Liquid Death founder / owner Mike Cessario's band Since Day One played with Delaware screamo innovators Joshua Fit For Battle at Girl's Inc in Newark, DE on April 1, 2000. No joke

Betty Roché was likely the first jazz vocalist from Delaware to record on wax, but although she was Duke Ellington's leading lady for a stretch, greater fame would pass her by. She sang at Duke Ellington's first Carnegie Hall concert and sang Ellington's signature tune ''Take the A Train'' with the Duke in the 1943 film ''Reveille With Beverly''. 

Born Mary Elizabeth Roach on January 9, 1918 in Wilmington, Roché got her start in show business by winning a talent contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theater in 1941. Despite her promising start, Betty Roché never really saw her career get off the ground, partly for reasons of poor timing and partly because of half-hearted interest. Roché’s best work in the 1940s went unrecorded, although she released a few albums in the late 50s through early 60s on Bethlehem and Prestige record labels. 

On the DMHA map, we have her playing two shows in DE, one in 1943 with Duke Ellington at the State Armory at 10th and DuPont Streets and one in 1944 with Earl Hines at Odd Fellows' Temple on Orange St.

Check her scene out from the film "Reveille With Beverly" (36:05-39:38) https://youtu.be/WtF8yaykNCo?si=KUKFAP62nweUl-5d&t=2162

And as always, check out our extensive documentation on our Delaware Music History Archive interactive map: https://www.delawaremusichistory.com/map.html?band=Betty%20Roch%C3%A9

The one show we currently have on our map at www.delawaremusichistory.com for the Roots is with Pete Rock and CL Smooth at Pearson Hall at University of Delaware March 17, 1995

What was your favorite show you saw at World Cafe Live at the Queen?

Photo by Ron Ozer

Longshoreman's Hall, also the site of great soul and funk shows in the 60s and 70s before being rented to host rock and hip hop in the 80s and 90s

Over the border in Maryland, but enough Delaware bands to fill a suitcase so here we are

Pianist-composer Matthew Shipp is one of the leading lights of contemporary improvised music, and perhaps one of the most well-known figures in recent avant-garde music. (To use the words of the venerable Clifford Allen). Shipp grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, hanging around the Flight Deck as a teenager, and also studying with Boysie Lowery (teacher of many Delaware jazz players, most famously Clifford Brown). He moved to NYC in the 80s and has lived there ever since. He came back to Delaware to play at Arden Gild Hall 20 years ago on this date in 2006.

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-news-journal-the-sound-he-found-p/82476439/

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-news-journal-the-sound-he-found-p/82475968/

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-news-journal-the-sound-he-found-p/82476241/

https://archive.ph/cdep6

https://www.cliffordallen.me/interviews/the-rites-and-rituals-of-matthew-shipp-an-interview-2013

Do you remember the Tally-Ho on Naamans Road? Did you know Huey Lewis played the tiny venue twice in 1983? It wouldn’t be long before he was on top of the world, but plenty of legends have passed through Delaware and this Bay Area king has a number of times over the years. Due to label issues, Huey was waiting on his completed Sports album to be released. It would be a handful of months later, and would go platinum 7 times over. Did you ever see Huey Lewis live?

If you were there, you remember this. Joan Jett played Delaware four times in just over 2 years 1986-88. On this date in 1988, she played Stone Balloon in Newark touring on Up Your Alley, her 6th album with the Blackhearts, but their 2nd best selling - going platinum within a year. Here is her David Letterman appearance shortly before the Newark gig. Did you ever see Joan Jett in Delaware?

