1998 blog

saturday, november 28th at the kendall cafe

goh did a last minute, late night show at the kendall during the thanksgiving holiday weekend. for jay, it was hectic, since he was at his high school reunion earlier in the night... although he had to literally run to make it, he made it. we had special giveaways in the spirit of the holiday season... frosty and santa pez! both frank and liz (our winners) were kind enough to share their winnings with the rest of us. since we had to pretend to be rock stars and show up right before going on stage (chris also came late thanks to hurting his back earlier in the day), we missed pamela sue-mann, barn, and mind the gap (well we caught a litte bit of them). rumor has it, we missed a good night of music. we learned that it's a lot more fun for us, if we show up early and hang out all night, even if we are playing last and don't need to be there for a sound check.

wednesday, november 25th at the kendall cafe

goh, along with brian, did the entire arlo guthrie song, "alice's restaraunt" for the late night open micers. in the spirit of doing covers, and because we were last and the kendall didn't feel like stopping, we did "stickshifts and safetybelts" (for leanne), and "little red covette". happy turkey day to everyone!

thursday, october 22nd at mama kin - boston, ma

the evening started out on a positive note when jay got the opportunity to meet graham parker, who was playing in the room next door. thanks to graham and friends (jeff black and radney foster), the place was packed (it may have hit the maximum capacity... not bad for a mid-week show). of course, in the first song we broke a string. that gave us the oportunity to introduce mama kin to the goh giveaways while we changed it. good thing we brought gifts for the audience! we had a blast playing for everyone... we brought extra shakers, but it still wasn't enough for all in the room. it's a good thing you all shared them as you played and danced along with us. we were followed by a couple of great bands (sway and three day threshold) they did a great job keeping the crowd moving on their feet... we even saw graham parker dancing to three day threshold in the back of the room! thanks again for all your support... we brought a lot of people, so we'll be back in the front room to entertain you in the future.

sunday, october 18th in harvard square

in preparation of our upcoming mama kin show, we decided to hit the streets one more time. it was a rare beautiful fall day with lots of people hanging around from the head of the charles festivities. we managed to get a few people up on their feet and dancing... actually quite a few more than we expected. we didn't even notice the ridiculous displays as our backdrop in the store windows until we had finished our set. jay set up in front of a humpty dumpty display while chris ended up in front of a bunch of dolls. where is a camera when you want one?

thursday, october 1st at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

thanks to small moon run and brook batteau for opening up the evening and everyone that hung out to hear us play. our winners of the night reminded us of "the price is right"... for they couldn't control their excitement. again, every night we play bring us more surprises. that's why we love to play so much. the crowd also surprised us by helping us end thumb with a countdown. we liked that and the new friends we met.

thursday, september 17th at toad - cambridge, ma

thanks to deep water, who was playing that night, we had a suprise, guest appearance at toad in porter square. we did gi joe, satellite, and lucky. it was a good thing we played the night before, for we weren't expecting to play... in fact, chris didn't bring his shaker. we ended up using a box of macaroni and cheese in it's place (yes, we were carrying around mac and cheese... strange but true).

wednesday, september 16th in harvard square

in honor of our near completion of the cd project, we hit the streets to play for a while. as typical of goh, we got off to a late start, so we ended up getting a good spot right in front of the subway stop. the best thing about playing there is the complete randomness of everything... you never know who's going to stop by, or whether you'll be loved, hated or ignored. we tend to talk too much, so we're rarely ignored. it turned into a lot of fun... we got a note (it felt just like junior high) from a random new fan (it was note of praise!), we had ross, a fellow street performer, do a tune with us, we ran into a few people we knew, and in general had a great time. we played for about 2 hours, then went over to the kendall cafe to spend our earnings. :-)

friday, august 14th at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

we celebrated our one year anniverary of playing out! thanks to everyone for your support, and special thanks to brian for baking us a cake for the occasion (he even decorated it). it started off as an atypical evening, since we went on first... we've been getting used to playing late night. even when we played open mics, which tend to be somewhat random, we would find ourselves playing late. so we had one of our best winners... david made sure he shared his truck driving pez with everyone in the bar. other performers included twisted roots, solpatch and skinny tee. thanks again, everyone, for a year's support! here's to many more...

hopkinton jam 1998: july 11th, 1997 hopkinton, ma

another great year for hopkinton jammers! this year we moved it to the front yard since we had newly planted grass in the back, along with the newly planted pool to go with it. :) the performers of the day (in addition to goh) were kier byrnes, deep water, mercy james, eric o'connor, rob walker, willie bernstein, wendy welsh, XIE/bedhed and the all star jam (which included our own little tribute to ozzfest). they're getting more and more fun each year.

