Brain Farts, Musings, and Random Acts of Bafflement (Lightly Sautéed) by Spencer Sundell
Courtesy of the excellent bastards at Operation Phoenix Records, the Punk Zine Archive includes sanctioned PDF scans of bedrock punk zines, including Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll nos. 2 - 45 and misc. thereafter, Flipside no. 1 and misc. nos. 24 - 79, and numerous issues of HeartattaCK and Suburban Voice.
Run, don’t walk. And maybe consider contributing to the effort, eh wot?
So yeah. CBGB is gone. Worse, looks like it will be “reconstructed” as some sort of exhibit in Las Vegas. I shit you not. Somehow fitting, it also just really fuckin’ sums it all up. I wonder if they’ll offer speed balls and scabrous blowjobs in the bathroom. Just charge it to room service.
Following is the spontaneous ellegy I wrote and emailed to my friend-spam list the day after Joey Ramone died in April, 2001.
All good cretins go to heaven
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 15:48:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Spencer Sundell
To: Friends of Spence
Subject: All good cretins go to heaven
The Ramones changed my life. It sounds trite and cliched, but if you laugh you just don’t understand. They taught me that even *I* could rock, that even a putz like me could play guitar, hell that I could even write songs. They taught me that all I needed was the ability to finger 3, maybe 4, chords and the courage to yell some dumb lyrics with gusto. They taught me how a good rock song should be structured, a lesson I followed for many years to come. (…Third verse, different from the first…)
They taught me that it was all about attitude — all of it: music, life, everything. Keep it simple, keep it true to your vision. Keep it loud just let ‘em all know you’re there. Anyone who plays a wanking solo is an egomaniac who should be burned at the stake immediately. And definitely no fucking keyboards!
The Ramones transformed my concept of myself and helped to save me from my grim life of quiet teenaged loneliness and depression. They taught me that being a freak with a dark sense of humor and deep cynicism about, well, everything was not a hideous scar to be hidden but a gloriously gruesome flag to be flown in the face of The Normals who sucked at the insipid tit of life in the early ’80s.
They taught me that obscurity and weirdness was a blessing, a secret club that all the pretty, popular, cruel fuckers and their tight, prissy girlfriends that cursed my existence were too scared to be a part of.
They told me I wasn’t alone. There were other pinheads out there who accepted me as one of them.
To an isolated, weird, dweeby teenaged boy trapped in early-’80s Indianapolis, these were revelations of unimaginable proportions. Now that “alternative rock” is a massive corporate industry that tags and devours its devotees, now that an entire generation has been weaned on predigested, shrink-wrapped angst strained from the primordial witches’ brew of punk, now that there is the Internet and MP3s, it’s hard to imagine or even convey the enormity of it. It’s hard to describe the sheer quivering sense of liberation that coursed through one’s veins when you listened to those early Ramones albums — the sense that you really were one of the first, that you were part of something truly and completely new, something that sent The Normals squealing in confused disgust.
I wasn’t the only one, of course. In fact by 1982, when I discovered the mighty alchemical secret of The Ramones, I was pretty late to the game. Their first album had been released in 1976, when I was ten. Their first tour of the UK shortly after had completely changed the music scene there, and led directly to the formation of The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Sham 69, X-Ray Specs, and dozens of other bands made up of lonely fucked-up geeks who had been transformed just like I was later. This in turn produced a feedback loop as loud and resonant as Johnny Ramone’s Marshall amp. The music returned to America, launched a thousand howls, and the world was never the same again. Iggy and the Stooges may have paved the way in 1969, and the New York Dolls may have built the first rest stop, but it was The Ramones who built the interstate in the late ’70s. Because of them, an entire generation could rocket down the road to ruin, laughing spitefully the entire way.
But I was in Indiana, a dark kingdom so backwards and isolated it had taken 5 years for the punk rock meme to leak in and infect us. Even Cleveland got it before we did. In those Cold War years, it was like being behind an impenetrable corn curtain, and punk was like a distorted midnight broadcast over illicit shortwave. Those few of us who knew the frequency would cluster in our bunkers to listen and trade clandestine tapes of these exciting new sounds, to whisper the exotic names of ever-elusive bands of freedom fighters, to groan with jealousy when one of us managed to somehow procure a precious new album. With reverence normally reserved for rare sacred texts, we memorized every word, note and squeal of feedback that emanated from vinyl as black (and as doomed) as our times.
