In '81 I met bassist Matthew Ostrow and guitarist Banning Eyre in New Mexico. We formed the Porcupines, a funky, psychedelic jamfest featuring original tunes from all members as well as covers of Bob Marley, Grateful Dead, English Beat and the occasional Steppenwolf or Led Zeppelin tune. The Porcupines moved to Eugene in the middle of '82 and found time to gig a lot, when we weren't busy telemarketing the hell out of the rain-soaked, unsuspecting population of the Emerald City. There were some cheese-line visits in these years, as well.
After a brief stop in the Whitefish band Beaten Path, in '85-86, I returned to my hometown, Boston, and reunited with Eyre, forming the duo, Strunk and White. We did mostly our original tunes, and played a lot of shows in Somerville and Cambridge. One particularly memorable evening was a private backyard party celebrating the numerical wonder of 8/8/88, for which we received the memorable amount of 88 dollars. Also received were 8888 mosquito bites each. Ah, August in New England!
Ostrow had arrived in Boston in '87, and he and I formed the absolutely forgotten blues band, The Dick White Trio. The drummer (Dick What?), received a call from his mother after the Trio's first gig (a New Year's '88 bar show) informing him that due to his poor grades in college, he would have to give up music, which he did. So much for Dick White.
Mention should be made here of my collection of 4-track demos, which began in earnest around '88, when, through the glory of a steady, reasonably pleasant day job, I got my Tascam Porta One. This was huge! I had always been writing, and had done 4 or 5 years worth of multi-track recording, but always on someone else's machine and time. At last, I was able to record as I wrote. Bring on the blank cassettes!
Anyway - Strunk and White continued doing the acoustic guitar duo, maybe even into '90 or '91. Banning Eyre was getting more and more involved in various forms of African music. Matthew Ostrow and I were always trying to put together a funk band, and always lacking a suitable drummer, or when we had a good drummer (Jeff Bishop, later of Floating Men), missing the right singer. We met singer Ralph Lyons somewhere in this period. Matt and I 4-tracked probably 20 tunes, as demos for the funk band. Matt had some great songs.
Eventually, after several false starts with "the funk band," Matt and I joined forces with my Strunk and White partner Banning Eyre, drummer Eric Rosenthal, and singer Ralph Lyons; and The Strunk and White Band was formed. Described as "psychedelic world-beat," we had a unique sound. Perhaps too unique. We were all a little too far down our individual paths to create the unified sound we'd hoped for. In other words, the funk was watered down by the psychedelia, which was watered down by the world-beat, not to mention Rosenthal's stellar jazz chops adding to the lack of focus! So, after much rehearsal, recording, and a year or so of gigs (Middle East, Johnny D's, The Tam, etc.) we gave it up.
Right around this time (oh, early 1992?) I was I invited to join The Bagboys as a lead guitarist. I had a lot of fun playing a bluegrass/country-based music for the first time. Played every Saturday at The Plough and Stars, a classic Irish pub right between Harvard and MIT. Guitarist songwriter Paul Burch was also in this band. My most lasting memory from the Bagboys years (a very special haziness seems to obscure many of the hours spent with these delightful gents!) is of a wedding we played on Jan. 1, 1994. Everyone was well lubricated by the time the third set started, and we launched into a typically very fast, jammy version of Old Joe Clark (yes, we jammed the shit out of Old Joe Clark, wanna make something out of it?). All of a sudden, the newlyweds were performing some sort of simulated (!) sex right out there on the dance floor. A fun time was had by all.
In the spring of '94 my time in Boston came to a close. I had recently met and began playing with fiddler Grace McNamee (later, Grace Hirshberg, still later Grace McNamee), and our move to Missoula together marked the beginning of Th' Spectacles. We were a guitar/fiddle duo, doing about 60 of my originals and a bunch of odd covers (R. Crumb, Mercy Dee, Mudflaps, Tom Waits, Iris Dement, Aimee Mann etc.). We traveled all over Montana and Idaho doing our thing for several years, but it turned out we were not folky enough for the folk folks, and were not quite barroom enough for the barroom folks, although for most of those years we were plenty barroom, except for the music, if you know what I mean. We released a CD, Green Under Blue, in June of 1998, and commenced to peter out of existence. Grace had recently joined Cash For Junkers, popular Missoula honky-tonkers, and th' last Spectacles show was in October of '99. Green Under Blue showcases Grace's unique fiddling, pre C4J. The CD is still, and only, available here at larryhirshberg.com. Contact me if you want a copy.
