Wednesday, April 09, 2008
I is for Imbroglio
So back in college I was almost a groupie for a band named Imbroglio. They were originally called Catch-22 but then changed their name. They played at local bars and whatnot and had quite a following. The one bar they played most often at was also the bar I frequented the most, The Coney.
A friend of mine was dating their manager, so I got into a lot of their shows without having to pay the cover. Always a good thing for a poor college student! Personally, I had a wee bit of a crush on one of the guys in the band, but unfortunately he had a girlfriend. Back in those days I might not have cared except I had the chance to get to know her and she was great, so that's where that ended. About 10 years later I was watching that show "A Dating Story" on TLC and saw him on it! No, he wasn't the guy going on the date, but the friend who the dater guy hung out with before the date saying "I wonder what she'll be like..." He didn't look too different, and I confess it brought me back to those days listening to some of their greatest hits.
For cover songs they did some great stuff like "Jessie's Girl", "Space Aged Love Song", "Keep your Hands to Yourself" and some U2 song- I think it was "Sunday Bloody Sunday".
But their real talent was in their originals. Unfortunately this was back in the day when cassettes were more common than CD's and so I don't have any of their music anymore. :( One of their prettier songs that they did "unplugged" was a song called "Be There". A friend who also logged many hours at the Coney groovin to their tunes while drinking $2 pitchers of Rolling Rock gave me this fabulous gift I still have. She "acquired" one of those lucite frame table tent type thing that has the Rolling Rock logo on the bottom of it with their quote of the era "Same as it ever was". In the frame she put a great picture of us, and on the back she typed the words to "Be There"...
Mold me, shape me
Mend me, take me
Be there in the end
Need me, teach me
Use me, seek me
Always be my friend
Awww. So in preparation for typing this post I tried to google them to see if there was any chance they still existed. I found another band with that name out of Baton Rouge but that's it. Then I googled Imbroglio and IUP together to see if someone else had ever written about them, but instead found much about the mascot imbroglio IUP had. (We used to be the IUP Indians till they decided that was racist)
Anyway, I miss those days dancing in the Coney and listening to those guys, so I dedicated this post to them :)
Read or Post a Comment
This comment has been removed by the author.
So, I blogged IUP and Imbroglio and found your post. I was at the school from '90 to '94, and worked with the band a bit while I was editing the Features section of the Penn.
I did a search before and found this... http://www.post-gazette.com/journal/photos_display.asp?ID=4867
Scoot has passed, however :(
I wish I could find one of their old CDs.
Anyway, it's good to find someone else remembers them. Did you enjoy Undone or Absence of L as well?
Cool!!
Thanks to facebook, I've actually been back in touch with Butch and have become really close with him over the past year :) He's still playing music, but a very different style. I have some of Imbroglio's songs on mp3 I think, another guy who found me through this blog was supposed to give me the rest of them, but hasnt yet, but if he ever does, I could email them to you if you like. If you want to send me your email, you can email me at fivecatsshy@nc.rr.com :)