Wine & Cheese Social

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Last updated: November 28, 2017

An Explanation

Mike organized a hall party at Spartan's Men's Club in May of 1981. Dubbed the Wine and Cheese Social, it was a follow up to his largely successful Teen Dance held at the same venue a month earlier. (The Teen Dance was the first hall party featuring punk rock music ever held at Spartan's). The Wine and Cheese Social was not nearly as successful; attendance was poor. Some people complained that the same bands were playing every weekend, and that was largely true. Blank Generation opened with one set that seemed to go on for several days. The Urban Surfers followed with two short sets, and Joey Did (billed as the Malibu Kens) ended the evening with two half hour sets.

I brought along a tape deck to archive the event. I placed a microphone at the back of the hall to capture the ambient sound. I took a feed off the P.A. system to capture the vocal track. Myron Nebozuk was in charge of the P.A. and tape deck. I asked him to record the Urban Surfers and Joey Did. For unknown reasons, I only wound up with one tape containing the Urban Surfers' second set and Joey Did's first set.

This recording makes both a humorous and painful listen. The Urban Surfers put on a decent show, although the lack of audience enthusiasm put them off. Jim Algie can be heard saying, "You won't like this one either." Their second set was shorter than normal, and they never bothered to play Wipeout as an encore. The highlight of the evening comes as Ed Dobek makes a guest appearance to sing Pepsi Generation. Ed was pelted with spit and anything that wasn't nailed down throughout the song. At one point you can hear him being pushed and dragged off the stage. As bad as the Urban Surfers were, they were still better than Joey Did.

Once again, we were AWFUL. Mike must have been going through puberty that night. His voice has more cracks in it than a Boyle street sidewalk. Ed does his usual trick of speeding up every song until it becomes so fast that we can barely play it. My guitar is horribly out of tune as I demonstrate just how inept I am on the guitar. And Dennis, well, he was hopeless as well. Yep, another winner of a gig for Joey Did.

Within the month following the Wine and Cheese Social, many of the local bands would split up. Ken Mackay, freshly booted out of the Rock 'n' Roll Bitches, formed the Reverb Angels with Al Miller and Evan C. Jones. Jim Algie, freshly booted out of the Urban Surfers joined up with Joey Did members to create the Malibu Kens. Meanwhile, Dennis left Joey Did to form the Stingrays, a rockabilly band.

The Urban Surfers were:

  • Al Miller: lead vocals, guitar
  • Jim Algie: bass
  • Evan C. Jones: drums

Joey Did & The Necrophiliacs were:

  • Mike McDonald: lead vocals
  • Ed Dobek: drums
  • Dennis Lenarduzzi: bass, vocals
  • Scott Juskiw: guitar

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