By Artie Capshaw

How many gelatin shots can you do?
…while singing?
…a duet?
If your name is Pud Large of The Chocolate Covers, and it was last Friday at the Bullfinch, the answer is five.
The song? “Softie.” The jiggly liquor fixes punctuated the “doo doo doo”s of the chorus.
Next question: How many more songs until the effects of such a public display begin to reveal themselves? By our estimation, two. Unfortunately for all, an opening band hadn’t materialized, so The ChocCos were expected to do an extra-long set, which they were only halfway through.
Did they make it to last call? Barely. Did they maintain the respect and admiration of the crowd? Yes, but only by offering us all gelatin shots of our own so we wouldn’t be jealous.
There were only seven of us there, see. Probably the reason Pud was so loose and sloppy in the first place.
There was a bit of a food fight. Then everybody wobbled home.

The Sheraton Armchairs and The Bannister Backs, an unusually high-end gig at the Bullfinch. The bands were “looking for a comfortable, intimate spot in a dark corner” between stops on massive multi-band supertours… Roy Croft and The Hepplewhites and The Savonarolas, cover bands from an earlier generation, at the cover-band mecca Hamilton’s… The Rohlfs at D’ollaire’s, with Frank, Lloyd & Right opening. Cool booking, but who’ll go with all that wonderment at the Bullfinch?…