And now we present. . . The Wives

Saturday morning and just perusing what is on Facebook and came across this. A Youtube clip featuring a band called the Wives performing a half-hour set at CBGBs back in 1998. Neat, but plenty of bands played CBGBs in 1998. What blew my mind is that it features Tracy Hightop playing drums. I know her as one of the two guitarist tag-team featured in Jane Lee Hooker. Great guitarist and now I discover she was likewise a drummer! Perhaps she still is. And this was obviously no one-off, as the video illustrates. She apparently had been playing drums for awhile.

So that is cool but there is more – the bass player in the Wives is no other than Mary Z, the bass player for Jane Lee Hooker. So these ladies do have some history in addition to the ten years now in Jane Lee Hooker! I kind of knew that, but this is a new piece to that tale. The history I did know of involved Tracy and her fellow guitarist in Jane Lee Hooker, Tina Gorin, who she played with in Helldorado before moving onto Nashville Pussy.

Anyway, a cool video, an interesting twist, and just worth checking out. Enjoy.

Update to the above. . . Tracy did catch up with me regarding a few missing details above: The Wives vocalist / guitarist on the video is Zu Leika. Also on the video, Hilly, the owner of CBGBs was referenced, or at least I assumed it was that Hilly. It turns out that he was the Wives’ manager and the band rehearsed in the basement of CBGBs. Which is simply pretty neat. Tracy commented, “He was larger than life.”

Imagine doing a tour of the US, wandering God knows where, and your van dies, only to be rescued by Hilly of CBGBs. And that seems to be what Zu alludes to at the end of the set. Imagine having the dude as your manager, and that was in fact the case here.

Thank you Tracy Hightop for the details!

And do check out the other videos that Uptown Al offers up on Youtube. He has some interesting NYC focused stuff.