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Butch
Whacks & the Glass Packs
U.S. n. < fr. butch wax,
1950s hair pomade sometimes used as bondo to repair
car dents + glass pack, car muffler which
reduces engine exhaust pressure while increasing
engine power and noise, and, more importantly. rhymes
with butch wax. 1. San Francisco
area music group, 1971-1976, composed of slackers
from St. Mary's College looking for unique ways
to avoid classes. 2. 1983-2008:
San Francisco Bay Area music group composed of seemingly
responsible adults, looking for unique ways to avoid
real work, who get together once a year and amazingly
play before enthusiastic, sell-out crowds in San
Francisco. Long-time members include Rob Birsinger,
DeeDee Crockett, Morey Goldstein, Mike Hagerty,
Bill Lazzaretti, Bruce Lopez, Julio Lopez, Mike
Moore, Gary Murphy, Jerry Murphy, Walt Quinn, Dan
Ritzo, Bob Sarlatte, Larry Strawther, Tom Tomasello
and Karl Young. At various times, other members
have included John Buick, Jeff Carino, Davey Gonzales,
Peter Gordon, Craig Martin and Bob Stambaugh.
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Tickets now on sale for Butch Whacks' 25th annual farewell performance
 Tickets are now officially on sale
for Butch Whacks & the Glass Packs' 25th annual Farewell Performance to be held at Bimbos' 365
Club in San Francisco
on June 26, 27 and 28.
We had a couple technical snafus with our normal
web sales programming code, but we rigged up some workarounds, so you can still
order tickets via credit card online, or if you want to avoid those bank and
credit card processing fees, then you can pay by
check and get your tickets by snail mail.
Details are available at our butchwhacks.com
website.
Ticket prices are $45 for
Thursday night, $50 for Friday and Saturday nights.
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One of the best things about doing the show
at Bimbo's in North Beach every year is that the surrounding area offers
some of the best dining in San Francisco. As some of the
Glass Packs sport long-standing credentials as true city
boys with the real low-down on high quality dining in the
North Beach area, we thought you might be interested in
some of our suggested pre-show dining possibilities (that is, if you don't tailgate.) Click here to see where Butch and the boys meet to eat.
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We haven't quit our day jobs!People are
often amazed that we don't do this full-time.
We are often equally amazed that people actually would ever think we do
this full-time-- especially after they've heard us.
The bald
truth is yes, this is a part-time (in some cases, a once a year) gig for us and the Glass Packs all have other jobs - well, at least some of us do ... most
of the time. So we thought we'd let you
peek into the closet of our real lives. (more)
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The Big Fella reviews John Fogerty in concert The multi-talented Big Fella (Bob Sarlatte) is not content to rest on his laurels of being the grandest poobah of platter-pushin papas. On a whim, he and Mrs. Big Fella decided to check out John Fogerty in concert at the Nugget in Reno last weekend. The former Creedence Clearwater great knocked the Big Fella's socks off. Check out the review at the Big Fella's Music Machine: Insights from a Humble Genius.
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Glass Packs help put shine on Morey G Cavalcade of Stars fundraiser
Last Sunday at San Francisco Bayside brewpub near AT &T Park a groundswell of local musicians came together to help raise funds for Morey Goldstein, the tenor saxman for BWGP (and many other local groups) who has been stricken with brain cancer.
Morey was able to attend the event and enjoy old friends
from pretty much every group Morey has played with over the years going back to his Long Island High School State
championship jazz band.
After the serious musicians played rum soaked samba
music, four Glass Packs stormed the stage and, backed by the house band,
knocked out a few hard-rocking palate cleansers -- "Runaway" by Butch (Jerry Murphy), followed by Bill Lazzaretti crooning "Love Potion #9." Dee Dee Crockett then hit the beach
with "One Fine Day" (featuring some blazin' tenor sax by Armen Boyd, a longtime compadre of Morey who will play with BWGP next month at Bimbo's) and then the Big
Fella finished it off with "Burnin' Love."
