Our second show at Club 88… we felt very much at home here. Smell of cat pee and all.

The club had a nice big stage where you could spread out and Patt, Bob, Bill and I always enjoyed gathering backstage for the necessary pre-show banter.

Things were picking up for the band around this time period.  We were gigging quite a bit in order to promote our four-song E.P. TURNAROUND released on Rock Dog Records.  All four songs on the E.P. (“Place Your Bets”, “Turnaround”, “Tiffany” and “Graduation”) were recorded at Mark Studios in Clarence, NY, with Garth Huels featured on lead guitar plus the regular band line-up.

Robert created a surreal cartoon flyer for this show. The story begins with “Frankie the Chip Head” (aka: Bill “Frank” Simms, drawn to look like a cross between E.T. and a computer monitor) mixin’ up some special chemicals because “Ger-Boy” (that’s me) listened to “too much classic rock”, causing me to age quickly.

The flyer asks the Question… “Will Frankie’s serum save the day?”  The idea is that you would find out if you came to the show on Friday, June 24, 1988 at Club 88. (Or just call me later and see how I’m doing).  The flyer also advertised our upcoming gig at Madame Wong’s in Santa Monica, CA. on July 1^st, 1988.

We had a good night overall. We were booked on a Friday and college kids were out on summer break and it was a helluva-lot easier to get friends out to an air-conditioned club on a weekend now that summer was here in the big city.

I said it once and I’ll say it again, Club 88 had that similar feel to McVan’s (Buffalo, NY) in that you could play the gig straight just like in rehearsal, or experiment right on stage if you wanted to.  The audience was cool with it and so were the people who worked there, like the “Celibate Boxers” who were the house band when they weren’t serving you drinks.

Wayne Mayotte the owner of Club 88 named the place after a popular club in Tokyo.  The bar maid, (who was easily angered) seemed to run the place.  Wayne worked there as part-time bartender, booking agent, accountant and general manager.

Before opening Club 88 in Los Angeles, he worked primarily overseas for more than 25 years and a retired mechanical / structural engineer and former Air Force pilot during the Korean War.  While overseas, he dreamed of plans to open a jazz club, just like the original Club 88, but later, Wayne saw what was happening in music and decided to book bands of all genres. In particular, bands from the popular 1980’s Punk and New-Wave genre.

Parousia joined good company to perform on the same stage as veteran Club 88 artists The Go-Go’s, Berlin, Missing Persons, The Weirdo’s, Black Flag, “X”, Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers to name a few.