Selections from The Punk Vault [Beaver]

Beaver - 7" EP (1981 Choice Cuts)

Many years ago, my immense love for Government Issue would lead me to discover a little known 7" that featured Tom Lyle in his pre-GI punk days. I didn't know a thing about the band. They on the Bouncing Babies compilation, but I didn't even notice it until after I took possession of a copy of this record. I'll admit to owning that compilation since I was a kid in high school, yet not playing it much (as an aside, does anyone know what band it is that is the unlisted final track on the record?).

Beaver started out as a solo project of Tom Lyle's. Then it became a real band, albeit short lived. Here's a brief story Tom shared with me.

I was in a DC progressive/new waver band, but became VERY bored with the whole scene. After seeing the Dead Kennedys in April 81 at the 9:30, and then the Government Issue/Youth Brigade/Minor Threat show in June 81 at the 9:30 I started making home demo tapes of me playing all the instruments in the most hardcore style I could come up with. I wanted to get a band together to play out live and used they rhythm section from Square One, the awful band I was in at the time. Then we got asked to record a record for Choice Cuts.

Choice Cuts was a record store in DC back then that started a label and I'm pretty sure this was the only thing they released.

It wasn't long before Beaver disbanded and Tom Lyle joined Government Issue. GI is a story for another day of course. I do not know what became of the other two guys.

As always if you have any additional information or were one of the other members of Beaver please get in touch.

Click here to hear "Trendy" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

Seeking band members

I am looking for anyone that can put me in touch with anyone who was in the following bands...

Corpsicles, No Thanks, Misguided, Armed Citizens, Token Entry, Salvation Army, Meaty Buys, Catatonics, False Prophets, Kids For Cash, The Next.

Aside from those, I'm always looking to get stories direct from the source so if anyone reading this was in an old punk or hardcore band from the 70s and 80s, please get in touch.

Selections from The Punk Vault [White Pigs]

This one is a unique entry as it is featuring two records by the same band, which covers different eras of the band's existence.

Stop me if you've heard this before. It all started with a compilation....

While not an overly original way to start one of these features, it is a testament to just how important compilations were back then. For awhile I'd discover more bands through compilations than I would through fanzines and simple word of mouth. Of course these days the compilation is all but useless. This particular compilations was called Let's Die and it was one of the many Mystic Records comps. It was here that I discovered the White Pigs. I liked the song so much that I'd seek out their other recordings, which at the time was a pair of 7"s and a demo tape (which I still have).

I contacted Keith Grave, founding member and bass player for the White Pigs story and he chimed in with some info regarding these particular releases. He also penned the White Pigs history on the Kill From The Heart website, which I lifted part of for this band history.

The White Pigs formed in CT in 1980 out of the ashes of Zak and the Soda Boys. Lead singer Dave Death came up with the name as a goof on a neighborhood dog that used to shit all over the place. That line up did one Shamrock Pub show, then because of inner band problems disbanded.

In 1982 singer Brian Ripthroat and original founding member bassist Keith Grave agreed to reform the band, but it took until the summer of 1983 to locate drummer George Butterrick (formerly of the Separates) and guitarist Chuck Duncan, to get the band rolling again.
They then released their self-titled 7" EP on Switch Kwilson Productions.

They released a second 7" in 1984 called Evil Stalks the Innocent on their Songs Of Sin label. It was recorded live and they came on red vinyl. At the end of that year is when they appeared on the aforementioned compilation and had recorded the demo tape.

That leads us to their final release as a band, an EP on Combat Records that featured a different lineup than on the earlier works. After this came out, the band called it quits. It would be a few years before the posthumous 7" on Mystic Records and the LP on Walkthrufyre would be released.

Keith had the following to say about these particular records chosen for this entry.

White Pigs - Combat Boot Camp 12" EP (1987 Combat Records)

The poor bastards, I get them a full Metal Blade LP. deal, which included an appearance also on an upcoming Metal Massacre compilation LP. What do they do? They go with the bootcamp series that only offered them a 12" EP. release. On top of that, the jacket is all camouflaged that didn't even print the members names or contact addresses etc.

I was booted out of my own band by then because of personal differences, mostly with guitarist Steve Bertrand, so I had no say on which deal to go with. My replacement on bass, Dave Flannery, couldn't play my bass lines on most of the recordings that made up the 1987 bootcamp release, so Steve played both guitar and bass on this record.

The remake of "Deathway" is lifeless and sterile. The Munsters Theme remake is slightly better then the original demo recording I played on, but boy that no fills allowed bass playing on the record grades on my nerves. Some new tunes were added in "Body Parts", "Unholy Trinity" that sucked and a studio version of "Blood Sucking Freaks" that was good, but for my money, buy 1990's Songs of Sin on Walkthrufyre Records. It has the full 1985 demo plus a few cuts from the Combat EP.

In their full bootcamp reissue, Century Media Records ,that owns the Combat catalog now, failed to include the White Pigs bootcamp EP with this reissued box set. Singer Brian Ripthroat told me years later he almost cried when he saw the finished release of the bootcamp record, it was so cheaply packaged and cheesy looking.

Click here to hear "Deathway from the record (right click and "save target as...")

White Pigs - Hit Bonanza 7" (1989 Mystic Records)

Doug Moody by now was running out of money and on the run. I used to call him to inquire on when this record was coming out and he used to disguise his voice as his mother and say "Doug isn't in" but the bastard took pity on me and actually sent me the 100 copy payoff he promised me of this record.

In a nut shell Mystic went through Bill Smith pressing plant, first mistake, colored vinyl copies sounded horrible. Mistake number two, Doug strays from the original master I sent him and deletes some unreleased songs that are listed on the cover of the record. Nice packaging though, I like this record the best out of all the White Pigs releases.

This single came on both blue and purple vinyls. I believe there was 500 of each color.

Click here to hear "A.P.O.W." from the record (right click and "save target as...)

As always, if you have any information you'd like to share or were one of the other members of White Pigs, please get in touch.

Anyone want some Gmail?

I still have some Gmail invites to give away. If you want one, post a comment here.

Nardcore, such a warm place

In my never ending effort to contact people from punk bands of the past, I figure it was due time to start to prepare some entries for some of the Nardcore bands, such as Dr. Know and Ill Repute. So I went on the nardcore website, which is where these old timers gather. I found their message board and after being assaulted by popup ads, I posted to it asking for members of Dr. Know and Ill Repute to please get in touch as I'd like to do some features on them for this site.

The first person to respond was some kid who I assume has never felt the touch of a woman and was sitting at his computer with a bottle of lotion and his pants around his ankles. He instanty posted to "watch out for this guy, he works for Doug Moody". Then someone else tried to defend me, and then Brandon Cruz chimed in asking who the hell I was.

Completely annoyed, I responded to the message and layed out the facts. I do indeed do some work for Doug which is no secret, I do not have anything to do with whatever problem they have with him, I was not in the room, the town or the state when they signed whatever contracts they sign, and where I earn some side money has no bearing on this whatsover. I also assured them I was not working on a Mystic project regarding them and my interest was soley related to the Selections from The Punk Vault series.

