"Last Austin Show/Doors"

This drawing commemorates the final Miracle Room show in Austin before we made the move to NYC. The date was August 1988, and the location was Club Cairo (later to become the infamous Cannibal Club).

We had gone on a tour of the eastern half of the US that Spring, a low budget, shoestring-type affair that managed to get us to the Knitting Factory in New York, where we opened for Blind Idiot God on a Friday night that also happened to be April Fool’s Day. The response was fantastic, and the club had called us up to see if we would like to be part of their showcase during the New Music Seminar that summer. The experience, and the response to that show, was even better, and Rock made some friends in the band Pianosaurus, who invited him to sleep on their couch. I had been dying to get back to live in the city ever since having spent a long summer there in !985 (seeing the Butthole Surfers numerous times, and Einstürzende Neubauten at the Ritz there), and since Rock had a situation there all lined up that was similar to his situation in Austin, we decided to make the move.

We wanted to pull out all the stops for our Austin fans, so we designed an elaborate stage setup with spare doors that Ed had collected from his carpentry side gig. I erected a door with a window in it on my side of the stage with a vocal mic on a stand going through the window, so every time I sang, my face would be framed in the window. The door with louvers was positioned by the drum set to be played as percussion. Rock had a metal snare drum on a stand with a Black Dot drum head on it, and we had a large white scrim with spray-painted symbols on it backlit with white lights that shone through the drum and made it look a little like a giant eye. At least it does in the video of that performance, which can be found by clicking “Miracle Room at Club Cairo”.

We spent the afternoon before the show setting everything up, getting the strobe lights into position, checking our bizarre equipment to make sure everything was working. Also, our friend Kevin Roberts, AKA Philmore Video, was setting up a multi-camera video shoot with live mixing, and our longtime pal and club owner Brad First was patiently conducting a sound check.

After the check, Kevin asked if I would like a pot brownie. He had a big tray of them, so I ate one. It was my first ever. I assumed it would make me loose for the show. I remember there being some sort of delay that was making everyone a little edgy, and I wasn’t feeling anything, so I ate another one. Did I mention that they were BIG?

Suddenly we were introduced and took the stage, kicking things off with our usual show closer, “These Are My Friends”. As we started the next song, “Open Heart”, I thought I felt a little something. By the time that song was coming to an end, I was in full-on psychedelic land! Having performed shows with the group while on mushrooms several times, I recognized that this wasn’t going to just be “a little loose” so I just went with it! There’s a moment in the video when I think you might be able to spot the moment when that realization hits me! Not seen on the video are the final moments of that show where we crucified an acoustic guitar to a door, spray painted it in garish colors and stuck dead flowers in the sound hole.

If you check out the video, which is on my YouTube channel Magic Marsh Room, click us a “like” and go ahead and subscribe while you’re there, ok?