WHY BE SOMETHING THAT YOU'RE NOT

2010-09-30T14:54:00.006-04:00

BOUGHT & SOLD...WE GOT VIOLENT APATHY GOODS FOR SALE HERE IN WBSTYN LAND!!!...You read right pointdexter! We got some EXCLUSIVE goods from those Midwest Hardcore legends VIOLENT APATHY that's only available here on the WBSTYN blog and the shizz is super duper limited, so act now! All this merch is handcrafted love done up by the VA boys themselves for the reunion shows they did over the summer for the WBSTYN/Touch & Go release parties. Anyone who was there will tell ya they blew the peanuts outta mess all the nights they played. Now you can act like you was there takin' in their fun-loving, cataclysmic roar by donning a shirt and/or rockin' their discography CD at your next house shindig! The things we here in WBSTYN land do for you, really...

VIOLENT APATHY T-SHIRT -- Classic logo on a black shirt. Nothing more...nothing less. But wudda statement! Sizes available -- Large/Medium/Small $18 USA/$22 elsewhereVIOLENT APATHY - Discography CD -- Here we have every sonic blat these K-Zoo legends ever did on one handy dandy little disc! Can you believe it? For those who never dipped their wick in the witchy wax of VA, this is a helluva way to start! They started out sounding like 'Land Speed Record' era Huskers before delving into an almost artsy mid-tempo feel that probably would of made them real cool if they were from Chicago rather than K-Zoo. The disc includes -- Entire 1982 demo (later sorta bootlegged by Lost & Found records in the 90's) Two tracks from the classic Master Tape Volume II compilation, their 'Here Today' 7" EP from 1984 as well as a smokin' practice tape from 1983. You need it like air, buddy/buddette! $10 USA/$12 elsewhere

VIOLENT APATHY - '1984' DVD -- This is a pretty amazing artifact. It includes a full set from VA in 1984 that includes wigs and a rousing set closing cover of 'Rock & Roll All Nite' (with Bowser singing!) as well as an interview from the time with VA vocalist Kenny from Cable Access (more wigs!) and a very strange, primitive video of the band lip-syncing their way through the 'Here Today' 7" in front of what looks like a frathouse (No wigs...just some skateboards) A mindblower for sure... $12 USA/$15 elsewhere ***SOLD OUT!!!***

As stated above, the goods are limited in a true 'first come, first serve' stylee. Send payments via PayPal to trettman at hotmail dot com. TANX FOR LOOKIN'!!!

2010-09-16T09:32:00.004-04:00

WE KNOW WHAT YOU WANT AFTER THAT LONG WAIT....TODD SWALLA PART TWO!!!

What do you remember about that 1st time Black Flag
played at DooBees when you guys opened?

Pounding the hell out of the New Wavers trying to pogo. We were stage diving off of tables and for the first 10 minutes, it was like a fist fight set to music. Then the New Wave folks finally got the fuck off the dance floor and we had it all to ourselves for the rest of the set. Not really as much fun but still cool, it was fucking Black Flag in your face! I got to play drums during 'Louie Louie' which was my main goal that night!

What do you remember about those first time you guys recorded the stuff that would become the'Sex Drive' single?

It was in my Mom's basement with Tim Story running a 4 track cassette machine. We were done in like an hour and you can tell by the quality of the recording! Police Brutality was of course pulled from our original demo which was done in '79 and was before Hardcore.

When would you say the Hardcore scene in the Midwest really exploded?

1981-82, several Nunzios hardcore shows, Endless Summer show, 1st Black Flag show in Detroit at Bookies. Freezer happaned later.

How did you become friends with Larrissa?

She sent a copy of her fanzine Anonymous to Smegma and we started writing her back and eventually calling each other. She invited us to come up to see L7 open for Bauhaus. She snuck us all in to Bookies and we brought slam dancing to Detroit! It was rad. She was instantly our punk rock den mother! We went to an after hours for the band DNA who had played at another venue. We were given some very harsh attitudes for being so young and into punk, which was of course old hat at this point according to the homosexual Detroit New Wave scene

What do you remember about recording the 'IQ32' 7"? How about the track for the 'Process' comp?

Both recorded in Lansing at an old hippies home 8-track studio. His wife was really fat and gross and they both stank. This is extra harsh seeing as though I was a stinky 17 year old punk rocker who never bathed or brushed his teeth. The IQ sessions were just us, Ian, Tesco and Dave. The Process sessions were everyone from all the bands except Toxic Reasons who submitted an existing track. We would all just hang out and skate in the parking lot until your band was called up. I remember it was really hot and of course that made the dirty hippies stink even more! "Plug it into #7 and give me a kiss Gil." Yuck!

What do you remember about going to see Fear play
on SNL?

That whole night was a whirlwind...hanging out in NYC, having to use the password "Ian MacKaye" to get into the NBC studio, lots of free CocaCola!!! Shaving Brannon a mohawk in the green Room...Contrary to what John Joseph may think in his mind, I clearly had the first stage dive of the night. The proof is in the pudding, Just watch the tape. Billy grabbing the pumpkin at the end, Donald Pleasence looking like he was totally terrified. "Negative Approach is gonna fuck you up!"

What do you remember of finding the Freezer Theatre? Who was the first person to find it?

Brannon knew about the Freezer as Static had done a show there at some point early on. We just needed a dump that was indestructible and it was perfect. We built a new 4 foot stage just to cater to the stage divers! The owner Fred was a total acid head paranoid hippie who usually took off with the money by the end of the night.

When shows started going on at the Freezer, is that when HC started picking up steam as far as kids you guys didn't know coming in and all that?

The Freezer created a central meeting point for the whole Michigan/Ohio hardcore scene. The word got out pretty quick that there was an all ages space booking hardcore. New kids would show up at every show culminating in the Minor Threat NA debacle.

Let's talk about the national tours you guys did. Talk about highlights, fave bands you played with, how the Midwest scene was interpreted around the country, etc.