Ronald Reagan had just become president, and the world seemed to have transformed overnight. As if someone had flipped an evil switch in the cosmos, everything had suddenly become tight, restrictive, oppressive. The last lingering ghosts of rebellious hippydom were finally sucked down a black hole of rampant conservatism. Haircuts became strange, blocky immitations of ’50s pompadours. Cars lost their graceful lines and became ugly boxes with squared corners. Lunatic christian fascists poured shrill intolerance from every TV, proclaiming a new era of rigid rules and strict punishment for even the slightest infraction of a mysterious but inviolable “sacred law”. Meanwhile, brutal secret armies were sent to impoverished nations to torture and destroy all in their path in the name of “democracy” and “freedom,” although this fact was hidden to all except those few of us who had some miraculous access to forbidden newspapers like The Guardian (the NY Marxist one, not the London one). Anyone who dared to speak of such things in Indiana literally risked a beating at the hands of inbred “patriotic” goons.
There were book burnings, though few remember that now. Something called “AIDS” was creeping up as an allegedly divine vengeance on the unholy. As thousands of workers were being laid off, evicted, and joining the longest bread lines since the Great Depression, we were indoctrinated to believe that it was an era of new prosperity, a lie even today enshrined as eternal truth and grounds for beatification. Meanwhile, our president told us with straight face that trees were the cause of most pollution. It was an era of unspeakable lies and hatred.
In those days, full-scale nuclear war literally felt like it could happen any minute. The global sabres were in full rattle, and our president and his bund uttered absurdities about continuing mail delivery after the apocalypse. Reagan even openly said he fully believed that apocalypse would come in our lifetime, and thought saying “we begin bombing in five minutes” was a big joke. And yet the entire country was in such denial of the horror that when ABC produced a TV movie about The Day After, it was toned down at the last moment on the surreal grounds that it had somehow overplayed what complete nuclear devastation would really be like. As a compromise to the orchestrated campaign against the film, the network broadcast a roundtable discussion led by reactionaries and government flunkies who tried to “debunk” the entire thing. Lies and hatred.
The early ’80s, the spring of my youth, were times when a sense of complete and utter doom permeated all of us who cowered in the shadows. All we could do was await our turn with the alien pods that lurked everywhere around us. There was, quite literally, no hope.
Not even music provided an escape, though it was nevertheless an ironically accurate mirror of the time. My first years in high school were the height of AOR and metal’s tyranny over the airwaves in Indiana. Black funk and R&B had long since been castrated and pureed into disco, the pinnacle of which were consummate honkies like the BeeGees and Abba.
The only “alternative” to be found was pasteurized “rock” in the form of bland, predictable, misogynist garbage by groups whose names I’ve long since forgotten. For the “adventurous”, bands like Rush packed the local stadium, which echoed with limp 15 minute guitar solos that lulled a stupefied audience who debated about whether the drummer had 18 or 20 different tom-toms in his kit. The “really cool” bands had a gong. And then there was Billy Joel.
There was no soul in music. It had become as heartless and back-stabbing as the record executives who ran the show, as hollow as an empty pod tucked beneath its victim’s bed.
As I dwelled in this unspeakable well of loneliness, The Ramones came to me like ill-mannered angels of mercy. Their loud, pounding music was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Better still, not even the few metal heads I actually knew could stand it. Joey Ramone’s consciously stupid, completely irreverent, and utterly hilarious lyrics were a tonic. Their world was populated with misunderstood pinheads, cretins, and glue-sniffers cutting class and sneaking smokes in the bathroom. Yep, it really was all hopeless and we all really are freaks and mutants. But so what? If that’s the case, then fuck it — howl at the stupidity, mock the pretty by loving your ugliness, distill the nonsense to its simplest form then blast it so loud it will deafen and block it all out. Rock hard enough, and it will crush that which would crush you. It’s all a stupid game, so fuck the rules, fuck school, fuck ‘em all. But if you laugh at it, then it loses all its power. It was Dada reborn — art disguised as anti-art while outside everyone burned worthless Deutschmarks for warmth.
Even though it was smart (sort of, in a subliminal kind of way), it was the ultimate anti-elitism. It was the music of the poor and downtrodden, something I could really appreciate as a son raised in the ’70s by a single lesbian mother. It was *so* not about flashy costumes, giant drum kits and gongs, and massive sound systems. It wasn’t just unpretentious, it was *anti* pretentious. This was music born of the back alley, and played on stolen equipment. It was the bare essentials. And lordy, how it rocked!
