Hello, and thank you for clicking. This page is my pathetic attempt to do what little I can to convince the members of Concussion Ensemble that they should have a reunion show. I've tried pleading with them in person, and now it's time to see if I can get other people to help me plead. I know that there are others out there who want another show, and I want to let the band know it too.
If you didn't happen to be living in Boston in the early '90s, it's entirely possible that you've never heard of Concussion Ensemble. So, here, a brief primer on the band, and why I love them. Concussion Ensemble was a seven-piece that played instrumental rock. (Mostly originals, but with a kick-ass version of the "Mission Impossible" theme in their repertoire, and for a while there was talk of an entire album of Sun-Ra covers that never materialized.) The lineup comprised two guitarists, a bassist, three drummers, and a percussionist. The drummers would set up three full drum kits across the front of the stage, with the strings behind them and the percussionist in the back with his Rack Of Stuff: springs, cookie sheets, a fire extinguisher, a No Parking sign, a bedpan....
Concussion Ensemble were drenched in Boston rock superstardom. Rich Gilbert has had a hand in so many great things to come out of this town: Human Sexual Response, The Zulus, Tanya Donelly's solo band, Frank Black's Catholics, and at least half a dozen more. Rich Cortese, also of The Zulus, played bass. Terry Donahue and Ken Winokur have gone on to tremendous success with Alloy Orchestra, and their partner in that project, Roger Miller, also plays with Larry Dersch in Binary System. (I'm less familiar with Mike Brown and Brian Gillespie's other work, but I worship them all the same.) The concentration of talent onstage when this band played was daunting. And they had enough drums!
In their heyday, Concussion Ensemble would play out about once a month, and I would go and see them about once a month. And here's the thing: it would reliably be a transcendent experience. That's not hyperbole; it's not even exaggeration. I mean it literally. You can't imagine how weird it is to know that, at 9:30 on Wednesday night, you can go to this address, pay $7, and have a transcendent experience. I fondly remember one time that I almost didn't go see them. It was a Tuesday, and I was exhausted, and I felt like I didn't have the energy for a Concussion Ensemble show. But I thought, "Go. You'll enjoy yourself. And you can just sit quietly and listen to the music. You don't have to dance your ass off." So I went. And, naturally, I danced my ass off. I was invariably sore the day after one of their shows, but it was a good pain.
There is one album, Stampede, which good luck finding a copy. And the thing about the album is, it's only excellent. Oh, sure, it's intricate and gorgeous and, if you have a sufficiently impressive stereo system, you can hear all those drums, but it somehow fails to capture the intensity, the grandeur, the overwhelmingness of the Concussion Ensemble live show. Besides which, there are songs that they played out a bunch of times that never got recorded. (Or, at least, never got released, but I can't think about that or I'll go insane.) I want to hear "Tremolo" again!
Well, they broke up. And, cruelly, when they broke up they publicly announced that, since they'd gotten together more or less on a whim in the first place, it's not like they'd really be gone forever. They'd still get together once or twice a year, they said, for "weddings and bar mitzvahs."
That was ten years ago.
They've played once.
I desperately need another show. I've asked a couple of the members, at various gigs of their other projects, about the possibility of a reunion show, and gotten answers that ranged from, "That sounds like fun," to, "Well, we're all really busy." I've offered to help with logistics in any way I can, and that offer certainly stands. The only other thing I can think to do is to present them with a sort of petition, a list of pleas from others who would also like to attend a Concussion Ensemble show. And this is why this page. I'm hoping that, if you remember the power and the glory of Concussion Ensemble, or even if you've just bothered to read this and think it sounds like something you'd like to check out, you'll take a moment to send me email to incorporate into my petition. Just say that you'd go to see them, or go on and on about how desperately you miss their shows, or promise sexual favors. Whatever you feel moved to write.
Please click here to send me your email.
Thank you for reading this, and thank you for (I hope) taking the time to add your voice to what I dream might be a chorus sufficient to move these seven fine gentlemen to grace us again with that particular transcendent experience that I'm getting really fucking sick of not ever having any more. I figure most likely nothing will come of it, but I have to do what I can, little though that is.