As we head towards the home stretch of the 12 Days of Trouble challenge, I thought I would squeeze in another impromptu post that I hadn't originally planned for. I couldn't complete this series without including my favourite band from the Boston area (there are a lot of great bands from Boston I like a lot!), Scruffy The Cat. It's been almost five years ago since frontman, Charlie Chesterman passed away and his memory and the amazing music he and his band shared will never be forgotten. Scruffy the Cat produced a modest amount of officially recorded music, but browsing through the band's gigography reveals how much they toured and played live shows. They solidly toured non-stop from 1984-1990 without much breaks for recording, they released two EP's and two full length albums during that period. According to the tour schedule, I saw Scruffy the Cat on June 5, 1988 at the Rendezvous opening for Vancouver's, 54-40. I went to the show specifically to see Scruffy (I left shortly after 54-40 began) and they made such an impression on me I regret not seeing them earlier, apparently they played Winnipeg twice before in 1987, shit!
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| Trust me, Scruffy the Cat were the opening band. They were worth the $12 alone! |
I was flipping through the Scruffy The Cat live recordings that I haven't posted yet and came across this show from 1987 that was only labelled with the venue and date. I got this off Dime a number of years ago and I honestly don't remember taking the time to listen, but I tracked down the file on an older hard-drive for the setlist and flac files. I played it last weekend and it's a good sounding soundboard recording that's super clear and the performance is energetic. This night they were opening for Alex Chilton and it's a bit unusual for the opening band to play encores and play for over 70 minutes...good for us! Interesting setlist with songs from the then forthcoming EP, Boom Boom Boom Bingo and some early versions of songs from Moons of Jupiter that would be released later in 1988. A very enjoyable set that put a smile on my face and I'm sure I can dig up more Scruffy shows in the future if there's a demand to hear more.
Enjoy!!!
#12daysoftrouble
Please do NOT sell or convert to lossy formats (except for personal use)
Please share!
A couple other Scruffy the Cats live recordings previously posted:
1987-08-08 (late show)TT The Bear's Place, Boston, MA (direct link)
1984-05-20 WERS studio, Emerson College, Boston, MA (direct link)
Scruffy The Cat
Chestnut Cabaret,
Philadelphia, PA
December 15, 1987
Soundboard
Source\Lineage: SBD>Sony D5(m)>Onkyo TA-RW344 w\ azimuth correction>Cooledit Pro 2.0>.wav>CD Wave>flac (level 8)
***billydee masters, series 2, vol 31***
1) >intro<
2) Tiger Tiger
3) C’mon Everybody
4) >chat<
5) Thomas Doubter
6) Shadow Boy
7) Time Never Forgets
8) 2day 2morrow 4ever
9) Blue Russian
10) You Dirty Rat
11) Everything
12) Capital Moonlight
13) Bus Named Desire
14) Buy A Car
15) Moons of Jupiter
16) Runaway
17) Never Never
18) My Baby’s Alright
19) Nova SS 1968
20) Upside Down
21) Happiness To Go
22) >chat<
23) Little Bit o’ Soul
24) ?
25) -------
26) Sealed with a Kiss
27) outtro
p.s. I didn't write the notes in the text file with the setlist included in the rar file. Clearly he wasn't a true Scruffy The Cat fan. My apologies.
SCRUFFY THE CAT- 1987-12-15 Chestnut Cabaret, Philadelphia, PA FLAC. rar
5 comments:
Thank you so much for this!! I was lucky enough to see Scruffy several times at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ and once in Boston (opening for The Replacements). Would love any more Scruffy The Cat shows when you have the time to share!!
Yes, you were very lucky, would love to have seen them with the Replacements! And yes, I will share more Scruffy, soon.
Thanks for reading!
Oh man. Another awesome show. Scruffy used to pass through Norfolk back in the day. I got to shoot pool with Charlie at The Jetty in Virginia Beach. What a cool guy. Thanks for the memories.
Thanks so much for this post. I was at this Philly show. So glad to find.
This looks interesting - many thanks! Used to love this band when I was in college at UGA in the 80s.
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