On this day, May 3, in Type O Negative history:
Type O Negative (formerly Repulsion) play their first show under that name at The Last Thrash Bash at L'Amour with Cro-Mags, Leeway, White Zombie, Biohazard, Non-Fiction, Machine, and Metalstorm in Brooklyn, NY (1991)
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,..."- Howl by Allen Ginsberg
Following the 1989 break-up of Carnivore, and, after Unsuccessfully Succeeding At The Denouement To Unsuccessfully Coping With The Natural Beauty Of Infidelity, Peter explores forming a Munsters-themed hot skiffle band.
Finding no takers, his lengthy boredom is broken by opportunity knocking, literally- his friend Sal comes over to his house and knocks on his door, asking Peter if he wants to form a new band. Sal knows a guitarist (Kenny) and Peter knows a way to lure his friend Josh into playing keyboards for the band, soon to be called Repulsion. By January of 1990, these Creatures from the Gowanus Canal have a 6-song cassette tape demo called None More Negative. Keeping with recording industry "best practices", the lead song is the 12 minute, 39 second earworm "Unsuccessfully Coping with the Natural Beauty of Infidelity".
A radio hit in the making, this song easily lands the band its first gig at L'Amour 2 months later. But, like the delicate cherry tree blossom, L'Amour can be a fleeting thing- almost a year later, L'Amour, The Rock Capitol of Brooklyn, announces that it is closing.
And so, our peripatetic protagonists debut their new moniker, Type O Negative, as they play The Last Thrash Bash on what was presumed to be the second-to-the-last show ever at Brooklyn's legendary L'Amour (L'Amour resumes shows 6 months later but does actually close for good in 2004).
This video is the best quality version of Type O Negative's first show that I have found, to date. Type O Negative are the first band here and their set runs to 26:25, when they are followed by Biohazard. Please enjoy the cheesy 90s-era video effects, Sal's oscillating fan (some drummers were known to cart around a box fan with them back in the day), and a slice of the musical tomato pie that spawned several bands who are still performing today.
(Some band bio parts possibly cribbed from https://web.archive.org/web/20001025001437/http://www.typeonegative.net/bandbio.html and may become unglued during shipping.)
Type O Negative play the Omaha Civic Auditorium with Queensryche in Omaha, NE (1995)
Type O Negative play the Texas Sky Festival Park with Ozzy Osbourne and Sepultura in Corpus Christi, TX (1996)