Thanks to The Ramones, I discovered the only record store in town that dared to sell such contraband — an oasis in the Hoosier wasteland called Second Time Around. Before long, I was cutting class and spending hours flipping through every album and single in the joint — day after day, week after week. Tony, the owner, would play strange new things over the stereo and patiently teach me about it all — when I had the courage to ask. And Tony, god bless him, never did turn me in to the truant officer. He seemed to understand that this shy young geek was seeking a new home. The Dead Kennedys (”Hey they said ‘fuck’!!”), Devo, Gang of 4, Butthole Surfers, Wire, The Cramps, the truly fearsome sound of The Birthday Party, The Contortions, X, The Clash, and dozens of others became a sonic gateway to freedom and new vistas. In those halcyon days, punk was a big tent that encompassed all kinds of different sounds. It was even sort of okay to like New Wave. It was only later that the “punker-than-thou” debates would fragment the music. But I suppose that should have been expected — no one wanted to be limited by pre-existing labels, even if they were only a year or two old. Ironically, the battle over self-definition would ultimately become a stylistic straight jacket. But in those days, for a brief shining moment, anything was possible and everything was permitted. And the more fucked up, the better.
At Second Time Around, I also learned the astounding fact that there were bands right there in shit-ass Indianapolis that played punk and this new stuff people were calling “hardcore”. They even had “shows” (never “concerts”! too pretentious!) in places other than bars, so stupid high school kids like me could go. Eventually, with great trepidation, I summoned the courage to go my first show, dragging my friend Joe along with me for support. Since all we knew about punk was filtered through the occasional story in a tabloid or, more rarely, some sensationalistic piece of tripe on a TV news broadcast, we showed up in ridiculously gaudy polyester shirts and wearing even sillier makeup. I had plastered a giant white cross over my face. As the California band Legal Weapon played, Joe invented a dance he called The Kick in which you, well, kicked while you pumped your arms up and down. I’m sure the other 40 or 50 people there laughed their asses off at these bizarre geeks from nowhere — but we didn’t care. That was the whole point, wasn’t it: fuck you, this is me. You think I’m funny? Take a look at yourself, asshole. Meanwhile, I’m gonna have me some fun.
Soon after, thanks again to Tony and his record store, I discovered a raggedy, poorly printed magazine called “Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll” — and my head nearly exploded. Crammed into those pages of cheap newsprint were first-person missives and Q&A interviews from thriving punk “scenes” (they were called scenes, I learned) not just from all over the country but all over the world. My god, there were hundreds even *thousands* of people just like me. I bought every issue and read every single word. I still have a big stack of those precious early issues of “MRR”, as we cogniscenti called it — I still can’t bring myself to throw them out nearly 20 years later.
In no time at all, I was wearing t-shirts with the sleeves ripped off, jeans with tattered holes in the knees. I could only dream of a leather jacket. Sure, I was aping my punk rock heroes — but to me I was also mirroring the shabby state of the world around me. Reaganite America expected everyone to be buttoned-down and tidy, but beneath the extruded sheen were the wretched like me. I intended to be the fly in the ointment, the grim (albeit puckish) reminder of the denied grim reality. Later, I took to wearing a dog collar to school. The other kids thought I was a lunatic and were scared of me (which was refreshing in its own right). Some of the more sophisticated kids thought I was into S&M. But to me the dog collar was simply my badge that said, “We’re all dogs here. The difference between you and me is I *know* it, and have the strength to mock it.”
I had always been the geek, the loner that was mocked and beaten up by my “peers”. I was the kind of quietly abused kid that suffered under the jocks and bullies who think cruelty and abuse is right and proper, and nothing but “harmless” fun. To my eyes, today’s horrific school shootings are the ultimate legacy of the intolerance and greed that took root in society during the early ’80s.
But during the tilling of those fields, punk gave me a way to take that ostracization, turn it around, and rub it in the face of the Normals. It allowed me to transform my injury into a weapon of redemption — without fatalities or suicide. It gave me both a voice and the courage of my own convictions.
