Here’s a YouTube video clip that I’m really surprised I didn’t see until recently.
Back in the mid-late 80’s, there was a pretty vibrant music scene in San Jose, California. There were a lot of great bands in the area that were performing original music, and getting some decent-sized crowds – The Kingpins, Frontier Wives, Dot 3, The Shockwaves, A Western Front, A Cruel Hoax, Grey Matter, Social Club, the Endmen, and a lot of other great bands you’d probably never hear of if you weren’t from the area.
The Laundry Works was one of the earliest clubs to showcase these new bands, as well as bring in a lot of touring bands that were just starting to build up a larger national following- Chris Isaak, Firehouse, Camper Van Beethoven, the Meat Puppets, Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper, and Jonathan Richman, to name a few. At the time, I was attending San Jose State, and running a small record label, which included some of the bands I brought to the Laundry Works. This was a place I was quite fond of.
The Laundry Works didn’t last long, but it left a lot of fond memories for the regulars that frequented this club. By mid-February 1987, the club was no more.
A few later, there was a reunion show that featured a handful of Laundry Works regulars over at the Oasis club, about 3 or 4 blocks away. I just found a YouTube clip from that reunion show featuring members of the various local bands that played at the Laundry Works.
Can you guess what song they did?
I saw the meat puppets at laundry works. They encored with a great Jimmy Crack Corn. The show was a blast. One of my favorites in san jose ever. More fun than dylan, van, joni at shark arena, more fun than peter gabrial at sj civic, more fun than ramones/tubes at sj performing arts pre rebuild. Love you louie louie