Quasi and Jackpot! (part one)

Our Intertwined Lives -by Larry Crane

In 1985 some friends and I started a band and unfortunately named it Vomit Launch. When we needed a studio to track our first album, Not Even Pretty, the choice was really obvious. Our friend, Greg Freeman, had opened a studio, Lowdown, in San Francisco. He'd hung out with us a lot, been at our shows, understood our music, and was very affordable.

Greg looking worried.

As we were working on the album we noticed some reels on the shelf by Donner Party, and we asked who that was. Greg was enthusiastic about their debut album he was working on. It was hard to impress Greg, so we took note. Around then we met a band called The Cat Heads, whose drummer, the fabulous Melanie Clarin, was also the drummer in Donner Party. We ended up eventually meeting them – guitarist/main songwriter Sam Coomes and bassist Reinhold Johnson – and doing shows together in 1988 and 1989.

I loved Sam's clever songs, and the two albums they made are still among my favorite records. Sometime around then I also caught a band called Ed playing in Chico, CA, a few times and noted that the drummer, Janet Weiss, was really good. Not long after, Sam and Janet began dating, and ended up moving to Portland, OR, together.

I moved to Portland in 1993, about 6 months after Vomit Launch broke up. My pal Kathy Molloy had a magazine called Snipehunt, and I dropped by often to help out.

One day I was opening mail, and someone was trying to get ahold of Sam Coomes who had a band with Janet Weiss called Motorgoat. Kathy gave me Sam's number, and I called up. Sam mentioned he'd heard I was in Portland now, and wondered if I'd want to come over and play bass with him and Janet. Heck yes I did. I learned some Motorgoat songs and went over at least a couple of times. One day I showed up to rehearse and Janet wasn't there. "We're going to try a different direction, maybe as a duo," Sam told me. I was bummed, but I also felt a bit out of my league as these two were much better players than I was. The "new" band, Quasi, began playing various shows, having friends "fill in" the band at times. I played bass with Quasi on a 4-song set one night at Clinton Street Theater for a benefit of some sort, and videos of that used to show up on late night cable access for years, though I never saw it myself!

As my home studio, Laundry Rules Recording, got rolling I was asked to record a 7-inch ("More Like You") for The Maroons (John Moen & Jim Talstra from Dharma Bums with Eric Bennes on drums and Jon Cox on bass). I only had Dewey Mahood's 4-track TEAC tape deck, so I borrowed Sam and Janet's Fostex R8 8-track to record the band in my basement. It all went pretty well, and soon came out on Slo-Mo Records in 1995.

Quasi's self-recorded album, Early Recordings, came out in 1996, and R&B Transmogrification the following year, 1997.

Jackpot! Recording Studio had just opened, and sometime that fall Sam dropped me a line: "Larry, we've been checking out some of the recordings from your new studio, and we might want to book some time." We booked some dates in November 1997 and began work on their third album…

Janet and Sam at Jackpot! photo by Larry Crane

Next up, Part Two: Featuring "Birds" and more!