Just digging on some good old Ramones on YewToob when what to my wondering my eyes should appear but the vid for “Pet Cemetery,” which includes…oh hell, see for yourselves.
See that T-shirt Joey has on? That’s the logo, name, and address of the dear old Pterodactyl Club on Freedom Drive in CLT, an excellent small-to-mid-sized venue the BPs played many times back in the Aulden Thymes. How Joey came up with the shirt or why he decided to wear it in the vid I have no clue, but there you have it.
Update! More on the Pterodactyl from the obit of one of its co-owners, Jeff Lowery.
Charlotte lost a leading member of its musical community this week when Jeff Lowery died.
Lowery, 55, who operated Jeff’s Bucket Shop on Montford Road, was essential to Charlotte’s musical growth during the late 1980s and early `90s. He co-owned and operated the Pterodactyl Club and 13-13, The Milestone Club for a time and Milestone Records on Central Avenue.In recent years he published the Amps 11 local and regional music ’zine.
During their run at The Milestone between 1986 and 1989 he and business partner Tim Blong brought bands like Bad Brains, Southern Culture on the Skids, Flaming Lips, Alex Chilton, and Melissa Etheridge to town and Charlotteans still talk about the shows they booked at the Pterodactyl and 13-13.
“Jeff really was a visionary and ahead of his time, particularly with the 13-13, which hosted a slew of top-notch alternative rock bands well before the genre exploded and those bands graduated to the arenas and amphitheaters,” says writer Kathleen Johnson, who covered the scene for The Observer in the 1990s.
Blong’s records show Jane’s Addiction and Iggy Pop, the Ramones, Alice in Chains, Danzig, Sonic Youth, the Replacements, Dave Matthews Band, Phish, and Widespread Panic – punk legends, alternative rock bands who were peaking early on, and others that would go on to headline arenas.
“Jeff also booked local and regional bands as openers for big shows and gave them their own gigs, which also really helped nurture the city’s original music scene. Those two clubs had a big cultural impact on the town,” adds Johnson.
Did I say “excellent venue” a few minutes ago? Make that effing legendary, please.












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