LIVE@JACQUES
On Monday, July 28, 1996 Adam SChatten brought his video camera to Jacques Cabaret and shot segments of a night when I was recording, for 5 Mondays in a row, LIVE@Jacques. Mics at the pool table picking up the smack of pool balls, the patter of ladyboys, the varying (from tepid to enthusiastic) crowd response to my songs, the in-bar chatter. As always, Charles Isenberg delivered his non-sequitur introduction to my ‘moment’ – this particular intro of his is my favorite.
‘Fellatio – Rick Berlin!’
Says it all, as he ratted me out at work.
Adam’s writeup about the night speaks for him, but as I had yet to archive my thoughts about that 10 year, every fucking Monday night, clubhouse Jacques had become during my ‘tenure’.
I’d pretty much finished ‘Half In The Bag’, a record that Chet Cahill and Chris Mehl produced at Chet and Billie’s house in Malden. We took a stab, with Beth Harrington, at turning those songs into a band, The Awful Truth (though I’m slippery with the dates– ie was the Jacques period before or after that band?). To some extent – it doesn’t matter.
How the gig went down:
Isenberg, my roommate at The Piano Factory, was a manager at the Loew’s movie theater that used to live next door to Jacques. Needing change for the theater, Charlie would stop in at the club and get money from Johnny Freda or Kris Turilli, have a pop, and return to work.
I think he suggested I play there on a Monday night when it was slow. They went for it. Gave me a shot with this caveat:
I’d have to accompany Vaunessa Vale as part of my act. VV would lip synch or tap dance to whatever track was oiling out of the tattered speakers, and I’d pretend to play piano. Double fakery. Vaunessa was terrific. Talented. Elegant. But this was a first for me. Faux honky tonk piano - a grimace on my face.
After a year of this arrangement, Vaunessa went on vacation. I cut her loose. I made an executive decision. No more drag/Berlin duets. Instead, I’d book opening acts. Solo, duo, trio, full band. Whomever wanted to play, could. Sight unseen. Sound unheard. Some fell through the cracks. Others went on to international notoriety – Dresden Dolls - one example. The Dolls had their first venue gig at Jacques, calling themselves Out Of Arms. But there were many notable nights.
The dude who played glasses filled with water.
‘He’s gonna play those glasses?!’ – Kris Turilli, rolling her eyes
‘Yup.’
The goth duo, each utilizing 15 effects pedals. They’d step on ‘em, but made no audio difference. One had a fake eyelash stuck to her cheek – a perpetual wink. Every song began:
‘Huh, huh, huh, huh…’ quoting Laurie Anderson, after making a political statement:
‘This song is for all the victims of Apartheid,’ she’d announce.
‘Huh, huh, huh, huh…’
Billy Hough, recently arrived from New Orleans, sang:
‘Fuck you and your new life, I have plans of my own’…
a knockout lyric. He worked up the Garage Dogs with his 2 brothers and Devin McGuire, and continued with ‘Scream Along With Billy’ in Provincetown and Manhattan. (LIVE@Jacques came out on Garage Dog Records.)
10,000 stories in the naked House of Jacques.
Monday nights became a ritual of sorts. I had no band for this. Just played solo. I let friends/fans know that if they wanted to hear my stuff, there was only one place to go - Jacques on Monday night. Thus, the revolving door of attendees. Each fostered its own collection of friends, and this turned over every few months. New horses at the watering hole. Some nights the place was packed. Others, just a handful. Didn’t matter.
Side note:
The first time my first ever band, Orchestra Luna, played a club was at The Other Side. A drag show MC’d by the one-and-only Sylvia Sydney who was, until she died, a Jacques mainstay. (Sadly, when I began my residency, The Other Side was kaput and replaced by ugly condos.) At The Other Side I encountered both Holly Woodlawn and David Bowie. Nan Goldin did a photography book of the same name, and one night at Jacques there she sat, the artist herself (formerly a Boston resident with her best friend David Armstrong back in the day when I knew them both – a little) shooting photos of the performing queens. I’ll never forget it. She’d be talking and not looking through the lens as she clicked shots of the stage and the room over and over again. Improvisational photography.
At first, I didn’t own a car. Had to call a taxi and stuff 2 gigantic Anvil cases – amp/piano – into the cab. Some nights the driver, seeing all that gear prying open his trunk, refused, and we’d have to call another. The rush, the panic, the hysteria - all part of the vibe.
