The Return of BIX

Long ago, September 1991 to be precise, while doing a radio program at WCUW with Jeff Worm we were contacted by a man called Andy Askin about giving airtime to a band from Lithuania he was promoting on their first US tour. They are called BIX and are here to spread their brand of music in America. We played the tape and got a positive response from our listeners. Soon, Andy was back to tell us Bix would be paying shows in the area and would like to let everyone know. They played Sir Morgan’s Cove, The Worcester Artists Group and The Blue Plate in Holden, where their performance was videotaped by Michael Harrington from Jefferson. The response from the crowds was over the top. Soon after the Blue Plate Show The Band were given the chance to record two songs at the famous Longview Recording Studio in North Brookfield. It took two days, and they came away with new renditions of their numbers “Sex Revolution” and “Mexico”. Before they left town, I invited them down to WCUW for an interview, then it was off to Lithuania. That video tape sat in my collection for 34 years, and I recently decided to digitize it. Upon completion I took a chance and contacted Samas from Bix via Facebook to see if he had any interest in seeing it. To my surprise he told me that indeed YES! He also told me that tape was the only film of them playing in the US. and they are in the process of gathering content for a 40th anniversary documentary and would be coming to New York for that purpose. He invited me to come down for an interview but I was not able to travel at this time, so he and his producer would come to Worcester to interview Me. I was overwhelmed and would meet up with them at any time. They arrived and we journeyed back to Longview, only to find it’s no longer a recording studio. The owner kindly let us walk around so they could film some clips for the doc. We went back to Worcester and filmed my interview at Ralph’s Diner, so they could get a club background for the film. (Thanks, Vincent!). I also decided to do another interview with Samas to update the one from 1991. After that it was goodbye again and now wait for the documentary to be released sometime in October. I have uploaded the video to Youtube and played some new songs on my latest show from the seven disc box set they gave me. (Thanks!) Hopefully sometime after the doc is released they will come back to the US and play once again.

At The Blue Plate

Revisiting Longview Farms

WURN show with both interviews Worceter Telegram article by Walter Crockett