Mechanical Servants

SOOOOOOO...if you are in a band and would like to know just exactly what happens to all those promo copies of your record/CD, posters, press kits, matchbooks, disposable tablecloths imprinted with your sunny faces, fire retardant vests with your logo on them, etc., you have come to the right place! For lo, as I was perusing the eBay one day not so very long ago, I found in my own girlish hand, a charming note written to some clubbbbowner in California in 1980-1, a copy of our EP and all the accouterments that went along with said up for auction should anyone but our mothers have an interest in such things. So this is where obscure New Wave freebies go when they die. And I can tell you on good authority that they are no longer free. They tend to go for more than we'd get for the average gig.  But such are the patina and mystique added by time's passage. I'm waxing mighty lyrical today. 

Here's "Around The World", the first track off Min X Match. We called the EP that just to be obnoxious. Surprise! That way if someone called it Mix N Match, we knew they weren't really paying attention. We named our record company Mystery Toast (logo: toast and a martini glass) because we were searching for a place where we'd finally fit in, so we figured that we were The Mystery Toast of The Mystery Town until then. It made sense at the time. Really.

Oh, sheesh! Responsateen was the longest MekServ song and an extremely fun one to play out. It also seemed to attract the weirdest and most obsessive fans. The ones who would make their way backstage and start analyzing lyrics at you. I am genuinely glad there were no interwebs then as I think would've been really, reaaaaally freaked out by the blog posts of the people who loved us, a disturbingly high percentage of whom were obviously psycho. On the other hand, it's kind of cool. I mean, you wouldn't want squares. What fun would that be?

Us playing a show at the aforementioned club, The Island, in Houston Spring/Summer 1982. This set includes a rare 2-shot which is what you get when one of you is a foot taller than the other one. I leave it to you. The lime-green dress now belongs to my daughter. The miracle staying power of Polyester! And featured in back of Victoria is the darling Armando, one of our 2 male go-go dancers, now long-dead of AIDS as are almost all of our Houston friends who were so good to us. It was a scourge of an entire generation of wonderful, talented men and horrible to live through, though far worse to die from.

Houston, Spring, 1982. In which we adopt the Bongos and protect them from a seedy hotel room filled with prehistorically large roaches. We used to play at a dump called The Island when we stayed in Houston and the manager asked if we'd pick The Bongos up at the airport. Suuuuuuure. So we take them to the motel that was booked for them. Against the Geneva Convention to leave anyone there and thus there was no feasible alternative but to take them home with us. So that is how we ended up having a pool party with The Bongos. Nicer fellas and better house guests one could not hope to find. Great band was almost a bonus.

Below is my prized Mudd Club ID which is one of my favorite pictures of my young self and was taken by Keith Haring. Now the question is, who took his?

The top photo is of Victoria playing bass at a party at Art Snay's Arabellum Studios where we recorded and also hung out. A lot. The bottom one is of me during a show at 288 Lark St. in Albany, NY on what I recall was a night with blizzard-like conditions. How US!

Us rehearsing at Victoria's apartment on Broadway in Saratoga Springs. Luckily the girls who lived below her liked the band. We played LOUD and daily, poor dears. It was more fun than anything.

This is the famous Nile Green Farfisa on which much of Min X Match was recorded and all of our live shows were played. I have it still. The up side of hoarding. Fabulous built-in rhythm box. Push-button. Yeah!

Here is the original Mechanical Servants track, "Study Up!" from Min X Match. Accept NO substitutes. Hard to believe this has even become an issue, but it has. Hommage, indeed! Harrrr-umphhhh!

Since Tumblr will only let me add one track a day and I'm a bit too impatient for that, here's more schtuff to deafen yourself with in somewhat larger doses. This is Mechanical Servants plus some of the mostly UK-made music done afterwards thus far, but you never know what skellybones might get dragged out of the sonic attic.

Art Snay - Having left at all, he left way too soon.

Making one of our famous videos that never got finished. How US! With the most excellent Robert Durlak without whom we never would've looked the way we did beyond our ridiculous get-ups.

Playing at the Mudd Club in late '80 or early '81. 

This one seems to be a popular lil' anthem. It does give voice to a certain late adolescent angst, I'll admit. So sing along, kids. And if you can play 5 chords, play along too! Produced by the Late Very Great Art Snay

One of my fave photos of my selfityselfself taken by Robert Durlak during the making of one of our $1.98 videos circa 1980.

The cover of Min X Match photographed and designed by the Most Excellent Robert Durlak without whom I would not have become known far and wide as "The Kissy-Faced One.". The only surviving Mechanical Servants recording.