Shamrock Shakes and Total Passover

Overview

Shamrock Shakes and then Total Passover were an important part of the Ames and Des Moines punk scene from the late 80s till they broke up in 1996, playing countless shows, touring nationwide and releasing a great deal of recorded material. If you are looking for the missing link of the Central Iowa punk scene between the hardcore of the late 80s and the mid 90s revivial look no further than Total Passover.

location:

Ames, Iowa

History:

OK, It's the dark ages of the late 80s and all your favorite Hardcore bands have crossed over to Speed Metal or turned into whinny college bands. The great post punk hang over. In central Iowa in the late 80s there was pretty much only one band that still had the balls to play punk and in fact call it Punk and that band was Shamrock Shakes. Around Late 88 the shows in Des Moines all but dried up completely other then the few that we could get into at the Hydrant and the Ames Alternative Music Coalition had been started by Tom Meehan and Jason Rupe. They Put on one or two shows a month and one of the staples was Shamrock Shakes. They played straight Ramones style punk. Silly lyrics and a joy to see. It was Formed in 1988 when Andy Levy moved back from SF and started school at ISU and hooked up with Tom and Jason. They put out a demo 'Give Me Back My Handbag' and a single 'House of Jep' under Shamrock and I believe also did some touring.

I had always heard that they changed the name due to legal problems but the truth was that they wanted to change the name to reflect a change in sound to a more MC5/Black Flag influenced. They played under the name MEGAFAUNA for a few shows and Levy, Meehan and Rupe until they became Total Passover. About the same time they added Kurt Johnson to become a four piece. This line up recorded 'Nursing Home Hush Money' with four songs as a Three piece and four as a four piece. Kurt left after moved to Des Moines and the band once again became a three piece. In the spring of 92 the released the SHALOM MOTHERFUCKER" 7 and gained some local air play in Ames.

In the fall of 1992 Jesse Trent was added to the line-up and they once again became a four piece and recorded the 'Eat My Moneymaker' CD released in late 1993. They continued to play around central Iowa and had become somewhat of a regular at Hairy Mary's by this time. Then in May 1993 they recorded the 'Shalom Rising' LP that was released later that year. This was the last recording to feature founding member Jason Rupe who after graduating from ISU left for Texas to complete his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering. James Stone of the Dorks was brought in to take over the drumming. The band then returned to being a three piece when Jesse left in summer of 93. Kurt was brought back for the summer 93 tour and stayed on for the most part till the end. Next to jump ship was James who moved to Houston in 1994 and was replaced by Tom Halverson. This is the line up that appears on the 1995 release "...And Then You Woke Up". With the two remaining leaving town they did a number of farewell shows in 96 with the last one being in May of 96 at Safari.

In a way their last show at Safari was in a way passing the torch to a new generation of punks as their show sparked the whole Safari 5-9pm all ages shows scene of the late 90s.