THE BEST ROCK'N'ROLL BAND IOWA CITY HAS EVER SEEN

In February of 1975 Cheap Trick headed to Iowa City for a week of gigs at the historic C.O.D. Steamlaundry. Someone drew up a very unique poster to celebrate the occasion (from the collection of Ken Adamany).

 

You may have noticed that they skipped Friday night. That's because the band drove three hours east to perform at the Hub Ballroom in Edelstein, Illinois that night.

Cheap Trick in the cheap seats

This photo was taken by Rich Kwasniewski, summer/fall 1976. We are not sure where.

 

Humpin' Hanna's

Humpin' Hanna's on E. Locust Street in Milwaukee was an underground (literally and figuratively) club originally called O'Brad's, and one of Cheap Trick's regular haunts for the first 2-3 years of the band's existence.

Rick and Robin at Humpin' Hanna's, 1975:

For a better idea of what the stage looked like:

Top:

Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen

Bottom:

Manfred Mann's Earth Band (both December 1972)

Note: the club billed itself as simply "Hanna's" in its advertising, presumably because "Humpin'" was deemed too risqué for print at the time.

    

Jim Houghton

The photo shoot for Cheap Trick's first album was conducted by Jim Houghton at the Steinbecker / Houghton Studio in Manhattan, while the band was in town recording with Jack Douglas at The Record Plant.

Jim Houghton

An alternate shot of Robin Zander was cropped into the eventual cover photo (and Tom's double chin disappeared)

 

By 1977 Steinbecker/Houghton had been in operation for ten years, but shooting album covers was a relatively new side hustle. Houghton had recently shot Ted Nugent, also on Epic, for his second solo album Free For All.

AC/DC posed for Houghton at the studio in December 1977, a shoot that yielded the images used for the back cover of Powerage and the front cover of Highway To Hell.

Cheap Trick participated in at least one more shoot with Houghton, which yielded the image at the top, and several others used for promotional purposes:

The Rick Nielsen Rock Band

In March 1971 a four-piece band was mentioned in both Rockford newspapers (the Register Republic and Morning Star), after they performed at Dennis Elementary School in Rockford as part of a "music-in-the-schools" program. Before and after this performance the band continued to be called Fuse, first with Thom Mooney on drums (replacing Chip Greenman) but Joe Sundberg remaining as vocalist, and eventually with Mooney's bandmate from Nazz, Stewkey, replacing Sundberg. Guitarist Craig Myers seems to have left with Sundberg, but later rejoined, hence his absence from the "Rick Nielsen Rock Band" appearance. The band (with Myers) went on to perform as Fuse for a few more months, disbanding in June 1971. This appearance at Dennis Elementary might have been the only time they were ever billed as the "Rick Nielsen Rock Band."

You will find many more fun facts like this in This Band Has No Past: How Cheap Trick Became Cheap Trick, to be published this September by Jawbone Press.

 

          Tom Petersson            Thom Mooney           Rick Nielsen     Stewkey