friday, june 19th at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

it was great to be back at the kendall on a friday night, sharing the stage with brian seymore, rama winslow and winterboy. it was strange for us to play for only 45 minutes after getting used to such long sets during our may residency. we re-learned how to compress our show. we were psyched to see everyone hang out until closing time with us. the thing of the night was to peel off the stickers from the goh shakers and wear the fish on the front of your shirt (at least with the women in the audience). we liked that. :-) coincidentally, our shirt design is quite similar. perhaps we should get them printed soon, for fashion now demands it! due to a thorn getting stuck in chris' head (a story for another time), he was bald for this show... not that his hair was very long to begin with. thanks to everybody for shaking, singing and dancing along with us... we played stickshifts and safety belts, valentine's day, thumb, lucky, waiting room, gone, ac/country/dc, chopping block, g i joe, imaginary love affair, coffee cup, and it's finally over.

sunday, may 31st at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

the last night of our residency at the kendall cafe. we were glad you all came out to share it with us. wasn't willie bernstein great? it had been a few months since we got to see them play... and now they have a CD out. they're kicking our butts in that department. we play for an hour and a half and it seemed like a short set (at least after the previous week). but we all had to work the next morning. we would like to thank kristin, brian and steven for showing up at all 5 shows! what a great month...

sunday, may 24th at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

so this was our marathon night. 26 songs in 3 hours. highlights included guest performances by jay's brother brian (alice's restaraunt.. yes all 20 minutes of it) and eric marcos (for the weekly tom petty jam.. we even learned some petty songs to play with him). goh played for 3 hours, then eric comes up on stage and gets a bra thrown up on the first song! no fair. wendy welsh opened up the night, followed by eric o'connor (who also stepped in to play drums in the late night session). it was a mini hop jam reunion to share the stage with those guys. being in the middle of a long, holiday weekend we were expecting a small turnout. thanks to all the friends and fans that came by and surprised us. when we finally powered down the pa, we all ended up sitting around with the guitars as we packed up the gear (kind of like a campfire without the campfire). that was a lot of fun. we especially liked leanne and nat's versions of merrie amsterburg songs... thanks for sharing them with us.

sunday, may 17th at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

we closed the place! not bad for a sunday night. eric marcos started off the night, then goh played, then deep water, and then eric again with some help from all of us. he kept on doing "one more song"... all tom petty songs (of course). i'm not sure we intended to do so, but we ended up with a tribute to tom (and a "let's see if we can stump eric" contest). eric o'connor even sat in on drums for a while (a habbit he picked up while in LA). that's what rock and roll is all about, isn't it? as far as our set went, we did things slightly different this time around. we had tom (of deep water fame) join us on banjo. what a fun instrument. it was great to see so many people there once again... some familiar faces, and again some new ones. we played stickshifts and safety belts, chopping block, it's finally over, thumb, imaginary love affair, lucky, ac/country/dc, i don't know, mr. wrong, gi joe, gone, foggy mountain breakdown, salty dog and rocky top.

monday, may 11th at the cantab - cambridge, ma

it had been quite a while since we stopped by to visit geoff and the folks over at the cantab, so we took the excuse to see some friends play as a reason to get over there. eric and wendy, both gearing up for their show with us later in the month, met up with us and we all got the chance to play some songs. as usual at the cantab, we were almost last, but we had fun. we did it's finally over and gone and then decided that it would be best if we started getting sleep... for we were a mess after all that playing (and having to work every morning).

sunday, may 10th at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

happy mothers day everyone! chris', kris' and jay's mom all showed up (along with our dads, but they don't get any special attention until next month). we had so much fun. it was great to see a full house on a sunday night. our favorite giveaway of the evening had to be the crazy straw glasses... and jane stole the show by drinking her beer with them. perhaps we'll start a new trend in fashion. a couple people asked us where to pick them up after the show. three day threshold kept the crowd going after we stopped, of course they always do. it was good to play with them once again... this was the first time we got to see the full band play at the kendall. we hope to do it again sometime.

sunday, may 10th at MIT - cambridge, ma

have you ever seen a keg of jolt before? we did. all the sugar and twice the caffeine. more impressive than the fact that they simply had the keg was that they made it themselves from 20 oz. bottles (a whole shopping cart full of them). between that and the cake we ate, we were wired. by the end of the show, we were playing songs nearly twice as fast. fortunately, they were all listening equally as fast and it all worked out fine. we played 22 songs in 2 sets for them (or perhaps with them, since they were shaking along). pete played one heck of a tambourine solo, and treated us quite well (by brining us jolt on demand). we totally forgot to bring a drum rug and duct tape (what kind of band doesn't bring duct tape with them?) so chris was chasing his hit-hat around all afternoon. we got lots of great ideas about different things to do with the fish... perhaps an invention will show up at one of our future shows. you just never know. it was supposed to be an outdoor barbecue, but instead we had our 50th day of rain in a row and did it inside. it was a lot of fun regardless of the rain. hopefully we'll make another appearance there in the not-so-distant future.