I even began to publish my own underground newspaper-slash-fanzine. By doing so, I was intuitively joining what would only later be recognized as a complete revolution in the published word. Countless other zines were appearing everywhere, like weeds in an abandoned toxic dump. Like mine, they were usually laboriously typed by hand (this was long before the Apple computer) and photocopied with hoarded allowance money. They were consummately personal expressions, poorly but earnestly written, and full of the resolute conviction of true pioneers. These zines provided not only a means of being heard, but of connecting with others even if only through tattered pages passed hand to hand. It was far more than vanity — it was a mission to spread the word, to prove that there were some not going quietly into that dark night. These zines taught my entire generation that what we had to say had value, and it didn’t take glossy paper and expensive offset printing to be a publisher. It was the exact same spirit that made the World Wide Web a beautifully chaotic wonderland of freedom a decade later. It should come as no surprise then that so many young punk rockers just like me went on to work in that industry — for our better or worse…
In time, I became friends with other alienated young punks. We were easy to spot in Indianapolis, and the funny hair cuts and band names written in marker on our clothes were a secret code that said “You may not know me, but I’m your friend.” There was no fear in introducing yourself to another punk — on the contrary, in those days it was like a homecoming.
For the first time in my life, I not only had more than two friends at a time but I was part of an entire community that understood and accepted each other for what we were. Imagine: an entire community! These were much more than familiar faces — they were soul brothers and sisters in every possible sense. Some of them became my tribe. We were family to each other at a time in our lives when we felt “family” was merely a cruel illusion that left us hopeless and abandoned. We shared our deepest secrets, helped each other through the darkest days and, sometimes, the attempted suicides. We also celebrated the smallest triumph — sometimes just the fact that we’d lived to see another Tuesday. I learned to laugh; I learned that happiness and acceptance was possible even in the worst of times. I learned that anger could be transformed.
We were co-conspirators in a sacred war against smothering normality. And we were winning. Punk was far more to us than some musical fad. It was a total revolution that redefined *everything*.
For my sixteenth birthday, I mercilessly browbeat my father until he finally relented and bought the shitty plywood guitar I’d seen hanging on the wall of a mall music store. For months I had made regular visits to that store, pretending to browse the shitty records they sold while stealing furtive, nearly erotic glances at the guitar. It was more than an instrument — it was a magic talisman that would cleanse my wretched soul. It cost a whopping $35, the strings laid almost a half inch above the fret board, and it sounded like shit. And I loved it more than life itself. It would be another 5 years until I actually owned my own amp (a gift no less), but by borrowing, begging and sometimes resorting to using the 1/4-inch mic jack that used to be built into those all-in-one turntables I managed to get loud. I couldn’t afford a distortion box, so the only solution was to turn the crappy borrowed 35-watt amp all the way up to 10 and dream of someday owning a Marshall stack just like my hero, Johnny Ramone.
The first songs I taught myself were Ramones songs — “Suzy is a Headbanger” and “Blitzkrieg Bop.” (The third song I learned was “Mongoloid” by Devo.) Before long, I formed my first real band and began to write my own punk songs — songs that often sounded suspiciously like The Ramones’, even if my lyrics tended to be more political in tone. I managed to convince Tom Knapp to join because he actually had a real drum kit. My buddy Joe was also along for the ride on bass. He couldn’t afford to buy a real bass, but had somehow managed to obtain a bass neck. Always the tinkerer (he later joined military intelligence), Joe fashioned a body for it out of a couple 2×4s and built the strange thing to resemble the Steinberger guitar that one of the members of Devo could be seen holding in album photos. It was the pure essence of DIY. Like legions of others across the country and around the world that summer, we set up our shabby gear in my dad’s garage and proceeded to torment the neighbors with a glorious din.
I was born again in that humid August garage. There would be other (much better) bands, I would enjoy a brief season as a punk “star” in Indianapolis, and eventually I would discover other musics that provided a similar sense of strange liberation — like avant-garde jazz and industrial noise. But nothing would ever came close to the shattering revelation of punk rock that summer.
For me, those first awful rehearsals of the Barking Toasters were the starting point of an incredible life-long adventure of creative freedom and expression. They were the first lessons in a graduate degree in living life on my own terms. Without an iota of exaggeration, my life was never the same ever again.
