RETURN TO COMBOLAND - EARS - Huh? What! - 1977

RETURN TO COMBOLAND - A personal look at North Carolina's most influential (and secret) music legacy. Documentary Seeking Co-Production Partner - Produced and Directed by Steve Boyle. This is a sample of some of the archived music videos Steve created from 1981 to 1984.

Artist featured: EARS John Del Gaizo a/k/a Pig Boy (Vocals), Mike Salimbene (Lead Guitar), Steve Boyle (Other Guitar, Other Vocals), John Gamble (Keyboards), Ed Tracey (Bass), Mike Newman (Drums).

Yes, I know this music is, well, dire - or at least an acquired taste, but this is my first music video. The band is Ears and that's me wearing the hat and playing the very out of tune Ampeg Dan Armstrong clear Lucite solidbody guitar. I used to describe the band as a Punk-Rock-Heavy-Metal-Comedy group. That kinda describes it. Lead singer John Del Gaizo was the talent in the band. He perpetually came up with songs, concepts for the band to do on stage and artwork. His songs would have jaunty titles like IT TAKES FOUR TO TANGO IF YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LEG, or SOMEONE DROPED ON A SAFE ON GRANDMA'S HEAD. Being an artist and welder, he would create things like welding chains together as a mic stand. And great concepts like bringing a hammer and anvil on stage to sacrifice a white chocolate Easter bunny during Easter week for an Ears show at CBGB's. Besides having fun, being "different" was the concept of the band - although being different doesn't always translate to creating commercial or even listenable music. Good music or not, the band was certainly entertaining. Frank Zappa enjoyed the concept of the band to the point of introducing Ears on stage at Max's Kansas City one night. Frank particularly liked one of John's songs, YOU LOVE YOUR APPLIANCES MORE THAN ME, which, rumor has it, influenced a song on Frank's album, Joe's Garage Part II.

There weren't many clubs that booked "original music" bands in New York during the 1970's. We were lucky enough to play a few of the NYC Punk clubs such as CBGB's and Max's Kansas City a number of times. This show is from Ubies OTJ, a Long Island club known as the home of The Good Rats and Twisted Sister (when they were a cover band). Al Ubie, owner of the club, was kind enough to book us a lot -- you know he had to have a sense of humor to loose money like that!

Originally entitled I'M SCHIZED OUT FOR YOUR LOVE the refrain to HUH? WHAT! says it all "Yes I have, No I haven't, Yes I have, No I haven't. . . Who, What, When Where!" A classic in it's own lunchtime! From this 1977 pre-MTV music video (created almost four-years before MTV signed on as network), I was able to talk my way into my first concept music video for The Fabulous Knobs PLEASE YOU NO MORE (1981) in Raleigh.

By the way, you'll notice by the credits, Tony Madejczyk was running one of the cameras. Tony and I started working together in New York, as far back as 1975. And, yes, the hat I'm wearing is the same hat Dave Adams is wearing in the Glass Moon video, TELEGRAM SONG (1982).

For more information on RETURN TO COMBOLAND, please visit:
http://www.returntocomboland.com

Producer, Editor -- Steve Boyle
Live Director -- Ed Ziemba
Cameras -- Tony Madejczyk, Nancy Ziemba
Audio EQ -- Bill Kern
Performance -- Ubies OTJ, West Islip, New York (Saturday, 09.24.77)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• 70's
• Punk
• NYC
• Comboland
• Zappa
• UBIES
• OTJ

[MrJonman69]

Dude, why are you ragging on your former band? This is awesome. And why would you leave New York to come here in the early 80's? I didn't live here then and if I had I would have been too young to go to shows, but I've heard enough of bands like Nantucket and Doc Holiday to know that the scene here sucked back then. I'd rather see more of these guys and less of PKM. Yuck!

[Comboland]

Well, my rambling narrative (to the right) wasnt meant to be raggin. The NYC scene and EARS were a lot of fun and was a very happy time for me. But by 1980 the clubs and bands of the NYC scene had changed from what was going on three to five years earlier. So leaving NYC for NC was a positive move for me.

[Comboland]

The thing about the NC scene was diversity. If you didnt like Nantucket then maybe you might like the X-Teens, they all played the same clubs and everyone was friendly with each other, which added to the creativity of the scene. Plus there was a palpable creative vibe going on at both the mid 70s NYC and early 80s NC scenes. The vibe to both scenes was so similar that I fell naturally from one to the other, thinking at the time that this sort of thing was going on everywhere but it wasnt.

[Comboland]

"Vibe" is a tough phenomenon to describe. John Lennon said it best. When he was asked to describe the 1961 Hamburg scene when The Beatles were a bar band, Lennon's quote was "you had to be there." And he's right - you had to be there!

[brightcarver]

is there a website for EARS?

[Comboland]

The best you'll get is the MORE INFO in the upper right corner of this page. A little bit more of the Ears story will arrive on the Return To Comboland site as time goes on.

[krissythom]

Who is that H.O.T. guy in the flannel? Oh my! : )

[krevice]

that's a awesome drum set

[kafabe58]

Any Ears guys out there? This is Michael-the second generation Ears guitarist,,,I remember playing with Steve once or twice in late 77 or so but I actually joined the band a bit later and lasted until the demise in 80.... Gamble, Newman DelGazio Tracey...anybody out there. The never released ep "Yellow Front Brown Back"...

None But the Nutless

Squat on My Machine

SBD

American Nightmare

I only lost the tape about 10 years ago!

Do any of you have copies??

[ProfBrunoLampeeni]

Thanks for posting this video.

It's very popular at Langley and the OFM.

It's amusing where young punks end up later in life.

[Qbaca]

Dig the Trash Gong bro! And the ADA6, fuckin' cool!