First tour-Bucky Pope goes along to assimilate into our second guitarist, this does not work out. Bucky gets sent home after 3 weeks. Misfits riot in SF. Bob's place with Social D and the Misfits, Mike Ness looks like Doyle! WTF!!!!
2nd tour- Hanging out with Glen E., Alva, Adams, Hackett, and J. Smith. Skating at Paul Revere and Kentner. Stayed at Amery Suicidals house in Venice w/ hot tub!!! Played with Tales of Terror at the Mab. Contrary to the bullshit that Carducci has stated in "American Hardcore", Ginn did invite us to a rehearsal while we were in town and we hung out all day listening to the Biscuits lineup run thru "Damaged" and "My War" material. At some point we were considering going with SST but then rumors of them not paying anyone started to surface. I find it hilarious that Carducci would write us off as Flag "imitators" when he was the person responsible for signing Blast! to SST. Plagiarism has its rewards.

3rd tour-Played Walla Walla, Washington and saw some dude drive a pickup truck over a cliff on the way to Seattle. Played with the Melvins in a cold warehouse and knew it was time to slow down!!!

Megadeth tour- I can't even get into this because most of it was too hilarious on a totally wrong level. Lots of alcohol and drugs and we only had to play for a half hour.

Circle Jerks tour-Started a skinhead riot in Miami Beach. Eric Oblander saved my life! This was when Keith and the rest of the band were sober except for Ernie the road manager. The thing is they still had like 6 cases of beer on their rider and we had like 4 on ours. We had a surplus the whole tour, it was a total beer fest! Dropped acid for the first time at a Fluid concert in Boulder. Played a Hooters' type joint in Orlando and both bands got kicked out of 2 motels during the after hours shenanigans. Its hard to remember some of this stuff, we drank a lot.

When you guys came back from tour, did the HC scene in Detroit seem different?

More kids and lots of stupid people started to creep in. Drugs and more drinking and violence came along. The skinhead thing started and that just tore the scene apart.

Can you remember a specific time at a HC show when you thought 'This isn't for me anymore?'

We were already starting to feel disillusioned by the time we started writing "Conquest". Look at the lyrics to "Count Me Out", Barry is already rejecting the whole thing. "Friend to All" and "Tarnished Words" play on some of the same problems. I remember some huge Misfits show a Henry Ford Community College being really violent and just stupid, no fun at all. When we started our little "scene" we had visions of it becoming this cool huge thing but when it did explode you realized how much more fun it was when it was like just 20 of you.

When the Necros started to move along from playing HC to a more 'Rock' style, how was it taken by the HC crowd?

The super punkers hated it but I think most of our more open minded crowd went along with us. Skaters and what not... There was some point when we were right in the middle. We had new songs like "Power" and "Black Water" that still had a gnarly hardcore vibe but were slightly slower and arranged better. I remember opening for the Circle Jerks in Denver on that last tour and the punkers just sat there and did not even clap for our whole set. They did not like the Jerks much better.

What eventually made the Necros break up?

It was time, no special reason. I don't think I would have like being in Big Chief or GISS. I wanted to get more primal than either of those outfits. My first band after wards was Solid Gold Hellnamed after the Scientists' tune. This was way before the Auckie band of the same name. We were pre-grunge for the most part. After that was Foil which was kind of a Sonic Youth/ Jesus Lizard thing with a chick screaming. Then I joined the Hyenas.

Photo by LilyKily

2010-07-23T15:16:00.004-04:00

FOR THOSE THAT ARE SOUND & FURY BOUND... ...If you are attending the Sound & Fury festival this weekend in Santa Barbara, California, be sure to stop by the Revelation Records table. They will have copies of the book for sale as well as these shirts which were made exclusivly by Revelation. Check it out...

2010-07-22T15:11:00.002-04:00

AN INTERVIEW WITH DAN KUBINSKI OF DIE KREUZEN (SIMPLE AS THAT...) When I was first conducting interviews for the book, I was getting in touch with everyone and anyone I could who I thought was a part of the Midwest Hardcore scene in the early 80's. Dan Kubinski from Die Kreuzen was one of the first people I got in touch with. Sadly, the interview was never used for any part of the book. Just so it didn't go to waste, I figured I'd post it here on the blog. Sure, Die Kreuzen wern't from Detroit, they's was from Wisconsin...but fuck it...they are one of the most underappreciated bands to come out of the early 80's U.S underground and if you don't agree with me, please go make sweet love to the nearest electrical socket at this very moment. From the brutality of their early output to the demented Psychedelia of 'October Days' and 'Century Days' (a truly beautiful record) these guys were the Champgane of suds. Thanks to Dan for taking the time to answer these question. Interview conducted in early Jan. of '09.

WBSTYN – How did you get turned onto Punk Rock?

Dan Kubinski -- I grew up in Rockford, Illinois, a small town with not much going on. I carried an A.M radio with me everywhere when I was very young and I loved music from the get-go. I would save my allowance to buy 7 inch records of the latest Top 40 hits and I had a pretty big collection by the time I was nearing my teen years. Then, sometime in 1977 I started to read about "Punk" music from NYC and Great Britain in Creem magazine and in Trouser Press. At some point - more out of curiousness than anything else - I stole a copy of ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ from a K-Mart type department store. Don’t ask me how I stole it as I still don’t know how I got away with it but damn, if I wasn’t completely blown away by the music! It was music that for the first time seemed to speak directly at me. It was real, tangible stuff... not all "Rock Starred” out like Boston, Kansas and Journey, which most of my peers were listening to. From there, I started to find other stuff going back to the New York Dolls, Stooges, Sparks and finding the Ramones and The Damned. I just kinda did an about face and I was purely interested in the "Punk" style of music.

WBSTYN – How did you move on and find out about Punk stuff that wasn’t on major labels?

DK – We were lucky enough to have a store called Apple Tree Records in Rockford. They carried a ton of indie stuff as well as major label junk. They also had many imports. I remember hearing the first X record in there and being blown away by the guitar sound on that record. I bought my first Damned singles there and when the first Public Image record came out, I got it there.

WBSTYN – Give me the skinny on The Stellas, the pre-Die Kreuzen unit…

DK – The Stellas came from the ashes of my first band. At the time, we were unaware of anything else going on in the Midwest. It wasn’t until we moved to Wisconsin that we started to do more gigging both in town and out of town that we discovered bands like Husker Du or The Effigies. The Necros opened for the Dead Kennedys which led us to their 7 inches and then from there, we discovered other bands on Touch & Go like The Fix and so on.