The same annonymous guy challenged me to come to the 805, which I assume is some sort of club in Oxnard, if I was brave and get the story in person, which I would do, if it wasn't a couple thousand miles away. Then Brandon Cruz chimed in how he won't tell another journalist the stories about his beef with Mystic ever again, how he's a media whore and its all well documented and how I was smug but if I was looking for memories that would be ok or something to that effect.

Throughout the years I have read plenty of stories by bands about how they got ripped off by Mystic. Now they could be true, or they could not be, I don't know. There is two sides to every story and I'm not passing judgment on either side. What I do know is all I remember ever reading was the vague "he ripped us off" with no detail given to what they signed, what they received, etc. It would be nice to hear a detailed account of how they remember things going down. I have also heard a few stories about how the band was told up front they were not getting a royalty, and that they would be provided with copies of the records as payment and were given as much, if not more than they were promised. So the story is different depending on who you ask and 20+ year old booze and drug damaged memories sometimes can get fuzzy and lost as time continues to pass by.

What would be nicer still, is if they don't judge someone based soley on who they do some side work for, and that they share some of their band memories for the readers here to enjoy. Whether that will happen now or not remains to be seen.

If one were to follow this flawed logic of not associating with anyone who has ties to Mystic, then they by right should be against any record store who sells their records as well as these bands' non-Mystic Records, any distributor who sells both their Mystic and non-Mystic releases, and any fan who bought those records, because in some way, they all have a tie.

Seems pretty silly if you ask me.

Fuck You Paypal

In an effort to further fist you up the backside in fees like its parent company, ebay, apparently paypal has instituted some sort of receiving limit per month on personal accounts. I am sure this was done to force people to upgrade to the type of account that they get to fuck you on in transaction fees as the personal account is free. When did this start?

If their fees weren't so outrageous, I'd just upgrade, but ebay gets to double penetrate you between their multiple fees in the auctions plus the fees paypal takes for their "premier" accounts. If they did the right thing and only charged you for recieving a credit card payment that would be one thing, but the greedy whores will pimp you on someone sending money from existing funds in their paypal account or from a bank transfer.

Young and the Useless update

A kind reader named Lisa sent me this additional info regarding Young and the Useless.

Adam Trese is an actor. He is currently on Broadway as Juror #12 in "Twelve Angry Men".

He has also been on Law & Order (3 times) NYPD Blue, and "Murder She Wrote". He played the coach of a college gymnastics team in the very short lived series "Push".

He has been in several films (most of them independent films). He played Josh Hartnett's priest brother in "40 Days and 40 Nights". His latest film was 2004s "2BPerfectlyHonest".

He is also an Associate Real Estate Broker for Halstead in NY.

http://www.halstead.com/agent.aspx?id=AST

From what I've heard he is really good at it. But, I think it's like an in-between acting gigs thing.

Thanks Lisa for the info and the pix!

Snow induced hibernation weekend

Well, as everyone probably knows, the bitch known as mother nature layed the smackdown on us by dumping a foot of snow on us again. I drove home from work while it was in its early stages, so only the last half of the drive was crappy. I did not leave the house from then until sunday afternoon when I went to get groceries and eat breakfast with some of the klowns.

During this snow-imposed shut in, I watched a bunch of movies, took care of crap around the house, and did a hell of a lot of snow shovelling (three times to be exact). I finally got to watch Return of the King Extended Edition and holy shit was it good. For a 4-hour movie, it seems to go by rather quickly. I liked it even more than the theatrical version, which I loved. I had hoped to take on the supergeek task of watching the whole trilogy extended editions back to back, but I don't have that much free time these days to devote a 12 hour block to that. It is still a dorky goal I have for later in the year.

Other movies viewed were Confidential (Lady Combustions movie and choice) which was a very entertaining movie about a group of cons pulling a big scam. She got the movie from the $5.50 bin at Wal Mart and I'll say it was a great deal, well worth the money and time. Dark City was another and it was ok, but I found it to drag on a bit and had a much cooler look than actual story. Lady C's other pick was Feeling Minnesota, which I saw most of on cable late at nite many years ago. Not a bad movie either and another good score from her perusing the bargain bin at Wal Mart. This movie featuring a younger, more bloated Courtney Hole having a small part as a waitress.

It was a nice relaxing weekend despite the damn snow shovelling, and again it went by way too fast. Man how I wish weekends were always 3 days long. I can't wait until this project is done at work and I can take some time off.

Selections from The Punk Vault [Sin 34]

Sin 34 - Die Laughing 7" (1982 Spinhead Records)

You'll never guess where my first exposure to Sin 34 came from? If you guessed a compilation, you'd be correct. They were one of the bands on what I feel to be one of the greatest hardcore compilations of all time, We Got Power: Party Or Go Home released on Mystic Records. This featured 40 bands on it and it was an all star lineup of early hardcore. Sin 34 stood out as the only band on that comp to have female vocals. At the time I thought it was alright, but over time I'd grow to appreciate female fronted punk rock a lot more and go back and get what I was missing.

I contacted Dave Markey of We Got Power Films, and drummer of Sin 34 and asked him if he could give me a little band history. I have never spoken to Dave before, so I was just hoping that he'd write back and give me even just a few sentences. What he sent follows, and was far above what I could have hoped for. Thanks to him for taking the time to do it and send it over.

The Sin 34 Story
I had the name Sin 34 for a punk rock band in my head at age 15 in 1979. I even created a logo for it centered around a crucifix with S on the left side of the top center of the cross, the center being the "I" and N on the right, same with the 3 and 4 on the bottom of cross. It sounded real cryptic, but in actuality it was just a UHF television station based in Los Angeles (Spanish International Network -channel- 34) . In addition to making up fake punk rock bands (some of the names were hilarious), I would also make up fake punk-rock clubs just to entertain myself. Long before I ever ventured out into the actual punk scene in Hollywood, or beyond, I had an alternate universe in my mind of what "the punk scene" actually was. In some ways it was more interesting than the reality of the scene at the time. It would be a couple years before I would finally decide I was going to be a drummer at the age of 17, as a senior at (Santa Monica) High School, and make "Sin 34" a REAL band.

I had met Julie Lanfeld at a Middle Class show at the Starwood that year (in 1981), and she promised she would steal a drum kit from a neighbors garage. It was a kick drum with a tom-tom, probably hadn't been used since the 60's. I didn't have any hardware so I used a metal lamp shade as a cymbal, and I bought a floor tom from a friend. I used to kick the kick drum (literally) WITH MY FOOT!

Julie and I bonded over our love of Devo and Black Flag. There were a only a handful of punks at my high school, and even less at her school (Beverly Hills High). But she managed to talk 11th grader and bassist Phil Newman into joining our band. They were both somewhat uptight about being known as Bevery Hills Punks, so I recall when asked where we were from (not unlike a gang, right?) it was always "Santa Monica".

