Rittenhouse Square - The Hots - 1972 from eponymous R-Squared EP
In honor of our host Michael's new fatherhood, a tune from the grandfathers of NC music history, Rittenhouse Square.
According to legend, Mitch Easter had the vision of forming Rittenhouse Square after seeing MC5 open for Ted Nugent in Winston-Salem in 1971. Easter had already been through several bands and he, with friend Bobby Locke, went through several lineups with Rittenhouse Square before hooking up with high school classmates Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey with the intention of capturing the sound of Move. Rittenhouse Square chug like classic early 70s guitar heroes, but with sillier and poppier lyrics and singing. To be honest, none of the tracks rank among career highlights for the band members but yet the record is fascinating for what the songs tell about the times. Indeed, according to Easter the record was put out by Locke on his own after the band broke up. "We were all horrified at the time because we didn't think it turned out very well."
Somewhere someone has an actual copy of the record (failing on that score, above is a photo instead of the actual Rittenhouse Square). What does it look like? Well, the article "How North Carolina Got Its Punk Attitude" provides as comprehensive a history as exists of the band and says "Original copies of this album have an odd line drawing of a little animal silkscreened on the plain white cover, while later versions have a cartoon "R" with bell bottomed legs or just a blank cover."
Easter himself told the B.O.B. magazine: "There's like a limited edition, of about twenty, that have these cardboard sleeves that are silk-screened by hand.Actually after the record came out and I accepted that fact I made those sleeves.I realized that was going nowhere fast so I just sort of disappeared from doing that.Then the drummer went on and got those sleeves made up from this horrible publicity picture that we had taken wearing matching shirts really hideous picture - and he had these printed on those sleeves that have a hole in the middle so there's four bodies there but all our middles are missing because of the hole, so all the ones that exist have that sleeve as far as I know."
Anybody got the sleeve?
Band members:
Bobby Locke- drums
Mitch Easter - guitar
Peter Holsapple - guitar
Chris Stamey - bass
Posted by: Zach Coleman
posted by Michael Slawter | 9:59 AM
3 Comments:
Just to set the record straight, Bobby Locke actually formed Rittenhouse Square with Gene Vance, Ken Lowry and David Niblock. That band broke up, with Ken joining me, Stamey and Robin Borthwick (ex-Imperurbable Teutonic Griffon, with Mitch) in the short-lived Ice; Niblock and Locke enlisted Michael Rosinger, Kent Hill, Don Gibbs and Mitch Easter for the second incarnation. A very impressive band indeed, doing note-for-note versions of "Yours is No Disgrace" with requisite vocal power and instrumental prowess. That version of Rittenhouse split, then Mitch and Bobby got me and Chris to join. We recorded the R2 album at Crescent City Sound Studios in Greensboro. Six big songs, lotsa guitars and heaviness. Sigh. As God is my witness, we've all become better musicians and singers since then.
The cover art was a picture of what we called the non-rabbit (term from "Thick as a Brick"), an image that had appeared mysteriously on the Easter family phone chalkboard. I was always excited by the idea that the sleeves we made were about 12 3/4" squares, bound on the sides by duct tape, thus ensuring that it would never fit in anyone's collection. The paper slipcover had a photo of us taken behind the old Reznick's Thruway store where I was employed at the time. It features us in our matching flowered shiny shirts bought at Miller's. It also features me wearing my mother's fall to augment my tiny haircut at the time. Is that just too much information?
FYI- Ms Reznick passed away very recently. I bought my first electric guitar there. It was a 74 strat that cost me $400.
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