WBSTYN – What was the music scene like at the time in Wisconsin?

DK – There were tons of bands playing out; most of them we loathed. We thought of ourselves as Punk Rockers, and there really didn’t seem to be any ‘true’ Punk Rock bands playing out by our standards. Some of the bands were more arty or Avant Garde that we liked around there were the Oil Tasters, The Amadots and The Prosecutors, who later turned into Drivin’ ‘N’ Cryin’. We felt shunned by the music scene though. We were taken as little kids that were still into the Sex Pistols and The Stooges. People felt we should ‘move on’. I would regularly insult the audience when we would open for other local bands. People truly hated us, but some really liked us as well.

WBSTYN – How did you eventually find out about the stuff coming out of L.A?

DK – The first records I heard from L.A were X, The Germs, Geza X and the soundtrack for ‘The Decline of Western Civilization’. That ‘Decline…’ soundtrack had so much fucking power to it; it blew my mind to bits! That’s when we decided to start taking this Punk thing a little more seriously.

WBSTYN – What were some of the first Hardcore bands to come through your area?

DK – DOA was the first band I remember seeing. Fucking killer band! Black Flag was next and we opened for them. There was a very dark and violent feeling to that show…like the world was going to end…and we LOVED it!

WBSTYN – When did you make the connection with the Touch & Go crew?

DK – We were lucky enough to play on the same bill as the original Necros here in Milwaukee. I remember Barry and Corey being blown away by us. Tesco I first met at Corey Rusks’ wedding.

WBSTYN – What was it like meeting those guys for the first time?

DK – Corey was very friendly and wanted to talk about music. He was real into Sisters of Mercy and Savage Republic when I first met him. I had a couple of those records, so we hit it off right away. Tesco was this seven foot tall somewhat jock type dude that we never figured would be Tesco when we first met him. He was very nice to us and had a string of jokes that seemed to go forever. A very funny and friendly guy.

WBSTYN – How did you become aware of what was going on in D.C?

DK – Somewhere I bought the first Minor Threat 7” and we all loved the sound they had. The double vocal track had a ferocious effect and I love it so much I still use it to this day! When we read that Minor Threat were going to tour the country, I simply called them up (Their number was in the back of Maximum Rock ‘N’ Roll) and set up a show for them here, but it fell through for one reason or another.

WBSTYN – Talk about that first U.S tour you guys did

DK – Our first tour was magical! We played living room parties in Kansas City, we did San Antonio, Austin and Houston with our soon to be great friends, The Offenders from Austin. At the San Antonio show, I was smoking some weed with a skinny, long haired kid who introduced himself as Gibby. Of course, later on Gibby would have his world famous band, Butthole Surfers. We played The Vex in LA with the original Social Distortion. The bouncers at this gig had guns! We found it all very scary. There’s a video of this gig floating around and I saw it awhile back. We all look like we’re twelve years old! We drove to San Francisco and stayed there for a month or two and did many gigs at the Mabuhay, On Broadway and Tool & Die. We played with Crucifix, Dead Kennedys, Articles of Faith and many more. We were very poor and stayed on the floor of our friends Mike and Quey, who later put out the ‘Loud 3 D’ book.

WBSTYN – Was there a certain point where you felt disenchanted with the Hardcore thing?

DK – Yes. It would have been on the tours following our first U.S. one. We were playing different sounding stuff. We thought we were being ‘Punk’ by trying out new things. These changes and experiments were unacceptable to the Hardcore kids. All they wanted was the first LP and nothing else. By that point, we really didn’t care what people thought of us and started to do whatever we wanted musically, which to me was truly ‘Punk. These kids just seemed stuck in a rut and they didn’t want to see their way out of it. We felt like Punk had abandoned us, but in actuality, the whole movement just turned stale and we had nothing in common with it anymore.

WBSTYN – Anything you wanna bring up that we didn’t in the interview?

DK – Just be yourself…be creative…push the envelope. Don’t be afraid of art or music that is different or new as it is those things that bring about creativity. Be unique in your life!

2010-07-19T08:58:00.018-04:00

MAIL ORDER MADNESS! -- (AKA -- PIMPIN' THE PAST ONE ITEM AT A TIME) We've been hearing rumblings here and there that some of you can't find WBSTYN at your local book or record store. To circumvent this problem, you can order the book straight from us (OK...me...the author) along with some other pretty great stuff we've whipped up that was only supposed to be sold at the book release parties. Mail order is first come, first serve and once it's gone, it's gone and all that crap. Let's take a look at this stuff, shall we?

WHY BE SOMETHING THAT YOU'RE NOT - Detroit Hardcore '79 - '85 By Tony Rettman -- $15 ppd in USA (Potenial buyers from other countries, please get in touch for shipping rates)

256 pages of Midwest madness covering Negative Approach, Necros, Meatmen, Violent Apathy and more. Intro by Tesco Vee and tons of flyers and photos. In it's three week existence, this book has gotten props from high brows and low lifes across the world. Find out why. ALL BOOKS ORDERED DIRECT FROM THE BLOG WILL BE SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR!(Whatever that's worth to ya...)

'Finally, the real story is told!' -- John Brannon

WBSTYN FUN PACK! - $10 PPD in USA (Potential buyers from other countries, please get in touch for shipping rates)

The WBSTYN fun pack includes all three re-prints of BURP! Fanzine, a 'zine from the early 80's put together by John Brannon and Todd Swalla (drummer for Necros) under assumed names. As expected, it's zany as hell fun with show reviews, Midwest scene reports, many pictures of Brian Hylands' ass and the usual worship of the 4 Skins (With Hodges of course!)Also thrown in there is a print of a Davo Schiech shot. If you don't know, Davo was the guy who shot the photos on the Negative Approach 7" and he took some classic shots back then. There's 4 prints to choose from (see above) BUT YOU ONLY GET ONE IN THE FUN PACK! The fun pack is stuffed in a polybag,stamped and numbered and limited to 100. Buy now or pay later! SHIRTS!!! - $12.00 ppd Please specify size!!!(Potential buyers from other countries,please get in touch for shipping rates)

You got it! Two (count 'em, TWO!) designs and we think they look sweet as shizz.

