Five recent new pages have been added to the web site:
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A list of bands who cover or have a direct relationship to the Embos
A list of Embarrassment cover tunes
A list of yet-rare Embarrassment originals
An account of the Embarrassment studio sessions
The beginnings of a semi-random collection of information about Embarrassment live gigs
Thanks to Jim Rosencutter (and a belated thanks to Stephen Buonopane, who sent photocopies of the covers several years ago), the celebrated cover art for the Embarrassment EP is now in the gallery.
Click on the appropriate link for
Snappy Side: small, medium-sized, or practically life-sized.
Happy Side: small, medium-sized, or practically life-sized.
Don't Choose the Wrong Size!
In addition to the amazing Lawrence scene site maintained by Mike Blur, with its own Embarrassment page, Jim Rosencutter, the "Fifth Embo", has a nice little supplemental web site that features some way-cool scans -- click on over to find out why the Embarrassment were The Band that didn't Stop Making Sense, among other treats.
We recently heard from the bands VTOL and Snuff the Ficus, who cover several Embarrassment songs. There's even a song sample for "Man with the Extra Special Eyes" on the VTOL site. Check out these bands who've displayed their good taste already, or see the whole list of bands who like us like the Embarrassment and thus we like.
The Embarrassment's two albums in print, God Help Us and Heyday: 1979-1983 (both available from Bar/None records) are available in RealAudio format in their entirety from Interjuke (and for purchase from CDNow) Click here for details.
Elissa Schwartz wrote in to report:
FYI - Woody Giessmann has been playing with the Laurie Geltman Band for the past few years. The band was recently signed to Eastern Front Records, and their first CD is being released nationally on 1/20.
The official link for the band is at: Eastern Front.
At long last, courtesy of fan Dwight Douglas, a Big Dipper page is on the web! Click here to see it.
Somewhat experimentally, I've set up an Embarrassment mailing list to allow the more dedicated among the fanbase to have an ongoing exchange of news, links, and messages.
To subscribe, send mail to
with the word subscribe in the body of the message.
Instructions about using the list will be sent back via a return message.
- Side 1 and Side 2 of the Patio Set single cover, courtesy of Jim Rosencutter
- A cool flyer, circa 1980, from a gig at the Off the Wall Hall, courtesy Mike Blur (large, ca. 480k)
Scott Born of Lawrence (and the band Killcreek) reports that Freedy's laid down a few tracks, and records some Embos tunes on the road, but has no specific release plans. He's tracking down further details.
I'm happy to add the following clip, sent to me by the self-same Elissa Schwartz from the Boston Globe "Names and Faces" column, 10/16/96:
Drummed Out of Bachelorhood When Woody Giessmann, former drummer of the now defunct Del Fuegos, got married to Elissa Schwartz on Sunday, he should have known he was in for a rocking wedding. After all, he invited former bandmates Dan Zanes, Warren Zanes, and Tom Lloyd, who implored Giessmann to sit in on drums as they played three songs. Also there was Laurie Geltman (whose band Giessman is now in), who belted out a couple of songs at the gala at the VFW Hall in Cambridge. For the record, Lovedogs was the actual wedding band.
Perfect Sound Forever, a web-based music zine, recently ran an article on The Embarrassment.
In keeping with the trend of net-cruising Embo alumni, we were happy to hear from John Nichols and his wife Julia recently. John's agreed to have his email address jayhawksfans@msn.com listed here.
I did a quick Tiger-Beat-style interview with John over email, and he reports the following:
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John's not up to anything in particular musically these days, but has
"lots of good ideas".
He wasn't sure about any particular recent bands he liked, but gave us a list of the most recent CDs he bought: The Stooges - Funhouse, The Beatles Anthology II, The Cure Remix. The last show he saw was in Florida last summer - The Cure.
"Everything is fine here. We love living in Florida. Lots to do here and the weather is great, of course."
Bassplayer, Bill Goffrier, Watercolor, 1995.
From the collection of the Webmaster.
(Click on the frame to see a larger version.)
We've reserved the domain www.embarrassment.org for future use as the home of these pages, when a reliable web server comes free I can ethically and legally use. We hope to have the pages on a separate server later in 1997.
