Its Their World, We're Just Guests

"Hey Sal, They won't let us dance," cried out an audience member. "Its their world, we're just guests," replied Sal. Sal being Sal Principato, Lead Singer, and Boogie Down Butt Shaker of the Legendary, Underground, Minimalist, Afro Punk, White Funk, Dada Soul Band, Liquid Liquid. Lincoln Center hosted Rhys Chatham's 200 Guitars and Liquid Liquid this past Saturday night. Lincoln Center security would not let any of the young folks or the Aged New Wave&Art Crowd of yesteryear out of their seats to dance. LL appears and reappears like the Locust. I saw them in the early 1980's at Hurrah, Danceteria and other places. Though I missed the famous Paradise Garage show. Someone else on Saturday yelled out that they were there, while Sal called out "Roxy, Hurrahs, Paradise Garage." They left the scene in the mid 80's reemerging in 2003, disappearing again and are with us once again. Hearing LL outdoors and above ground on the Upper West Side was a little strange and exciting. As Sal put it, their world got to hear what we fans and admirers believe to be the underground art/dance/music nexus of our time. The crowd did recognize one of the all time great funk bass lines as Richard McGuire began their "hit" Cavern. I was sitting in the VIP seats with my friend Tom Burka, a very funny man and terrific writer his son Nicholas, and 70, my Bass Player&Producer. Dennis Young pictured above is the percussionist of LL. Dennis creates the hooks on his marimba and underscores Sal's vocal patterns with his cymbals and tom toms. Dennis and I first met at Hurrahs in 1980 something as he was tuning his rototoms on stage before the show. I started a brief chat from the edge of the stage about how cool rototoms were and that we had bought them for our band. Thanking him, saying LL was our favorite band. Many many years later I found Dennis on myspace playing at a coffee house in New Jersey. The place was virtually empty. I thought, wow xLL playing an acoustic show out in the wilds of NJ. Doing his thing and no one knows. His solo acoustic work resulted in an excellent album called Shadow. He was mixing Shadow then and I asked if I could come down to the studio and listen in. Later, Dennis asked me to play in the Shadow band. We had some terrific shows including the cool Cake Shop. Meeting Dennis, listening in at his mix sessions and playing in his band catapulted me back into music. I asked Dennis to play on a track for my album, Nature Of Love and do some shows with a band I was forming. Now we; RB, Dennis, 70 and Andrew Platt of skeletonbreath fame are going into the studio to a do full album together. Meeting Dennis at the coffee house gig was bizarre and real, because anything, and absolutely everything happens when you make art and music the focus of your life.