First off, we got this classic Freezer Theatre flyer on a ice grey shirt. Pretty spiffy, no? On the right sleeve, we put the title of the book ala Wishingwell Records stylee.

The second design is the flyer for the Process of Elimination tour show in Boston on a black shirt with the WBSTYN title on the sleeve as well. Check it...

If you have any interest in purchasing some of this stuff, please get in touch via Facebook or send an e-mail message to -- WBSTYN at gmail dot com before sending money via PayPal or anything like that.Hope to hear from ya soon.

2010-07-08T20:18:00.005-04:00

JUST SO YOU MUTHA BITCHES KNOW...WBSTYN is busy as a Japanese beaver getting our shit together for the Cleveland book release party next Friday. You don't know how psyched we are that our first one is gonna be in the home of the Pagans, Confront and Ubu. We're gonna have the obligatory books to sell, but we're also going to have some other special crap available. We will have the WBSTYN FUN PACK as well. The WBSTYN FUN PACK CONTAINS --

A) Three exact reprints of Burp! Fanzine, the publication done by John Brannon and Todd Swalla in the early 80's. These things were touched up and printed off the original layouts and they look friggin' awesome. We are some pretty big nerdlingers here at WBSTYN and we had never seen a copy of this thing EVER IN OUR LIVES. If you have...well, you're obviously cooler than us. Props to you! Nonetheless, all the three issues of this gem are in there.

B) A print of a Davo Striech shot from the early 80's Detroit scene. We have split itup into four seperate images from the Freezer Theatre. These things looks great!

There will be only 100 of these things done up! You can get all this Midwest HC history for $10 in person. Considering the issues of Burp are pretty rare, we think it's a steal. If you'd like to reserve a Fun Pack for Clevo, get in touch at wbstyn@gmail.com and we'll work it out.

We'll also have shirts for sale of classic Midwest flyers. More on them as we get 'em...
...And will you look at this swell flyer they done up for the Kalamazoo book release show! We're beyond stoked Violent Apathy got together for this one. You won't be able to miss WBSTYN author Tony Rettman at this show. He'll be the overweight baldy poo-pooing his drawers and clearing the pit during their set. He'll also be DJ'ing somewhere in there (hopefully without a load in his pants) and 'sighning' books 'til the Two Hearted Ale runs out. Should be a helluva time!

We might be slow in updating here in the next few weeks as we get overloaded with book obligations. But man...check out what we've gave you in the past five months! Great shizz! We'll try to throw more interviews and stuff up here when we have time. For now, thanks for all the support and interest. Now go to RevHQ and buy a friggin' book!!!

2010-07-04T11:12:00.005-04:00

UPDATES? OH...WE GOT UPDATES!!!

Geeze louise, has it been a past couple of weeks here at WBSTYN HQ! We sold the hell outta the first batch of books we got at the NA show in Asbury Park on June 18th. Then, we find out Amazon is sold out of the book before it's official release (which is this Tuesday, 7/6) And now...NOW...we got some great friggin' events planned around the book that just came together in the past few days. In the words of Pappy Brannon, '...Check it out, man...'

ON AUGUST 28, THE DUDES OF CHRONIC YOUTH PRESENT A WBSTYN/'TOUCH & GO FANZINE - THE BOOK' DUAL RELEASE BLOW-OUT! WITH --

NEGATIVE APPROACH

TESCO VEES HATE POLICE

PISSED JEANS

MIND ERASER

HELLMOUTH

NEW LOWS

DJ's FOR THE NIGHT WILL INCLUDE -- TONY RETTMAN, COOCH PAINKILLER, CG WARRIOR AND MANY, MANY MORE!

VEE AND RETTMAN WILL BE THERE SIGNING BOOKS TOO!

ALL HAPPENIN' AT -- SANTOS PARTY HOUSE/96 LAFAYETTE/NEW YORK, NY

SHOW STARTS AT 4 PM

$16 ADAVANCE/$18 DAY OF SHOW

BEFORE THE SHOW, HEAD OVER TO GENERATION RECORDS AT 1 PM THAT DAY FOR AN IN-STORE APPEARANCE BY TESCO VEES HATE POLICE. TONY AND TESCO WILL BE ON HAND TO SIGN BOOKS AS WELL

GENERATION RECORDS/210 THOMPSON ST/NEW YORK, NY/10012

-------

THEN...WE GOT THIS GOING ON TOO...

AUGUST 24TH AT 7 PM AT POWERHOUSE ARENA IN DUMBO, BROOKLYN --

TONY RETTMAN (AUTHOR OF WBSTYN) & IAN CHRISTIE (PUBLISHER OF 'TOUCH & GO FANZINE - THE BOOK') WILL LEAD A 'DISCUSSION' (EW! ER!) ON BOTH BOOKS AS WELL AS SHOW RARE FOOTAGE OF DETROIT HARDCORE SHOWS FROM THE EARLY 80'S. THERE MIGHT EVEN BE A SPECIAL GUEST...BUT THEY HAVEN'T CONFIRMED YET! IAN & TONY WILL ALSO BE ON DIANES' KAMIKAZEE FUN MACHINE SHOW ON WFMU THAT AFTERNOON AS WELL...SO IT'S GONNA BE A JAM PACKED DAY!

AND DON'T YOU BASTARDOS FORGET ABOUT THE FIRST WBSTYN/TOUCH & GO BOOK RELEASE BLOWOUT ON JULY 16TH IN CLEVELAND, OHIO AT THE MUCH ESTEEMED NOW THATS CLASS. TESCO VEES HATE POLICE, WHITE FLAG, HELLMOUTH, McSHITZ & ANTISEPTIC.SHIT STARTS AT 9 PM. BEFORE THE GIG, TESCO AND TONY WILL BE SIGNING BOOKS AT VISIBLE VOICE BOOKS AT 7 PM.

