Category: STP Trivia

Research: ‘Worcester 1994’ has been ‘New Haven 1994’ All Along!?

Rhino Records will release Stone Temple Pilots’ deluxe edition reissue of ‘Purple’ on October 18. Included in the deluxe release is a cd with a live recording of one of the shows from STP’s 1994 summer tour in support of ‘Purple’. The set is labeled to be from the band’s August 23 show at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New Haven, Connecticut.

Here’s the full set list:

  • Vasoline
  • Silvergun Superman
  • Crackerman
  • Lounge Fly
  • Meat Plow
  • Still Remains
  • Gypsy Davy (“Woodie Guthrie Song”)
  • Pretty Penny
  • Creep
  • Andy Warhol
  • Army Ants
  • Big Empty
  • Interstate Love Song
  • Plush
  • Unglued
  • Dead & Bloated
  • Sex Type Thing

Exciting! We know only the shows in Worcester and New Haven from this tour have been professionally recorded. We already have the full show from Worcester in great quality on the ‘Interstate Love Songs’ bootleg and various Westwood One Radio Show promos. It’s great news that we get to add New Haven to the list as well. But… is it?

When you listen to it, you’ll find that the recording now being put out under the ‘New Haven’ label is exactly the same as a show that we’ve known since 1995 to be recorded at The Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts the day before…

Since the band played the same songs in the same order every night of that tour, it’s impossible to identify shows by song order. So which is it now? Worcester or New Haven? Let’s find out.

Research on official releases

The confusion set in over the last couple of days as we got closer to the release of the ‘Purple’ reissue. Copyright claims started popping up on YouTube, stating that certain videos contained the music of the New Haven show. Here are two examples:

Audience video uploaded in 2014, labeled Worcester ’94.

Same show, pro-shot video (from STP’s 2003 “Thank You” DVD), also labeled Worcester ’94:

Both of the above get a copyright notice that says:

Music in this video:
Song Interstate Love Song (Live at New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum)
Artist Stone Temple Pilots
Album Purple (Super Deluxe) [Remaster]
Licensed to YouTube by WMG (on behalf of Rhino Atlantic)

Interesting that even on the full concert, YouTube singles out ‘Interstate Love Song’ as the only song in the set to be recognized as ‘Music in this video’. Maybe that’s just because Rhino released the live version of ‘Interstate Love Song’ from the deluxe set as a teaser/promo to social media on August 22. It’s very possible that other songs will be ‘recognized’ by YouTube as we get closer to the release of the full set.

But it’s strange. The videos are labeled ‘Worcester’. And the audio is the same as on a 1995 Westwood One Radio Promo CD that clearly states on the paperwork that accompanies it that the recordings were made on August 22, 1994 at the Centrum in Worcester:

Almost all subsequent releases and uses of these audio recordings have been labeled ‘Worcester’ since. Originally on bootlegs and original ‘tape trading’ sites, more recently on a number of “licensed” STP live recordings on both CD and vinyl:

I wrote ‘Almost all’, because there’s one release that stands out. One of the November 1994 cd single releases (there were multiple configurations with different b-sides) of ‘Interstate Love Song’ features two live tracks (‘Vasoline’, ‘Interstate Love Song’) that are the same as the Westwood One Radio Promo, but they are labeled as “Tracks 3 & 4 recorded live on 23 August 1994 at The Centrum in New Haven, Connecticut.” on the disc itself:

1994 “Interstate Love Song” 4-track cd single disc with track notes in small font

This is confusing in and of itself, because it lists the venue name as ‘The Centrum’, which is the name of the Worcester venue. But the date (8/23) and city (New Haven, CT) match each other. Two out of three makes one assume that New Haven is correct for this recording. But why has Westwood One labeled the same recording as ‘Worcester’?

One other official Stone Temple Pilots release to feature a song from the same concert is the Japanese edition of 1996’s ‘Tiny Music…’, which features the live version of ‘Meat Plow’. Unfortunately neither the disc nor the artwork for this release sheds any light on when and where this live version was recorded. ‘Meat Plow’ here is identical to the one on the Westwood One show labeled ‘Worcester’.

