Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Tony Erba - Part IV



Coming off the biggest DCXX entry ever, Erba re-loads and fires again, this time with some Face Value memories.

- Gordo DCXX


What type of chaos did Face Value cause over the years? Most memorable shows and why?

Well we tried to turn every show into a party in the pit, we were a feel-good, let's stagedive and trash the hall type band. My problems were usually with the soundman. I started to bring my own mikes to shows after scumbag club owners would charge us $100 for a 'broken mike' when there was a dent in the spit screen. We'd have a well thought-out set list designed to have the crowd frothing like manic idiots by the time we played the set-closer which was always "Coming Of Age" and then I'd just kind of signal for the crowd to take over and they'd rush the stage and there'd be 100 assholes onstage, knockin over amps, diving off PAs,swinging from the lighting tresses, etc. We broke the stage in half at the Empire, destroyed the drywall countless times at the Babylon, etc.

Most memorable shows? So many. We'd play alot of smaller towns that the 'cool' bands would pass up, and do sellout houses the second time we'd come thru, like Conway, AR; Tri-Cities, WA; Rapid City, SD etc. Syracuse was a great town for us. But the best shows were Clevo after we didn't play for 6 months because we weren't getting over, everyone was kissing Integrity's ass and we weren't drawing so we played on the road exclusively for at least 6 months then we booked the Babylon and oversold the fuck out of it and had a SICK reaction, I have a tape of it, we played close to an hour and the crowd heat was so intense, new kids from the West Side full of aggro and mischief, my brother had his crew out in full force, kids were AMPED.


Erba dips back into the crowd for some classic FV mayhem

I also focused on booking the band like an old pro wrestling territory...instead of focusing on just drawing in Cleveland, we'd develop a circuit which consisted of Erie, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Detroit, Columbus, etc. Easy drives, great kids, great houses, good bands to play with. Ben Frazier and Mike Ski had Erie drawing like crazy. McKaig, DJ and Guav did a great job in Syracuse, Manny ran a tight ship in Pittsburgh, Ian had Columbus humming and we could play those towns 4-6 times a year and draw great each show.

Other memorable shows...first two times we played in Louisville were great. It was us, Integ and Endpoint, 1600 paid in a Lazer Tag arena, kids going berserk, girls actually talking to me, Endpoint were over more with their hometown audience than perhaps any other band I've ever seen before or since, I mean it was fucking COOKING down there. Great band and great friends...Duncan just did some liner notes for the FV reissue. Second time was a slight fall-off in attendance, ONLY about 1200 paid, but that place was out of fucking control. Some rich-kid Hardline band called Limit actually FLEW in to that gig on a private plane owned by the kid's Dad.

Another classic show was in Rockford IL; we rolled up to the gig at a roller rink, there were hundreds of kids in the parking lot, we were stoked. It's getting time to open the doors and the lady running the roller rink decides at the last second that she dosen't want to be 'hardcore show promoter' and cancels the gig. The kids start getting pissed, so this girl calls her Mom who's some sort of city councilwoman and she shows up with a bullhorn and starts grandstanding about "these kids need a place to go! You're keeping these kids out on the streets!!" Coincidentally, as she's standing on a car yelling into her bullhorn, right on cue, a couple of TV camera crews show up to catch this champion of HC kid's rights having her say. At that moment, some dude screeches into the parking lot in a beat-up pickup and yells "Hey man, I own the Cherry Lounge down the street, you can have the show there, and it's FREE!! And $2 well drinks! Yee--haw!" The whole crowd lets out a whoop, and 200 kids book it down to this club, and us, Silence, and the Voodoo Glowskulls proceed to have a wild-ass gig that night.


Flyer for a great Middlesex County College show that unfortunately Face Value never ended up playing, flyer by: Tim DCXX

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

ahaha...best thing about that Rockford show was the parade of 100+ cars from the cancelled spot to the new place.

what about the show with Insted at Fotchs? Or the show at McGregors where people got arrested for illegal substances?!?! so many good times.