Over $13,000 was raised that day, but unfortunately, Morey's needs are still many and
expensive. If you are able to join the effort, you
may reach out to Morey by clicking here or going to the link below. http://www.bigbangbeat.com/moreyg.html
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When a band has 37 years of history and bad jokes, you have to store it somewhere. And a lot of it is at www.butchwhacks.com. Learn a little bit about band members, a skewed history of the band, see some old photos which we probably should burn, and even see some of our old bits. We're actually learning how to do much of this ourselves, so we'll even do a better job of keeping you posted on what's happening (although bear with us - sometimes we have to have our teen-age kids shows us all these internet tricks).
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Links of the Week - Some of the best from "Shindig," and then some One of the
best things about Youtube.com is that a lot of people with way too much time on
their hands have posted some great stuff up there for us all to enjoy. Among our favorites are great clips from
Shindig, ABC's mid-60s', mid-week rock and roll soiree, hosted by way slick Jimmy O'Neill. "Groovy
Gals" showcases the talents of The Shangri-Las, a great version of "It's in
His Kiss" by Aretha Franklin, Lesley Gore doing "Judy's Turn to Cry," and Love
Letters Straight From Your Heart (which was originally sung by Ketty Lester.)
 Shindig
producer Jack Good hired a great house band and hot back up singers, who often included the Blossoms and the
Righteous Brothers. (Check out these
quite righteous versions of Little
Latin Lupe Lu and You've
Lost That Lovin Feelin'.)
The latter
had some cool lighting by Shindig 's Emmy winning lighting director Vince
Cilurzo (who worked with Elvis and Sinatra, and (almost equally impressive)
BWGP's Gary Murphy and Larry Strawther during their years with the Merv Griffin
Show in the late 1970s. Cilurzo went on
to start Cilurzo Wines in Temecula and his son Vinnie now operates the Russian River Brewing Company
in Santa Rosa. (If you go there, tell them you saw it
mentioned here, and maybe they'll give us one of their t-shirts and hats).
 The
Blossoms featured Darlene Love - who sang most of the famous Phil Spector
Christmas classics - which still sound great, as witnessed by Darlene's 2006 version of Christmas (Baby Please Come
Home) performed on David Letterman. Darlene's 6 Degrees of Butch Whacks connection to us travels through Letterman to BWGP's own Big Fella, Bob Sarlatte,
who was Dave's very first on-air sidekick (back
in 1980) and has made numerous appearances on Letterman's NBC and CBS shows since then.
Back to
Shindig, check out Darlene and Joe Tex doing "Yes Indeed." Joe shows some great dancing until his foot disconnects Darlene's mic.
The rest of the song demonstrates that some white men for sure can't
dance (e.g., host Jimmy O'Neill and Jay and the Americans). There's so many great other clips -- including a classic soul compilation (led off by a lame Bobby Sherman commercial, then leads into Major Lance, Joe Tex again, and a duet from Tina Turner and Marvin Gaye), Jackie Wilson doing "Baby Workout." and some classic 60's hits by The Kingsmen ("Louie, Louie"), Sir Douglas Quintet ("She's About a Mover"), The Olympics (the original version of "Good Lovin") and one white guy who could definitely dance -- rubber-legged Roy Head.
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Odds and Ends We want to thank the crew at the Saint Mary's College Alumni Association for the nice write-up in their latest alumni bulletin.
It seems that while we were the first (and certainly most unique), we are not the only group to utilize Butch Whacks (or a variation thereof) in their name. So jyst remember, we are not to be
confused with the Missouri rock and roll
revival group Butch Wax and the Hollywoods
(who seems to have borrowed much from our website), the San
Diego group the Butch
Wax Duo (who seems to have borrowed our tendency to get loud) or the Kentucky rock group The GlassPack (who seems to have
borrowed only our surly demeanor).
See you at Bimbo's.
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Show Times
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