Deep down we knew we sucked, but that wasn’t the point. The point was we could do it and, more importantly, we *were* doing it. And we were doing it ourselves in our own way, no matter what anybody else thought. A decade before Nirvana, there was no *hope* of a record deal, although we dreamt that someday we could pay to press our own 7-inch EP like those that found their way to us from Ohio, Illinois, and even far-distant California. And that just made it better — mainstream society had abandoned us, so we would just do it *all* ourselves. Far from being a failure, this was a liberation that meant we could realize our dreams on our own terms. “Success” had nothing to do with how popular you were, or how many records your band might sell — true success meant being true to yourself no matter what and, most important, find a way — *any* way — to do it yourself. In a popular phrase uttered in countless band interviews of the day, if you reach just one person that was all that truly mattered.
That, more than anything, is what punk rock taught me.
That is what The Ramones taught me.
And so it seems strangely fitting that Joey Ramone — the bug-eyed geek with funny lips who fronted a band that epitomized punk cool and saved rock from itself — should die on Easter, the holiday of the resurrection and ascention, in 2001, the year of Kubrick and Asimov’s mysterious Monolith — the dark device from beyond that triggers humanity’s next step in the evolutionary ladder.
Good-bye, Joey. Thank you. Thank you from the depths of my heart for saving me. Think of us when you’re sneaking a joint in Heaven’s bathroom. And save the roach for me.
4,5,6,7 — all good cretins go to heaven
R.I.P. Joey Ramone
May 19, 1951 - April 15, 2001
Required reading. The impossibly entertaining concert rider for Iggy and The Stooges has been making the rounds since The Smoking Gun posted it last week.
It was apparently written by Jos Grain, who is The Stooges’ drum roadie. My pal Hell’s Donut House informs me that Mike Watt (who’s playing bass with them, ya know) posted to the Chugchanga list about it, saying “I don’t have a bass tech or assistant hair tech or anything - I’m just watt trying to help these guys out and not there to make demands I think jos was just trying to spook some promoter people into getting good amps, I guess.”
“I’m really lucky to be doing this w/the stooges (big time) and am not at all picky,” Mike continued. “the only thing I kind of wish for rider shit is a little really hot chili salsa, like stuff w/habaneros to go w/tortilla chips but it ain’t all that critical.”
Thoughtfully, Mike also provided a link to an HTML copy of the rider at Jos’ site.
Life’s funny sometimes. Just in the last couple weeks I was referring and reminiscing about an old midwestern noise band called Blight (with Tesco Vee among others), and waddaya know but last Tuesday Touch and Go released a retrospective CD featuring their sole EP, a few 4-track demos, and a hefty selection of live recordings. I distinctly recall a cassette as well — with a yellow cover — but I dunno what the heck that was comprised of. Maybe it was their booking demo, or perhaps a cassette version of the EP.
I only saw them once back in the ’80s, and except for my precious Flipper singles they were pretty much my introduction to the more avant garde (if I may use such a hoity-toity word in this context) aspects of the punk underground of the day. (Remember…I was in Indiana at the time.) In them days, we called such stuff “noise music”, though soon came to mean something much more, well, noisy.
But I’m also a little confused because according to the afore-referenced band page at Touch & Go’s web site, Blight existed only for about 4 months during 1982. But I saw them at Cosmo’s (”Punk Rock”) Pizza, and that was definitely after I graduated high school in the fall of ‘84 — indeed, Cosmo’s certainly didn’t even exist in 1982. So did I see a reunion thing? Search me, bub.
Anyways, I’m curious to hear the new CD and see how well it holds up after (fuck!) almost 25 years.
I’ve just finished watching a DVD-R of legendary Indianapolis hardcore band, the Zero Boys, playing their 1984 reunion show at Comos’ Pizza. Man. What a kick-ass band, what a good show, and what a trip down memory lane for me. Many thanks to olde pal Karen O. for sending it to me.
The DVD is released by Rifleman Records (which I do believe is Bill Levin’s latest thing — Bill having been their original manager, among other endeavors), and distributed exclusively through Choke Inc. in Chicago. They can be reached at 1-773-539-5411. I think they have a site at choked.com but what’s there now is only a “coming soon” page, so I can’t be positive. Unfortunately, from what I can tell thus far, there is currently no way to buy the disk online, and not even a postal address on the thing. (How punk rock is that?) But if you live in or are (god help you) passing through Indianapolis, you can apparently buy a copy at Vibes Music.
The December 30, 1984 show was recorded on VHS (hey, it was 1984) with a single hand-held camera and an outboard room mic, which means the audio is actually pretty decent all things considered. (No, it’s not a board recording, which in this case would have totally sucked; that’s engineer-speak for “a mic that’s not built in to the camera”.)
