shudder's setlist.fm

Hi Don -- I was gone from UCSD by the time you were there in 81-83 as I graduated in June of '81, but I was playing around town (Spirit Club, The Bacchanal, The Loading Dock, etc. ) in Some Ambulants. I'm still working now with the other guitar player from SA, Andy Faunch. We put out a record this past summer and were just reviewed in The Troubadour (favorably!). Catch up with us at http://faunchmusic.com.

Yeah, that night at the California Theater was probably a humdinger for Mr. Partridge, as well as his entire band. That Watchtower was one for the ages. I must've been sitting just over to your left. We went up there for that song and I recall it was mostly empty upstairs.

/shud

Hey "Michael McClure" I was at UCSD around same time, lived on Revelle 81-83, was also at that final XTC show in the California Theatre. Up on Mezzanine too. If I remember correctly they started with "All Along The Watchtower" after the loooooong Intermission. Only later did I start to wonder if the Intermission was so long because Andy wasn't interested in getting back out on stage...

Hi Keith --

Ha haha! No. I ~did~ meet him once, however. He was kind of an ass. I went to UCSD in the late '70s (there's that San Diego tie in again...), and he came to our performance space on Revelle College at the time, a little room called "Ubiquity", to give a reading of some of his work. I introduced myself to him after his reading, and he got all in my face about the fact that he 'owned' our name, and other bullshit about SAG and such (I was a theater major). His reaction to me was weird and uncalled for. He bordered on being mean even -- I was just a college kid, and I thought it was kind of cool, but he was in no mood for it. Kind of a dick about it, in fact. Charles Bukowski was nicer than Michael McClure (he, along with his ubiquitous bottle of Jack Daniels, also gave a reading of his work, but his reading was actually done on a dais inside Revelle Cafeteria... so weird)

Over the years, things have wrapped around with Michaael McClure the poet in my life, as you might imagine (up to and including your question here!). I received a series of phone calls in the middle of the night in 1984 from some sort of weirdo fanatic who was convinced I was him. Eventually that person gave up and left me alone. Thank god there was no internet then...

Much later, in 2002, my wife and I bought a house next door to a couple who quickly became our best friends, and remain so to this day. The wife in that pair is Jim Morrison's niece, and of course the other Michael McClure did spoken word performances with Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek up until his death in 2013, so that was a weird tie in to the other Mr. McClure.

I answered your post out on the set list. The truth will out eventually...

Best,

shudder

You signed your XTC comment Michael McClure - are you the poet from San Francisco or related to him?