Show #13: February 17, 2005
Cleveland
Pat’s in the Flats
w/ The Squares
Your Friend
Helen Terrace Crew
Back before EG was a duo, we were a single. It’s kind of weird to think about now, but up until 2009 Mary Alice was a “live member,” and I personally was “The Electric Grandmother.” We always were essentially a duo, but we sort of didn’t know how to describe it when I handled the entirety of the songwriting/music, while she was tasked with creating the visuals solely for the live shows and would project from off-stage. As you know us in the present day, she’s a full-fledged band member who is greatly involved in the creative process, sings on stage, and generally handles the art direction for the group. As I always say, without her watching EG would look like a stripped-down and drunk Fugazi performance. Or maybe more accurately like watching David Essex singing “Rock On” (see photo).
The reason I bring this all up is because this was one of a handful of EG shows where someone stood in for Mary Alice running the projector, as we had tentatively thought this would be the case for out of town gigs. In this case it was Jeremy from the Squares who was tasked with freestyling the (until we got an LCD projector) manageable slideshow, which featured 3-4 images per song. It was the first indoor Pat’s show for EG, and it was booked by that Cleve guy who booked the Rockwood show. Me and Jeremy were up first, and I started the gig off by saying these were songs about “Life, love, and John Stamos,” and I heard this girl murmur “What..?” before I launched into the first song. I remember having a good amount of fun. The Squares were great as always, Your Friend was a riot-grrrl-esque band from Akron who I also enjoyed. I got pretty buzzed off of two vodka-7's, which made at Pat's was sufficient for the whole evening.
Jeremy and I headed back to Columbus before seeing the Helen Terrace Crew, who Cleve informed me had 8 lead singers as we were getting ready to leave. I asked Jeremy where the other guys in the band were, and he surmised that the gals in Your Friend were trying to coax them to “hang out.” On the ride home, I remember Jeremy and I having a nice talk about life, love, and John Stamos. He made a remark about how I had a great stage presence and how the people watching are often "Confused at first, but by the end you have them eating out of your hand." And of course that stands out - I can't imagine hearing a compliment greater than "Confused at first."