I remember, without a snare drum at first, I relied on very tribal-like beats to keep time. My drums sounded more like (early) Adam and the Ants or Bow Wow Wow than alot of the punk we were into and surrounded by. That soon fell by the wayside, as Julie turned me onto her friends band,

The Necros (she was selling their first EP herself, for the band to the two or three local record shops that would carry them at the time.) Soon after, we got the first Minor Threat EP from Ian himself (who was selling them at Oki-Dogs one night.) Sin 34's material quickly evolved into pretty-much straight ahead hardcore at that point. Julie's singing was very aggro, and not at all what you would have expected from a 16 year old Beverly Hills High School 10th grader. The envirornment in So Cal at the time was decidedly very anti-punk rock. You would constantly being yelled at from passing cars, just because you had short (or colored) hair, and Salvation

Army (thrift store) clothing. The jocks and surfers at school gave us a ton of shit, but this just fueled us. It's hard to imagine that now, I know. I often try and imagine now how the geeks and misfits in the high school social structure nowadays find ways to rebel now that "punk rock" is normal and accepted. We rehearsed in Julie's basement in the spring of that year as a three piece sans guitar, and came up with a set of four or five songs. The early material sounded like a scraggily version of Sousxie and the Banshees meets local LA band Mad Society.

At a Black Flag show at the Santa Monica civic in June of '81, the day I graduated high school, we met some skater punks from Palm Springs. One being Mike Bates and Shawn (now of the current band Throw Rag). They were throwing a party and invited us to come and play. We jumped on the gig excitedly, but one small problem. We had no guitar player. So on our way to the party we picked up our friend Mike Vallejo of the band Circle One, and taught him the songs in the car on the way to the party.

Mike Vallejo played a few more shows with us, but he was committed to Circle One. We went through a couple other guitarists before meeting Mike "Geek" Glass, a fellow Santa Monica high schooler who was a surfer, who was just discovering punk rock, tho he was much more into Led Zeppelin at the time. He was learning guitar, but he clicked with Phil, Julie and I, who were more-or-less in the same boat. We didn't waste time in writing songs and aggressively getting as many gigs as possible. It wasn't long before we were playing shows with many of the area's "big" bands like Social Distortion, TSOL, CH3, Circle Jerks, Fear, and even the Dead Kennedys had us play with them just on the strength of our first couple demos. The first demo was an extremely lo-fi 4 track, which a few songs would soon appear on the Charred Remains and Meathouse compilations.

By spring of 1982 we recorded our debut EP Die Laughing at an 8 track studio in the Hollywood Blvd. at Western building (as in Cheifs 'Hollywest Crisis'). Phil had put up the (meager) funds to record it, and press 1500 7" EP's (which sold quickly and effortlessly, I recall). We also recorded for a couple other local compilations done by various friends in bands (like Gary Kail from Anti & Mood Of Defiance New Underground Label) and the Life Is... ( So Ugly, So Boring, So Beautiful) series.

The band continued to play many shows locally, and even made a couple trips north (San Francisco, to play with Frightwig and Flipper), Fresno (to play with the Faction and DRI) and South-east (Phoenix, to play with JFA and Red Cross). This was the extent of touring this band would ever do. We were much too young and green to take it any further.

In early 1983 we began work on our first (and only) LP Do You Feel Safe. Recorded at the 16 track Mystic Studios (before they would start releasing hardcore records.) They offered to put our LP out, but Phil had wanted to do it on Spinhead, since the experience with the EP went so well. He did do all the work for the label, and he did a great job. 3000 copies were sold, and the band enjoyed a bit of local radio airplay. We continued to play alot of shows throughout the year, and the into next. We had built up a great momentum locally, and we began headline shows at The Vex and The Cathey De Grande.

But 1984 would prove to be a dark year for the band. The scene around us was changing, and so were we. Internal pressures soon dissolved Sin 34 sometime in mid 1984, just as the band was poised for bigger things. We all felt it, and I think that's what did us in. I remember feeling really let down after all the hard work we did as a band. Like being in love for the first time, and having your heart broken, it was a painful - yet learning experience. Phil and I managed to keep playing together and we formed Painted Willie even before the final "official" break-up of the band.

By the end of 1985 Painted Willie was signed to SST records and hitting the road with my all-time heroes Black Flag for what turned out to be their final 6 month US tour. As a footnote, Painted Willie's Spinhead and SST releases have remained out of print since the late 80's.

In 1995 Grand Theft Audio released a Sin 34 CD entitled "Die Listening" which contained all the early demos, compilation tracks, and live recordings from the Olympic Auditorium in Downtown LA. This is the only recording which remains in print unfortunately. Phil withdrew from music and was stringent about never re-releasing the Sin 34 EP and LP. Last I heard he was running a sound-stage studio (where they shot the Jack Rabbit Slims scene in Quintin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction). He has since viewed the band as an embarrassment, I think. I never did. I will always have good memories of that period. It was a whole lot of fun for me, and set up the rest of my life in a profound way.

Once in a while I will be asked about the band. Most people want to know what happened to Julie. I always reply with "I have no idea." I do have some info on her, I did see her briefly upon the release of Die Listening in '95 (now ten years ago). And I know she had just had a kid. I heard she had a couple more, and is a housewife somewhere in the wilds of the San Fernando valley. The only member I've kept in contact with all these years is Mike "Geek" Glass. Or as he likes to be refereed to these days, Michael F. Glass. He is a gifted graphic artist, and I've hired him when I can on various projects I've worked on. Recently, he has done the design for my Desperate Teenage Lovedolls and Lovedolls Superstar Fully Realized DVDs.

For more info on what I've been up to, check www.wegotpowerfilms.com

There were two different inserts for this EP. Some had typed lyrics and some had handwritten ones. The Sin 34 CD mentioned can still be purchased from Grand Theft Audio (mailorder through Bomp Records), and the Party Or Go Home compilation has been re-released on the Superseven Presents: Sixty Bands CD on Mystic Records. There is also some footage of them in Dave's film, The Slog Movie, which you can buy here. It is a great old punk documentary that is a great history lesson for those curious about the past, or a great reminder of the old days for us old punks.

Thanks Dave for the great info, I really appreciate it and I know the people reading this will as well.

Click here to hear "American America" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

Dave also sent along a picture of the band...

Here's pictures of the two different insert variations for the 7"

Pelican and Seven Days of Samsara

I just got back a little while ago from seeing Pelican play a show at Bottom Lounge. I went after work and missed the first band and most of the second. The second band was called Envy and they played some emo-ish stuff that wasn't bad, but seemed a bit on the boring side. Long drawn out instrumental parts, then the singer would scream.

Seven Days of Samsura were supposed to play first but were late coming to the show because of the snow. I was glad I got to see them play, they are pretty intense modern hardcore with some metal riffs and tempo changes. I'd definitely go see them again.

Pelican took the stage and played a set that consisted of entirely new material. The stuff was different sounding from their records but still fit that mold. Basically they are getting a little more experimental and a little more atmospheric. I liked every one of the songs they played and it left me looking forward to a new record someday. They really are a unique band and I don't see myself getting tired of them anytime soon. I think this was my 6th time seeing them, I've lost count at this point. They are from Chicago, so they play out a lot.

Unfortunately, like a dumbass I forgot to bring my camera with me when I left for work today so I was unable to take any pictures. The camera on my cell phone is completely useless in low light. If it is any consolation, the guys in Pelican look the same as they do in the pictures I took at previous shows that you can find by using the search function on the right.

