It was 10 years ago this month that the Bicentennial Quarters played their last show -- Memorial Day of 1999. I've loved plenty of local bands over the past 17 years, but the Bi-Qs were special. Nobody -- before or since -- could match their dedication to the triple pillars of Art, Rock, and Absurdity. Bassist Chris Eubank & drummer Shannon Morrow locked in so tight they could fool you into thinking they were loose, and guitarist Walker Martin would pursue any idea far past its logical conclusion. Every show felt like a high-wire act -- a Dada high-wire act, performed in full-panic death-defying fashion along a chalk-line drawn on the sidewalk.
Drummer Shannon Morrow moved to Chicago literally days later (though she's since returned to Durham, and leads the Scene of the Crime Rovers guerilla marching band). Guitarist Walker Martin moved to Los Angeles, of all places. Chris Eubank stuck around, and has played in dozens-if-not-hundreds of bands since (much as he had before the Bi-Qs came along).
This Sunday the 24th, in honor of Memorial Day, I'll celebrate this anniversary by playing a recording of that final Bi-Qs show on the air at 4:00 p.m.
(As it happens, a bit of rebirth happened at that final show as well. Shannon's other band, Cantwell, decided to continue without her, and asked their namesake, Dave Cantwell, to take her place. That show marked Dave's first appearance with the band that would shortly thereafter change its name to Cantwell, Gomez and Jordan. It's a safe bet I'll be playing some CGJ on Sunday as well.)