VIRUS
From The Light - Bard Rock Issue (1981) written by Charlie Lenk: Virus was formed by [Art] Carlson and Mike Griffin, with the idea to play rock and roll that would relieve the constipated jazz-oriented musical scene at Bard. There were no other rock bands in existence in April '78, and Art and Mike figured that no matter how bad they played they were bound to get some appreciation. They were right. Their first gig was, technically, a musical disaster: Between the five songs that the band knew and had to play twice to stretch their set out, the fact that the band had only rehearsed three times before performing, the inexpertise of all the musicians involved (besides Art on vocal and sax and Mike on bass, there was Bob Fagen [Fagan] and Art Weinstein on guitars and Barry Bonnerwith on drums), Art's sickness from bad clams, and the band's drunkenness, there were enough reasons why the show should have been unmemorable on all counts. Instead of getting shoved offstage, however, Virus caused the audience to go wild: pogoing, rolling on the floor, and pouring beer on each other, the audience reacted more unreservedly than any had within Art's memory. "In the next week, we had about fifteen people ask to join us," he said. "We told them to go fuck themselves, just as they had when we first proposed starting a rock and roll band. They told us we were stupid to try it, and now they wanted to join. Some of them went off and formed the Twilites."
omg its zakiah and i am barry bonnerwith daughter and i would like to say thati am following his tradition and learning how to play the drums and someday i will be as good as him
I'm so glad Virus got to play again in 1999. We had hoped to do it again this year; Mike's passing put paid to that. If anyone saved his last FB post about Virus please put it here; he loved the band and we love him. Rock on, Friendly Mike, beloved friend.
I wanted to add a note about Virus' other guitar player,Dave Boegehold. That's him to my left in the photo from '78, holding his black Guild SG copy. We went to high school together in Providence. He came to Bard 2nd semester freshman year, in part to join Virus, as Arthor's interest had waned. Dave played guitar at probably half of all Virus gigs, including all our shows at the Innkeeper's Pub. He left Bard after a semester and Arthor rejoined. He was and still is a fine musician and a great guy.
the twilights information is 100 percent erroneous .
nancy Solitare
01-12-2012
Starting Virus and First Ward Manor Gig, by Michael Dylan Griffin
Starting Virus and First Ward Manor Gig
by Michael Dylan Griffin on Thursday, January 1, 2009 at 10:09pm
I transferred into Bard in spring of '77. It was like walking into the middle of a cocktail party—people looking over their shoulders with that look, "Who's the new guy?" I didn't know anyone, but thanks to P. Adams Sitney's film survey class, I quickly saw who I wanted to know: Art Carlson, Bob Barry, John Large, and Lewis Schafer. I'd see them on campus and at Adolph's. I don't think they were good friends with each other at the time, but in my head they were a posse, a clique, of the smartest, funniest, loudest, and most intoxicated people on campus. By the end of that semester, I had become friendly with them all (in fact, that was my nickname: "Friendly Mike")—along with Jamie Livingston, Knox Chandler, Arthor Weinstein, Fitz, Michael Nover, and an assortment of other very hip people. But Carlson was the King, in my eyes—no exaggeration. I really was in awe of him, for the comeliness of his mind, no matter what his mental state! The fact that all of us loved drinking so much also solidified things. I remember the two most frequent words out of Carlson's mouth were "contradiction" and "Nietzsche." If one understood the dialectics of contradiction as laid down by Freddy, Carlson claimed, the world could be seen as it truly was. I loved listening to him go on about things; loved listening to him joust with John Large on whatever the topic—music, politics, art, anything. At night, nearly every night, the whole scene just shifted down to Adolph's and lasted till closing. In the fall of '77, Art and I talked about forming a band; I told him I used to play bass in an Allman Brothers cover band in high school; he played sax. I can't remember who came up with the name; it was either him or me or the both of us. Then we met Bob Fagan and John Funky. Bob was a kindred spirit—he was (is) blazingly articulate and loved to drink as much as the rest of us. And he played guitar. We knew Barry as a "townie." He used to hang around campus and, for whatever reasons, took to Carlson and me. He was bright, energetic, younger than the rest of us, and said he played drums. Bob's buddy, Dave, played with us for a short time but, for whatever reasons, it didn't work out. Then Arthor joined and he added some much needed musical structure to it all. We rehearsed a couple of times, learned a few songs ("Real Cool Time" and "No Fun", were two), and somehow conned our way into playing some folk music coffee house thing out at Ward Manor (maybe it was through April Reynolds, who was a beautiful singer of acoustic music but also had a real wild streak in her—in fact, the following year, she actually won a "Dream Date with Virus" at an auction to help the campus film magazine—but that's another story!). I remember some of the folk people being resentful about a drunken rock band of louts appearing at their event, but there was nothing they could do except leave, which many of them did. We went on last. I remember Bob Barry introducing us and me screaming and wanting to punch somebody for interrupting Bob while he was speaking. Naturally, all of us had been drinking the entire night and so by the time it was our turn to play, all hell seemed to break loose. I think Hugh Crawford got some of it on film. The decibel level was punishing and I remember Carlson's sax squealing so beautifully over it all. People went nuts: clawing at one another, sliding across the floor, throwing beer, and spitting on one another. It was like some group voodoo catharsis, something all of us had been waiting for which had finally arrived in the incarnation of Virus. We played the same three or four songs over and over, until Security finally pulled the plug. The next thing I remember is walking into the Commons the next morning (Carlson, John Large, Cindy Covell and I worked the dishroom on weekends), still drunk, and Carlson patting me on the back and saying, "We made history last night, my boy—Yes, indeed, we made history last night!" I know there's more to it than this—Fagan and Arthor and Carlson and Barry would have to fill in the rest. But that was how we started and that was our first gig—at least according to my own blurry memory of it all, that is.
