We played “Walk This Way” on their stage a couple of years BEFORE Aerosmith did it! Ahead of our time?
Here’s kind of an interesting story. This is the copy of the contract to play the Pomp Room in Sioux Falls, SD. Apparently this was after we decided to leave manager Art Stenstrom and go out on our own and book ourselves. Have I told you how stupid I think that was? Yes, I have.
But anyway, you can see that I had just changed my name to Mik York (another mistake which shows my decision making ability should have been called into question!). The address is my parent’s old home which they had built and lived there until the days they died. And Biggstar Talent Productions was… us, the band.
The club was close enough to a bunch of the other towns we played that fans from Minnesota and Nebraska could also come and see us there.
A screen capture from a site called Wooden Cabinet.
Anyway, some years later after the band had broken up, I was watching television and saw Aerosmith playing on a stage that looked eerily familiar because of the strange set up of nightclub. The Pomp Room was comprised of two commercial spaces side by side, long and narrow, connected with a hole through the wall so you could walk from room to room. But it was like playing in a railroad car with the band facing a brick wall, half the audience in the other building! And there they were; Aerosmith playing “Walk This Way”, a song we had performed before them on that same stage years earlier!
I have included a screen capture of a site dedicated to the Pomp Room (probably just before it was torn down) with the note that many bands played there including a surprise visit by Aerosmith.
Mick Orton
Categories: History, Memorabilia
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