Dark Alleys and Black Cats - Wednesday Week

(This originally appeared in Wednesday Week's fan club newsletter in 1987.)

C: Hi, I'm Cindy. They asked me and my friend Autumn to help out on the newsletter.
A: We live in San Francisco. We've seen Wednesday Week four times now. They're cool!
C: We should probably start by revealing the big secret.
A: Heidi quit the band.
C: So now Wednesday Week have a new temporary bass player.
A: And they're out on the road with the mysterious new bass player right now.
C: When Kristi is on tour her cat, Sweden, comes up to San Francisco and visits us.
A: He's a really cool cat.
C: He's been adopted as the official Leather Trio mascot.
A: He hangs out in alleys in Chinatown.
C: An alley Valley cat.
A: A hip cat.
C: A ship's cat.
A: He's our pal. He's going to be in the Punk Rock Graffiti movie and novel. There's this whole scene where....
C: Don't tell. Leave them wondering....
A: Good idea.
C: Let's tell them about the first time we saw Wednesday Week.
A: Oh cool.
C: My sister moved to L.A. so me and Autumn went down there and stayed with her.
A: This was in 1985. Right before the Fourth of July.
C: Billy, who's now my boyfriend, had given me a copy of Betsy's House. I didn't know Billy very well then. He worked at this used record store in North Beach. Sometimes he'd give me cool records to play.
A: He was trying to impress her. He was too chicken to ask her out.
C: He'd give me records to try out.
A: So there we were in L.A. and we found out Wednesday Week were playing.
C: We were so excited.
A: They played in a record store.
C: Be Bop Records in Reseda.
A: That's in the Valley.
C: Where Valley cats hang out.
A: There were two other bands on the bill, Waves of Grain and Pop Art. Wednesday Week went on in the middle.
C: The place is really small and it was packed with people. It's an art gallery too. There was weird Picasso-like art hanging on the walls.
A: Wednesday Week played only one song from Betsy's House, "I Don't Know." They had all these other songs.
C: Really cool songs.
A: They played "The Thing" and "Keep Talking," which is my favorite Heidi song.
C: It's kind of sad, you know. There won't be any more Heidi songs.
A: Yeah.
C: They also did "You Wanted Me To Hang Around" and "That Train," which is one of my favorite Kristi songs.
A: I think this was the first show David played with Wednesday Week after he joined the band.
C: Which is really cool.
A: And everyone except Kelly was wearing dark clothes.
C: And you know how we feel about dark clothes.
A: And black cats.
C: And the night.
A: God, this is starting to sound like a Michelob commercial.
C: The night belongs to Cindy and Autumn.
A: You know we should probably tell Kristi that when she's on tour and Sweden comes to San Francisco we take good care of him.
C: Because we like Swedish cats.
A: And calico cats too.

July 12, 1987; printed in the Fall '87 Wednesday Week newsletter
Photographs from Wednesday Week's 1985 Reseda Show