And thanks YoungDave for the guestlist action!

Selections from The Punk Vault [Underground Hits 2]

Various Artists - Underground Hits 2 LP (1983 Aggressive Rock Produktionen)
Since so many of my stories start with how I discovered a band through compilations, I figure I should probably start featuring some.

In the early to mid 1980s, hardcore punk was on the rise and in some cases the records were selling in the thousands, especially the LPs. There was a whole slew of independent record distributors stocking this new exciting music and the records were finding their way into more and more stores. These distributors would all eventually fold and owing most labels tons of money but that is another story.

During this time, a German label called Aggressive Rock Produktionen had the idea to start licensing some US hardcore records for release overseas in their home country in an effort to have the records available locally, and not as pricey imports. They had great taste in hardcore and released some of the best records from The Necros, Meatmen, Misfits, Husker Du, Black Flag and more. Many of their releases ended up getting imported back into the states and found their way to record shops, especially The Misfits Evilive 12" which was originally released domestically at a 7" but would be out of print and unavailable until the German 12" came out on this label.

The label also did a pair of compilations called Underground Hits. Volume One had a pretty equal mix of US and German bands while this one, Volume Two, featured mostly US bands. What was unique about this one was that some of the tracks on here were exclusive to this comp and would be that way for years. These days most of them have finally been reissued on CD or vinyl, but the one Youth Brigade track that I picked for this entry for some reason was left off their Out of Print CD collection of rare tracks, and its a crime if you ask me as its one of their best songs.

While the cover art was kind of cheesy and looked like a metal record, this ranks quite high on my list of great compilations. Incidentally, it was this comp that turned me on to The Meatmen and The FU's. As for the label, they folded sometime in the late 80s/early 90s.

As always if you have any additional information, or were the owner of the label, please get in touch.

Click here to hear "Full Force" by Youth Brigade from the record (right click and "save target as...")

Selections from The Punk Vault [The Bags]

The Bags - Survive 7" (1978 Dangerhouse Records)

When I was a young teenage punk, I had a bias against bands with female vocals. I am not sure why I did, but the fact was that I did. The only band I really liked back then with a female singer was The Avengers. My like for that band would lead me to a purchase that would start the ball rolling in changing my opinion on female-led punk rock.

I was at a record convention way back when I was a young angry teen fresh out of high school when a fellow there would approach me and tell me he had some Dangerhouse Records to sell. He had a few unplayed copies of both The Avengers and The Bags 7" and he was selling them only as a set, and for what at the time seemed like a very fair price (which by todays standards would seem like the steal of a century). Really wanting The Avengers 7" and also wanting to advance my goal of having every Dangerhouse record, I forked over the cash to the gentleman and got my records.

Upon playing that Bags single it was like a light went on in my head. The thing kicked a whole lot of ass, and I liked it a lot more than the "Alice Bag Band" songs on The Decline of Western Civilization soundtrack that I had and practically worn out back then. Unfortunately, the only recorded output of The Bags was limited to this single and one song on the Yes LA compilation.

Having not been there at the time, and not having much in the way of a written history to go off of, I went straight to the source and emailed Alice Bag to tell her of my intentions of featuring this record as a Vault Selection and asked if she'd like to contribute a band history. She promptly responded and not only gave her blessing for posting the track, but sent this band history as well...

Originally, The Bags was supposed to be an all-girl band. Patricia and I started it and tried to find other female musicians to play with us, but that's not how it ended up. The whole idea for The Bags started out as a joke. We were going to play with paper bags on our heads and never reveal our identities, but at our first show (at the Masque) Bobby Pyn, (Darby Crash), ripped my bag off and ruined my plan. The first lineup had Janet Koontz on guitar, Pat Bag on bass, Alice Bag on vocals, Joe Nanini on drums and Geza X on guitar. Other musicians after that included Mark Moreland, Nicky Beat, Don Bolles, DJ Bonebrake, Ricky Stix, Johnny Guitar...I could be forgetting some others. The Bags and The Germs, respectively, had reputations for the most anarchic live shows of the early Hollywood bands and I suppose we had a harder edge than most. We were pretty aggressive on stage as well and were banned from our share of clubs (like the Germs).

Eventually, the musicians solidified as the lineup that recorded the Dangerhouse sessions: Alice, Pat, Craig Lee on guitar, Rob Ritter on lead guitar and Terry Graham on drums. Once the line up was set the band really tightened up and was able to move forward. It was at that point that Dangerhouse asked us to do a record. We had to record in the middle of the night to get cheap studio time. Geza X (who was no longer in the band) produced the single, 'Survive' and 'Babylonian Gorgon', and there were four songs recorded at that same session. Geza played a dirty trick on me. He asked me to lay down a practice take and then insisted that we keep that first take. Of course, it made it very difficult to double track my vocals because I hadn't planned on singing the songs the same way twice. If you listen carefully, you can hear some parts where my tracks didn't exactly match.

The Bags played up the West Coast as far north as Seattle and south to San Diego, but no further. By the late 1970's we had started to pull in different directions musically and the band had a messy, ugly parting of the ways with Pat, who subsequently claimed to own the name "The Bags", which is why the remaining four members appear in The Decline of Western Civilization as the "Alice Bag Band". The band split up for good shortly thereafter without ever releasing another studio recording.

This record has just been reissued on vinyl by Artifix Records. Frontier Records released 3 of the 4 studio tracks mentioned by Alice on the Dangerhouse Volume One and Dangerhouse Volume Two collections that are available on CD.

Alice is still active playing music and now has a new band called Stay At Home Bomb. Pat Bag (Patricia Morrison) is now married to Dave Vanian and was playing bass in The Damned until she gave birth to her and Dave's child last year. Geza X is still producing and recording bands. Craig Lee and Rob Ritter are now deceased. Terry played with Rob in the Gun Club for a couple of years and now lives in Texas, still surfaces from time to time.

Thanks a lot Alice for the history!

As always if anyone has any additional information or information please get in touch.

Click here to hear "Survive" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

What happened to the Daghouse?

Does anyone know why the Dag Nasty message board has been down so long and why? I am going thru withdrawl not being able to read it and chat with my friends there.

Selections from The Punk Vault [Shattered Faith]

Shattered Faith - I Love America/Reagan Country 7" (1981 Posh Boy Records)

Shattered Faith were a Southern California punk band that started in 1978. It would be 3 years before they put out their first record, which is this single. They had appeared on a few compilations around this time as well. They signed a contract with Posh Boy Records and were to do an album after this 7" but they had a falling out when the band found someone to back them and wanted out of their contract with Posh Boy. I asked Posh himself for his recollections and here is what he wrote...

They were very heavy pot smokers and they did not hide it so I was a fool for getting involved with them knowing it, But I was always thinking of the music and I was taken with the songs as I heard them performed. They just continued to get high and come up with career plans that did not account for reality. There was no real animosity between us, at first. They simply found a financial backer after going into the studio with me and they wanted out of their contract and for the sake of $1200 or so which I wanted them to re-imburse me for, they gave me the finger. They wanted out probably right after the single when I was advertising their forthcoming. Their contract called for a minimum of 12 sides, similar to TSOL's.
It's a pretty straightforward scenario: I get them on the radio before the record is released to create demand, now other people take them seriously. That's 1981, by 1982, all I had to do was give a group a contract to go over and other people would swoop in. The worst part of it was that they agreed to a buy out then balked. But in those days, there were plenty of people around who would just say "F Robbie, he won't do anything". People like Greenworld that became Enigma and Bug Music.