Research on audience recordings

When you research audience recordings and bootlegs, you will find tons of information on Worcester. An audience recording of ‘New Haven’ was posted online in March 2018, but I didn’t think much of it at the time, because it sounded the same as the soundboard recording I knew from ‘Worcester’. I thought it was mislabeled. Only today I checked the information file that came with it to read a lineage that says “Aiwa M30A Mic > Sony TCD-D7 > CDR > dBpoweramp Flac Uncompressed”. It’s a different source than the full show video on YouTube, but definitely the same performance.

In terms of video bootlegs, there’s really only one bootleg collection website that lists an audience recorded DVD from the New Haven show. Conveniently, it also lists a DVD for the Worcester show.

Below Empty Forum user Blue was quick to compare screen shots from both recordings, to find that they are basically the same recording. Just compare the stills from the acoustic set:

Worcester:

New Haven:

On the anteroboots.com site, ‘New Haven’ is listed as a master copy, whereas the ‘Worcester’ has a note saying it’s a “low generation” copy. It would be quite safe to assume (but no guarantee) that a listing for a “master copy” has the right label. Since both recordings are visually identical, that would mean that a lesser generation copy of the New Haven show has been mislabeled ‘Worcester’ early on.

Hartford Courant article clues

There’s a concert review (see below for scanned image) of the New Haven show from the Hartford Courant, which states in the second paragraph in the second column: “‘Hello People’ barked Weiland to the enthusiatic [sic] crowd”. If you listen to the audience recording of ‘Worcester’ on YouTube at 7:42, you will hear Scott say exactly these words. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I’ve listened to audience recordings from Miami (7/1/94), Houston (7/5/94), Milwaukee (7/10/94), Chicago (8/12/94), and Scott’s first banter with the audience is always after ‘Silvergun Superman’ and he doesn’t say ‘Hello People’ at any of those shows.

Hartford Courant review of the New Haven, CT 8/23 show.

Verdict

Combining the research on the official releases and the audience recordings, I’m pretty convinced that the New Haven, Connecticut show from August 23 was mislabeled early on as ‘Worcester’. It looks like what we’ve seen and heard so far as ‘Worcester’ has been ‘New Haven’ all along, but why did Westwood One label it ‘Worcester’ back in ’95? The ‘Interstate Love Song’ single from November 1994 says it’s New Haven. Rhino Records (in 2019) says it’s New Haven. And that seems to match that master copy audience recording of the video that’s floating around, but then again that’s one source and an unofficial one. The newspaper article quote adds further evidence that ‘Worcester’ is in fact New Haven.

25 years later it’s hard to figure out what happened exactly, but one thing is certain: these recordings got mislabeled somewhere along the way.

Fact of the matter is that we now have the same recordings labeled differently on a number of releases. I guess only one thing will solve the issue once and for all and that would be a ‘master copy’ of the Worcester show that looks and sounds like it’s a different recording altogether, but what are the chances of something like that surfacing after all this time? Maybe some more things will see the light of day with the 25th anniversary of ‘Purple’.

For now, we know that the upcoming release of ‘New Haven’ on the ‘Purple’ deluxe edition is the same recording as the one we’ve known as ‘Worcester’ since 1995, but remastered for this 2019 release. With several different mixes and masters of this show available over the years, let’s hope this one is better sounding than all the previous ones.

To add some context to this blog post, here’s the show review for the Worcester show from the Boston Globe:

Boston Globe article about the Worcester (8/22) show.

And here’s a photo of Scott from ‘Boston, MA 1995’ that you can purchase at dreamstime.com. Note: STP did not perform live in 1995. This shot is most likely from Worcester, which is 100 miles closer to Boston than New Haven.

