Come with me children, to a dark and benighted time - an era before you could easily buy CDs by Scandinavian KISS fans ... a time when grunge had cast an occasionally good but frequently horrid pall across the land ... a time when, to paraphrase
The Supersuckers' song, rock'n'roll records weren't selling that year. This was around 1992, and apart from The Didjits - whose Rick Sims actually ended up in the Suckers for a spell - there just wasn't a lot of hard rock outside the bland mainstream. Of course, I speak as someone just dipping his toes in music at the time ... a more knowledgeable past self would have mentioned UIC and others. But for a lot of people, The Supersuckers were a cool anomaly (and not just on the Sub Pop label, which was the band's home at the time) and 1992's
The Smoke of Hell was a rare rock blast. It was actually one of the first CDs I bought (before then, I spent my money on cassettes and vinyl).
Times have changed. You have your Hellacopters and Turbonegro, your Mutts and Living Things, your Michelle Gunn Elephant and Asteroid B-512, not to mention such world class native exponents of rock power as Le Nombre and The Chickens.
The Supersuckers are hardened veterans now - they formed in 1988 - and their core of Eddie Spaghetti, Ron Heathman and Dan Bolton have stayed put. Damn, was that a longwinded way of saying they put on a great show but I've turned into a jaded SOB? On to the pictures!
As is their wont, The Supersuckers kicked things off with a few country numbers.
Cocaine Blues was first out of the gate "You don't need many reasons to play a song by this man these days" observed Spaghetti. I also recognized
The Best of All Possible Worlds by Kris Kristofferson.
Ron joined in on guitar.
And here's a similar pic, with added shutter speed silliness.
Here's one of Dan "Thunder" Bolton that worked out real nice.
The Suckers seem to go through a fair number of drummers ... last I heard they were working with Eric Akre, so I guess this is him.
Ron was all far away, so I broke out the telephoto for a closeup.
Eddie on bass.
Rock action!
The devil's horns at a Supersuckers show? What kind of crazy world is this!
These pictures could have turned out better, but as you might have guessed, a crowd of hopped up Supersuckers fans is not the best place to take photos, and Zaphod's was pretty full. They asked for some transport help at the show - their van broke down - so I hope they made it to Montreal.
