I’ve wondered about the stories I’d heard where in the late 70s and early 80s, James Chance, the master saxophonist and bandleader at the heart of the No New York scene, would beat up on audience members and sometimes wallop women!
So I meant to mention it Tuesday afternoon when I had lunch with James and True Groove record’s Tomas Doncker but it had slipped my mind. Tomas played guitar with the Contortions in the early 80s, back when Robert Hilburn was calling Chance bigger than Bowie!
Doncker just helped remaster By The Contortions, which will be released as a digital version with some new live tracks soon and the duo plan to get in the studio together this summer. More immediately, Chance will be playing with the True Groove All Stars on March 11th, 2014.
So anyway, Chance was telling me how the first time he actually talked to his late manager, the legendary Anya Phillips, was at a gig at a loft where Chance got sick of the audience sitting around watching and began assaulting them.
Which leads Tomas into a story about playing with the Contortions in San Francisco where at the end of the set during “Money To Burn”, James would pull out a wad of cash and put it on fire. Well, this night a woman jumps on stage from the audience and tries to snatch the money out of James hands and James jumps on her and hey fight and fall into Tomas who can’t believe his eyes and wonders if they’re gonna spend the night in jail.
James hits the woman and hits her again and then storms off stage. And that’s the end of the show. The audience is going insane and Tomas staggers backstage and Anya is there and so is the woman. And Anya hands the woman a fistful of dollars and the woman leaves.
“It was a set up?” I asked.
“It was a set-up” James admits.
Ahhh, those were the days.