As Th' Spectacles were winding down, I had an offer from another Missoula songwriter, J Bradley (writer of Voodoo Doll), to play guitar in his band, The Jesse Helmsmen. Sensing a chance to rock, I joined. Collaborated with J for a year and a half, switching to bass when the Helmsmen morphed into Run 8 (a trio with drummer Bill Hoffman) during the summer of '99. Opened for Watsonville Patio twice with this band, and had some intense middle-of-the-night recording experiences as well. My final show with J was in March or April of 2000, which was right around the time Tom Catmull and I were originating The Tom Catmull Band.
The Tom Catmull Band started as the Tom Catmull Combo, and included Tom on guitar, Mark Dixon on congas, and me on bass. We recorded The Sound of a Car in the last half of 2000 and released it early in 2001. The Sound of a Car included three of my songs - Cycle of Redemption; Quicksilver, Oxygen, Gold; and The Quiet Walker. In the end of 2000 we added Richie Reinholdt on electric guitar and the TCB was born. In the spring of 2001, Dixon left the band, and Bruce Threlkeld was recruited to play drums. Time passed as we refined the poppy, countrified sound that audiences around the region came to know and love. Slippery Hill, The Tom Catmull Band's only CD, was recorded from the end of 2001 through May of 2002, and released in the summer of that year. That disc featured five of my tunes - Home Is Where The Head Is, Every One of Those Men, Unsteady, Wanted in Chicago, and Dandelion Desert. Threlkeld left the band in the summer of 2003, replaced by Travis Yost. Finally, Tom decided that he needed to go in a different musical direction, and disbanded the TCB at the end of 2003.
In the fall of 2001, I met the formidable blues guitarist Bill McDavid, and formed Sleeman Gulch Blues Band. Originally, we had Scott Price, a unique blues character from Brooklyn on harp, and Brad Lierman on drums. Lierman left Missoula in the spring of 2002, and was replaced by the inimitable Travis Yost. Yost is an entertaining young fellow - you might see him standing behind his drums, licking his drumstick, or alternately, dressed as a giant penis, swinging to the beat. His playing anchors my latest CD, Headlong. Somewhere in the summer of 2002, Price left the band, and was replaced by Jim Rogers, on keyboards. Jimmy plays as if his ability comes from some higher power, and in fact, it may!
Here's the funny SGBB story - We were invited to play at the Big Railroad Blues Festival in Livingston, MT in July of 2003. Also on the bill was Little Charlie and the Nightcats, so we were feeling pretty good about the whole thing. Lots of buildup as we feverishly rehearsed our "festival set." Driving east to Livingston that day, the weather began to look threatening. We arrived at the Festival. The audience was growing, as were the clouds. We watched the performer before us, and the sky as well. We took the stage. We played half of Johnny Winter's Drinkin' Blues, our opener, and then it rained. The sound man shut us down. We scurried off the stage. We waited a few minutes, then got the word that due to the fact that the festival had fallen behind schedule, we were done. We got paid, and Jimmy and I drove back to Missoula. It was a long day - total music played: 2 point 5 minutes. That's the life.
Also in the fall of 2001, I recorded a little CD called "Disappearance." It's a simple affair featuring acoustic guitar, bass and vocals. Ten songs, mostly downtempo stuff. There are still a few left as of April, 2004. Contact me if you want one. Collectors items, fer sure!
Of course, through all this, I've been doing solo acoustic shows wherever and whenever I can, getting out, playing and singing my songs. Man, there's a lot of songs.
And, finally, I've been Blues Director at KBGA College Radio 89.9 FM, here in Missoula since March or 2003. You can listen to my show Thursdays, 6-8 PM (that's Mountain time, folks), and you can call in your requests at 406-243-6226. If you are in some distant location, you can tune in to KBGA's webcast, located at www.kbga.org, and listen to my show from there...It's really a dream come true to be on the air, playing blues, and receiving all the latest blues releases from all over the map...
Thanks for sticking with me here - I'll be back from time to time with updates. LH