THE WHITE DEVILS Mohawk Place April 1, 2003 Buffalo, NY

The White Devils was Frank Deblase's band after The Frantic Flattops disbanded in 2001. Because of his health problems, Frank found it difficult to do the fast, complicated guitar playing he did in the Flattops.
After recruiting ex-Chesterfield Kings guitarist extraordinaire Paul Rocco and myself on drums and no bass player, we began writing minimalist garage-blues with both Frank and Paul sharing equally in the songwriting and singing.
At first it was just very loud, very loose and very disorganized. The two guitarists at first began falling into their familiar, safe places that they did in their old bands and it sounded like just a loud rock band with no bass player. It wasn't until we played a show in Rochester, NY opening for John Mayall that things changed. That stage was very small and we had to set up and play in front of the other band's gear. It was so cramped that Frank and Paul found there was no room to even stand so they both sat down and played, making it an intimate set. It was so successful and felt so right that we performed that way at every other show from then on. It was unique.
To make up for the lack of any bass frequencies, I played less cymbals and more tom-toms while using maracas and other percussion instruments to make up for it. I got discouraged and left the band about a year later, being replaced by the wonderful John Campbell, Paul's frequent solo-act drummer.
About a year or so after that I came back in the band for our final years until around 2005 when we played our final show at the German House, opening for Johnny Winter, about a month before Paul Rocco passed away.
This show took place at the Mohawk Place in Buffalo, NY on April Fool's Day 2003 shortly after they expanded to involve a bigger stage in the next room over(sort of like Backstreets in Rochester at the end of the club's
existence.