VIA PRESS RELEASE | Romeo Void, a breakout band of the San Francisco new wave scene of the early 1980s, shares details of their first fully-authorized concert release. Live from Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980, is an official Record Store Day selection, arriving in stores April 22. The 11-track album will be available in a special galaxy-blue colored vinyl edition, as well as CD and digital. All formats are released by Liberation Hall with distribution by MVD Entertainment Group.
Romeo Void was formed in 1979. Drawing inspiration from the local underground music scene, the band’s founding members were San Francisco Art Institute students Debora Iyall (lead vocalist, lyricist) and Frank Zincavage (bass guitar), alongside local musicians Peter Woods (guitar) and Jay Derrah (drums). They soon added saxophonist Benjamin Bossi. According to Iyall, the name Romeo Void referred to “a lack of romance.”
Live from Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980, was captured during the same period that Romeo Void was recording its critically acclaimed debut album for 415 Records, It’s a Condition. Derrah was still drumming with the band at this live show, but was replaced by John “Stench” Haines by the time the sessions for It’s a Condition were underway. Live from Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980, features one of three Romeo Void live sets captured that year at the famed punk club by deejay Terry Hammer, who would typically broadcast portions of his recordings on the UC-Berkeley radio station KALX.
Eight of the eleven songs on Live from Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980, would eventually appear on It’s a Condition. The opening track, “Guards,” would surface in 1981 as the B-side of the band’s national breakout single, “Never Say Never.” “Fine Line” is an original that has never been released in any format. The album’s closing number, “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love,” is a cover of the Swingin’ Medallions’ 1966 hit, which was the first 7-inch single which Iyall owned.
“There were all of these young people hungry for new sounds,” Iyall recalls of the period. “Punk rock had recently broken through and the rulebook was being rewritten by bands as diverse as X-Ray Spex, Television, and Suicide. In San Francisco, we all started buying 7-inch vinyl again, a format I had abandoned a decade earlier. Our goal was to make art. The thought of becoming rock stars was not on our radar.”
The first single from Live from Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980, is available now on digital music services: “Charred Remains.” Liner notes for the release were written by San Francisco punk archivist Jack Johnston.
Romeo Void soon came to national prominence in 1982 when the fledgling MTV Network picked up on the band’s “Never Say Never” video and put it in heavy rotation. Two years later, the group’s biggest chart hit, “A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing),” from the album Instincts, reached #35 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Benjamin Bossi, the saxophonist who appeared on all the band’s recorded works, died on December 13, 2022, of complications from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. “Through his deep love of jazz, Benjamin had a knowledge of musical structure, keys and chords, that we didn’t have,” remembered Iyall. “His wanting to play with Frank, Peter and I was a huge vote of confidence at the start of Romeo Void. If he hadn’t developed tinnitus in the late 1980s, the world would have heard a lot more incredible music from him.”