Anonymous said...

i dont see why you find this band so important enough to dedicate 4 blogs on a sxe blog. and they werent sxe. i admit, face value had a good 7" but the rest were aimed at pop audience and failed miserably.

DOUBLE CROSS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ivan Murillo said...

Anyone got info on the FV reissue he said Duncan did notes for?

Anonymous said...

"i dont see why you find this band so important enough to dedicate 4 blogs on a sxe blog. and they werent sxe. i admit, face value had a good 7" but the rest were aimed at pop audience and failed miserably."

Just a guess but I am thinking they have done 4 blogs because, well, it's their fucking blog! Go home retard.

xSHJx said...

Yo Sander, if you don't know, too bad. read stuff from the archives or something.

Face Value were a great band, and DCXX can interview whomever they please.

DOUBLE CROSS said...

Sander...

1. Face Value "Coming Of Age" 7" and the "Price Of Maturity" LP are both great. I've heard nothing after those records and don't really need to. As a matter of fact, the 7" is good enough for 4 entries and more to come.

2. What you are seeing is one interview that is being cut down (due to size) into separate entries. For a blog that is updated 5 days a week, I'm happy to have an entertaining and interesting interview like this to stretch out over time.

3. Regarding the straight edge comment, here's something taken right out of our intro on the main page: "And while we are undoubtedly straight edge and will put the best straight edge bands at the heart of this site, in no way does that mean we won't be featuring all of of our other favorite hardcore bands here as well".

Hope that answers some questions. Thanks for reading and come back for more! -Tim DCXX

Anonymous said...

shit. someone upload the REVEAL ep?! i used to own a copy...shit was intense!

Anonymous said...

yes, please - i forgot about that band.

Anonymous said...

thanks for most of the answers. i really didnt expect to get so many responses. like i said earlier, i think the 1st couple face value records were good. but found the rest to be more like a band trying to be commercial rock stuff. I am not sure why my opinion makes me deserving to be labelled a "retard" but i guess 'anonymous' is probably closer to the band than he wants to share publicly. anyway i enjoy double cross and in particular love reading about the real sxe bands. keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

I've just found this blog and I love it! Great interview with Tony Erba too, still hoping we'll get more from that. Any chance of getting stories from his days in h-100s and Gordon solie motherfuckers?

Keep up the good work!
/Chris from Sweden

Anonymous said...

thanks brother! some people know a good thing when they read it!

Anonymous said...

Only way you can outdo Erbas inane bragging is to next interview Rick Ta Life and Chubbie Fresh!

Anonymous said...

listen up ya dillweeds! the 'Value made better records than you and your pathetic friends could ever dream about! if you want to dare to compare me to that fat fuck chubbie fresh or that tattooed baboon Rick 25talife then you got another thing coming you wiry bucko! i am worldwide respected as an important pioneer of positive hardcore music and you can say whatever you want to try and tear down the truth. but face the facts i will be remembered forever and you will be forgotten! it is a bitter pill to swallow but you wanted to step into the ring with the champ and now you gotta deal with Erba beatdown! i dare you to come to clevo and try to say this shit! if my brother heard this shit youd be in the fucking morgue! now shut the fuck up!

Anonymous said...

HAHAHA "ONLY 1200 paid" boy oh boy this tony erba just cant get enough of himself!

Anonymous said...

Listen here you cock goblin! if you doubt Face Values popularity then why is there a 4 part blog about the band and its infamy on this popular webzine? we did a reunion tour a couple years back and sold out every show. you delusional little kids will never know what it was really like back in the day.

sw said...

Tony Erba seems to love to brag about himself. I found FV to be ok, but too desperate to please all of the people, all of the time. Erbas need to badmouth the rest of the more well known cleveland scene and try to refer to himself as a "legend" is laughable. If he were a legend, he wouldnt need to brag and bad mouth in desperate hope to convince others that he thinks he is a legend. he is a big mouth and a cyber bully