Sloppy Joe 1.0

The original 1987 lineup of Sloppy Joe and the Random Rhythm Section was a trio consisting of Bert, Mark, and Sloppy Sarah. Mark played an acoustic 12 string guitar. I sang and played harmonica. Sarah played sticks. We practiced all the time, and became extremely tight. These performances were often captured on cassette and distributed to friends at school. As benign as that sounds, it led to the motivation to produce our first self release, the live recording from our first show at Milestone Records. That tape,  Live at Milestone Records was honestly one of the best selling releases I've ever made, selling out every day at school. I'd dub ten tapes on the double cassette deck and insert the Xeroxed covers and head to school.

We played a number of shows with this lineup before going electric and adding everyone else. Ground zero was the East Meck Talent Show which ran two consecutive nights. We debuted out version of Gloria and a song called Dreamworld that was about how everything in Charlotte looked pretty but at the expense of authenticity (cf. to 2015 when CLT is tearing down all history and building fancy apartments everywhere). The next show went down at the Church of Musical Awareness. Here we experienced our Blues Brother's movie moment as high school punks threw cans of soda at us, but minus the protective chain link cage. Milestone Records happened next, with an awesome turnout from our emerging fans. We laid down a smoking' "Oprah Winfrey," which of course celebrated old school 80s Oprah (a totally different game than the "O" of today). Our final acoustic show was at the infamous Lakeview Country Club--not an actual club--with the Couch Potatoes and a few other bands. At least 500 kids swarmed the place, and Sloppy Joe had them all shaking their car keys to they music. We actually played as the Polyester Briefs that night because we had a substitute stick player!

A week later we were jamming' with Holly Orr and Mike Calhoun and wondering where we would ever find a drummer. The real adventure was underway!