Big Medicine Head- the Icehouse, Sparks, NV - January 24, 1992

This show was the first I saw legally in a bar (see My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult). We first heard Big Medicine Head through a friend of ours, Robin, who worked with us at Western Union. Her brother was in the band and she had introduced us to their music and passed on a cassette of Rex Hotel, which was pretty neat and had a lot of Nevada references. It’s interesting to read the review on download.com – they call them a country band similar to Wilco. More than 20 years later Wilco is now one of my favorite bands, but at the time I absolutely despised anything “country.”

I vaguely remember the show. The Icehouse was a funny old bar in Sparks with a long history – I think it sold ice at some point as well as functioned as a gay bar for a while. It was pretty neat to see a band we had some kind of connection to in a small setting, rather than just seeing big stadium/ampitheatre shows like we were used to.

Probably a better story than the show itself was how I got to be friends with Robin. We both joined Western Union at the same time, in the spring of 1989. Western Union was the hot job to get in Reno when you were in college – it paid pretty well for pretty simple work, answering calls to check on money orders and sending the occasional telegram. I found out about it because my high school boyfriend kept trying to apply there and flunking the typing test. My friend Kim has also taken the test and spelled champion “campion” – thereby missing it by one word. I went in figuring I would probably do fine on the spelling but I knew my typing wasn’t that great. Turns out I got a lucky break. I aced the spelling test and was only a couple of WPM off the typing score – so the testing person decided I should at least get to take the math test before they made a decision. I guess I did pretty well on that because they offered me the job. Ironically I probably type in excess of 100 WPM now.

Cory wound up getting in too and we started the same time, with a two-week training class. We learned all kinds of stuff, telephone scripts, memorizing state abbreviations, learning how to calculate telegram costs and look things up on the stinky old green-screen systems. After our training we got to go on the floor to take real calls, and we partnered up to take our first calls together. Robin was my partner and she was listening as I took my first telegram.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but Western Union did quite a lot of traffic in bereavement messages. I don’t think I ever even heard the word bereavement until I worked there. Lucky for me, that first call was for such a telegram. The woman who was calling had a really thick, deep-south accent and I was having a lot of trouble understanding her. She must have told me at least six or seven times why she was calling, and I had no clue what she was asking for. Finally, I figured it out. A bereavement message! Oh, like you send to a funeral home. Ok…

When I got to addressing the message, I had to confirm every letter with her. We were trained to say things like “do you mean B as in boy or D as in Dog,” etc. So, I was trying to help this woman sound it out when Robin wrote on her notepad and showed me – “no, D as in Dead!” It was all I could do to keep from laughing hysterically, and Robin was laughing so hard that she had to disconnect from the call and walk out of the room.

In any case, that story and my several years at Western Union were certainly more memorable than Big Medicine Head – though I did go ahead and download that track for my iPod.

1991 - A year with no shows?

I have gone through all my concert ticket stubs and tried to remember each show I saw, but for some reason I can't come up with a single show in 1991. In fact, I have a gap from July 1990 to January 1992, 18 months with no concerts.

I guess that was my last year of college - I graduated in 1991, so maybe I was just too busy with school? I know I had a big group advertising project to do that final semester, and that I probably didn't have a whole lot of cash since I quit working that year. Huh.

Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning since my next post begins in 1992.

Depeche Mode (with Nitzer Ebb) - Cal Expo, Sacramento, CA - July 22, 1990

I remember this show, on the Violator tour, as one of the most fun concerts ever. Everything about it seemed just great – it was outside on a wonderfully warm summer evening. Nitzer Ebb, the opening band, was fabulous, especially after we suffered through the crappy Genuine Diamelles a couple of months before. Every song was performed just right, amazingly danceable and/or slow and tender, and it seemed that the whole crowd was so into the show that the energy was contagious.

I had mixed up the details of this show with the Bowie show in my mind. I guess they were only a couple of months apart and both at Cal Expo. But thanks to Paul and his elephantile memory, I now have it straight. Cory, Paul, Al, Christy and her brother Brian, Kirsten and her friend Debbie all went to the show. We went in three cars – Cory and Paul drove my Subaru wagon, Christy, Al, Brian and I rode in her car, and Kirsten and Debbie drove separately. We all met at the Tower Parking lot in Sacramento and Debbie made a snippy comment about a bumpersticker in the lot – Nevada is not a Wasteland, then Christy informed her it was her car and her bumpersticker she was commenting on.

Cory, Christy, Paul and I all wrote letters to spell out L-O-V-E like the Strangelove video and held up our hands during the show. We were a bit dorky, but that was nothing compared to the Little 15 video Cory and Paul had made with Paul’s camcorder.

David Bowie (with the Genuine Diamelles) - Cal Expo, Sacramento, CA - May 23, 1990

My friend CL had been a rabid David Bowie fan for years, so when his Sound+Vision tour came to Sacramento it was a natural choice for us to make the trip. At $27.50 (+ticketbastard fees), this was by far the most expensive concert ticket I had ever purchased, most were still in the $18 to $22 range, but there was never a question of whether it was worth it or not.

Four of us total went out for the show, PCH, CA, CL and myself. We did our typical Sacramento day trip, going to the Beat (still my favorite music store) and Tower Records before the show. I have a great picture of us on top of a car in Tower Parking lot, proudly displaying CL’s Bowie87 license plate.

I think this was when I realized that Cal Expo was probably the best venue in the local area for us to see shows. It was right off the freeway, just about 2 hours from Reno. It is a nice sized ampitheatre and everything is general admission, allowing you to get as close as you want to at any time during the show.

The opening act was one of the most pathetic I’ve ever seen – the Genuine Diamelles, an acapella group and about one step up from a cheesy Nevada lounge act. We felt a little ripped off, but they were so bad it was laughable. Once Bowie came on, we were all mesmerized. We managed to get all the way up to the front and stayed there for a while, but CL had some kind of horrible pain in her foot and couldn’t stand up, so we all moved back with her so she could sit down. David Bowie was and still is an amazing performer, I saw him again this spring and he still is pretty darn hot for his age.

The t-shirt I bought immediately looked like I had bought it in 1980 after only one washing – the last time I ever bought a white concert shirt.