Jimmy and the Rotting Potatoes
1987-1988
Jimmy and the Rotting Potatoes was formed sometime in the fall of 1987 when I was in the eighth grade. The original line-up was me on guitar and vocals (if you can call them that), Chris Carson on drums, and Jay O'Neil on bass and guitar. The Jimmy in our name did not refer to anybody in particular, although you might be tempted to attribute it to Jay, since his real name is James (a name for which Jimmy is often a nick-name), but in our case, Jimmy was *in reality* an essence who was formed whenever the three of us were together. He was the explanation for everything that one might explain as "coincidence" or "accident." If a cabinent door opened seemingly by itself, it was Jimmy. If Chris's cymbal stand fell over, it was Jimmy. If a guitar string broke, it was Jimmy... you get the idea.
Our first band practice happened at my house on Wadmalaw Is., some 30 minutes from anywhere in Charleston. Since I lived out in the boonies, our band practices would last for a couple days, and Jay and Chris would spend the weekend at my place. Our first practice session was called The Banana Weekend. Now before you go attributing this name to some Freudian-Oedipal-pubescent complex on our parts, you should know that it was called this because Jay showed up to practice with a Velvet Underground t-shirt featuring the famous painting of a banana by Andy Warhol (see below). Our second-ever band practice happened a month or so later at Chris's parent's house out in the country, somewhere even further out in the boonies than Wadmalaw. They called their place Saltwood, after the famous castle in England, and so our second band practice became known as The Salty Banana Weekend.
We recorded our band practices on a little boom box with a built in mic. About half the time we played songs, the other half we just acted like whacked-out kids, having fun recording ourselves making up weird stories and skits (The Bomb, the Destruction of the Bi-Lo Forum). Our musical influences were Led Zeppelin (who we covered extensively), The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Doors, and so on. We did have a few originals, although most of them were pretty whacked out funny songs (Rebel Yell, The Day That the Barn Caught Fire, Salty Banana Blues, etc...) Yes- we were a bunch of pretty whacked-out kids... I've included some MP3 links of The Salty Banana Weekend below, ripped strraight from the original master (see left) just so you can see how whacked we really were.
Jimmy and the Rotting Potatoes big debut came in the Spring of 1988 at the first ever Porter Gaud (our school) band jam. There we shared the stage with other bands (all of whom were in high school) like Thick Soup, Three Angry Citizens, Curious George (a split-off band from Modern Art), and a few others I don't really remember. We played pretty well, and even got a standing ovation! It was a fun night. In fact, the local newspaper, The Charleston News and Courier, published a review of the concert a day or so later. It said that many bands participated in the show, but "the show-stopping band was Jimmy and the Rotting Potatoes, a group of three eighth graders, none of whom is named Jimmy"
Original "Salty Banana Weekend" album cover
The Rotting Potatoes
1988-1990
Sometime in the summer of 1988, after our big debut at the Porter Gaud Band Jam, my best friend Michael Jones joined us as bass player. We were a quartet for while, but I soon decided that I wanted to be the only guitarist, so I moved to kick Jay out of the band. This was kind of a mean and lame thing to do. Fortunately, after a cooling off period, Jay and I were able to remain friends through high school. At this same time, I also moved to drop the "Jimmy" from our band name to become just The Rotting Potatoes. My reason for doing this was simple, I guess- we were getting older. Being "cool" was, unfortunately, becoming more important (at least to me) and I felt that nobody would ever really take us seriously with a name like Jimmy and the Rotting Potatoes, although if I had it to do over again, I would definitely keep it!
The Rotting Potatoes continued to practice and play gigs whenever we could. We were still pretty young, but we were definitely getting better. It was hard for kids to find good gigs. We would play at parties (some cooler than others), at school, wherever possible. Weekend, marathon practice sessions were still common, and sometimes our friends Marshall and Zach would come out with a video camera and tape everything. Even Jay would come on occasion and hang out with us. At this period in time, my family was building a lake on our property and we would always go play in the cavernous, 15 feet deep holes of mud, water and slime.
One important gig for The Rotting Potatoes happened at Matt's Bar, a yabbo hang out in Mt. Pleasant, near Sullivan's Island in Charleston. We played for about a three person audience, and afterwards got critiqued by this fat slob loser named "Bob the Soundman" who told Chris that size 2B drum sticks were "not the answer." He also told me that as a lead guitarist, I was "not bad," but the gist of it was that we still had a lot of work to do if we wanted to be a real rock and roll band. Like Bob the Soundman was cool or something. I guess that happened sometime in 1989 or early 1990?
I was becoming a fanatic of the band Rush at this point, and most of the songs I wrote sounded exactly like them. I even sang a lot like Geddy Lee- high pitched and squealy :-) A little later, we started getting into more "alternative" music and we were starting to write some really cool original tunes. Nosedrip, by Chris Carson, MBITPOE, and Spontaneous Fishtank Combustion were all great RPs tunes, and we also managed to pull off a fairly decent cover of Rush's La villa Strangiato :-)
Songs by Jimmy
and
The Rotting Potatoes
These tracks were recorded live at the Salty Banana Weekend. We were only 13 at the time, so prepare yourself for some totally weird stuff :-)
2. Rock and Roll (with stampede)
3. Bagron Majeesh/Paint it Black
4. Mutant Song (with"the bomb")
6. Rebel Yell, with the "Destruction of the Bi-Lo Forum"
The Rotting Potatoes
1. Spontaneous Fishtank Combustion
2. MBITPOE
3. Nosedrip
6. Day by Day