You can trace the history back a long way, but the first time the band played as Rabbit Choir was at the Vegetarian Meat Out in San Diego, California in the spring of 1988. It was a three song set with Jim McAllister vocal and guitar, Tommy Barton vocal and guitar, Stacie Black vocal and recorder, and Craig Berghof on bass.
Then we played the open mike night at Drowsy Maggie's. It was a little coffee house in Hillcrest, close to the Texas Street house where Jim, Tom and Craig lived. We became a regular feature at Drowsy Maggie's when A-Star offered to donate some recording time at Mix Masters Studio. It seems he had traded some time for some carpentry work.
So the four of us drove to the studio in my 1971 VW Camper, and laid down all of these tracks live onto a two track. I remember we were told to stop after Part with Your Sadness and Tommy just started into Joyful Noise. We had just wrote Joyful Noise that day at the Zen Temple on the beach and it just seemed right.
Here are the MP3's of the tape we recorded in May or June of 1988. It was digitized from the first tape I sold to Jenny Nedrow (now my wife) in Berkeley later that summer. But that is another story.
Sweet Sensation
I & I
Faith of Francis
Rosmarie
Younger Days
Palmer Fair
Stop and Listen
Part With Your Sadness
Joyful Noise
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9 comments:
Welcome to the new millenium!
If you have any old pictures you could scan in, send them to me and I'll post them.
Raz--thank you so much for posting these songs. Rabbit Choir was such a big part of my introduction to Berkeley, and college life back in '88--I remember seeing you play numerous acoustic sets on the street right next to Sproul Plaza, as well as a few electric shows in clubs that probably no longer exist (I remember one tiny little place upstairs on Shattuck near the Bart station).
I lost this tape many years ago, and only retained one cut (I and I--my favorite song of yours) on a mix tape. I'd pretty much given up on ever hearing more of your music, until (duh!) I decided to do an internet search last week. Now I can listen to a bunch of your stuff and be transported back to my old hippie days...whoohoo!
Mark
Hey Folks,I don't know when the last time anyone has checked out this blog but I just discovered it...Grae here,this is pretty cool.My burning question remains..why don't you guys get back together for a couple of reunion shows????It would be awesome!!!Anyway this brings back a lot of memories (at least I think they are memories)..The Plough,Bison, the warehouse, Cafe Intermezzo (Stacie) ,Sproul Plaza etc.
You seem to have left out that Rosemarie was singing with the band those early days and I have the pictures to prove it.
Wow, Rosemarie - I kind of remember that.... We also briefly had a keyboard player (one show maybe) named Matt I think. Played a couple of shows @ Drowsy Maggy's.
I do remember Rosemarie came moved with us to SF. We dropped her off on California Street at her friends house. She was going to go to Paul Mason (or Vidal Sassoon) school.
Now that was a memory!
Raz
I remember Rosemarie, I was her boyfriend. Our relationship didn't survive our rough and tumble introduction to the bay area. Our lives were suddenly so different. She was punk rocker when I met her in Balboa park a real tough with short hair. Later that week she came to see us at drowsy maggies, compleatly transformed with long hair and very feminine. She came home with us and danced gracefully to our current obsession, Jesus Christ Superstar. She was wonderful for me. She would leave me in her flat to go to work at her la hola salon and I could have been in Paris, drinking the wine left in our glasses from the night before and reading something dark and nilistic she had left by the pallet on the floor.
I'm the anonmous boyfriend I've never posted anything online before and couldn't get it to post otherwise. I recall Tommy and Stacie recorded on a recording for A Star and in return we were to record one song live to two track. Tommy arranged the album as a medly so they couldn't stop us. one take all the way through, an album. The half inch tape ran out part wat through an they scrambled to change machines.
I miss you all more than I can say.
Love Jimmny Rabbit
one of my favorites, Sweet Sensation! Thanks Raz!
-Alysia
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