Lastly, here’s a photo of Scott labeled as “backstage at the Centrum in Worcester”:

source: Tumblr.com

Below Empty Interview with Dean DeLeo

Dean DeLeo live in Frankfurt, Germany. Photo by Brian K. Diaz.

2019 has been quite a celebratory year in STP land. Not only does it mark the 30th anniversary of Robert, Dean and Eric starting to play music together, it’s also been 25 years since the release of the band’s second album ‘Purple’ and 20 years since the Below Empty fansite launched on its belowempty.com domain name.

On top of that, the band has toured the Americas as well as Europe to an extent not seen since 2010 and recorded a brand new album -tentatively slated for a spring 2020 release- along the way. More than enough reason to catch up with one of the driving forces behind the band’s productivity. I was fortunate enough recently to talk to Dean DeLeo about the upcoming deluxe 25th anniversary reissue of Purple, as well as some other things from the band’s 30 year history (and beyond!) that I and other fans have been wondering about for years.

BE: Congratulations on all the milestones this year, let’s start off with the upcoming deluxe reissue of Purple. The set features a remastered cd album and lp as well as a second cd full of demos and acoustic versions and a third cd with a full concert from the New Haven Veterans’s Memorial Coliseum on August 23, 1994. What can you tell me about the demos and early versions that we get on this set?”

Dean: “These versions are basically the next phase of writing, coming off of Robert or myself writing them probably on an acoustic. These are early versions with the four of us in a room, most likely doing pre production for Purple.”

BE: “When the deluxe edition was announced, Rhino Records released the acoustic version of ‘Big Empty’. Listening to that, it made me wonder if it came from the rehearsals for MTV Unplugged. It has a similar arrangement and singing approach by Scott, but also some instrumental differences that make me unsure. When was that recording done?”

Dean: “I asked Robert the same question. I don’t think it was for MTV Unplugged, because Eric’s drumming is a bit different. I would have to say it’s an early version while cutting it in the studio or close to cutting it.”

BE: “So that puts it right in the middle of the ‘Core’ tour, since ‘Big Empty’ was recorded on May 25th, 1993 when the band was on a break between the European club tour in the spring and the summer Bar-B-Q Mitzvah Tour with Butthole Surfers, Basehead, Flaming Lips and Firehose. How did the Beach Boys cover of ‘She Knows Me Too Well’come about? I know the demo was recorded at the same time as ‘Pretty Penny’, when you went over to a friend of Brendan O’Brien’s house.”

Dean: “Robert initiated that and Scott was ecstatic about it as well. A shame we never got to finish it.”

BE: “Speaking of cover songs, there’s a mention of another one in the STP vaults that I could never find any information about. Did STP ever record a cover of ‘Watchin’ You’ by Kiss, as was mentioned by the band’s former manager Steve Stewart in several media in 1993? The ‘Kiss My Ass’ tribute album first got shelved and was later completed with different bands than previously announced. STP was not on the release anymore. Did you guys ever record it?”

Dean: “Yes, but only live and stereo to cassette in a rehearsal room. We never multitracked it.”

BE: “The live concert disc from the deluxe edition is from the New Haven show. Material from that show as well as the Worcester show from the same tour has been used for promotional purposes in the mid 90’s. Is there a special reason why New Haven made the cut to this release as a full set? Does it have an edge compared to other shows from the tour?”

Dean: “We only recorded those two shows and I’d have to say that I’m sure there were nights from that tour in which the band was better, but we only recorded those two shows.”

BE: “Just like ‘Core’ in 2017, ‘Purple’ was remastered for the deluxe edition release. How much does the sound differ from the original master in your opinion and what aspects should audiophile fans look out for?”

Dean: “I am not a fan of remastering in general… what’s the point? We did remaster it though, really only making it a bit louder. Brendan’s original mixes are so warm and beautiful, it was our duty to retain that warmth and make sure not too much mids got put into it.”