The quality of the digitial transfer is so-so. Sure, this is basically a home-made deal, but still it’s a little disappointing. We’re already dealing with a sub-optimum master: 22-year-old VHS. Due to whatever reason or circumstance, the capture was encoded at a lower quality level than I would have liked. As a result, digital artifacts and “jaggies” are apparent in the blacks, and when the camera (or people) movement is particularly frantic they also become bothersome. It’s certainly still quite watchable, but considering this is the only surviving footage of the band, one would have hoped for a little better.
But the real mega-bummer of the DVD is that the audio cuts out for the first five songs of the several encores, dying in smack the middle of their rendition of The Stooges’ “No Fun.” Evidently the outboard mic came unplugged. Damn drunk punks. If you crank your volume, you can hear the faintest of ghost audio and eventually the full audio kicks back in. Fortunately for me, I still have my analog cassette bootleg of the show, including the tracks inaudible on the DVD, so I can, well, punk rock it by playing the cassette along with the DVD.
(For anyone out there who might be wondering, the missing songs are: “No Fun”, “Livin’ in the ’80s”, “Slam and Worm”, “Down the Drain”, and “New Generation”.)
The paper insert that comes with the DVD gets almost every fact wrong, which is both hilarious and sad. It’s 1984 and “The Zero Boys have just returned from touring [to support the] VICIOUS CIRCLE album.” Wrong: that tour had happened a full two years prior. “They just finish[ed] writing [the] HISTORY OF… [cassette].” Wrong: History of… was a posthumous compilation of previously recorded songs, though a couple-few had not been released before. Nothing new was written or recorded for that release. “This was their HOMECOMING SHOW.” Wow, totally wrong: they broke up in 1982; this was their first reunion as a band, two years later. It was a kind of homecoming, I suppose, but it had nothing to do with any tour. I just hope the errors were a honest result of the fogging effect of time, and not some lame marketing ploy to avoid the term “reunion show” or something.
All of that said, I give this release a Shecky rating of 4 Bottles of Ricky’s Wild Irish Rose. (That means it’s good.) The band are in top form, totally tight, and furthermore this is the only surviving footage of the original line up.
It’s also an even rarer artifact in that it documents the scene that lasted less than a year at a place called Cosmo’s Pizza, on the northwest side of Indianapolis. The owner was some NY transplant jag-off named Jeff (I forget his last name). I do believe Cosmo’s may have introduced Buffalo chicken wings to the Circle Shitty. Now, 99.9 percent of the employees (including me) were punks — probably mostly because we could be had (and abused) for real cheap. Cosmo’s was probably the only place in all of Indiana with more than two employees that would let you wear torn punk t-shirts and spiked wristbands and sport a mohawk on the job. Even the delivery guys (like me) were allowed to wear our punk rock on our metaphoric sleeves. (No self-respecting punk actually had sleeves, but you know what I mean.)
One of those employees was “Starvin’” Marvin Goldstein, and thanks to him Cosmo’s began to host punk shows on the weekends. In mid-’80s Indiana, this was no small thing. Whole years could go by with no steady venue for punk shows. House parties were regularly busted and shut down by the cops. A venue (such as the Indianapolis Arts Academy) might crop up and have shows for a few months, and then vanish. Being over 21 was no solution — convincing the bars to book any band that didn’t play covers, let alone punk or hardcore, was like taking the mountain to Mohammed one spoonful at a time.
Almost everyone working at Cosmo’s was a member of a band or involved in the Indy scene somehow: I was in Tha Paranoidz, Rapper was in The Primates and had been in The Slammies, Bam Bam was the drummer for Dandelion Abortion, Marvin was a promoter from the early days, and I know there were others (sorry y’all, my memory fails me after all this time).
As a result, for a little less than a year Cosmo’s “Punk Rock” Pizza was the Hoosier Mecca for punk shows. The Zero Boys reunion show documented on this DVD was, without question, the crowning moment of the time. (Ultimately, the original Cosmo’s ran into all sorts of trouble. One day I showed up for work only to discover the place had been padlocked by the IRS. It later re-opened, and had a few more troubles along the way. In the end Rapper bought the business and re-opened it, even managing to open a couple branch stores after a while. The punk shows, however, were long gone.)
