Finally met the drummer of The Illegal Briefs, and recognized him as the drummer for Wet/Dry Shaver, whom we hadn’t seen play in months. That band’s still together, but playing mostly in the towns where co-leaders (and pals since grade school) Whit and Dray (get it?) now go to college. That means their drummer—oh, yeah, his name is Philip Braun—has some time on his stick-filled hands. He’s the young’un of Illegal Briefs. And his day job? Fry cook at The New Egg on Pivot Rd.
That was our line on The Illegal Briefs originally, see—that’s they’d met in the same retail/office building complex and started jamming. Now that we’ve seen them, we declare it unfair to tag them by their non-music-making proclivities. This is a band with a style, an edge even. Flint Genessee’s saxophone mimics the bass lines of Connie Nash, while drummer Braun mindmelds not with Nash but with the sinuous, serpentine melodies of guitarist Hoff Eukis. Songs are about such sordid topics as divorce, flood damage (a metaphor for crying, we suspect) and serial killing. See what we mean by edgy?…

Country and western jamboree at the college on the hill! We’re told this is a major conference of c&w talent, three generations strong: dozens of local, regional, national and even international bands, including Lifestyle Gods, Last of the Breed, Haunted Mesa, Hondo, Trap of Gold and Black Rock Coffin
Makers. That last-named act features a fife!..
Those old West winds blow away all the Eastern nonsense happening elsewhere: Sono-trol at the Bullfinch (breaking away from their tour with The Peytones), Mother Merriman (the Down-with-the-kids mom who pretends to rock) at Hamilton’s, with an acoustic opening set by Wilda… And—god, no!—The Buck
McCrackens at Dollaire’s. Go up the country, truly.