BE: “I didn’t hear too much difference on the Core remaster when that came out, and I’m glad the production value on the Purple release will be retained, that album sounds great as it is. Also not a fan of the modern loudness wars. Now on to some deep STP history and random things. There’s some things that I’ve been wondering about for years and forgot to ask or never got to ask you. Going back to the pre-STP days of ‘Swing’ and ‘Mighty Joe Young’. I know you were not a part of ‘Swing’, but there have been some songs over the years labeled as ‘Mighty Joe Young’ that I suspect are actually not. ‘Wicked Garden’, ‘Only Dying’, ‘Naked Sunday’, ‘Piece Of Pie’ and ‘Where The River Goes’ are clearly ‘later’ MJY, leading up to the release of ‘Core’. What about ‘Fast As I Can’, ‘Spanish Flies’, ‘Super Scary Area’? Are those songs Mighty Joe Young’s earlier work, before the tracks that ended up on ‘Core’?

Dean: “Yes. That was the four of us. Robert, Eric, Scott and myself.”

BE: “How do ‘Love Machine’, ‘Dirty Dog’ and ‘Old Dixie’ fit in? Is that Mighty Joe Young? Did you play on any of that?”

Dean: “No, that’s before my time.”

BE: “Another thing that has fascinated me over the last few weeks is STP’s participation in Lollapalooza ’92. If you look online in certain places now, it seems like STP played many or all of the tour’s 33 stops in North America. That doesn’t fit with some interview quotes from the past, but those do not definitively close the book on the matter. Over the summer I did some research that leads me to believe that the band’s first show as Stone Temple Pilots was Lollapalooza in Phoenix. Scott is quoted in an interview saying he hadn’t sung all summer of ’92 and blew his voice out and that the set was cut short to three songs. Is that correct?”

Dean: “It was about 115 degrees that day and we really didn’t have much of a dressing room, so we were quite exposed to the elements of summer in Phoenix. We stopped after a few songs.”

BE: “Do you recall at how many shows you played in total on Lollapalooza in ’92? Was it just two days, Phoenix on the 8th and Irvine Meadows on the 12th? Or did you guys play all three nights at Irvine Meadows?”

Dean: “I’m pretty sure just 2. Irvine and Phoenix.”

BE: “Last week I stumbled upon an interview with Eric Kretz from early 1993. In it, he states that he played guitar instead of drums for a performance of ‘Creep’ and ‘Plush’ for Dutch tv and radio called ‘2 Meter Sessies’ and ‘Countdown Cafe’. I listened back to it and the chords that are played are different from how you play it. I believe this was done on a promotional press tour of Europe that only Scott and Eric went on. Did Eric perform on guitar while Scott sang?”

Dean: “Yes, thats Eric. I wasn’t really interested in leaving home at the time and Eric loves to travel.”

BE: “On to something totally different. About a decade ago you recorded material for a project called ‘Galaxy Co-Stars’ with Glen Campbell’s son Cal. I’ve heard two lovely and very DeLeo-esque songs: ‘Plans for Dreaming’ and ‘Thank Me’. Can you tell me who played on that?”

Dean: “It’s just Cal and myself, Cal actually wrote ‘Plans for Dreaming’.”

BE: “Any more ever going to see the light of day?”

Dean: “We recently spoke and would love to mix it and release it one day. Also, Robert played bass on a track.”

BE: “I would love to see an official release of that material. Speaking of Campbell, I read an unsettling article in the New York Times a few months ago about the fires in 2008 that destroyed Universal Music Group’s main West Coast archive of master recordings, which included Glen Campbell’s among many others. I don’t think that STP’s masters were stored there, but just to verify: none of STP’s master recordings were destroyed?”

Dean: “TRAGIC BEYOND WORDS!!! We are safe.”

BE: “Thank you for taking the time to get into this stuff with me, much appreciated!”

House Of Blues Las Vegas 20th Anniversary

STP Live in Las Vegas, August 12, 1999.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Stone Temple Pilots’ well-known show at the House Of Blues in Las Vegas on August 12, 1999. The show was recorded for MTV Spankin’ Live and parts of it were aired shortly after the concert in a tumultuous year for the band that ended with Scott Weiland behind bars.