The Zero Boys were and remain the punk band from Indiana. (Personally, I still think they were also one of the very best original hardcore bands, period. I may be biased, but no less than Jack Rabid hisself puts them on the same level as Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, and even the mighty Dead Kennedys.) The original members first met in 1979, forming the band in the summer of 1980. In September 1980, they released the so-so Livin’ in the Eighties 7-inch EP. A single cut, an early version of “New Generation,” appeared on the 1981 Gulcher Records compilation, Red Snerts.
Original bassist John Mitchel was replaced by Tufty “My English Accent is Totally Fake” Clough in June, 1981. That August, in a single four-hour session recorded live in the studio followed by a single mixing session, they completed the seminal Vicious Circle LP, which was ultimately released in early 1982. (Fyi, Vicious Circle has just been reissued on limited-edition vinyl. You can also purchase MP3s of the album at eMusic.com.) The difference between Livin’ in the Eighties and Vicious Circle is astonishing. While the EP is lo-fi and, frankly, rather plodding, Vicious Circle is well-produced, manic, ultra-tight and head-and-shoulders above most of the hardcore releases that proliferated at the time.
Around that time (1982), lead singer Paul Mahern formed Affirmation Records and released a great and locally-influential compilation of midwestern punk bands, The Master Tape, which featured three Zero Boys classics.
In the midst of all this, the Zero Boys did two tours to support Vicious Circle. A brief east coast tour included dates in Boston and NYC. A later west coast tour that same year — described by Paul in a contemporaneous interview published in Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll as “a total unorganized fiasco” — led to the break up of the band. Despite their undead status, in 1983 additional tracks appeared on the double-LP compilation The Master Tape, Vol. II (scroll down for full track listings) and, according to the previously cited interview, there were plans for a second LP to be titled Payback is Hell. Nothing ever came of that LP (though reportedly some recording was done). 1984 saw the final Zero Boys release, the History Of… cassette — a compilation of previously released and a few unreleased recordings made by the band when they were still together.
Following the 1982 west coast tour, bassist Tufty Clough joined Toxic Reasons, which then went on to greater punk rock glory and numerous vinyl releases. Lead singer Paul Mahern went on to form the garage-psychedelia influenced Dandelion Abortion (releasing a cassette and an EP) and then, in the late ’80s, The Datura Seeds (which released an EP, an LP, and I think a single or two). Ultimately, Paul pretty much stopped playing live (except for the occasional Zero Boys reunion and possibly other side projects I’m unaware of, having left Indiana in 1984), moved to Bloomington, IN, and devoted his attention to being a recording engineer and raising his son, Paisley. He has since resurrected the old Affirmation Records label, motivated in large part by the musical efforts of his nephew and his band, John Wilkes Booze. Guitarist Terry Howe went on to join Toxic Reasons circa 1986. Eventually (in no particular order) he married, relocated to Florida, and became the father of twin sons. Sadly, he died of a heroin overdose in 2001. A very tragic loss. Drummer Mark Custinger has remained active in the Indianpolis music scene lo these many years, participating in more bands than my Google fingers can keep up with. From what I can tell, though, he is widely — and quite correctly — regarded as one of the best drummers around.
Around 1988 or so, Terry Howe was replaced by (talented) young pup, Vess Ruhtenberg — who was still in junior high when Vicious Circle first came out. Over the years this new line up has played the occasional rare reunion show, and even recorded two albums of new material (which I confess I’ve never heard): Make It Stop (Bitzcore [Germany], 1991) and The Heimlich Maneuver (Skyclad, 1993). Fwiw, Jack Rabid describes these records as being “more metallic-shaded.”
In 1991, Selfless Records released a limited edition bubblegum-colored split 7-inch EP with Toxic Reasons on one side (”No Pity” and “White Noise”) and the new-line-up Zero Boys on the other (with new versions of “Black Network News” and “Blood’s Good”).
I just visited the 7inchpunk site I was astonished to see that back in Nov. 2004 a copy of the first Zero Boys EP, Livin’ in the ’80s, eBayed for a whopping $538!!!
In their posting of tracks from the record, the 7inchpunk guys called it “worth its weight in gold,” and they ain’t kidding. I just checked and as of Jan. 27, 2006, gold was going for $558.50 an ounce.
Guess I better put my copy in a safety deposit box.
