The History section of this web site is very sparse, especially the pages from 1980, onward. With time, these pages will be flushed out with lots of photos, and the sparse text will be replaced with, ah, well - it'll be replaced. The text following 1980 comes directly from Joe Nolte. Hopefully someone out there will be "encouraged" to write me with alternate ideas about the events described...

This year started on a devastatingly sad note with the untimely death of Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Besides being a tremendously talented songwriter/poet/singer, Jeff wrote what is perhaps Dan's all-time favorite song, "Jungle Book," which the Last recorded on their unreleased album "Look Again."

Joe's random thoughts on the other events of the year: Ed stayed with us long enough to do Poptopia, with Robbie Rist coming in on drums. After that he split, and we recruited Rev. Missy Buettner (former bandmate of Steve Tagliere [Gingersol] and Eric Jerde [Emmit Rhodes Poptopia band]) to play bass. This is the lineup that persists to this day (mid November 1997) - and a wonderful lineup it is. We did some more gigs this year, but dire misfortune had begun to descend upon me, resulting in less and less action. We did get to play with old friends 20/20 at the Alligator (first time since the '70's), and had some other cool gigs as well, but it seemed pointless to do the occasional show if nothing else was strategically associated with it.