Scott had spent the first half of 1998 as a solo artist touring his ’12 Bar Blues’ album, admittedly spiraling more and more out of control on heroin and cocaine as the tour went on, until his very public May 31 arrest in New York City. The tour was over. The solo career was over – for a while. He went off to Rehab.

STP reunited in January ’99 with a sober Scott and started writing and rehearsing for their next album. They were cautiously hopeful at the start, playing an unannounced invitation-only show at the Viper Room on March 16 to let the world know the band was back together. However, the work on ‘No.4’ stopped and restarted several times as Scott fell and got back up again.

STP was finally finishing the recording of the album over the summer when Scott overdosed on heroin on the 7th of July. It was near-fatal and he was hospitalized and detoxed in rehab. Surprisingly, STP played an unannounced 7-song set at the Dragonfly in Hollywood just ten days later on the 17th.

The overdose and hospitalization were a violation of his probation on a 1997 possession conviction and Scott had to appear in Judge Larry Paul Fidler’s Los Angeles County courtroom early in the morning of August 13.

Despite Scott’s legal issues, STP played the House Of Blues in Las Vegas on August 12, for Miller Genuine Draft’s “Blind Date” series, in which contest winners are taken to shows by surprise performers.

Dean DeLeo remembers the look on Weiland’s face at the final rehearsal: “It was obvious what was going through the guy’s mind. He was a wreck, and it takes a lot for Scott to look like a wreck. We threw the crew out of the rehearsal room and said, ‘Is there anything you want to say? Can we do anything?’ He just goes, ‘I can’t think of three people I’d rather be with on my last night of freedom.'”

Rolling Stone Magazine

Las Vegas 8/12/99 Set List:

  • Crackerman
  • Meatplow
  • Vasoline
  • Silvergun Superman
  • Tumble In The Rough
  • Creep (Acoustic)
  • Dancing Days (Acoustic)
  • Pretty Penny (Acoustic)
  • Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart
  • Plush
  • Down
  • No Way Out
  • Interstate Love Song
  • Unglued
  • Dead and Bloated
  • Big Bang Baby
  • Sex Type Thing
  • Piece Of Pie

At the time, there was only one fan review submitted to Below Empty. Jason said:

“Epic, what a great show. Tenacious D was booed off stage as no one really knew who or what was going on at that time. We were flown in from all accross the country and had rooms at Mandalay Bay. Miller provided free beer for everyone, a bucket full in our rooms, several at the pre party at RA followed by 5 beers at the show. One of the highlites was the parade of chaos as they walked us from RA to the House Of Blues. Over 1000 drunk people walking the tunnel from hotel to hotel had to be one heck of a sight.”

Jason, review on Below Empty

The day after the Las Vegas show, Scott was sentenced to a year in jail, of which he served 140 days before being released in January 2000. His time there has been expertly chronicled by David Fricke in the Rolling Stone article ‘The Needle & the Damage Done’ a year later.

Here’s the most complete YouTube video with recordings of this show:

Director Mark Racco uploaded unseen footage of the band arriving in Las Vegas and the song ‘Dancing Days’ on his YouTube channel in 2010:

The mysteries and misconceptions about STP at Lollapalooza ’92

There’s a lot of mystery and misinformation about Stone Temple Pilots’ participation in the Lollapalooza 1992 tour. In the first part of this blog article I will give some background information about the festival and STP’s alleged links to it. The second part consists of factual information, newspaper articles and quotes that shed light on the band’s actual performances on this tour.

Lollapalooza 1992 was a traveling music festival in North America between July 18 and September 13 of that year. It featured Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Lush on the main stage.

When you do a Google search or read Wikipedia about Lollapalooza 1992, chances are that you will find quite a lot of references to Stone Temple Pilots, who are listed as one of the acts on the ‘Side Stage’ of the festival, along with Rage Against The Machine, Porno for Pyros, Basehead and Cypress Hill, among many others. STP is also mentioned on the official poster for the festival. It would make you think that the band was very much part of Lollapalooza ’92.