If you'd like to help contribute toward the cost of maintaining the domain (50 samoleans a year to the Internic), please contact me (wall@cmu.edu).
The Embarrassment Years, an exhibition of drawings and paintings following the artistic and musical paths of Bill Goffrier, was showed at the EVO Gallery in Wichita, September and October, 1996. Yep, you can actually buy Bill's art through the gallery. Information on the show and buying some real Embo art can be had by giving them a call at 316-264-4622, or via Z. Jacobs at imimike@southwind.net. (We are working on getting some additional scans of reproductions of Bill's art available via this page.)
The Don Juans played a tribute concert as a fundraiser in New York City on June 25. I hope to get further details posted at some point.
Click here for a semi-random list of Embos-related links, provided mostly by you, the diehard Embos fans of the world..
5/28/96 Bill Goffrier's Address Restored! (Sort of...)Bill got back on the net with a friend's account to drop me some news. First off, here's his postal address (no email right now, alas):
Embarrassment Songs
c/o Bill Goffrier
PO Box 1205
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Bill encourages anyone to "write or inquire about rare merchandise or
even original Embo art."
Additional news courtesy of Bill: there is am upcoming art exhibit in Wichita of Bill's original paintings "that is supposed to include a lot of Embo art." Wow! (No dates at this writing.) Bill and his wife Joanne are also expecting a baby this summer.
Jim Rosencutter, the Embos' sound man for their last few years, wrote me with an update/correction on the "where are they now" information:
Jon Nichols is living in Orlando and is a manager for America West Airlines.
Ron Klaus is living in Phoenix.
(Jim is a student now at Friends University; I have added his email address to the 'where are they now' section in the "Brief History" page, linked below.)
Bill Cornell sent me a clipping last fall that I only just now resurrected about Woody/Brent -- from the Boston Globe 9/22/95 (no page number):
Woody Giessmann, former drummer for the Del Fuegos and the Embarrassment, is now a counselor with the Massachusetts Drug and Alcohol Hotline, and he's organizing a benefit for the group Oct. 1 at Mama Kin. 'We're in need,' says Giessman, explaining state funding has ebbed. As to his own involvement: 'I lost a brother to a gunshot, drugs and alcohol. Later on, it beacme an issue in my life. This is me paying back.'
(3/18/97 -- copy of text above)
I'm happy to add the following clip, sent to me by the self-same Elissa Schwartz from the Boston Globe "Names and Faces" column, 10/16/96:
Drummed Out of Bachelorhood When Woody Giessmann, former drummer of the now defunct Del Fuegos, got married to Elissa Schwartz on Sunday, he should have known he was in for a rocking wedding. After all, he invited former bandmates Dan Zanes, Warren Zanes, and Tom Lloyd, who implored Giessmann to sit in on drums as they played three songs. Also there was Laurie Geltman (whose band Giessman is now in), who belted out a couple of songs at the gala at the VFW Hall in Cambridge. For the record, Lovedogs was the actual wedding band.
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/user/wall/embos/embos.html
If you can't see graphics, it's because you're looking at this page via a symbolic link. Use the URL above. (I have ambitions to get a separate server for these pages sometime, but this is it for now.)
This page is new and vastly improved! Thanks to many contributions from many people (hopefully many acknowledged below), this page has been expanded from a simple discography to more kind of a fan-oriented page. In order not to spam your web browsers with many graphics, it's been broken up into separate sections. While many new things (pictures, etc.) have been added, there are a few things that will still be under construction for a while. Please hang in there, and make a contribution (see below) if you can!
Bar/None is now on the web and is cross-linked here. Check out their pages at: http://www.bar-none.com/
1/6/96
Big Dipper Songs that started as Embarrassment SongsThanks to Bill Goffrier, I've been able to finally clear up which Big Dipper songs started out as Embos songs. Check out the last section of the discography for a discussion of these songs.
Possibly the most exciting thing that could have happened for Embos fans since the Reunion tour or maybe the Retrospective cassette, Bar/None's long-promised double CD of virtually every Embos tune previously available not on God Help Us and many that are flat-out never-before available is out! Check out the track listing and comments.