The Rave becomes X-Raves After several exciting months of seeing the band make quite a name for itself locally, we got some news that ended all hopes of making "The Rave" a household word throughout the known universe... One night at The King's Head Inn, we were listening to some old friends, The States, who had recently been signed to Chrysalis Records. Backstage we were talking to Jimmy McDonnell and Barry Scott with whom I had played years before in a group called Wynter... at The King's Head Inn, no less. Anyway, they told us that the management group they had signed with had also signed a band from the Midwest called The Rave. We determined they could probably claim first use of the name (because we hadn't been around long) and decided to change it as soon as possible. A poor decision, in retrospect, because I never heard of them again.... have you? Just to be sure, a few days later Alan, Kelly and I piled into the car and drove up to Crystal City, just outside Washington, DC to the US Trademark Commission. When we got there, we just walked in like we were a bunch of taxpayers that owned the place, only later finding out that the usual clientele were lawyers with security passes and strict appointments. Who knew? We made it up to the fifth floor where they kept all the records of everything that has a US trademark and started wandering around, just walking into people's offices. We were told we could file for a patent search that could take six months to even be approved. We couldn't wait that long so we kept wandering and eventually ran into a kid named Stan who graciously took us under his wing (he probably didn't see too many rock bands in the US Trademark Commission.) Stan, who seemed to have a permanent disability of some sort, climbed up on his crutches and hobbled over to one of the zillions of file drawers and started searching. Of course, we were right behind him. After about 30 seconds, he said "Let's look over here..." and he hobbled off, with the three of us right in tow. Once again, Stan rifled through the endless 3 x 5 index cards and after about a minute we began to see "Rave" hair spray... "Rave" brassieres... and finally, from Urbana, Illinois.... The Rave. The first words out of Alan's mouth were "Well, I guess that makes us the Ex-Raves." And it did. All the way home we tried to think of something better... The Dialtones, The Rollbacks... nothing worked. The Ex-Raves stuck. We dropped "The" and "E" and became just X-Raves. We had a name changing ceremony the next night at The King's Head, where we put up the brick wall and just before the last set, Kelly sprayed "X-" in front of Rave and added an "s" to the end, while Alan rolled a patch of brick contact paper over "The" and it disappeared. We threw a ton of confetti (bits of which are probably lodged in those monitor speakers even today... somewhere) and we rocked like there was no tomorrow. Alan told me afterward that some guy came up to him and said "Man... X-Raves are better than The Rave" (like it was a different band than just moments before!) We laughed about it then, but I now think he was possibly right. Harder and faster. Another interesting thing we noticed, the local radio stations began playing the same songs we were covering. We were absolutely floored to hear tunes like "Take Me To Your Leader" by the Sinceros, "What I Like About You" by the Romantics, and "I'm the Man" by Joe Jackson appear on the same stations that had completely ignored this music in favor of groups like Styx, Kansas, and Lynnard Skynard. There was apparently enough impact that WMYK (K-94) decided to include us on a local compilation album they were making. For that project, Bob Boone of The Beach Studios recorded one of our gigs at Friar Tuck's. A live version of "Too Wrapped Up" later appeared on the album Home Brew. The funny thing about it was, that all the other acts on the record were either southern rock or acoustic. We just stuck out like a sore thumb, but of course, we loved it.
The band was now playing three to five nights a week. Not bad considering we had no natural venues when we started just eight months before. Kelly and I had long ago given up our menial day jobs and were getting by on just the band's income, but Alan was the manager and heir to his father's plumbing business while Chuck enjoyed a similar position at his father's music store. They were burning out and were at the point in their lives where they had to make a some decisions about their health, their futures and their personal obligations. They both decided it was time to leave the band. At this point, I learned a seemingly obvious lesson... if your band has a steady income, you can hire just about anybody you want to fill a slot. Elvis Costello had just released Get Happy! with it's more soulful, Motown-like sound, featuring some terrific keyboard work by Steve Nieve. And as always, Elvis had a big impact and inspired me to want the finest keyboard player we could get, to compliment my guitar and to fatten the overall sound. The best keys man I knew was Jim Humphrey, another Portsmouth boy I'd known since attending Westhaven Elementary School, plus we had played together in several bands over the years including Wynter and Count Buckwheat. Much to my surprise, Jimmy said yes. Kelly, being the bass player and one half of the rhythm section, wanted a drummer who could play more to his instincts, namely... harder and faster. We already had a good experience with Mike Maurer back when Alan had been hurt and Kelly especially wanted him now on a permanent basis. We truly had mixed feelings about pulling him out of Tango Storm because he was perfect for that band, too. But once again, the power of steady money proved irresistible to those who want only to play music for a living. (You may take statement that any way you like.) We now needed a new place to rehearse and were graciously accommodated by Tom and Tench at the Naro Expanded Cinema. For several weeks, we set up directly behind the screen and rehearsed during the daytime. With the change in personnel we also learned a host of new cover tunes including several cuts from E.C.'s Trust and Get Happy! albums, and even a few old Motown things, plus some high energy stuff by the Ramones and others. One of our first gigs with the new line up was a second live radio appearance for WNOR FM-99 and it was, well... shaky. We had taken for granted the tight unit we had had before and it would be several weeks until things really began clicking again... |