Saratoga getting BLOTTO on New Year's Eve

by Thomas Dimopoulos

SARATOGA SPRINGS – They will be forever known in Capital Region folklore
as Bowtie, Broadway, F. Lee Harvey and Sarge – the four surviving members of the band known as Blotto - making a rare local appearance Saturday Night, taking the stage at the
City Center on New Year’s Eve.

The show marks the band’s first live appearance in five months, and only the second performance of the year. You would think some pretty extensive preparations have been underway.

“Rehearsals?!? You must be joking,” laughed Sarge Blotto with a big, hearty chortle worthy of Santa Claus himself.

“I think our last rehearsal was about four years ago. That ought to be good enough to last us for the next 10 years or so,” he reckoned.

Bowtie Blotto was in agreement.

“We used to rehearse, but really, we do a lot of ad-libbing and goofing off,” offered the band’s Detroit-born rhythm guitarist.

“When it comes to playing on stage, we’re pretty selective,” Bowtie said. “We don’t play
a lot so it has to be a gig we really care about. Going out and playing makes you remember
how much fun it always was.”

The group’s origins date back more than 30 years when they performed as the early 70s acoustic group The Star Spangled Washboard Band.

Today, Sarge is a music journalist, Bowtie works as a software manager, and Broadway
lives on Long Island, working as a counselor for troubled youths.
Bass player Cheese Blotto died in 1999.

Saturday night’s lineup will include Hammerhead, Clyde, and long-time member F. Lee Harvey Blotto, who will be making the trip in from Massachusetts where has his own law office, specializing in intellectual property law.

Lee Harvey’s connection to the band spanning more than a generation has made for some humorous moments in his professional life.

“In my law practice I would be in the middle of negotiations with another attorney.
All of a sudden, they would lean over and say: ‘Look man, I know who you are," laughs the drummer-ing lawyer. “They would remember seeing you at some college, or maybe during a show when I was dressed as Karen Carpenter.”

Above all perhaps, Blotto will be remembered as the ultimate party band.

“That’s what makes us a great New Year’s Eve band,” Sarge said. “The Blotto concept was always about the party. Back in our heyday we would have beach parties, pajama parties, and those Halloween parties which were called Blottoween,” said Sarge, who has performed onstage as everything from Dracula and Alfred E. Newman, to Elvis, while clothed in a rhinestone-studded jumpsuit.

There was also one year when he donned a blue dress with white polka dots, a blonde wig, and spent a considerable amount of time shaving his legs before taking the stage at a roller
rink, that would later become JB Scott’s Theater.

“That year we went dressed as the Go-Go’s,” he says, “and I went as Belinda Carlisle. If you’re not enjoying yourself on stage, how can you expect anyone in the audience to have fun?” he asks.

Performing New Year’s Eve is unusual enough — “You can’t just roll off your sofa
that one night and go out,” advises Sarge, “it’s something you’ve really got to train for
all year long” — performing on stage in Saratoga has been a long time coming for the band.

“Since the early 80s there haven’t been that many opportunities to play there,” offers Lee Harvey. “But going back to the 1970s, Saratoga is really the town of our birth,” he said.

Blotto’s formative years were a result of the late Cheese Blotto pulling together musicians to play in the back room at 17 Maple Avenue where he was bartending at the time.

The group’s independently issued debut, “Hello! My Name is Blotto.
What’s Yours?” was released in 1980. Their first full-length album “Combo Akimbo,” came out in 1982. It was a year that saw them join Blue Oyster Cult for a North American tour.

The early 80s also delivered their most popular tune, “I Wanna Be a Lifeguard.” It became one of the first videos aired on a then brand new MTV.
They also developed a following of fans at collges across the country and among people like
the quirky DJ, Dr. Demento.

It is difficult to not imagine what might have been, had fate been a little kinder. In the summer of 1977, the pre-Blotto, Star Spangled Washboard Band was set to perform a major showcase at a Manhattan club for music industry big shots. Thirty seconds into the set, the lights
went dark. It became known as the night of the New York City blackout.

Three and a half years later, Blotto was back in Manhattan scheduled to make an appearance
at the Bottom Line nightclub. The set was going to be broadcast live on radio station WNEW-FM. In preceding years, similar broadcasts hook-ups between the club and the radio station helped propel artists like Bruce Springsteen and The Police from intimate club venues
into arena and stadium acts.

The performance was slated to take place during the holiday season.

“It was Dec. 9, 1980,” recalls Bowtie. “The night before the show was when John Lennon was shot. They played Beatles and Lennon music for three days straight and the broadcast was scrapped.”

A quarter century later, there is a new compilation DVD, “Play Something Good!” that traces the band’s development since the 1970s. Included are their early music video documents “I Wanna Be a Lifeguard,” and “Metal Head.”

The latter is a heavy metal spoof that to this day includes an onstage heat-biting decapitation ritual, Blotto-style.

“Initially it started with a sweet, innocent stuffed teddy bear,” recalled Sarge,
at the center of the “Metal Head” mayhem, and appointed Blotto decapitator.

“When we toured with Blue Oyster Cult, ET was the one who bit the dust at the end of the night. And during the Cabbage Patch doll era, we used to take them out.
Now I’m back in Saratoga and I’m thinking, I’m not sure just yet who is going to get the honor. But I will say to the youngsters:
"Keep away from the front of the stage when we play ‘Metal Head.’ Your newest Christmas toy may not make it through the night!”

Consider yourself warned.

Text published in The Saratogian, Dec. 29, 2005 and
in The Community News, Dec. 30, 2005.

(New Year's Eve photos of Blotto in concert taken by Thomas Dimopoulos
at the 2,300-seat Saratoga Springs City Center, Dec. 31, 2005).