NOW THATS CLASS/11213 DETROIT AVE/CLEVELAND, OHIO

VISIBLE VOICE BOOKS/1023 KENILWORTH/CLEVELAND, OHIO

WBSTYN WILL NOT BE ATTENDING THE CHICAGO GIG THE NEXT DAY DUE TO UNCERTAINTY ON WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON THERE. SORRY...BUT APPARENTLY MEMBERS OF THE MENTORS WILL BE THERE...SO YOU KNOW YOU'LL BE IN CLASSY COMPANY.

PLEASE CONSULT FACEBOOK FOR MORE INFO AND WHATNOT.

HAPPY 4TH AMERIKKKA!

2010-06-25T11:17:00.002-04:00

TODD SWALLA TALKIN' EARLY NECROS AND WHATNOT...
How did you first become aware of Punk Rock? Prior to the UK stuff, were you aware of the MC5, Stooges and the stuff going on in the Midwest?

I grew up with the MC5 and the Stooges. My brother had all those records when they came out and he listened to them a lot. We used to put "Kick Out the Jams" on 78 and freak out and jump on the bed and stuff like that. He listened to the New York Dolls a lot as well. My first exposure to what was actually called "Punk Rock" was on the national news during the whole Sex Pistols media blitz of 77/78. You could not get away from it for a good many months. Then my brother bought "Leave Home" by the Ramones and it was all over!

What were some of the first Punk records you got ahold of and what kind of impact did they have on you?

The aforementioned Ramones album, Heartbreakers-‘LAMF’, Devo, Dead Boys 1st, Elvis Costello albums, Generation X, A comp called "New Wave" which had a lot of great stuff and some really bad stuff on it as well. Television-‘Marquee Moon’, not really punk but we loved it! Tuff Darts, we bought Wire-‘Pink Flag’ on a whim because it had a warning about the swear words on the record, this of course turned out to be an amazing album! In Toledo, Sex Pistol's product was not really available until the U.S. album came out for some reason. We made several trips to Drome Records in Cleveland, We started buying Buzzcocks, The Damned, Sham 69, various import 45's, Pagans, The Saints, UK Subs etc... Then our local stores starting having "Punk" sections... All of these records made a huge impact on our feeble little minds. It was a whole new world opening up.

What kind of music were you into prior to Punk Rock?

I was into Sabbath, Nugent, Aerosmith, Kiss, Van Halen, Alice Cooper, The Tubes, along with The Stooges and the Five, anything that was loud and not wimpy. I saw The Stooges at the Ann Arbor Art Fair in 1970 though I was only 7. My first rock concert was The Tubes in Toledo probably early 76. Toledo had a fairly vibrant concert scene but no local bands of any merit. Tom Scholz from Boston was the big Toledo rock star. The clubs were all booking cover bands from what I have been told.

What record stores in the area were stocking Punk records?

Boogie Records was the local indie store and they would order anything for us even though the clerks made fun of it. Peaches had a punk/new wave section that a metal head employee named Chuck set up. Disc Records was in the mall and this is where Tim Story worked, he did not make fun of us and would go ahead and order stuff on his own and turn us on to it. A bond with Tim was created and he ended up recording our first 45. Special Records opened later, closer to the Hardcore period.How did you guys eventually find out about the West Coast bands? Probably thru Slash and Flipside for LA and Search and Destroy for SF stuff in that order. You had to have every Dangerhouse release to complete your 45 collection. We were all in love with Penelope Houston! We had also hooked up with Jeff from the San Francisco Punk band No Alternative who was from Toledo and was visiting his parents. He turned us on to a lot of SF stuff and encouraged us to be a band.

Did you skate prior to being in the band? How do you think the Punk thing and the skating thing worked together?

I met all of my future band mates thru skateboarding. I had already known Corey because our parents made us go to church and his Mom was friends with mine. Barry would hang out at Church functions with Corey sometimes. He had already been seriously skating for a few years by this time. By this I mean he had pro equipment bought by mail order from California. I was still stuck on a plastic Huffy from K-Mart. I met Andy and David Cooke at a skate demo they did at the library in Maumee. David was the best skater in the area and ended up taking me under his wing. Jeff Lake also skated and went to my Mom's church. I met Brian Hyland at the Toledo skate park. Andy and I ended up going to Catholic High School together our Freshmen year. We both got kicked out and he went to Maumee HS and I went to Bowsher HS in Toledo. At St. Francis he turned me onto Skateboarder Magazine and lent me an issue so I could get my Mom to order me a real board. Thru that magazine and Action Now we learned about punk rock along with the initial Sex Pistols media blitz on TV. In my opinion, the Detroit Hardcore scene would not have happened without the energy of the skate scene that was already happening. Being skateboarders from the Midwest we were automatically drawn to Southern California surf/skate culture. We were always up on the latest things coming from out West. The skaters adopted that whole Huntington Beach vibe and infused the energy into a dull and dying Detroit Punk/New Wave scene and re-vamped it to how we imagined it was out west. Jack boots, cropped hair, bandannas and chains, 30 second songs etc.. We all tried to look like the skankman for a period. All the dudes in DC and Boston skated too, its nothing really too surprising. On that Minor Threat trip to Madison we encountered a scene that was ALL skaters. I copped the whole Bermuda shorts thing from Bucky and those dudes and dropped the boots and braces thing for a Black Flag/ thrift store and Vans look.

How did the relationship with Tesco and Dave at Touch and Go start up?

I think they wrote to us first via Smegma. Either that or Barry picked up Touch and Go in Ann Arbor and wrote to them. They came to a show of ours in Ann Arbor at the Xanadu Co-op and took us under their wing after that. Those guys encouraged us to act like Punk Rock brats but they also made us confident as a band. Two of the finest men I will ever have the honor of knowing!

What inspired the creation of Smegma Journal? How did you distribute the magazine in the start?

Smegma was Barrys’ thing and he would have us write record and show reviews. His parents paid for it with the back cover ad for their wine shop which was across the street from Barrys’ house. We all worked there at one time or another. At first we gave it away but then we started putting issues on consignment at School Kids in Ann Arbor and Boogie in Toledo. It got to be too much for Barry with the time involved in the band so I think he just lost interest plus we were intertwined with Touch and Go at that point.