sunday, may 3rd at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

the first night of our residency at the kendall! muchos thank you's go out to mercy james for helping kicking it off for us (and for all of you). those of you that missed the show didn't get to see steve's fish mobile return from retirement. hopefully he'll have it parked in front of the kendall each and every sunday night. we all did a mad libs together (chris wanted to make sure we had a refresher course on grammer). more than half the room (including prize winners geoff, emily and kathy) had all lived in florida at one point in the past. isn't that strange? the weirdest part was that we figured it out during the show. emily, hopefully we'll see you when we travel down there... it's always nice to have a new friend... and we will make it down there eventually, even if we have to drive our big wheels down there. we did a set consisting of stickshifts and safety belts, chopping block, it's finally over, a reminder, gone, coffee cup, thumb, imaginary love affair, gi joe, ac/country/dc, valentine's day, mr. wrong, and lucky.

friday, april 17th at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

a big thank you goes out to all that stopped by the kendall to see us play... you guys and gals were awesome! in fact, you performed more than we did... we were simply the conductors of the shaker orchestra. thanks greg and meghan for the chevy mailibu. congratulations to all the winners from the goh prize vault! what a crazy night, you wouldn't let us stop playing, we had a tambourine girl, you were wearing fish! special thanks to the kendal cafe (once again) and merrie amsterburg, everything else and roger manning for sharing the stage with us. we ended up playing ac/country/dc, it's finally over, sleepless, he dances..., gone, thumb, g i joe, chopping block, lucky, imaginary love affair, stickshifts, i don't know, and cracker.

thursday, march 26th at the kendall cafe - cambridge, ma

goh played along with special guests gone boys and columbia recording artist bic runga to celebrate chris' birthday. we had cake, we played cake, we had our new bubble gun, our newly upholstered green felt guitar, had a wandering microphone and gave out a slinky junior and a kermit pez dispenser. thanks for the little plastic monster leanne! (a birthday gift for chris). we played. imaginary love affair, gi joe, thumb, it's finally over, chopping block, i don't know, coffee cup, stickshifts, gone, lucky, and mr. wrong.

friday, march 13th at the northeast brewery - allston, ma

goh and mercy james did guest sets when host band, deep water, took breaks. we recommend the bostonian blonde (ale, that is). we played imaginary love affair, gi joe, and lucky.

saturday, february 28th at mocha java - dedham, ma

goh did a free show for a couple of hours for friends and strangers that were in the dedham area. it started out pretty good until we realized we didn't have an extension chord to power our equipment... good thing colin happened to live in the neighborhood. then we broke strings, picks, and guitars... but somehow pulled it off and played just about every song we knew and a few extras.

kendall cafe: friday the 13th (of february) cambridge, ma

goh played at midnight (when friday the 13th meets valentine's day) along with grace, mark kraus and kipper tin. we played mr. wrong, chopping block, gi joe, ac/country/dc, sleepless, coffee cup, i don't know, valentine's day, stickshifts and safety belts, imaginary love affair, lucky and i skipped that class.

kendall cafe: february 4th cambridge, ma

happy anniversary eric! two years of open mics... he's built a great weekly event for us bostonians. we even had eric give away an official goh scraper in anticipation of the upcoming snow storm... we played stickshifts and safteybelts and imaginary love affair.

kendall cafe: january 14th cambridge, ma

we were there along with the feature another girl who played a great show. it's worth mentioning that their drummer, who has the best name in rock drumming, made great faces during their show. we played gi joe (in moon time) and chopping block. it was great to finally see our friend winterboy play. jay was lucky enough to be properly trained on the metric system and win a fabulous book on the metric system from our favorite host, eric marcos.

kendall cafe: january 10th, 1998 cambridge, ma

happy new year! a big thank you goes out to all who supported us by coming out and seeing us play at the kendall cafe. thanks for being rowdy on request and helping out on percussion. together we all folked that place. we hope you had as much fun as we did. congratulations to noreen for being the grand prize winner of a six inch gumby... we trust you'll provide him with a happy home. other performers included leon rich, divorce of lady x (a.k.a. patty giurleo), and denise hradecky. we played mr. wrong, gi joe, chopping block, it's finally over, lucky, a reminder, stickshifts, ac/country/dc, i skipped that class, coffee cup, imaginary love affair and he dances.