So after this, they released their first album titled Shattered Faith Live that had both live and studio tracks on it. Sometime after that, they put out Shattered Faith Volume Two and then I believe they broke up.

A couple years ago, they resurfaced and started playing some shows around southern California. Grand Theft Audio put out a collection of old works on CD and Posh Boy reissued the studio recordings they owned (6 songs, including this 7") on a CD, which incidentally, I did the layout for. The band has a website. Sadly, one of the original members, Paul Jamie, who played bass (but not on this record) passed away this past New Years Eve. Remaining members seem to be playing in a band called Firecracker 500. Shattered Faith also seem to still be together in some capacity. I emailed the address on their website to ask if they'd like to chime in with any stories or history and the person who seems to answer their mail and probably does the site said they were practicing and that he'd ask. I never heard back from him though.

As always, if you have any additional information, or were in Shattered Faith, please get in touch.

Click here to hear "Reagan Country" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

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Frontier colored vinyls

Back in the summer, I interviewed Lisa Fancher, owner of Frontier Records, for the Spontaneous Combustion site. We got to talking about records and I suggested to her that when she has to repress some more records that she should do them on colored vinyl. Well, she seemed to take my advice because there is 4 Frontier releases now on nice colored vinyl. Not only that, but Lisa was kind enough to send me one of each! Thanks Lisa for the nice donation to the vault!

Suicidal Tendencies - S/T LP

Adolescents - S/T LP

Weirdos - Weird World Volume 1 LP

Weirdos - We Got the Neutron Bomb LP

They may be available at your local record store. Unless you live around here for the last time I went shopping, no one had them. You could also buy them direct from the source if you'd like them for your own punk vault.

Selections from The Punk Vault [The Stains/MDC]

The Stains - John Wayne Was a Nazi 7" (1981 Radical Records)

You might be more familiar with them as MDC (an acronym that would constantly change), but they got their start as The Stains.

In 1981 Dave Dictor, Al Schvitz, and Ron Posner, all residents of Austin, TX, formed a punk band called The Stains. They put out this 7" before they realized there already was a band called The Stains (who put out one album on SST Records). They had to change their name because while there could be two Subhumans and two Youth Brigades, there could not be two Stains. A member of The Dicks (also a fellow Austin band) suggested the name and MDC they became.

Along with the name change came a change of residence. They moved to San Francisco and became pretty well known with the city's peace punk movement. They moved into the "Vats" where another band, Condemned to Death resided and rehearsed. It wouldn't be long before The Dicks would also relocate to San Francisco (well, half of them anyway).

Upon the name change and move, they put out their first album, which is a hardcore classic by today's standards. They had their own label (Radical Records, later R Radical) and put out not only their own records, but by those of their friends Reagan Youth, Condemned to Death, The Offenders, and The Dicks.

The band toured the country plenty of times and put out a steady stream of records throughout the 80s, each one with a different theme and acronym. Over the years, members would slowly leave until Dave fond himself the only original member left. In the early 90s, the band (or at least Dave) relocated to Portland for a number of years. Dave also had a well documented (by him in his MRR columns) drug problem. Today MDC is still kicking with Dave and a crop of new members and Dave was residing in New York the last I heard. He was writing columns for Maximumrocknroll for a couple years but seemed to have stopped doing that. There is a MDC website that has a bunch of information on what the band is up to these days.

This particular record had two pressings. The first only had "The Stains" name on the sleeve, the second (pictured here) added the MDC name to reflect them having changed the name. The label art was different on the second pressing as well. I am actually in need of a picture sleeve for the first pressing as I have a copy of the vinyl that is missing the sleeve if anyone can help me out, please contact me.
As always, if you have any additional information or were in MDC, please get in touch.

Click here to hear "John Wayne Was A Nazi" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

Thank you Mike G!

Awhile back I did a vault entry on Group of Individuals. Someone posted a comment in there to let me know there was a compilation LP that they were on that I'd never heard of before. A very kind reader emailed me to say he had a copy, and that he would donate it to the Punk Vault. His name is Mike G and aside from being so generous as to give me this record, but he and his lady were super nice people. Thanks Mike!!!

And here is a picture of said compilation.

Goodbye Mola Ram

Amrish Puri, best known for being Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has passed away. You can read about it here.

Yeah, the records are cool and all but how are YOU doing?

You may have noticed that aside from writing lengthy diatribes about old punk records, I haven't had much to say about anything else. This isn't intentional, it's just that I don't have a lot to say. Even Lady Combustion says "your blog is boring, all you do is write about records". When I explain to her that people actually like that stuff and she should read those entries, she just says, "why, when I have the source right here who can tell me long-winded stories about records all day long".

Work has been extremely hectic and I've been working longer hours as we try to finish this project. On those days, I get home, watch TV for an hour and go to sleep. There hasn't been any shows lately that I want to see and my free time has been at a minimum. When this project is done, I plan to meet up with my klowns for some long-overdue drinking. I haven't hung out with those guys in quite awhile and I miss that.

I finished up the NOFX CD layout for Mystic Records and am finally about to start on the Flower Leperds retrospective CD. This will collect all their Mystic recordings. I'm pretty excited to be putting this together and it should turn out really cool. I have a few more weeks of chaos at work before things slow down and I return to normalcy and then I'll have the free time I need to put this together.

I will also soon start work on the Government Issue CD I'm releasing. It will be the demo 7" plus a live show from that same era so it will be a full length release. I also need to press up a couple hundred more of the 7" to fulfill a couple of distros request. I just haven't had a chance to sit down and take care of it.

I am trying to come up with the money to buy a new laptop. I really want one but don't have the cash. I need to come up with some money so I can do this. I will have to sell some crap on ebay to hopefully help finance this. Also, does anyone want to buy some used furniture? I have a vintage dinning room set in excellent condition that is easily as old as me but still is in near-perfect shape. Also if anyone wants to buy a Wizard of Wor arcade game, I have one for sale for $250 and it is in good working condition. Xmas, and some medical bills really kicked my ass recently and I'm low on the funds.

Selections from The Punk Vault [Kraut]

Kraut - Unemployed 7" (1982 Cabbage Records)

In 1981 The Clash played a string of sold out shows in New York City. They were sold out to the point of being way over-sold and to remedy the problem, the band decided to double up the number of shows they would play. This required them to find a small batch of opening acts, which caught the attention of the just-formed New York City punk band, Kraut. The lineup consisted of:

Don Cowan - Bass
Dave Gunner - Vocals
Doug Holland - Guitar
Johnny Feedback - Drums

They literally had just formed and recorded a 3 song demo to give to the powers that be in order to secure one of the opening slots, which they were granted on the strength of said tape. They played the show and then immediately got to work on forging ahead. They re-recorded the songs again for real this time and released it on their first single, Kill For Cash. They pressed up 1000 of them and sold through them all.

