Alfred University

Here is yet another installment of "Photos I got off the web without any reference as to who shot them".

This was a fun show we played at Alfred University. I'm guessing that this was late 2002, or early 2003. I think that this is one of the first nights that I started playing bass after Jim Kuras quit. I don't know whose bass that is, actually. The line up here, from left to right, is Mark Phillips -drums, Me -bass, Maury, Bram Glik -sax and scrubs, and Robert Lift -guitar. We actually fiddle player Pete at this gig, who stayed with us for about a year.

This was a particularly fun evening, because this was the night we marched the audience all of the way across the quad. We marched everyone downstairs into the lobby, and then decided to leave through the front doors into the evening. I would say it was about 75 to 100 people.
We marched everyone way out accross the campus until we found these to guys sitting under a tree imbibing in the substance of their choice. So we, and the other 100 people, surrounded these guys and gave them an impromptu show.
We found out later that some fuddy duddy college administration type called security and reported us, resulting in a fine for the organization that put together the show.




Here we are heading down the stairs to the lobby.


Here we are heading out across the quad.


Here we are returning to the lobby, with a few more people than we had when we left.





These are the guys who put together the show.
t

Rooney 'till your dog don't know ya.

Baby Gramps does Letterman

Last August we were psyched to find out that Gramps was booked to play The Late Show. We were even more psyched to see that our pal Jason Krekel was going to be joining him. That's him playing the banjo in the back.

The spirit of the OUR Fest has penetrated the mainstream!

The song is "Cape Cod Girls" from a CD called "The Rogue's Gallery", which is a collection of modern interpretations of Sea Chanteys done by the likes of Nick Cave, Rufus Wainright III, Sting, Bono, etc. etc. etc. Gramps actually has TWO songs on this CD, including the opening song that kicks off the whole collection.

OUR Fest 2005 Photos Part 2


These are photos that I shot during the 2005 OUR Fest.

These first two were taken the Wednesday night before the festival. The first one is of the bridge over the creek. The lights kind of give off a pearly-gates-type look. The second one is of the stage.



These two were taken Thursday night. I was hanging out with the Snake Oil Medicine Show crew, and the Mad Tea Party. It was a nice evening full of pluckin' Yuke's, and flappin' gums. It was a particularly nice sunset that night.


Here's Jason Krekel of Mad Tea Party, and George Pond, then of Snake Oil Medicine Show, but currently residing in CX-1.


Here's Caroline Pond of Snake Oil Medicine Show, singing with Ami Worthen of Mad Tea Party.



Here's something from during the festival. It was a jam session with members of the Mad Tea Party, and Snake Oil Medicine Show



Here's some rare photographic evidence of Phil Cheney, capturing some rare photographic evidence of yours truly.



Here are our sound guys Skip, and Larry. I thought I was being slick taking their picture, but discovered later that they were looking right at me.



Here's a photo of The Johnsons, who are now known as Rainbow Tribe.



Here's a night shot of the Snake Oil Medicine Show set. It's actually hard to figure out whose set it is that I'm looking at, because Saturday evening at the OUR Fest tends to turn into a big jam session. Chris Kew of Clambake, Jiggle The Handle, and The Recipe fame, sat in on this set.



Here's George Pond sprinkling science on the audience.



And, last but not least, is the lovely and talented Baby Gramps. We were lucky that he was still able to perform, despite the fact that he had a bone in his leg.

Hypnotic Clambake's Big Weird Al Cameo

If you think about it, there aren't too many contemporary, progressive, accordionists out there. I mean you got Maury, Weird Al Yankovic, and ... er ... Judy Tenuta? So every once in a while, whenever someone decides to do a write-up on us, Weird Al's name will be mentioned somewhere in the article. This is fine with us, because Weird Al is an icon as far as we're concerned. Check him out, about a week before he became famous, doing "Another One Rides the Bus" in the Tom Snyder show. And check out the genius of the song "One More Minute".

So, needless to say, we were pretty psyched when someone from our message board hipped us to the fact that we had a one second cameo in his video for "Virus Alert".
Look for it at the 43 second mark. On the wall in the background of a guy's office, is the cover for our Mayonnaise CD.

This video was made by a guy named Dave Lovelace. He's famous for doing a series of short flash cartoons called "Retarded Animal Babies". See his website HERE. *Caution -his cartoons can get pretty raunchy. They can also reveal some startling little-known secrets of the universe. For example, did you know that Satan was into collecting sno-globes?

OUR Fest Photos from 2005

These are photos from the 2005 OUR Fest taken by our old pal Karen Olson.

Let me walk you through these photos, shall I?

These two photos are of a band that looks remarkably like Hypnotic Clambake, but is actually the New York Klezmer Orchestra. The NYKO usually goes on first on Saturday morning (Day 2 of the festival). We usually start up the festival in order to keep the band schedule... um ... on schedule. I usually camp in my van next to the stage. So when it comes time to play the Saturday morning set, I literally roll out of bed, and roll onto the stage.



This is the cat-fish shaped pillow that was hanging under the Aquarium Stage. We caught it while fishing in a river of feathers.



Here is a shrunken version of the Snake Oil Medicine Show playing the Aquarium Stage.



Here is a shot of The Buddhahood.


Here's a random smattering of OUR Fest people.



Here's some shots of the legendary Baby Gramps, one from the Main Stage, and one from the Aquarium Stage. The weird part, is that these two photos were taken at the SAME TIME.




Here's some shots of Snake Oil Medicine Show rocking the hizzouse. The first photo shows Phil Cheney and Tovah painting. Phil is the artist behind the OUR Fest posters and t-shirts. That might be Maury playing piano in the darkness. Sitting in on guitar is Jason Krekel from the Mad Tea Party.




Here is Clambake playing, I think, the Friday night set. From left to right is Jim Shwarz (bass), me, Maury, Rick McCrae (trombone), JoAnn, and Tim Hull. This, I believe, was the OUR Fest that we played after the Mayonnaise CD was released. The line-up here, is the band that was recorded on the CD, and the line-up that we've, more or less, stuck with ever since.

Wellsville Creative Arts Center Pics

Here are some photos of us playing the Wellsville Creative Arts Center, November 17, 2006. Maury's accordion had broken that night. So we were holding our breath the whole night wondering if the accordion was going to become unglued. The rest of us were unglued before we got there. This place was the coolest. The people were very nice, and the place was set-up very nicely. Wellsville is lucky to have this place. I don't know who took the photos. Here is the page that I got them from:

https://www.wellsvillecreativeartscenter.com/PhotoGallery/galleryhome.cfm

The Ed McWoman Video

Here is our video for "Ed McWoman". It was shot in the summer of 2006 by Barry Saunders.
This video lives up to the age-old Hollywood tradition of showing a band playing instruments that aren't actually heard in the song. Kind of like Josie and the Pussycats.