to perform there… This was like requesting an audience to see the Queen of England… and they were not amused. Although Cheryl knew that we as a band would perform at our very best, her friend Terry was not as convinced and let us know in no uncertain terms that she was against it from the start, all because she heard and believed the false rumors that Parousia was a punk-rock band. Oh, and that Terry was just ‘chompin’ at the bit’ to stick poor Cheryl with a big fat “I told you so” if the student council didn’t like us. Keep in mind, we weren’t the kind of band they prefer considering their favorite local groups were more along the lines of “Lance Diamond”, “the Keys” and “Junction West”.
To make matters more delicate, D’Youville was a venue typically booked by StarStruck Productions who had an entertainment strangle-hold on venue’s and talent in and around the Buffalo, NY area and so it was somewhat controversial for us to bust up the StarStruck monopoly and grab a prime gig at a local college normally reserved for bands like Cock Robin, Weekend, the Road, etc. Of course, our price was right and considerably less than what they would pay for a StarStruck band.
Cheryl loved the song “Surrender” by Cheap Trick and it just so happened that Parousia played a killer version of it for her that night. But alas, that wasn’t enough for these ladies. The majority of which didn’t like Kim Watts and her ‘punkish’ attitude. Kim sang a version of “White Punks on Dope” (a song written by the Tubes) and ended the song by pointing at the crowd in an accusatory fashion and shouting into the microphone, “I said White Punks on Dope and that means all of you!“… Well Terry and the student council had a field day with that, saying “how rude” we were, implying that the students were on drugs… of course if they had been on drugs, I’m sure they would have better enjoyed our eclectic list of progressive rock and other tunes. In fact, many of the students did like us, especially when we played songs by SuperTramp, Blondie, the Cars and Pat Benetar. Bottom line… if the Student Council didn’t like you, then that was the end of the game.
It only made matters worse when Lenny “borrowed” a couple of D’Youville’s spot-lights from the ceiling of the PVR room. It’s no wonder that after our show, the Student Council went back to making a ‘deal with the devil’ and booked their next Music Mixer with the popular local band Cock Robin through StarStruck productions. I guess the girls on the council were ready to “Rock with the Cock”. (Odd considering a large percentage of them didn’t really date men unless it was for appearances while in the presence of Mommy and Daddy who paid their way through D’Youville which was by no means inexpensive).
Funny thing is, Cock Robin also played a version of the song “White Punks on Dope”, but maybe the difference is that they didn’t have Kim Watts singing it. Stay tuned; in the not so distant future we will post on this page Kim’s version of the song ‘White Punks on Dope’ and you can hear for yourself the incredible Ms. Watts belting it out for ‘the dogs of D’Youville’.
(Regarding the song “Cross Eyed Mary”). Nice work on that one!
(Regarding the song “Cross Eyed Mary”): That was a good cover by Parousia. Always enjoyed it.