Volume two of the Congotronics series is out from Crammed: Congotronics 2: Buzz ‘n’ Rumble from the Urb ‘n’ Jungle is a compilation featuring several groups. If you still haven’t heard/purchased the first volume, Konono no. 1, for the love of God get off your ass right now and make haste with the debit card already. Seriously.
Also, due to be officially released in the next few days is something I definitely did not see coming: a 2-DVD set entitled The Tomorrow Show: Punk & New Wave. I still miss Tom Snyder, but I didn’t know he had on his show early luminaries of punk. (The latest segment on the discs dates from 1981, so that could be why — I was just entering high school at the time and mom wouldn’t let me stay up late.) The discs include interviews and live performances by Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, John Lydon, The Ramones, The Jam, Elvis Costello and The Attractions, The Plasmatics (remember them?), and even a round table discussion ca. 1977 (!) on the emergence of punk that includes Bill Graham and a very-pre-MTV Joan Jett (ca. The Runaways).
Finally, the WFMU blog features Part 5 of Adventures in the Nurse With Wound List the (thankfully) ongoing series providing MP3s and background information viz. groups listed on an insert included with an early Nurse With Wound release. (Read the posts to learn more.) Astute readers (if there are any) will have noticed I recently mentioned this series of posts as “utterly essential.”
Oh, PS — I learned from the December issue of The Wire that the complete back catalog of This Heat is due to be released ca. mid February by RéR Megacorp. The CDs — including a disc of previously unreleased material remastered by the surviving members — will be available individually, but the box set edition will include what the label calls “a fat book.” If you pony up the 45 British pounds for the “subscription offer,” you get the full meal deal plus “an extra subscription item.”
Man, I’ve been reliving my mid-’80s punk-hippy-waver youth lately thanks to MP3 blogs like these. Being a card-carrying Collector Scum(tm) from way back, it still ain’t near as cool as owning the genuine articles, but at least I get to finally hear the stuff I couldn’t afford or find 20 years ago. (Twenty years?!? Sob!) Make a point of checking everybody’s blogrolls and, even more important, click some Google ads fer cryin’ out loud so’s to help pay for all the bandwidth.
Strange Reaction — all manner of punk rock goodies. It’s the Motts.
7inch Punk - more punk rock, all from 7-inch records. Y’all should work on your file naming, though. Really kindofa pain having to rename everything to something sensible.
Lost Bands of the New Wave Era - variable quality (like all New Wave), but worth visiting.
Crud Crud - an excellent site spanning various genres, but just in the last day or so the poor guy’s (now-previous) hosting provider went kaput with no warning and everything got nuked. Fuckers. Bear with him while he rebuilds.
The WFMU blog is always worth visiting. You never know what amazing treasures you’ll find there, just asking to be downloaded.
Back on Dec. 22, Station Manager Ken posted The Year in MP3s, an extensive listing of posts during 2005 that featured MP3s. You really must find a fat datapipe and spend some time there.
Highlights include but are not limited to: the absolutely must-have Van Morrison’s Contractual Obligation Record, Recordings of Champion Livestock Auctioneers, MP3s of Ice Cream Truck Music, Culture Shock MP3s from Doug, the utterly essential Adventures in the Nurse With Wound List: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4, the borderline-sadistic 21 Variations on “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Haa!”, and The Incorrect Music Companion 2001 (for a good time play Kathy Fire’s ernest “Mother Rage” back to back [as it were] with Wayne’s truly heartfelt “Deep Busom Woman”).
Conspicuously absent from the post (perhaps because it points off-site) is what is perhaps one of the greatest discoveries of the year: an archive of all the Beatles fan club Christmas flexi-discs, complete with repros of the covers! The last two were encoded at unforgiveably low sample rates, but grab ‘em all anyway. My personal favorites are the 1966 and 1967 editions — I think it’s wonderful the Fab 4 were able to overcome their copious drug use during those years to produce such gems. Ahem. …The only thing troubling me is, if these are really all of the Beatles’ xmas records, then what the heck is the MP3 of a mostly-Lennon xmas recording I grabbed a few years back from who knows where, complete with no-further-information? Hmmm…
While you’re there, what with your fat datapipe and all, you should definitely avail yourself of this 1970 TV footage of The Stooges live in Cincinnati. (All 51MB of it.)
And if you’re a real MP3 glutton, make your way to WFMU’s On The Download. I’d respectfully suggest starting with the Black Lodge Singers and the acapella choral rendition of Devo’s “Mongoloid” by Popchor Berlin.
