The band became a top attraction at a number of clubs in Madison, Wisconsin, and soon attracted the attention of the premier club in town, Headliners: capacity, something over 1,200. The owner of the club did more than hire them. He soon signed them to an exclusive management contract. Thus, THE...VERS played Headliners more than any other band would in the club's history, headlining there regularly in their own right, and warming up for dozens and dozens of internationally known recording acts passing through the area. In 1980, the band set a record for paid admissions at Headliners, a record that was never broken by anyone, period. They constantly got rave reviews in Madison's music papers, the MadCity Music Sheet and Emerald City Chronicle, and the Madison Police Department was continually complaining that vandals were painting out portions of street signs all along UniVERSity Avenue.
Of course, the band also became very popular at many places across the midwest, averaging between 250 and 300 dates a year, mostly one-nighters. They played two D93 "Battle Of The Bands" concerts to 2,500 sold-out seats at the Dubuque, Iowa, Five Flags Civic Center, supposedly a "contest," but THE...VERS logo on the posters was larger than the other bands' names, they played last, and won both times, receiving prize money that corresponded favorably to their normal asking price. Supposedly judged by "record company people" (most likely regional vendors who took orders at record stores), they hung out in THE...VERS dressing room between sets, because that's where the REAL party was.
Along with WMAD-FM, WIBA-FM, D93-FM, and others, their recorded music was on regular rotation on KUNI-FM, the University of Northern Iowa's state-funded station, 100,000 watts locally, and lined out to nine other stations in the state, the band also doing some infamous live interviews there (one with Mondo and Zoid in the studio, totally naked). At Iowa State University's River Fest, they played to the main ballroom packed with over 2,000 people who, despite an order that the time schedule would not be breached by anyone, wouldn't stop roaring and applauding for 15 minutes until they got their third encore from the band.
Playing for a big Halloween costume ball at UNI one year, three guys showed up dressed as Zoid Asteroid Machine. Zoid wasn't one of them. He'd dressed up as a skeleton. At a time when "having ink done" wasn't mainstream, at least one fan of the band had THE...VERS logo tattooed on his arm. And, at a Delta Sig frat party the band was invited to after a show at UW-Platteville, an autograph line stretched 30 and 40 people long through the house. One wanted Zoid's autograph on his face with a laundry marker. Zoid wouldn't do it until the guy's best friend pleaded "He's been looking forward to this all week, man..." and the target guy himself started crying. Very tenitively, Zoid took the marker, saying "You sure about this? I think you're gonna be sorry..." He wasn't. He was as happy as a puppy in the park, thanking Zoid over and over again.
THE...VERS / the crisis:
A few years of their relentless schedule, and Mondo's inability to give anything less than 150 percent, eventually took a toll on his voice. It got progressively worse and worse, until it got to be torture to try to listen to the big guy ripping his throat apart trying to hit the notes. Months of denials went by, before everyone finally got him to see a doctor about it. The same specialist who treated Elvis Presley, when the King was passing through Madison, gave the verdict: there were two polyps on Mondo's vocal cords, like little hot dogs, split open and bleeding. He could have surgery, requiring three months to recover, or simply stop singing and talking entirely, and let it heal for the same amount of time. Logic dictated that he simply keep his mouth shut for three months... but Mondo was anything but logical. Being out of the band while they kept playing was extremely traumatic for him, and he had to tell everyone he saw, how he felt. He just couldn't shut up.
His substitute on lead vocals was blonde, lean, tall, soft-spoken and good-looking Brian Fabian (few people knew that he was only 16), who gained many fans with his own talents, but unfortunately, had impossible shoes to fill. Mondo's forced exile from the band at this time could well be described as a sustained nervous breakdown, and took several months longer than initially expected. Emotions strained at both ends of the relationship, and by the time he was finally able to return, it was understandably questionable as to whether the job was really his anymore. Relationships throughout the band were strained, and a lot of the comradarie had been forgotten.