Jacques had lost its permit to stay open past midnight. My nights had to shut down promptly.
‘Everybody OUT!’, I’d yell.
They’d had enough trouble without incurring the wrath of Bay Village any further.
‘A drag queen took a shit in my flowah box!!’ among the complaints.
Charlie and I would pack up, load out, load back into the Factory and hurtle down to the 1270 (now The Baseball Tavern) for last call on ‘amateur stripper night’, drinking and laughing and rarely making a ‘score’.
Meanwhile, while managing me in Manhattan as I was performing at Don’t Tell Mama’s on an irregular basis, Jane Friedman, in her ‘you will do this’ voice, told me that I needed to do an ‘event’.
As soon as she said this I knew what I’d call it (stolen from Jack Reilly, who’d always wanted to do a show by this name) Drags, Dicks & Dykes for Life (We Play Out To Make Something Happen), a benefit for the Aids Action Committee, was, for 2 consecutive years, held at first
JACQUES:
showgirls:
VAUNESSA VALE - ZOLA - STEPHANIE WHYTE - SYLVIA SYDNEY - CHYNAH BLUE
upstairs:
THE AWFUL TRUTH - JOAN WASSER - TWITCH - TRACY BONHAM - PUPPETMASTER JAKE - RICK BERLIN - MICHAEL HOLLAND - JULIE WOODS - LAURIE GAGNO - LUTHER PRICE - DANA MOSER - ABE RYBECK & FRIENDS - STEVEN PAUL PERRY - REBECCA PARRIS - DONNA GREER
downstairs:
ELEVATOR DROPS - LA GRITONA FLO - SARAH GREENWOOD BAND - MAUL GIRLS - LAURIE GAGNO - CHELSEA ON FIRE - LUCKY GOLD - COMPAC DICS
and the following year at
1270:
showgirls:
CHYNA BLUE - THIRSTY BURLINGTON - BRUCE - ALICE CHANTAY - SHAWNA DIXON - RANDY DOONE - MISERY - STEPHANIE WHYTE - MING VASE - VAUNESSA VALE - VERNA TURBLANCE - SYLVIA SYDNEY - ZOLA - RITA REAL - SEQUOIA, KING OF THE LESBIAN FOLKSINGERS
performers:
MARNIE GIVEN - SPACE PUSSY - SEAN TOUSSAINT - VERAGO-GO - THE WAVERLYS - WIDE IRIS - WORDSWORTH - GARY CHERONE - GOD TOLD ME TO - ARYA GRAYSON - SARAH GREENWOOD - MONEYBALL - MIKE LAWSON - TYSON LEONARD - LUCKY GOLD - MAUL GIRLS - MY RIFLE, MY PONY & ME - NEPTUNE -NEVEREADY - REBECCA PARRIS - PUPPETMASET JAKE - STEVEN PAUL PERRY - ACRYLIC - APLHADOG - BABALOO - BAY VILLAGE PEOPLE - RICK BERLIN - CROWN ELECTRIC COMPANY - CHELSEA ON FIRE - CHUCKLEBUCKET - DAD DOESN’T KNOW - THE DAMBUILDERS - DINEROS - DOUBLEDONG
Both were phenomenal and successful. Raised cumulatively @6K for the AAC, and both were a blast. Jacques sold out. A line out the door. Boys and girls pissing between parked cars; dancing to the music of the bands and queens that curled up from the downstairs room and the main stage on the first floor. A fabulous, lip-synching queen, followed by a band, and so forth, on thru the night. At 1270, the event was voted Best Show Of The Year by the Boston Phoenix. The nurse who interviewed those of us being tested for HIV, stood on stage and read aloud the names of those who’d died that friends and fans placed into a hat.
Continuing…
The Jacques PA, which only Kris seemed to know how to operate, was a continual struggle, but inevitably squawked into being. The light board was a row of wall switches – which you can see in the background on the back of the L@J CD. Best of all, the spotlight! A light cannon that erased eye-bags, and subtracting years from my face. Made all performers feel special.
The ongoing nights forced me to write a new song, and play it every week. Tons of ‘em. No recordings of, and none that I can remember. In Adam’s video I play at least 2 songs that ring no bell.