How did you become aware of the slam dancing/stage diving rituals that were starting in LA?

At first, through the LA and San Francisco fanzines. I remember a big article in S.F's Damage about the whole Huntington Beach thing and a review of that famous Circle Jerks invasion of S.F where the HB crew followed them up to wreck havoc. Then of course Corey came back from LA with the gnarly Starwood videos of Flag, the Adolescents and China White. Watching these videos was like Hardcore 101.

Lets talk about the start of the Necros. Give me the full lowdown on how it got together, what inspired it, etc.

David Cooke, Barry and myself were being carted home by my Mom from the Toledo skate park. This was late ‘77 or early ‘78, right in the middle of the whole Sex Pistols media blitz being played out on National TV. Punk Rock was on the news every night for a good 4 or 5 months culminating with the death of Sid Vicious. We were already into loud aggressive Rock 'N Roll albeit Ted Nugent and Aerosmith etc.. but this stuff was way crazier and as loud as those older Detroit groups my brother was into. We dug out the old Stooges and Dolls records and started listening to them again. My brother cut all his long hair off and his friends did as well. They started a punk band way before the Necros were even conceived, The Dangling Abstractions. David Cooke came up with the name Circle Jerks as a joke but something about necrophilia was thrown about as well. I think Barry came up with the condensed version. I don't think we started actually practicing until winter of ‘78 which means we talked about it for over a year.

Once you guys got a hold of those early LA punk singles, did it change anything in the style of the band?

It was more the influence of those Dangerhouse 45's than just LA bands. Remember The Avengers and The Dils were from SF and those records are two of the best. It seems we could relate more to them because they were from the states. We still dug English punk but it’s hard for a 16 year old living in suburban Ohio to relate to someone from England singing about the dole and tower block riots. That Weirdos 45 is probably one of the best punk singles ever. The Germs album was a turning point. Darby was our new Iggy. Then Barry discovered Black Flag and it was all over. We had to play harder and faster; it had been pre-ordained.

Do you remember the 1st gig you guys played? What was it like?

Let’s clear things up first. Contrary to what "American Hardcore" states our first gig was not at the VFW Hall in Ann Arbor opening for the Cult Heroes. The first Necros gig was on Halloween night 1979 at a University of Toledo watering hole known as The Brass Bell. We were friends with one Steve Athanas who sang for a new wave cover band known as The Best. They decided to sneak us in and let us play during one of their breaks. We were awful but we did have a lot of attitude. Barry got in a fight with some frat dude on stage and he kicked him. Brian Hyland played the whole set with his pants down to his ankles. It was the first real drum set I had ever played. We played for like 15 minutes and we were done. Then we had to hang out in the Pizza Place next door because we were too young to be in the bar.

How did you get to know the other people that would make up the Midwest scene like Negative Approach, Violent Apathy, The Fix, Bored Youth, etc?

We met Pete and Brannon early on at a Madness show at the Punch and Judy. Later we ran into Brannon at a Subhumans (Canada) show at Wayne State. We introduced stage diving and pig piles at that show. We'd already known Larissa for a few months I suppose. This was like mid 1980 most likely. Through Brannon and Pete we met all the Detroit skate punks. We met Violent Apathy and The Fix through Tesco. Bored Youth were just kids who had been going to shows and I think they approached Corey about getting on some bills. We had also met the Toxic Reasons in the summer of 1980 at a big RAR show in Clark Park which had DOA headlining. Bad Brains were also on the bill but ended up cancelling.

English Oi! Music played a big part in the early Midwest scene. How did you become aware of these bands? What was your interpretation of these bands? Did you find the idea of English music to be exotic? How much of the English skinhead ideals come into play into play in the Midwest scene?

We read Sounds of course! We were already into Sham, UK Subs and the Upstarts and these bands had a similar vibe, though most of them kind of sucked. Exotic would not be the term I would use. We quickly realized that we could play our instruments a lot better than most of these limeys could. The original core group of Detroit kids split apart because of Oi! music, ignorance and fear. The skaters continued to skate and listen to whatever...anything from Motorhead to The Descendents. The skinheads started drinking ale, bashing heads and listening to Skrewdriver, The Last Resort and The Effigies. It was very sad and quite humorous at the same time. I remember they were real bummed when Sab Grey "went punk". They jumped Corey one night at the Greystone and he got beaten up really bad, this was after he left the band and we had had our falling out. I hear some of the original skins are still into it after all these years. Pretty pathetic!

What was the first time the Necros left town for a gig. What was that like? What were some of your favorite 1st time out-of-town gigs?

Apart from Ann Arbor or Detroit we played a horrible show at a fag bar in Lexington, Kentucky. This was back when half of our set was Adolescents and Black Flag songs that nobody but us had even heard outside of California. Other faves would be the Boston show with SSD, Minor Threat, Meatmen and FU’S at some VFW hall. This was where we first did all of the songs for Conquest and re-introduced Andy on guitar and pretty much blew everyone else off the stage. It was a great feeling because we came to Boston and cleaned house big time. Others would be having Goldenvoice fly us in to open for Motorhead, Lincoln Memorial with Fear and Void, first NYC show with the Jerks, there are too many to remember.

2010-06-17T20:31:00.003-04:00

C'MON DOWN TO ASBURY PARK & GET A COLLECTORS ITEM...THAT'S ALL WE GOTTA SAY... OK...here's the deal, fidels. We just got done rubberstamping 56 books (2 boxes) with the stamp pictured above. If you show up tomorrow night at the NA/DOA show at the Asbury Lanes tomorrow and buy a book, this is what you'll get. Once we run out of 'em, that's it. So come early and get a book or pose hard.

2010-06-15T21:22:00.003-04:00

BOOKS IN ASBURY PARK THIS FRIDAY FOR THE NA SHOW...BE THERE!!!

That is right! We will have a VERY small amount of books at the Negative Approach show going on in Asbury Park, NJ this Friday (6/18) Be there to get a book 3 weeks before its release date! Exciting crap, no? We are looking into making these copies a unique entity. Maybe something like a rubber stamp of the date or something like that. We're still working on that. Keep checking the blog and the Facebook page in the next three days for updates, pics, etc... This is some huge stuff!!!

