It’s only Rock-N -Roll & we miss it!

We all have a place where we cut our teeth in  this local music scene, but only one was special in this case. There was the QE2 or Bogies, but when there was bigger acts coming through town, those venues were just too small. I will speak from a personal experience on this one and just drop a few names on what I witnessed 1988-2006 . Winger, Sepultura, The Black Crowes, Clutch, Blind Melon, Korn, Ramones, Pantera, Live, Gwar, Danzig, Bullet Boys, Deftones, Overkill, Lynch Mob, Jewel, Rasputina, Circle Jerks, Type O Negative, and 100”s more.  Some times 4-5 shows a week.  It was also the place to play, to many local acts who called it there second home. To some it was a big shack in the middle of nowhere. But to us and a generation before, it was the best live music venue in upstate New York.  Although it was sold in 2006, it truly wasn’t gone until it burned to the ground in 2009! Thousands of people we’re devastated by the fact that Saratoga Winners was gone forever.  All we had were memories and stories that were backed up by pictures, old show flyers, video and audio recordings, but still  all  was gone.

  “I decided to give it a go after a successful breast cancer benefit  for friend and former bartender Cindy Bode in May of 2008. The original place was too small and realized that we need a larger venue.” Says event organizer Holly Stah and adds, “Saratoga Winner’s former manager Milissa Picard was my original 2nd in command & is still with us 100%.  Our staff for SWR events consists of previous bartenders, manager, security, staff & patrons from Saratoga Winners.” There is a lot going on April 6 and we caught up with some of the musicians performing and reuniting, some for the fist time in over twenty years. First is Vegas Nacy  who these days sings with, Embrace the Curse and The Clay People, now reuniting with Bone Box. They were  part of my generation, and a huge part of my early radio career. I made some great friends. we were young, had too much fun and got extremely wasted together!

RRX:   Let’s start with the big show April  6 /Winners Reunion at Chrome  How? who? What? Thoughts? . did you ever think you’d reunite as bonebox?

BONEBOX:April 6th, the 3rd and final reunion show for a club I hold very near and dear to my heart, Saratoga Winners. I was a bartender here, a bouncer, my bands played many many shows here, it was our rehearsal spot, and so much more. When Holly called and asked if it was possible (Plaid has to cancel) I said “geez I haven’t talked to Brian in like 20 years, but let’s see what happens!) sure enough all 4 of us were very excited to make this happen! After all these year I would still get posts and texts asking for a Bone Box reunion, and now it’s finally happening, which I absolutely thought would never happen.

RRX: Rehearsals, How does it feel jamming together after all these years

BONEBOX: So Brian lives in Fla and is a solo musician, Jim lives in LA and has a band called Blood Staind Stars, Matt owns 2 businesses here in NY, I’m in The Clay People and Embrace the Curse so we are all extremely busy and live all over  the map, so with that being said, we are doing a lot of homework on our own and will have a very small window to rehearse before the show but I truly feel with Bone Box that it’s going to feel like flying a plane (or is it riding a bike?) hahaha.