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The One And Only Combined NRBQ: Nothing Really Beats Quality

Dave DiMartino, Creem, March 1982

YEARS AGO, say 1968 or so, I was a snivelling adolescent who stole off outside the house to smoke Tareyton cigarettes. I often did shameful things. Sometimes, I would tell my parents I was going somewhere I wasn't. Many times I would sneak off to the movies with a friend — except "the movies" were one of two Miami clubs, The World or Thee Image — to see bands like Cream, Country Joe & The Fish, the Mothers and Ultimate Spinach. These "clubs" served no booze and smelled like pot all the time; the first looked like a reconverted airplane hangar, the second a decrepit, hollowed-out bowling alley. We would hitchhike, my friends and I, to these clubs and sit down on the ground and smoke cigarettes and look at the black light posters and feel very grown-up indeed. And as often as not we would be watching NRBQ, who would open for anybody and everybody who played there.

Total word count of piece: 3042

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