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DON'T
TRY THIS AT HOME;

"more
to Paul Rock than meets the eye"
Paul Rock
used to have this quaint little house off highland near olympic,
which is south of hancock park, in the lower hollywood/midtwon part
of los angeles. Paul would host parties that centered around great
bands from the past. case in point; about 10 years ago (actually,
I believe it was April 29, 1993), Paul invited Baby Lemonade to
attend his "beach boys party" where there would be instruments
set up in the living room and selected musicians were asked to play
beach boys songs. The bands asked to attend that night (besides
us) were the Wondermints, The Negro Problem and Daisy Chain. We'd
never met any of them before that night.
At the time,
Baby Lemonade consisted of Daddyo, Rusty, Myself and original bassist,
Henry Lui. We played our set and then we had to split, as we had
our very first gig playing at Raji's in Hollywood as the new LOVE
group. So we only caught the Wondermints, who were spot on brilliant.
That night was really great and it was Paul, being the kind of guy
he is that would bring musicians together like that. And it gets
funnier; the opening band, BOYS NAMED SUE, had a really cute, long
hair bassist that we eventually asked to join Baby Lemonade and
LOVE; Dave Chapple.
I remember
when we met up with dave to discuss the group, we were nervous cause
several bassist we wanted to audition wanted nothing to do with
us. See, at the time, Rusty and myself had a bit of a reputation
of being assh*les when it came to working on music. But we're totally
nice now! Plus, you know, at the time-and we're talking 1993- the
singer had a not so good reputation. We worked our asses off to
bring credibility back to name LOVE. Many people come up and tell
us we're lucky to be playing in LOVE but they forget what it USED
to be like. I mean, I certainly FEEL blessed beyond words...everyday.
But I like it now that LOVE fans have raised the bar and expect
more...they expect the best. I hear boots from '92 and stuff like
in Liverpool and think people must be mad! But that's their memory...you
can't take that away! Those are special moments. But i trult hope,
with these upcoming shows in the states, that we really get this
thing across to you-hoo, know what I mean? It's time for America
to stand up and be counted among the Forever Changes faithful.
But back
to ol Paul Rock. Paul has put together many amazing concerts featuring
soem of the best talents around (brain Wilson, Alex Chilton, Jon
Brion...ok, wierd people...just joking...) and guess what he does
with the proceeds from many tribute concerts he's put together with
his WILD HONEY FOUNDATION? he gives the proceeds to charity. just
recently, march 27 (the day AFTER we flew to Amsterdam!) he put
together a tribute to Elvis Costello, featuring a host of great
folks, including Michael Penn and Aimee Mann. All the proceeds went
to the USC Cancer Center, where a good friend of ours, Greg, has
been battling cancer for the last 7 months. That's why I like Paul
Rock. He's one of the good guys.
=====
Mike Randle
mike@lovewitharthurlee.com

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