MUSIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

RUFUS

Rufus was another song written during the lost weekend of the SONS OF CEMENT BONES. It was a pastiche of the life that Darren Barret told us about when he was living large at Syracuse University. It was so easy to make music out of this fantasy land we would never know, happening in that college community so far North. It seemed huge, especially being from UCONN Husky territory. The Huskies weren’t the Huskies yet…even the Lady Huskies had yet to break through in 1992. Syracuse however was a National Power in College Basketball, and was the school that Jim Brown came out of….(meaningless now, but in ’92 you still revered that name). So we put the glow on the stories we heard, and Rufus became the Pot Dealer of all Pot Dealers. He was the man with the plan, make no mistake. He’d let you try, get you high…in a righteous state, but we got to get over! Cuz it’s getting late!

On the original demo, Darren played a trumpet that defied physics.
It defied everything.
It was perfect for the world we were describing in the three songs we made that day. (“WHAT’S UP WITH THAT” may never be found…and “HIGH SPEED CHICKEN” survives from this same PROON show). Scotty played bass during the Cement Bones sessions, but here he plays drums. Instead of a trumpet for this performance, we got Chris Scherer to take the absurdity over the top with a fearless display of gut busting saxophone bravado. We laid down the track and Chris blew through those bars like a locomotive. Once more, the sound quality could be better, but the idea can be digested after a healthy bong hit supplied by our buddy, Rufus. (He’s got the killer weed.)

PROON was recorded here live from Billy Ray’s Cafe on April 3, 1994.
Frank Brocklehurst on bass, Bart Holcomb on guitar, Bryan Bakevich on Fender Rhodes Electric Piano
Shelly Asselin on Backing Vox, and Scotty Allshouse on drums.