More Implants or Shriners (whichever you prefer) stories and photo appearances.
Wojciech and Mike jammed since the very beginning of 1995. They met thru
Wojciech's friend Rich who happened to be Mike's brother. Thanks to Rich, Adam
joined them on bass and they played on a regular basis in the future
Shriners/Implants house. By March they called themselves Tree Bold Mice and had
a few songs recorded on the boombox. Brett joined around May or June after a
mini acoustic show at Vish's night cafe where he took Wojciech for Kurt Cobain still alive (he and Mike played among many songs, Nirvana's "About a
girl" and "All apologies"). Soon Adam left the band. By
September the three had enough original songs to play an opening act
("Maybe confused", "Floater", "Cop out",
"Susan's Friend", "Athens", "Tragic loss of hairy the
hippy", "Dinner music" and "Optimistic") or the full
show if including some covers (extremely long versions of "Love Buzz"
and "Mother universe" and also "Tonight it's gonna be
alright" and "California sun"). On the 5th of October they played
their first gig at the Gin, six days later they recorded with Tom Queyja their
first six songs. Since that time they played local venues on regular basis. In
November they played a Halloween show at Larry's and by the end of the year
they wrote "Faded", "Flyerstepper", "Cobb",
"Be Sappy", "Trip to Shell" (they lived across the street from
Shell petrol station where they regularly drove (30 yards) to get smokes and
liquids) and finally "Newsong". Soon they had to change the name
after an offensive show at the Gin on March the 4th where they had to ran away
from a fight after presenting a very offensive version of "Sweet home
Alabama" and "My mother (your mother)". On very last day of 1995
they recorded (basically in one take) all of their original songs up to that date
with Randy Cauley who soon became the live act’s fourth band member. In the
beginning of the year they get TV coverage and regular airplay of
"Floater" and other songs over the radio (U92). They become regulars
on radio "Local mail" show. The Implants name is mentioned regularly
in local music press articles. They played City Grocery with the Neckbones at the
end of March and visited Meridian (the Cooters and the Neckbones didn't make it
for very unusual reasons). The Implants had to run away from Meridian as well, after
offending a pretty punky, alternative crowd. Around that time they wrote "Smell
my feet". They already had enough original songs to put out two albums.
The songs for the first album are selected. "Smell my feet"
originally it was planned for a starter on the second album. In March they got to
play Proud Larry's which stands for an achievement locally. Soon it became a regular
spot for their shows. By pure coincidence on the 3rd of March they took part in
An Earthfest Fundraiser led by Students for Environmental Awareness at
Lafayette's (replacing the Neckbones) with... the Kudzu Kings opening for them.
The thing was, that the Kudzus had to travel for another gig, so they had to
play as first act. They also played the Local music festival being part of
Earthfest' 96 at Larry's along with many local bands including Splinter. After
the show they went to the live performance of 311 and No Doubt being part of
the same Eartfest act. They also did many acoustic shows at Bo's Coffee Bistro.
In July they released the "Leprosy" album, and got very good reviews
in the local press, and around September they played their final goodbye gig.
Below there are two of four posters for the first show of the Shriners
at the Gin. There were also other ones like the one that pretended the
frontpage of the Washington Post had news on the Shriners arrival to Oxford. Also
below is the ad in The Daily Mississipian for the show. The Shriners opened
with a full set for Cool Beans - The Greatful Dead cover band. One of the Beans
liked the show so much that he predicted those newcomers (so energetic and full
of enthusiasm with their stage behavior and own songs) would surely become big
some time soon.