The following year they went in and recorded some new songs for this release, and for the New York Thrash compilation tape on Roir Records. This time out, they pressed 5000 copies of the record and were playing lots of shows around the city. They had secured an opening slot for The Professionals, who were Steve Jones and Paul Cook's band after The Sex Pistols broke up and Steve Jones took a liking to them. He ended up playing on a few songs that they recorded for their first album, An Adjustment to Society which came out in the same year as this single. He even played a show or two with them.

The album was released on their own label (Cabbage Records) again and was manufactured and distributed by Faulty Products. It sold pretty well but at one point Faulty went under and thus the record would be out of print for quite a few years before getting reissued by New Red Archives. A couple tracks from the singles ended up being re-recorded and were on this album. When this album was reissued on CD, they never bothered to put either 7" on there, and these songs remain unavailable.

With Faulty products gone and them on their own, they did a tour of the US and played a bunch of local shows and started recording new material. This material showed them changing a little in sound, growing a bit, but still was quite good. They eventually hooked up with Enigma for a P&D deal and released their second and final album, Whetting the Scythe. Upon its release, they played some shows on the West Coast, after which Doug Holland left Kraut to join The Cro-Mags. They replaced him with a former member of Battalion of Saints and recorded a few songs which wouldn't get released until the CD of the first album came out (the liner notes to this is where I got a lot of this information).

In 1986, Chris Smith died in a freak accident one week before the band were slated to record their third album. The other two original members decided to call it quits after this happened and started a new band, The Gutter Boys.

A few years ago, the surviving members of Kraut played a reunion show for the 20 year anniversary at CBGB's of the New York Thrash compilation along with A.O.D. and a ton of other bands who were on the comp. There was also a live CD of an old show that New Red Archives put out.

Here's hoping that they'll get around to reissuing the 7" recordings in some format.

As always if you have any additional information, or were a member of Kraut, please get in touch.

Click here to hear "Unemployed" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

Is it just me....

Has anyone else noticed their computer getting slower since installing SP2 for Windows XP? Ever since I've had it installed, my laptop has become super sluggish. I am running on only 256meg of ram and I just ordered some more ram today for the thing so hopefully that will help me out but I am just wondering if anyone else noticed a slow-down since installing it or it is just me.

Selections from The Punk Vault [The Plugz]

The Plugz - Achin'/La Bamba 7" (1980 Fatima Records)

Aside from being from the first wave of Los Angeles punk, The Plugz also might have the distinction of being the first Latino punk band. They formed in 1978 by Tito Larriva. They put out their first single on Slash Records, which is now considered a classic, and rightfully so.

After that single, instead of finding another label to put out their records, they decided to do it themselves and found a record pressing plant to make some records and started their own label, Fatima Records. The first release on the label would be this two song single. The picture above I believe to be the second pressing. The one that I believe to be the first pressing has a white sleeve and they omit the band name from one side of the record. I imagine they corrected this error when they printed up more records/sleeves and went with the yellow paper for the cover instead. Both of these songs would later be re-recorded and one appeared on each album.

After this, they self-released two full albums. Their sound would change and evolve over time, and by the time the second album came out, they were much more of a Latino sounding rock band than they were a punk band, but they were still very unique and enjoyable. The band called it quits after that.

The two albums were reissued for a time by Restless Records and even had a limited life on CD. Restless then was part of Enigma, which folded and it is unknown to me who currently holds the rights to them. I do know that this band is LONG overdue for a reissue and there in new generations of punk and music fans in general missing out on some great tunes.

After The Plugz broke up, Tito had a fairly successful run in the 80s doing music for various movies. I do not know what the other members of the band did or what any of them are doing now. I do know Tito was in a band called Tito and the Tarantulas in the not too distant past.

Click here to hear "La Bamba" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

I also included a picture of the first press sleeve...

Note the band name is not listed on this side of the sleeve.

Selections from The Punk Vault [The Fix]

The Fix - Jan's Room 7" (1982 Touch and Go Records)

The Fix were one of the earliest midwest hardcore bands. They started in 1980 and didn't waste any time in getting around. In 1981 their friends at Touch and Go Records (then run by Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson) put out their first single titled Vengeance. They pressed a mere 200 copies of it. The band toured the states taking the single with them and selling it at shows and giving it to college radio stations and it didn't take long for them to go through them all. For some strange reason they never bothered to press up any more and now it is a sought-after collectors item. In fact, I have been wanting a copy of this record for so long it hurts.

Near the end of 1981 the band recorded a handful of songs, four of which ended up on this record, their second and final release. They toured the states one more time and when they got back home, the band parted ways after their drummer quit the band. The original members were:

Craig Calvert - guitar
Steve Miller - vocals
Mike Achtenberg - bass
Jeff - drums

They made 1000 of this single and early copies came with a spray-painted lyric sheet, and the rest came with a regular one. They were also on the Process of Elimination compilation 7" that came out right about the same time as this record.

About a decade ago, Lost and Found Records from Germany reissued their material on an LP/CD titled Cold Days. The legitimacy of this release is in question, and is widely regarded as a bootleg. They also remixed the two songs from the first single, much to the chagrin of hardcore Fix fans.

After the band broke up, some members played in other bands. One played in a version of The Meatmen, and later Just Say No. I don't know where they are now, or what any of the members are up to. I do know that they are well overdue for a proper, and legal reissue of this stuff. Someone bootlegged the first single a couple years ago.

As always, if you have any additional information, or you were in The Fix, please get in touch.

Click here to hear "Off to War" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

Selections from The Punk Vault [Geza X]

Geza X - We Need More Power 7" (1981 Alternative Tentacles Records)

Like a lot of tales, this one for me started with a compilation. It was the compilation called Let Them Eat Jellybeans on Alternative Tentacles Records (which for some reason remains out of print and never was reissued on CD) where I'd first hear the quirky art-punk sounds of Geza X. I'd seen his name in the credits of other records as being the person who recorded/produced them.

Geza X was around since the start of Los Angeles punk rock. His real first name is Geza, though I don't know what his last name is. He took the X after Malcom X and he referred to his off-kilter art damaged punk as "X Music". He played in The Deadbeats who were one of the earliest L.A. punk bands and put out a classic punk single on Dangerhouse Records. He was the resident sound man (and a resident) at the Masque, a club/punk flop house run by Brendan Mullen.

After the Deadbeats ceased to be, Geza went on his own and released a couple of singles and one LP. He, like many punks from back then, acquired a bit of a drug problem and dropped out of the scene and public eye. He managed to get it in check though and in the 80s started recording bands again, this time it would be rap music and he was involved with laying down to tape a lot of west coast rap artists at a time when the stuff was just starting to get noticed.

These days, Geza X still has a recording studio, this time in Malibu, CA and has evolved with the times and it is a state of the art digital setup. He was behind the knobs of Meredith Brooks hit "Bitch" among other things. A little while back Dionysus Records reissued the You Goddamn Kids album as well.

As always if you have any additional information, or are Geza X, please get in touch.