It really can't be overstated, how close musicians are to each other when they've been writing and performing music 4, 5, and 6 nights a week for a living. They work together, play together, eat together, drink together, laugh together, cry together, pull off at the next wayside and shit together; they sleep together, dream together, get up together the next morning, and do it all again. They may or may not have sex together, but I guarentee that they are much, much closer to each other than they are to their girlfriends, wives, children, mothers, fathers, sisters or brothers. A five-piece band is a five-way marriage. And like marriages, there are times when the people don't get along with each other.
And it can get pretty bad when it starts going wrong. True love and true hate are really the same thing. They're both passion, directed at someone else that you wish with all your heart and emotions that would do what you want them to. It's just a question of polarity. Nobody could give Mondo all the love and attention that he needed, because the other members needed plenty themselves, and deserved their share. Someone feels hurt, and says something hurtful in reply, and it bounces back and forth, escelating each time it's returned. Everybody got under everybody else's skin, and Mondo, both the most and least sensitive, more than anyone. During the last year, Mondo quit the band constantly. The other members just wouldn't accept his resignation; they would show up at his place on the way to the gig and tell him he had to do it, or they'd physically throw him in the van if they had to, because they needed the money from the gig!
They all loved performing, and felt better when they did it, but it started occurring to everyone that the only love being returned was from the crowd, not from each other. But knowing that the band was not together emotionally, and that it had become only an "act," they realized that if the crowd didn't know any better, they could only feel contempt for the fans, as well. So it had all gone sour. It was only a matter of time as to when the right circumstance would trigger the spark that would ignite the frayed and flammable feelings running through the band.
Surprisingly, Gabe was first, and it just hit the rest of the band from out of the blue. He loved playing, but just didn't want to be on the road any more. He loved his home; he loved his soulmate, Annie; he loved his cat, Mr. Solid; he loved TV, air conditioning, and talking with people on the phone. He also loved peace and harmony. So he announced it very professionally at a formal band business meeting, had obviously put a lot of thought into it, and was giving a month's notice, or however long it would actually take, to get a new bass player worked in. Reluctantly, the band found a replacement in Paul Schrader, longtime bassist with the Donna Rawlins Band from Madison. Paul gave them his notice, and was ready to start working in.
Gabe had not been one of the band's troubles; in fact, he was well-known for getting along with everybody, and was respected as the one the band always asked to mediate when any two of the guys in the band or the crew weren't getting along. But perhaps some new blood would get everyone to look at their own attitudes, and appreciate what they had going here. Paul was a very good bass player, and seemed a very nice guy. Maybe the band could find a way to forget the bitching and hurting and start healing itself, after all.
Then everything went wrong.
Mondo, for the umpteenth time, said he was quitting. But this time was different. Seems he'd gotten a certain substantial amount of a certain substantial substance, worth a substantial amount of money, lent to him, with the agreement that after a certain amount of time, he was to pay that substantial amount of money. The idea being, that he was going to market certain smaller amounts of this certain substance and thus accumulate the substantial money that was owed, and pay the loan.
This, he did not do. The alloted time by which he was to have paid this substantial amount of money, was very much gone, as was all of the substantial substance; the net result being, that a certain substantial message had reached Mondo that if he tried to go to a certain state called Iowa, his legs would be substantially broken. Thus informed, the band realized that Mondo wasn't about to go with them on the next weekend to play Maxwell's in Iowa City for three nights, to earn the money that everyone in the band fundimentally needed. (Photos - the Last Stand)
There are more gory details, but I plan on writing a book about the entire thing and charging money for it someday, so I'll leave that for later. Sorry to leave you hanging, but if you've read the story this far, I can assure you, the book will be worth the price. For now, I'll just leave it to say that, in the fall of 1983, the five-way, high-energy and higher-strung artistic marriage that had been THE...VERS exploded and crashed in flames of fatigue, frustration and bitter disappointment.
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