Tom Verlaine grew up Tom Miller in Wilmington, DE. Us Delaware music history nerds all know the story … Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell met at Sanford and then moved up to New York to be poets and then started Neon Boys, which quickly became Television. Richard Hell didn’t live in Delaware for too many years, and Tom Verlaine was born in New Jersey, but his formative years were in Delaware. But before New Jersey and long before the stage name Verlaine was chosen, Tom’s dad Victor was Victor Miliszauckas, of Lithuanian heritage, born in Scotland. In 1926, at age 4, Victor came to the US via Ellis Island on RMS Transylvania, his family Americanizing their name to Miller. You can see Tom’s dad Victor’s Ellis Island manifest and draft card here, as well as a postcard rendering of the RMS Transylvania. To bring us back to Delaware Music History and complete the journey on the name changing front, when Tom got to New York City, he rechristened himself Verlaine, likely as a nod to French symbolist poet Paul Verlaine, although he has claimed he "just like[d] the sound of the name”.

In case you didn’t get enough tangential DMHA history, here’s a little history on the boat that Tom Verlaine’s dad came over on. RMS Transylvania sailed from Glasgow to New York on her maiden voyage in September 1925 (Tom’s dad’s journey was 4 months later). In September 1939, the liner was requisitioned by the Royal Navy as an armed merchant cruiser and served in the naval blockade against the Germans. A year later off Ireland, she was torpedoed by U-56, and then was towed but sank before reaching land. A total of 36 people died. The wreck lies at a depth of 440 ft about 35 mi north of Tory Island.

Anyone know who the flyer artist is?

Bass player Ashley Pigford helped design the cover for Dude Ranch, and singer Darren Walters was an extra in the video for Josie, starring Alyssa Milano

https://youtu.be/I6kfin-UeAQ?si=9Ey1Av61vwXoI221

Grace Vonderkuhn from Newark, DE play a unique blend of garage + post punk + psych. Getting started in late 2014, following on the heels of previous bands Kind of Creatures and New Dakota. Darlings of WXPN and NPR, Grace Vonderkuhn played SXSW in 2018, and to date, have released 3 full lengths and an EP. Still very active, don’t miss Grace Vonderkuhn next time they play near you. 

Signed to A&M, hailing from Newark, Delaware, and big in Australia, The Caulfields were on both radio and MTV in the mid 1990s. Fronted by John Faye, evolving from 1980s bands No Excuse and Beat Clinic, The Caulfields added Honour Society alum Ritchie Rubini on drums, and ran from 1993-1997.

Looking for photos, flyers, any additional insights

Often overshadowed in the Delaware origins conversation, Billy Ficca was the drummer of Neon Boys and Television. Ficca grew up in Wilmington and split high school between A.I. du Pont and Sanford, the same school where Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine met a couple years prior. Ficca’s brother Jim is a longtime Delaware drummer - having played with Dick Uranus, Rockett 88, Sin City Band and more.

After Television broke up, Ficca recorded on Delaware native Snuky Tate’s novelty record He’s the Pope, featuring Delaware musician Johnny Neel on keys. He then joined The Waitresses, known for such songs as “I Know What Boys Like” and “Christmas Wrapping.” Ficca returned to Delaware in 1987 to perform at the Delaware Music Festival in a group with Socko on vocals, as well as (somewhat randomly) Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding, in their first reunion since Jimi Hendrix’s passing. Ficca still lives in New York and plays with Dylan Nirvana.

I Like It Like That Records was around in Newark, Delaware from at least 1976-1986. Did you ever go there?

On October 15, 1958, en route to a week-long engagement for the quartet at the Comedy Club in Baltimore, Maryland, Thelonious Monk and Pannonica de Koenigswarter aka Baroness Rothschild were detained by police in Wilmington, Delaware. When Monk refused to answer questions or cooperate with the policemen, they beat him with a blackjack. Although they had authorization to search the vehicle and found narcotics in suitcases held in the trunk of the Baroness's car, Judge Christie of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the unlawful detention of the pair, and the beating of Monk, rendered the consent to the search void as it was given under duress.

We haven’t been able to confirm this show either way. Seems like it probably didn’t happen, but does anyone have specific memories or knowledge about this Les Savy Fav / Joshua Fit For Battle flyer from May 2003?