Click here to hear "We Need More Power" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

Mother Nature strikes again

We got dumped on with snow today. I think they are saying the total accumulation is 12". It really started last nite and just kept on going, seldom stopping. After spending 15 minutes cleaning off my car, it took me forever to get home from work because the roads were still really bad. My reward for all of this? Getting to shovel the driveway. It was a major pain in the ass. Luckily I shoveled once already before I left for work else it would have been worse and I'd have risked hurting my back again. I really need to invest in a snowblower but I'm just tapped out for cash these days from bills and the holiday.

This cold just won't let up either, it is hanging on as long as it possibly can, and now poor Lady Combustion has caught it. She's too stubborn to stay home from work though so her days are long and miserable working while she isn't feeling good.

A member of Toxic Reasons has found this blog and the entry about them and posted a comment. Click on the link to the left to go back and see if it you are interested.

Selections from The Punk Vault [Reagan Youth]

Reagan Youth - Youth Anthems for a New Order 12" EP (1984 Freeway Enterprises)

Along with a ton of other bands, my first exposure to Reagan Youth was on the mighty P.E.A.C.E. compilation. I bought that comp because it had a bunch of bands I had only heard the names of at the time and not heard the music of. Reagan Youth was one of the many standouts on there that found its way onto countless mix tapes I'd make for myself back in high school. It wasn't long after that I'd find and buy the only record they would release during their brief time as a band. I also had the luck of seeing them play in 1987 at the "new" Igloo in Chicago. At this point singer Dave Insurgent looked like a rastafarian and not a punk, but they still put on a hell of a show.

Dave Insurgent (real name: David Rubinstein) was born in 1964. He formed Reagan Youth with guitarist Paul Bakija when both were in high school. While they were still in high school, the band played the punk clubs of Manhattan. In fact, David's science teacher became a roadie for the band (That high school teacher was so into the punk scene that he shaved his head and as a result almost go fired by the school administration).

The band toured across the country a couple times in their career and put out this lone 12" EP. It was self-released but they had something to do with R Radical Records at some point as R Radical was selling it at a time when they were only selling their own releases. I don't know if they helped released it or were just helping their friends distribute a record. The record did not come in a standard LP type jacket, it was housed in a big folded poster sleeve that was full of all kinds of information plus the lyrics.

Weathered and worn in the late 1980s from touring and drug abuse, the band packed it in when Reagan left office in the late 1980s. It made sense seeing as naming your band after a president gives you a pretty short shelf life. I guess when I saw them it was their final tour.

After the bands demise, New Red Archives reissued this record with a few bonus tracks. However, they made the mistake that some other labels have made in the past, they wouldn't leave well enough alone! Instead of giving the people the original recording with the bonus tracks, they remixed the thing, and watered it down to the point of embarrassment. If you play the original side by side with the reissue (which is the only version you can purchase these days) your response will like be "what the fuck were they thinking?!" While it is nice that the music is still available in some format, they should have not messed with perfection. They later released a second collection of unreleased songs that the band recorded after they had broken up, but wrote and played while they were an active band. It wasn't as good but still is worth having. Both are collected now on a single CD.

What happened to Dave Insurgent after Reagan Youth called it quits is a tragic tale. By this time Dave had developed a serious heroin addiction. He was also dealing drugs, although he was not very shrewd at it. Dave had the bad habit of consuming the drugs he was supposed to be selling.

In a drug deal gone bad, another drug dealer violently beat up Dave with a baseball bat. He was hospitalized for weeks. When he got out, he returned to his parents' home. There, he continued to use drugs as his parents tried to help him recover. Eventually Dave left his parents' home and moved back to the lower East Side. By now, between the violent assault and his continued drug use, he was no longer an energetic anarchist. He had become a bit disheveled, and many of his friends from the punk scene no longer associated with him.

Dave began dating Tiffany B., a prostitute who worked on Houston Street. Dave had told his parents that she was a dancer. Tiffany supported the couple and their drug habit by turning tricks. Dave would often hang out on the street with Tiffany, waiting while she serviced a customer, and then going with her to score drugs.

Around this time, Dave's mother died in a freak car accident. One night shortly after, Dave and Tiffany were waiting on Houston Street when a familiar customer pulled up in a pick-up truck. Tiffany got in, telling Dave that she would return in twenty minutes. She never came back. Dave called the police with a description of the truck and went to all the hospital emergency rooms in the city searching for Tiffany. A few days later, on Long Island, the police pulled over a truck and found Tiffany's body in the bank. They arrested the driver, Joel Rifkin, Long Island's most famous serial killer, who was later linked to killing numerous prostitutes.

Depressed and alone, after the unexpected losses of his girlfriend and his mother, Dave headed into a downward spiral. One month later, he committed suicide.

As to the rest of the band, I have no idea what they are up to now.

As always, if you have any additional information or were a member of Reagan Youth, please get in touch.

Click here to hear "Degenerated" from the record (right click and "save target as...")

Blatant Dissent circa 1985

Here's an old band photo Tom Clark sent over. He said he has more too which I will put up on the Spontaneous Combustion site when I get them. Thanks Tom for sending it.

Gmail anyone?

I have a couple of Gmail invites to give away. If anyone wants one let me know.

The year gets off to a shaky start

Well, I finished off 2004 and started this new year sick. I seem to have caught a bad cold either from someone at work, or when I was on that damn overcrowded plane on the trip home last week. It really hit hard thursday nite, and on New Years Eve, which I had to go into work on, I was down and out. Lady Combustion and I just ordered some food and stayed in watching movies to ring in the new year. Aside from being sick it was a really nice quiet evening that I much preferred over all the running around and traveling we did the prior week.

2004 overall as a good year. The main thing was Lady Combustion coming back into my life of course. I put out a couple good records on my label that people really liked, was involved in some cool reissues on the Mystic Records label and I got to go to Los Angeles 6 times. This blog also changed from being mostly personal to being a visit inside the punk museum that is Combustion Manor. My need to share the old punk in the vault with people and not having a radio show as an outlet to do so pretty much was the catalyst in that. In doing so, I have noticed a huge increase in visitors to this here site and I've been getting a lot of good comments and email and that really makes all the time it takes to put the stuff together worthwhile.

I hope this new year is even better and even more fun. I have a couple of projects in the works for the label and a couple of things on my plate still for Mystic including a Flower Leperds retrospective CD. We're nearing completion at work on this current game after which I'm going to need a much needed rest as I've been putting in a bunch of extra hours lately.

Happy new year everybody.

Pictures from Neon Christ reunion up on Spontaneous

I finally got a chance to put up the pictures from the Neon Christ reunion on November up on the Spontaneous Combustion site. You can see them here. Thanks to Randy of Neon Christ for sending them.

Selections from The Punk Vault [Blatant Dissent]

Blatant Dissent - Is There a Fear 7" (1985 Landmind Records)

My first exposure to Blatant Dissent was when my friends who did Landmind Records (this is when we were all in high school) put out their 7" and they gave me a copy. I took it home and played it to death, I loved it! It was in the same vein as Naked Raygun at the time and at that time NR were the biggest thing in Chicago. I would get my local punk friends hooked on the record as well as playing it regularly on my radio show at the time.

