NEIGHBORHOODS WATCH...AND WAIT
There’s a medium-sized club on the outskirts of Los Angeles called the Music Machine. It is singularly unspectacular, but notable primarily for some of the acts that have performed there. The Violent Femmes were there before Gordon Gano found God.
NEIGHBORTHOODS WATCH...AND WAIT
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Steve Peters
There’s a medium-sized club on the outskirts of Los Angeles called the Music Machine. It is singularly unspectacular, but notable primarily for some of the acts that have performed there. The Violent Femmes were there before Gordon Gano found God. Australia’s Hoodoo Gurus made their local debut there. I even saw Spinal Tap there, just before their “Sex Farm” single topped the charts in Japan and precipitated a sold-out stadium tour of that country.
On this particular September evening, about 50 people are scattered throughout the darkened club as the Neighborhoods, a Boston-based trio, take the stage. The place holds a maximum of 300, but hey—it iso a Wednesday evening, and besides, the new Star Trek is premiering on the tube tonight.
“How ya doin’?” frontman David Minehan calls into the darkness, strapping on his guitar and launching the band into their first song. I’ve never seen the Neighborhoods, but it only takes me a minute to realize that there are about 2,999,950 people in this fair city of three million who don’t know what the hell they’re missing.