Lollapalooza ’92 Tour Poster

I, too, was fooled and misled by this information. 1992 was a couple of years before I first heard of STP and their music. I have no firsthand knowledge of what happened back then. There was no internet, there were no social media. So if you want to find information from those days, you start at the surface and slowly dig deeper. 

The first sources of information you will find now, were typed up in the last decade by people reminiscing of a magical tour from way back when. I’m sure most of them looked up what they could find online about this tour before they wrote their piece. The second source of info is available from a handful of newspaper print archives that shed some light on the situation through (p)reviews and articles that were written at the actual time of the tour. I’ve read the newer stories and researched the original newspaper articles over the last few months. I’ve debated the findings with Plushman, who also had done his own research on the subject. And the more we read, the more we became convinced that a lot of the ‘facts’ on the internet got muddied up along the way.

You get things like Brian McDonald’s review (in 2014, on favoriteconcert.com) of the Reston, Virginia stop of the tour on August 14, 1992. He mentions STP:

“The side stage was incredible as well with Cypress Hill, House of Pain,  Ice-T, Porno for Pyros, Luscious Jackson and Stone Temple Pilots. Some of the bands setlists are recorded and I did not get to see all the bands, which happens at large festivals.”

At least he states that he did not get to see all the bands. But he does mention Stone Temple Pilots, while I am 100% sure based upon my research that STP did not play that date. When asked if he specifically remembers STP, Brian said:

“I cannot recall if they were at that show or not. Stuck to the main stage mostly because the lineup was so stellar. Did hit the side stages in between early sets, but couldn’t really tell you what was there.”

Matthew Jeanes posted a review (in 2007, on zeroplate.net) of the Orlando, Florida stop on August 23, 1992 in which he states:

“The second stage was a great idea and in later years I would find myself much more interested in the acts on it than on the main bill. Somewhere on this tour, Rage Against the Machine, Stone Temple Pilots, and Porno for Pyros also played the second stage, but the only one I might have seen this day was Perry Ferrel’s band”.

I like how Matthew said: ‘Somewhere on this tour’. It implies what I already suspected: STP did not play Orlando.

It doesn’t help that on the 15th of June 2015, user ExecutiveChimp on setlist.fm added 33 dates to STP’s concert history: all of a sudden, it looked like STP played all North American dates of the Lollapalooza ’92 tour. That is definitely not the case, but has been a base for others since then to build claims upon.

How many shows did STP actually play on the Lollapalooza ’92 tour? I’d say: two. One in Phoenix and another in Irvine. I strongly believe that all other mentions of Stone Temple Pilots performing are based upon their listing as a side-stage act on Wikipedia. People just copy-and-pasted the acts mentioned there. Over the years, it contaminated listings on setlist.fm, various concert listing websites and, as I said before, also Below Empty.

How do I get to just two shows? Let’s see what STP’s band members have said in interviews over the years about Lollapalooza (which is not a lot!).

In a Q&A with Chris Mundy from Rolling Stone Magazine in 1994, Scott stated that he blew his voice out in rehearsals for ‘a couple of the Lollapalooza shows on the side stage’:

RS: What’s the worst gig you ever played?

Scott: “The first show we did right before the record came out. We got this offer to play a couple of the Lollapalooza shows on the side stage. I hadn’t sung all summer, and in rehearsals I blew my voice out. We went to do the show, got in the van, and when we got onstage, I had no voice. We only played three songs, and we left the stage, and I felt humiliated.“

Rolling Stone; February 10, 1994.

There are a couple of interesting things about this quote. ‘The record’ that Scott is referring to, is obviously the band’s debut ‘Core’, which was released through Atlantic Records on September 29, 1992. So the ‘couple of the Lollapalooza shows’ that he mentioned, have to be around September 1992. In addition Scott states that he ‘hadn’t sung all summer’, which implies that STP did not perform on any of the 28 dates this tour had in July and August of 1992.

