Joan Osborne Name-Checks the Endtables in the New York Times… and What We’ve Been Up To!
(Above, the cover of the Endtables 7″, from the excellent Last Days of Man on Earth. And Joan Osborne, from the New York Times.)
We’ll be honest: we’ve never, ever liked the cloying, faux-soul sounds of Anchorage, Kentucky native Joan Osborne. Her 1995 hit “One of Us” — y’know, the song that posits the oh-so-ironic-but-not-really notion that God could be just like any ordinary shmoe — was quite possibly the nadir in a decade also notorious for such other one-hit unwonders such as the Spin Doctors and Ugly Kid Joe. Shudder.
So imagine our surprise this Sunday as we read the Arts & Leisure section in the New York Times, coming across this l’il tidbit:
[This] reminds me of a new wave, late ’70s-early ’80s sound that reminds me of being 16 years old and sneaking into the only club in Louisville, Ky., that had bands playing original music. There was a band called the End Tables [sic] that my high school friends and I followed. It reminds me of pogo dancing and getting slammed into by ruffian teenage boys on the dance floor.
Could this be? Did our little MOR darling Joan really get “slammed into” at an Endtables (spelled correctly) show? Did she witness Endtables singer Steve “Chili” Rigot in all his glory?
Hrm. Well, anything’s possible, and she would’ve been around 16 or 17 during the time the Endtables were active. We’re skeptical. But hey, all’s fair, so if you’ve got some great Joan Osborne-at-a-punk-show memories you’d like to share with us, by all means do so in the Comments section.
Oh and hey, we know it’s been ages since we last updated. Sorry about that. It’s been a really hectic (mostly in a good way) August. We went on a fantastic road trip vacation down to New Orleans (you can see a slideshow of pictures we took on our Flickr page), and we start a new job next week. Hopefully we’ll be back to regular updates here, but it’s too early to tell.
September 22, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Sorry for seeing this so late (and missing the original NYT comment). Thought maybe the vacation was permanent.
I never met her, but it’s my understanding that JO went to Waggener HS, was friends with Bryan Hurst (of Strict-9 and Blinders and Core of Resistance and his own solo stuff fame) and did indeed come around to the Windmill during its couple of months as a punk/New Wave bar. And who wouldn’t be impressed by Rigot?
September 22, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Thanks for commenting, Mr. Nold! We’re big Babylon Dance Band fans over here at SOTC. And yeah, I can’t imagine not being impressed by Chili Rigot! We just thought it weird that Ms. Osborne’s choice of that Ting Tings band (who we’re not impressed with) led to an Endtables reminiscence.
December 22, 2008 at 3:15 am
Way too late to be of any real use but….
I was Joan’s boyfriend “back in the day” and we (Joan, Bryan Hurst and I) used to sneak in to the back of the Windmill club to watch the bands. Endtables, Malignant Growth, Blinders and others. Joan was 17 and we were all seniors at WHS. She did indeed Pogo. Somewhere out there on the web is a photo I took of Rigot at the Windmill – I’m sure JO was with me at the time.
December 22, 2008 at 3:31 am
Hahaha, no it’s never too late, Bob. Thanks for the comment and the story!
January 6, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Hello. I’m currently assembling material for an artist-sanctioned reissue of the Endtables. Could you put me in contact with Bob Hunter who submitted a comment to this post on December 22nd? I would like to secure his permission to reproduce a photograph.
As a fan of the Endtables perhaps you would consider a post about the upcoming reissue, in the hope of flushing something unknown. If anyone has anything of interest related to the Endtables I would appreciate hearing about it at: luna_pier@yahoo.com (okay to publish). Please include the word “Endtables” in the subject line. The deadline for artwork is January 25th. Thanks for your help.
January 7, 2009 at 8:30 pm
[...] actually reading State of the Commonwealth. Thanks to our post back in early September about Joan Osborne name-checking the Endtables in the New York Times, we’ve been contacted by Stephen Driesler, who confirms the rumored [...]
January 7, 2009 at 9:05 pm
[...] actually reading State of the Commonwealth. Thanks to our post back in early September about Joan Osborne name-checking the Endtables in the New York Times, we’ve been contacted by Stephen Driesler, who confirms the rumored [...]