help -- weirdest places bands have played gigs...

xpost - Infraread? Ahem.

(We've done this before, and that was my answer then, as well.)

Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison (amongst others.)

We did this one time, Bracknell.

Didn't he also play a set in a car driving around Highbury Corner roundabout non-stop? Or, knowing Highbury Corner roundabout all-too-well, total-stop?

Or a Barn. But that's not that unusual, cos it's one of the 'stages' at our festival, and we have a tendency to put biggish (relatively) names in there (this year The Electric Soft Parade, The Cribs, My Red Cell, Chikinki)

but then the other stage is two trucks stuck together.

Reclaim the streets, obviously.

the ramones played right in front of mckeldin library at the university of maryland the last year i went there (1994).

the one and only time i was ever at the top of the world trade center was for that spiritualized gig. i snagged a set list and had jason sign it a couple years later when i interviewed him, and he said he didn't remember a thing about the gig. i believe him.

Various railway arches and warehouses around London in the mid 80s.

One near Waterloo Station was raided by the police - but for the mundace reason that alcohol was being sold without a license. And it was the second gig in a row I went to where Marc Almond was in the audience (first one was Specimen - held in a church in the shadow of the Hammersmith Odeon - as was).

"I love Test Dept because they still won't acquiesce to that little backsliding whimper in us - 'let us decide, tell us what to decide' - and the fact that that may not be a conscious move makes it all the more potent." Mark Sinker, The Catalogue, January 1991

1 summer ago, sightings/tussle/roger sisters/some others played a junkyard in Willimasburg...and there were chickens running around.

yikes!

I haven't seen them since December 2003. :(((((((((

(An Angry Rhode Islander.)

That wasn't really a "gig," but a stunt that presaged a press conference.

http://www.sohoblues.com/SoHoBlues/previewpages/preview21.jpg

Midnight Oil played a gig infront of the Exxon building on 6th Avenue in the early 90s.

Boredoms on a beach!

Music behind bars

Country music fans, where y'all at?

?

i played a set in a bathtub with newton. hahahaha. He had boner!!

This 'eyewitness' account of Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground performing at the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry originally appeared in the New York Times on January 14, 1966. The Warhol produced 'happening' would eventually evolve into the Exploding Plastic Inevitable:

SYNDROMES POP AT DELMONICOS
by Grace Glueck

The New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry survived an invasion last night by Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick and a new rock 'n' roll group called "The Velvet Underground."

"The Chic Mystique of Andy Warhol," described by an associate of the painter as "a kind of community action-underground-look-at-your-self-film project," was billed as the evening's entertainment for the psychiatry society's 43d annual dinner at Delmonico's Hotel. And until the very last minute, neither group quite believed the other would show up.

But sure enough, as the black-tied psychiatrists and their formally gowned wives began to trickle into Delmonico's lobby at 6:30, there was Andy, and in evening get-up, too - sunglasses, black tie, dinner jacket and corduroy work pants. And right there with him were some of his "factory" hands - Gerard Malanga, poet; Danny Williams, cameraman, and the "factory" foreman, Billy Linich.

The "factory" as any Warhol buff knows, is the big, sliver-lined loft where he and his coterie make their underground films and help mass-produce Andy's art.

What "The Chic Mystique" was nobody really explained. The Warhol part of the program included a showing of his underground films as background for cocktail conversation and, at dinner, a concert by the rock 'n' roll group. And Warhol and his cameramen moved among the gathering with hand-held cameras, using the psychiatrists as the cast of a forthcoming Warhol movie.

The psychiatrists who turned out in droves for the dinner, were there to be entertained - but also, in a way, to study Andy. "Creativity and the artist have always held a fascination for the serous student of human behavior," said Dr. Robert Campbell, the program chairman. "And we're fascinated by the mass communications activities of Warhol and his group.

Delmonico's elegant white-and-gold Colonnade and Grand Ballroom had probably never seen such a swinging scene. Edie Sedgwick, the "superstar" of Warhol's movies, was on full blast - chewing gum and sipping a martini.

There was John Cale, leader of "The Velvet Underground," in a black suit with rrhinestones on the collar. There was Nico, identified by Warhol as "a famous fashion model and now a singer," in a white slack suit with long blond hair. And there were all those psychiatrists, away from their couches but not really mingling, not letting their hair down at all.

"I suppose you could call this gathering a spontaneous eruption of the id," said Dr. Alfred Lilienthal. "Warhol's message is one of super-reality," said another, "a repetition of the concrete quite akin to the L.S.D. experience." "Why are they exposing us to these nuts?" a third asked. "But don't quote me."

Dr. Arthur Zitrin, director of psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital, was slightly worried. "We've had everyone appear at these annual dinners, from Paul Tillich to Warhol," he said. "I'm program chairman for next year. How the hell are we going to follow this act?"

The act really came into its own about midway through the dinner (roast beef with stringbeans and small potatoes), when "The Velvet Underground," swung into action. The high-decibel sound, aptly described by Dr. Campbell as "a short-lived torture of cacophony," was a combination of rock 'n' roll and Egyptian belly-dance music.

