EROS 1972
Skip Lombardi, Eddie Collins, Mark Ernst, Gary Butts, Alan Payette
Photo taken behind The Showboat, New Lebonon, NY. This version of EROS was
perhaps the most creatively unstructured of all versions and used to improvise hour long
jams on Sunday nights for an entire set. We actually played a very regular schedule:
six sets per night, four nights per week, four weeks in a row at the The Showboat, then on to
six more sets per night, four more nights per week, four more weeks in a row at The Office,
Saratoga Springs, NY (now called La-La's), then on to six sets per night, four nights per week
but only two weeks in a row at The Rice Paddy on Fuller Road, Albany, NY. At that point we might go
play some out of town gigs in western New York for one or two weeks, then begin the entire cycle
all over again. Gary and I took a trip to Florida looking to get the band out and into a real road circuit,
Eventually Skippy was replaced by a fill in drummer from Utica (Darrell Somebody), EROS disbanded
then reformed with Al Weeks on drums and the intention of moving to California. Eddie quit, we took
a regular four night per week gig in Torrinton, Conniticut and got ready to pack up and move west.
The new drummer, Al Weeks did some "unusual" things like breaking down our apartment door when
the key was misplaced, and then I had to bail him out of jail in Utica after an altercation with
first his girlfriend Marsha, and then the police. I really wanted to move to California asnd take the
band on to "the bigtime" so I ignored the obvious warning signs with Al.
Reality settled in after we got to the Bay Area in September 1973.