I stopped in the world famous “House of Guitars” the other day and found a nice looking snare in the back room. It didn’t sound as good as the old Leedy snare sitting next to it but it matched my set. The sales guy said “You can get nice loud crack out of this thing.” I said “I don’t want a loud crack. I want a loose, fat snare sound at low volume.” One of the owners, Bruce, said I could take it home and check it out so I did. I fooled around with it and like it so I went back and gave Bruce the cash.
Bruce’s brother, Armand, made some great underground records like the 3 LP set “A Lot of People Would Like to See Armand Schaubroeck… DEAD!” and “I Came to Visit, But Decided to Stay.” Armand put up a billboard downtown in 1968 that caused quite a reaction. I loved it. I saw a poster sized reproduction of the billboard in the Bop Shop the other day and photographed it. The HOG made some great tv commercials too, the kind that were designed to get under grownups’ skin. I included Armand in a series of “Local Icons” that I painted a long time ago. I heard he has a album in the can with Ginger Baker on drums.
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Julian Cope put up a nice Armand appreciation page: http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/feature/armand_schaubroeck/
He has a particular appreciation for the at-times-difficult-to-believe-how-great-it-is “Ratfucker,” as, apparently, do I. Syndrums and all. What wild, extemporaneous raps Armand lay down there . . . and Bernie Heveron on bass, but you knew that . . .
Thanks for the billboard pic.
I was in an underground junk & record store in the east village nyc about 15 yrs ago. We were poking thru things as the guy who owned the shop played records & chatted with us.
After playing April Stevens “Teach me Tiger” a few times, he said “you gotta listen to this – I have no idea who this is but its been my favorite single since finding it a year ago”. Then he put on Armands “I wish to see colors” It sounded unbelievable.
The ultimate Rochester hipster…
I remember cutting out Armand’s face from that poster and gluing it over some conservative guy’s face on his campaign sign for Irondequoit Supervisor.
Somehow I’m reminded of the graffito “Mary Poppins is a Junkie” that was spray painted in big letters on the wooden fence running along 590 as it tapered toward Seabreeze.