Why did it stop?
Kinda petered out, I guess, but 10 years is one long-assed run, right?
The record:
I performed solo at an art gallery opening, exhibiting a forest of life sized ceramic statues sculpted by my pal, Lisa Osborn. Dan Cantor (musician/engineer) was at the show. He asked if I’d be interested in recording. I thought we should do it at Jacques. Live. Dan was all in. We chose a month of 5 Mondays in July.
Side note:
While we were mixing the record, I drove back n forth from Long Island. My Mom was dying of lung cancer. She was staying at my sister’s. Lisa Dudley (Orchestra Luna ‘Lunette’). The last time I spoke with my Mom was from a pay phone on the highway on my way home to Boston. She was fine. When I got home, I got the call. She was gone. A sad absence of her art grindstone son.
Credits/appearances:
Adam Shatten (video/audio cam)
Melanie Shatten (attendee)
Jeff Berkowitz (photographer of CD cover)
Jon Berkowitz (audio assistant)
Dan Cantor (engineer/mix/Notable Productions)
Charles Isenberg (MC)
Marnie Given (violin)
Songs:
Joey - intro only
The others - no idea
Below is most of Adam’s email about that night, where he enclosed the video and provoked this wild recall. It’s strange for me to watch. Who IS that guy with the twitchy mouth, playing his songs at so hurried a clip? With a whiffle? Where is his (now horrible) long hair? What ARE those songs?! He seems able to play and sing unusually well?!
The piece is jump cut city, partial songs, partial views. I didn’t edit any of it. The only ‘fix’ was to brighten up the darker bits. The audio isn’t bad, though, as usual, my shit-for-ears can barely discern what is said or what I’m singing. But I love it as is. A wisp of a memory of a time long past, in a club I loved, and a series of fine, weird, eclectic performers, queens, ‘straight’ guys, bartenders, doormen, and artists.
Many thanks to Henry Vara, Kris, Bobby and countless fabulous friends, fans and musicians for making those nights happen.
Adam’s take:
Somewhere in Boston, in a dark and dank Drag Queen's pub - the oldest of it’s kind in New England - where punk kids could swill a 2$ Brubaker, or splurge 3$ for a Rolling Rock, there was always a chance you might find an atypical, slap happy ‘weirdo’ on a Monday night listening to some lovestruck boy band reject, who went by the name Rick Berlin.
For all the money in the World, Berlin's romantic heart, and lyrical daggers hitched his keyboard to a local music scene that did not let you go without feeling okay to just be yourself, even if it was for the very first time. This was Monday Nights at Jacques. "Won't Come Out" is a newly released track from Berlin's 1996 sessions which I managed to sneak out of Jacques on my sister's last night in Boston. She was moving back in with family, after a bad roommate situation.
Looking back, after a good quarter-century, the roots of so many amazing Rick Berlin collaborations all come back to those moments at Jacques. Nobody wanted the lights to be any brighter, for the next act to get their gear plugged in, and to keep us from seeing or hearing more than what cheap booze and Berlin's new songs would present. (It couldn't be any worse than what was going on in the bathroom at Doyle's, right Charlie?) We most definitely miss the scene that was, and Berlin never stopped making it rock.
I've been meaning to get this little old ditty of a Jacques video over to Rick, and it seems to have survived the years, and with one complete possibly unreleased? Rick Berlin tune. I could not find it on his Bandcamp, and I have to imagine all the extras from those live recordings may not have lasted after he put out the LIVE@ album.
Man, I wish I had a recording of "I Am Sequoia, King of the Lesbian Folk Singers!", but those old tunes are going to have to stay stuck in our minds along with our great times going out in a city I could say no longer exists. I think that in part, he never let go of that gritty old Boston underbelly, and he keeps reinventing it, maybe like new breeds of cockroaches at the Deli Haus? (Not the bugs part.)
Seriously, tho', this place, Jacques, this era in Boston - has always been his fucking town! Something about this one song, about Davey and his same old stinky bed?, I mean, this was, for me, a signature song from a Night at Jacques, and having it almost makes up for a camera break I probably didn't intend to have on "Don't Talk About Joan."
Adam B. Schatten
filmmaker, Brubaker's Anonymous.
Both these phenomenal posters were created by SPENSER JAMES and COLIN BURNS