2010-06-10T13:03:00.008-04:00

PETE ZELEWSKI OF NA AND THE ALLIED SITS DOWN FOR A SERIOUS CHAT...WBSTYN - Give a brief description of how and where you grew up. If you didn’t grow up in the Midwest, where did you grow up and what lead you to this area? Do you think the environment you grew up in was one of the factors that got you interested in Punk?

Pete Z - I grew up in a very middle class suburb of Detroit called Grosse Pointe. Life in Grosse Pointe was probably like a million other soulless suburbs throughout America, which was the perfect breeding ground for me to engross myself in punk rock. I always felt like an outcast in High School and the local community and found that by submerging myself in music, art and writing I could just about survive the normality of the local life. Punk Rock not only gave me an outlet to vent my frustrations (through music, bands and fanzines) but also an identity that was unique to me at the time.

WBSTYN - How did you first become aware of Punk Rock?

PZ - I was into music long before I discovered punk rock mainly due to the influence of my older brother. There was always musicians hanging around my house and it was natural for me to follow in the same direction. Although my brother was more into traditional rock, musically I was always drawn to bands that were less on the mainstream side of things. One summer a cousin came to visit from London and for the first time I was exposed to all sorts of bands that were happening in the UK punk scene at the time (The Sex Pistols, The Jam, The Clash, The Ruts etc.). Although I used to read about punk in magazines like Creem, for one reason or another I never took them seriously. Out of curiosity I bought the Sex Pistols ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ and from the moment the needle hit the turntable I was hooked. It was the calling I had been waiting for and from that point on there was no turning back. Within a week I cut and dyed my hair, ripped up my leather jacket, learned a few guitar chords and formed my first punk band called The Sleeves.

WBSTYN - What were some of the first Punk records you got? What are some of your favorites out of the lot that inspired you to start bands, etc. What records prior to being aware of Punk do you think factored into you getting interested in Punk?

PZ - The most liberating thing for me about Punk Rock was that anyone could do it (and anyone was welcome). One of the most influential albums for me before hardcore was ‘Rocket To Russia’ by the Ramones. As a struggling guitarist I managed to learn the entire album in a weekend while my older brother and his friends painfully spent weeks learning chord progressions to Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. Since I had no set agenda musically I was very open-minded and would buy anything that looked interesting (The Jam, Eater, Sham 69, The Clash, The Buzzcocks etc.). What I loved most about punk rock at the time was that visually the records were often as exciting as the music on offer. I was very into art at school and found the imagery used in record sleeve design very stimulating. This inspired me not only musically but also the fanzine graphics and gig poster design I later was heavily involved in.

WBSTYN - Describe what the Midwest music scene was like at the time before you guys started playing out. Name specific bands and clubs and what kind of ‘scene’ went on there and how you felt about it. What were the bands (prior to the HC explosion) in your area that you thought were doing something viable and inspired you to start playing music.

PZ - Before the hardcore scene evolved there really was no scene to speak of in Detroit. Because of licensing laws (I was 16 at the time) it was almost impossible to see bands in the few clubs that had punk rock on offer. The punk scene at the time had more of a new wave slant and consisted of a few places like Bookies, Nunzios, The Red Carpet and a few irrelevant others. In the early days, myself and John Brannon (NA singer) would go to check out local Detroit bands like Coldcut, The Mutants, The Sillies who were all ‘supposedly’ punk rock. We found it very disheartening, and if anything, it made us more determined (by their lack of conviction) to start a band that was relevant to kids our age.
Through our never-ending search for good music we luckily befriended a girl called Larissa Stolarchuck who sang in a band called L7. L7 were a huge breath of fresh air for us and the only Detroit band we could take seriously at the time (not hardcore but very uncompromising in their approach). We took every opportunity to see them live and became real fans. Larissa also wrote a fanzine called ‘Anonymous’ which certainly inspired my fanzine writing later on. Larissa was a very interesting person and highly knowledgeable musically and responsible for introducing John and I to the Necros.

WBSTYN - How did you find out about the west coast Punk stuff? Slash? Flipside? Where did you find those magazines in the Midwest? Did you do a lot of mail order? What record stores out there stocked this stuff?

PZ - It will come as no surprise that my musical influences in most cases laid on the other side of the Atlantic so at the time I wasn’t aware of Flipside or Slash. I used to travel about 50 miles to Ann Arbor (a small college town in Michigan) to buy the New Musical Express and Sounds just to read about British punk rock. If the NME wasn’t in stock I would pick up anything else that might look interesting and slowly I built up a huge collection of fanzines, which helped to further expand my musical knowledge with what was happening outside of the sterile confines of the Detroit music scene.

WBSTYN - Did you skate? If so, how did you get into that and how did you find out about pro skaters like Alva, Adams, etc? How long were you skating for before you found out about Punk? How do you think skating and the HC scene worked together?

PZ - I always found it odd (and still do) between the connection of skateboarding and punk rock. Before my punk days I was heavily addicted to skateboarding and used to spend months on end at the local skate park. I was really into Tony Alva and all the Dogtown skaters and even got caught by the police one summer for spray painting ‘Dogtown Skates’ on a local shop wall. When I discovered punk rock, skateboarding just seemed so irrelevant and I immediately swapped my board for a guitar. A few years later a friend who was still into skating told me I had to come back to the skate park because all the skate kids had cut their hair and were full into punk rock.Because finding local punks my age was the equivalent of discovering life on Mars I went straight over there in the hope of finding some like minded band mates. I was slightly disappointed with my discovery when I realized that most of the skate kids had very little interest in music (Devo was a favorite amongst them?) and were really just using punk rock as a way to emulate their skate heroes in California.

WBSTYN - How did you get to know Tesco Vee? What was the first time you met him?