The evening ended with a short talk by Jonas Mekas, film director and critic. But long before that, guests had begun to stream out. The reaction of the early departees was fairly unanimous. "Put it down as decadent Dada," said one. "It was ridiculous, outrageous, painful," said Dr. Harry Weinstock. "Everything that's new doesn't necessarily have meaning. It seemed like a whole prison ward had escaped."

"You want to do something for mental health?" asked another psychiatrist. "Kill the story."

Meat Puppets
Redd Kross
Sonic Youth
Psi-Com

Middle of the mojave desert in 1985.

unfortunately they stopped doing shows there after 9/11.

Ahhh....I'd wondered why they'd stopped. Makes sense, really, now that I think about it.

i COMPLETELY agree -- i saw hexstatic do a show there as part of this trippy art installation in the summer of 2001 & it was incredible ... what a cool space, lots of little nooks and crannies (as opposed to nookie and grannies).

my old punk band mysterioball had this crazy sax player called thom who won a local 'how low can you go' comp with a rather disgusting trick. basically the dude stapled a rather large wooden cross to his foreskin and balls, dangled the fucker between his legs (stretching his codger to all buggery), then set it alight. he won the competition, and got a bit of national interest in it, so he did it again at a party for filming (he actually performed the trick about 5 times all up) - and we played a set afterwards. thom got completed trashed to cover the pain, but went through with it and was bleeding.. wearing a rather revealing dress for easy access. needless to say, he couldn't hold a note that night, drowning out all our songs with off-key versions of the hong-kong phooey theme..

I was at this show! But the one in Providence with flaming pumpkins beats it out for greatness. I'd also like to mention the time Lightning Bolt played in the parking lot of a mill here in Providence as Xiu Xiu finished up inside.

Oh come on. Don't tell me you didnt get that.

their next gig was in a gay brothel/sex spot in a variety of rooms featuring harnesses, glory holes, cages etc.

Yeah, I'm younger than wet cement and I knew that one!

In the sanctuary of a church called Limelight, I saw Carcass, Sleep, the Obsessed, Suffocation, Gwar, Extreme Noise Terror, Scorn, Voivod -- plus a few dozen puppet shows and Bad Seeds offshoots at St. Ann's on Montague St. in Brooklyn Heights.

Top of the World Trade Center wasn't really unique -- Windows on the World had at least 3 music nights a week, and everyone from Mixmaster Mike to Les Sans Culottes played there.

Metallica and Hole played a Molson promotional gig in 1996 at a small hamlet inside the arctic circle.

That vacant warehouse in the Japanese Einsturzende Neubaten film, just before the buto dancers appear, is an amazing locale.

Bands used to play here in Williamsburg on a half-submerged ferry boat off of north 13th st. I think Cop Shoot Cop played a party there -- it went on for years.

Sun City Girls playing at the Java Jive is incredible.

Napalm Death had a regular gig on a beach in Israel.

Three Day Stubble played the Poop Parlor in Portland, OR, a garbage dump which was closed soon after and deemed a Superfund cleanup site by EPA workers in full body suits.

The Frying Pan is a rustbucket former Coast Guard cruiser docked off the West Side of Manhattan -- everyone from Jesus Lizard to Barbara Manning played there in the 90s, and they had jungle parties.

I have a video of a death metal band from Connecticut playing in an insane asylum -- the response is, well, insane.

For almost ten years, my hometown in Switzerland, Bienne, has had bands play in a converted medieval water cistern. Enon was there in the fall, and they book everything from rockabilly to death metal. It's a round domed building about the size of CBs.

There used to be a grocery store in Berlin that had parties after hours.

Ft. Thunder in Providence was amazing -- the walls were built of old hospital stretchers and statues of lions.

The exploitation movie Turbulence III: Heavy Metal has a Marilyn Manson-inspired shock rocker playing a gig on a plane.

FUGAZI IN A PRISON! (1968) ** Comedy, Color. 86 min. STARS: Ian Mackaye (Ian), Guy Piccioto (Guy), Don Knotts (Jiminy). Those Fugazi boys are at it gain, this time wrongly framed for bank robbery. With the help of bumbling but kind-hearted prison guard Jiminy (Knotts), they try to escape. Zany high jinks ensue. An intermittingly amusing slapstick comedy that drags on too long in too many scenes. Watch for Harrison Ford in an early role. Available on Warner Bros Home Video VHS and Laserdisc.

MX-80 Sound, Gizmos etc., Monroe County Publc Library, Bloomington, Indiana, several occasions between 1976 and '78. Had to've been the LOUDEST library in history! (As the live recordings will bear out.)

the williamsburg bridge to thread. free 103!

-- Bob Six (bobbysixe...), May 25th, 2004.

see the chinatown remake "the two bobs" and all will be revealed, bob.

hahahaha you mean the rooftop show?!? I was there, and stoned/drunk outta my gourd, it was great.

-- The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylure...), May 26th, 2004.

yeah me too.. i have this sinking feeling that mikey hex caught pneumonia at that gig, standing out in port chalmers harbour on a barge..

JKAE and Noise Nomads have played on the roof next door.