The first four shows in September were in Atlanta (9/1), New Orleans (9/4), Rosenberg (9/5) and Dallas (9/6). None of the newspaper reviews of these shows mention STP. However, an article on page 82 of The Arizona Daily Star from September 4 specifically mentions STP as one of the second-stage acts for the Phoenix stop on September 8.

Arizona Daily Star, September 4, 1992.

According to Robert DeLeo in a 2002 interview with KNAC.com, this was the band’s first show as Stone Temple Pilots:

“I remember the first gig we played as STP, and it was second stage in ’92 at Lollapalooza in Phoenix.”

Robert DeLeo, KNAC.com

This is most likely the show where the band only played three songs, according to Scott. Robert’s quote in itself should already put the matter to rest about all the Lollapalooza shows before Phoenix. The day after, they played a set at The Mason Jar in Phoenix.

The next specific mention of STP at Lollapalooza comes in the Los Angeles Times on September 10. This article specifically mentions the acts on the second stage for the last three stops of the tour in Irvine on September 11, 12 and 13. STP is not listed for the 11th and 13th, but only for the 12th.

Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1992.

All in all, there’s only real evidence of Stone Temple Pilots playing two shows on the Lollapalooza ’92 tour. Those two shows are:

  • September 8, 1992 – Phoenix, Arizona @ Desert Sky Pavilion
  • September 12, 1992 – Irvine, California @ Irvine Meadows

Fun fact: STP also played a second set on Saturday night 9/12 at the Newport Roadhouse in Costa Mesa, where they were on the bill with Green Apple Quickstep and opening acts Godhead and Black Creek. Robert DeLeo also mentions this in an interview with OC Weekly in October 2018:

And to be back in Orange County, CA is really special DeLeo says, as a particular performance at Irvine Meadows early on marked a high point at the beginning of their career.
“There are a few venues that stick out and Irvine Meadows is one of them,” he says, “Because you know, that’s kind of where we got our start. We did Lollapalooza ‘92 in the daytime there and right after we did that we played a place in Newport Beach called the Roadhouse and we left to go on our first tour.”

excerpt from OC Weekly, October 2018

Together with the club show at The Mason Jar in Phoenix on September 9 and the Newport Roadhouse on September 12, the two Lollapalooza dates are the first four known shows that the band played as ‘Stone Temple Pilots’ and are listed as such in the Below Empty Concert Chronology.

Questions? Comments? Additional information? Please leave a message! Thanks!

The Vatican Gift Shop (1992)?!

A couple of weeks ago my eye fell on a newspaper clipping from the Detroit Free Press from September 9, 1992. A small section in the ‘Upcoming Music Releases’ list for the fourth quarter of 1992 listed a release for a band named ‘Stone Temple Pilots’. Here it is:

Detroit Free Press, September 9, 1992, page 180.

‘“Vatican Gift Shop,” Stone Temple Pilots (Atlantic)‘ it says. You can check any other release listing in any other publication and it will say “Core” as the album title. Of course, “Core” is STP’s debut album, released through Atlantic Records on September 29th 1992.

Front cover of “Core” (1992).

At the time, this could and would have been dismissed as a typo, an error. It was not until early 1996 that the name ‘Vatican Gift Shop’ was heard again, when STP announced the release of their third album, “Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop”.

Front and back cover of “Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop” (1996).

Not so much a typo in 1992 after all. “Vatican Gift Shop” was a title coined by guitarist Dean DeLeo, who also came up with the name “Core”. Dean has since told me that “Vatican Gift Shop” might have indeed originated at that time, but was never really officially going to be the album title for their debut. “Core” as the title was solidified by the whole band pretty quickly. How the other title ended up in publication, remains a mystery.

The band was at that time still called Mighty Joe Young and they actually approved the album artwork for “Core” before they had to change the band name to Stone Temple Pilots for legal reasons. Not a whole lot of details are known about the band’s time around the name change. Should be a good research subject for future posts.