I ended up writing to the address on the records and struck up a correspondence with singer John Mohr. He even put an ad in an early issue of Spontaneous Combustion. Years later, I'd go see a band called Tar, who, as it turned out, John was the guitar player/singer in. I'd come to realize that Tar had members that were in Blatant Dissent. I'd reintroduce myself to him and I ended up seeing Tar 11 times while they were still a band including their farewell show when John moved to Seattle.

A year or so ago, another former member of Blatant Dissent, Thomas Clark, found my website, and the Landmind page specifically, and got in touch with me. When I decided I was going to feature this single in an entry, I figured I'd hit him up for a story. I had lost touch with John Mohr after he moved to Seattle quite a few years ago. Not only did Thomas happily oblige, but he put me back in touch with John! So as Koga would say, "read their stories after the jump" which is where you'll also find the song.

John Mohr's story:

Blatant Dissent started in the fall of 1983, as a cover band. We formed in Dekalb, IL where all of the members went to school (NIU). We did the basic covers of the day ("stepping stone", "walk, don't run", "sex machine", and some others as well).

The original members were:

Jeff Burka - Bass
Dave Fishman - drums
Tim Fowler - Guitar, vocals
John Mohr - Guitar, vocals
Jim Wohlever - lead vocals

That lineup lasted about 6 months, before the musical differences came in and scooted out Jeff Burka, who was replaced by the amazing Tom Clark, who ended up on the cover of "Is there a Fear?" EP. Jim Wohlever left the band in the spring of 84, and I took over vocals, and pretty much stopped playing guitar.

The lineup of Fishman, Fowler, Clark, and Mohr gelled. We started writing our own songs, ditched the covers, and began playing shows Dekalb, Chicago, and other midwestern towns.

I was a huge fan of Naked Raygun, with their records "throb, throb" and "Basement Screams" being favorites of mine. Iain Burgess was also doing production on a lot of the local releases, especially those released on Ruthless Records. We ended up getting Jeff Pezzati and Iain to help us record too many songs in one day at Chicago Recording Company. We recorded in February of '85, as I recall. This was the second time the band was in studio. Our previous effort was a demo tape that we recorded in the summer of '84.

That's Tom Clark on the cover of it, hanging off of the roof of the house that we lived in in Dekalb, IL. On the back is a photo of the main street in Sycamore, IL. The idea was that the main street was empty, and scary! Anyway, we co-released this with Landmind records, which resulted in a co-distribution or a sharing of the manufacturing costs, or something like that. We pressed 1000 of these records, and about 850 were distributed with the "Tom Clark" sleeve. We did a very brief tour in the summer of '86 and packaged up the remaining 7"-ers with the Tour sleeve that Mike V has shown here http://www.spontaneous.com/landmind.html.

Somewhere in late 85 / early 86, Tim Fowler and Dave Fishman left the band, as their musical desires led them "in another direction". Mike Greenlees joined the band on drums (Mike designed the "tour sleeve" as well the cover for "dreams 7", not to mention every other record cover that I've ever been involved in). We also had Tom Clark switching to guitar, and Tim Mescher joining on bass guitar.

This was the version of Blatant Dissent that recorded the dreams 7", and also the "Hold the Fat" lp that ended up getting released on Glitterhouse records several years later. For those of you good at math will note that by adding Mark Zablocki to the mix, and removing Tom Clark, you essentially have TAR.

Well, we figured that out in the spring of '88 or so.

-John 12/29/04

and now for Tom Clark's story:

Here's my memory, and how it all came about.....let's see......

Well, I hadn't been in the band all that long...I was just a friend of theirs that was attending NIU, in my hometown of Dekalb, Illinois. They (John Mohr, Tim Fowler, and Dave Fishman) were living in the dorms. One day I went over to play some music with Tim Fowler and Matt Parker (who, with Dave Fishman, formed Happy Hunting...great band!) They liked my bass playing, even though I wasn't really a bass player. Tim mentioned it to John Mohr. They were looking to replace their current bass player who was somewhat of a spoiled brat-mod-wanna-be. They asked and I said "sure!"

I remember our first Chicago gig, which I have on video somewhere, was with Out of Order (and the Dead Milkmen!! If it was the same gig) at the Cubby Bear in Chicago. I remember Jeff Pezzatti of Naked Raygun coming down, whom John was friends with. I guess the next natural thing to do was make a record. Now, I was 19, I think, and this was exciting. It was really all John's get up and go that got it done. We'd all been in High School rock bands, playing tons of covers...been doing it since I was 13, and here comes John, never ever being in a band before, and he's putting together a pretty good band AND getting shows in Chicago, Milwaukee, etc., and now he's saying "let's make a record!" Around this time we'd moved into student houses, John and I were in one with about 7 other guys on College Ave.

We cut the Is There A Fear? EP on a very snowy day in February. I remember picking the boys up in my station wagon at some ungodly hour (I have all the pics...they call me the Archivist) As we got into Chicago, we nearly had an accident on a snowy hill that somehow I'd managed to swerve JUST ENOUGH around a line of cars and avoided a smash up that would have broken my spirits, if not more, on that big day. We arrived at CRC Studios where Jeff Pezzatti and Ian Burgess met us and recorded the record (and possibly mixed it ) in one day.
Tim Fowler was a one-take wonder...truly gifted guitar player, still is. I think, also, he was hung over! I think I did one or two punch-ins...it was quick. We thought "wow, that was easy!" You know, you hear of these bands taking three years to record a record..they should just ask us how it's done! Then we needed a cover, and John was taking the picture...he needed someone to hang off the balcony on College Avenue, and I again said "sure!"

John was up in a tree, taking his time while taking the picture...I was literally hanging there, saying "come on...take the picture...." I had red marks on my arms for days....young and stupid. It was only a second floor balcony....so John cropped the ground out of the photo to make it look like I was way up there! It was really great to get them, too. I still get excited to get a new record out, but not as excited as that first one! I'm still in touch with all of that, and the later, line-ups of BD. Still all great guys! Now I'm gonna go put it on....maybe I should apologize to the neighbors beforehand.....Tom Clark

And finally, John got Mike Greenlees to chime in with a little more info:

Also, even though there was no recording involved, BD had two more guitarists before turning into Tar. We had the Bruin, Bruce Halverson for awhile, Late 86 to sometime in 87, I think. Halloween, or thereabouts. Then we got Zablocki in there after he responded to that crazy flyer we put up in Wax Trax. He was in BD for however many months until we changed the name. I actually don't remember when that happened. Were we still BD when we recorded those songs at Albini's? Because those were all BD songs until we wrote Static. It seems like we booked a show at Cubby Bear as BD, played the show as TAR, then recorded that same weekend, but I could be wrong...

Remember that tour with Joe Tech, who had been relieved of his wisdom teeth the day before we left? Great tour. Fun. What the fuck were we thinking? That poor crazy fucker at Yale...or Princeton, whatever it was, with the White Russians? Telling the Christ on Parade dude that he skated like a girl? HOO!

Tom Clark is still playing music and has a website. John currently is not playing music. I'm not sure about what the other guys are up to but perhaps Tom or John will comment on this and fill us in.

"Click here to hear "Hands Are Tied" from the record (right click and "save target as...")