PZ - We were introduced to Tesco shortly after we met the Necros. Touch and Go was the Midwest hardcore bible at the time and very well respected in the underground American music scene. Because of this status whenever Tesco wrote about a group it was instant publicity. He conducted the first ever Negative Approach interview (in a toilet) before we even played a gig and our popularity just seemed to grow overnight. If anything he made us feel like a band worth listening too and really gave us the confidence to push on. Tesco was never really a big fan of the Allied, but I always respected him because he gave us a fair hearing and wasn’t so quick to judge us like many others from that scene. He was also highly knowledgeable musically (never limiting himself to just hardcore) and had a huge record collection (the only one to rival Barry Hensslers’), which as a record nut, I was in complete awe of. Through his fanzine Touch and Go we were exposed to all sorts of West Coast and Washington D.C. music that most of us would never have had the chance to read about.

WBSTYN - How did you become aware of the slam dancing/stage diving ritual of Hardcore? Did you read about it? I know this sounds like a totally retarded question, but I’m just sorta curious of how you found out about it.

PZ - The whole slam dancing thing was very a west coast thing and I was completely unaware of it until I first saw Black Flag (with Dez on vocals). The Necros were obviously well into it and the moment Black Flag hit the stage the floor exploded with slam dancers with elbows and fists flying in every direction. It was never really my thing but it certainly helped to make hardcore gigs a real spectacle.

WBSTYN - When and how did you guys get to know the kids in the D.C. scene?

PZ - The Washington D.C. connection happened through Barry, Todd and Corey from the Necros. They were well into the whole D.C. scene long before us and exposed us to all the great music that was coming out of the area. We first met the D.C. kids when Minor Threat played a gig to about 30 kids in a bar in Windsor, Canada called the Coronation Tavern. Seeing Minor Threat live for the first time was an experience I’ll never forget and certainly in my top 10 gigs of all time. At the time John Brannon and I just formed Negative Approach and we quickly realized that if we were going to be taken seriously as a hardcore band in their league we had some serious work to do.

WBSTYN - What do you remember about the band Harold?

PZ - A joke-ish band fronted by a guy called Davo (I think). If my memory serves me correct Harold used various members of Youth patrol as a backing band. Never my sort of thing but always very humorous. Frontman Davo took some great photos from the early Freezer days some of which I used in my fanzine the Real Threat.

WBSTYN - What do you remember about Youth Patrol

PZ - Youth Patrol were one of the earliest hardcore bands along with the Necros and Negative Approach. I have vague memories of myself playing guitar for them in the early days but left after forming Negative Approach. OP and Graham who later joined NA were both members of Youth Patrol. Their singer (Spike) also played bass in the first line-up of the Allied. For one reason or another no one ever took Youth Patrol as serious as they did Negative Approach (they were a few years younger) but they weren’t a bad band considering they were all about 14.

WBSTYN - What about Bored Youth?

PZ - Easily the most underrated band from the Detroit hardcore scene. They weren’t technically a thrash/hardcore band but they had a real style of their own and hugely influenced me when I put the Allied together. Musically their songs were slower than the bands at the time and they definitely had an English influence to their sound mainly due to singer Rob and drummer Fred being huge Eater and Sham 69 fans. Having said that lyrically they were in a league of their own and sang songs, which really hit home about what life was like being a teenage punk in Detroit (check out their song ‘Outcast’). Their singer Rob Michaels was a good friend and a great guy. He sang for the Allied for a short time when Bored Youth broke up but left the band to attend college.

WBSTYN - English Oi! Music played a big part in the early Midwest sceneHow did you become aware of these bands? What was your interpitation of these bands? Did you find the idea of English music to be exotic? How much of the English skinhead ideals come into play into play in the Midwest scene?

PZ - It’s hard to deny the fact that the English Oi bands had a big influence not only on the Allied but also on quite a few of the hardcore bands. I was an avid reader of UK magazines like NME and Sounds so even before my introduction to hardcore I was used to reading about bands like Sham 69, the Cockney Rejects and Blitz. Although the similarities between the Oi bands and the US hardcore bands are few, the common link, which really brought them together, was the whole chanting thing with everybody in the crowd singing along. The Necros used to cover Sham 69’s ‘Rip Off’ and it would always get the whole crowd singing/chanting along which also started having the same effect on their other songs. I never limited myself to just buying music from the US, so although bands like Minor Threat and the Necros were a big influence, I was also checking out all the new Oi bands from the UK. I remember sitting down with John Brannon after hearing the first Blitz single and we were completely blown away by it. We then bought the first Oi album and immediately fell in love with the 4-Skins and even covered ‘Chaos’. Although Negative Approach weren’t an Oi band we were without a doubt heavily influenced by it.

To be honest I think we were all too young and naive to really understand the political agenda of a lot of those English Oi bands. For me it was just great, raw explosive music and although I was aware of some of the extremist views of a lot of the bands (Screwdriver being one) I tried my best to ignore it. Although I considered the Allied a punk band first and foremost we unfortunately started attracting a following that were hugely into the Oi/skinhead thing. In a naive way they took the skinhead thing far too serious and the level of violence at our gigs was really starting to escalate. It made no sense to me how Sham 69 used to sing ‘If the Kids Are United’ and here were a bunch of skinheads beating everyone up around them. I hated all the violence that surrounded the scene and without a doubt it was one of the main thing that made me turn my back on it.

WBSTYN - Tell me how Negative Approach formed

PZ - John Brannon and I lived in Grosse Pointe just streets from each other and went to the same high school. We were both the only punks in Grosse Pointe (and complete outcasts) at the time and struck up a relationship instantly. At the time I was playing bass in my band called the Sleeves and John was in a band called Static. Static were very glam punk in the vein of the New York Dolls and the Stooges and I was doing my best to be Paul Weller with my band the Sleeves. Although musically we’re on opposite sides of the fence it was inevitable that we would end up in a band at some stage just because there was no one else around like us at the time. We started hanging out and going to gigs more frequently and eventually, through meeting the Necros, discovered hardcore.From that initial meeting with the Necros (and seeing Black Flag live) we both knew instantly we wanted to form a hardcore band. John had put a lot of work into Static and was hesitant to leave but listened to my advice and followed me in our first musical venture by forming Negative Approach. We recruited a local skater Rob McCulloch on guitar, who I had met through some skate kids and we brought along an odd Iranian drummer named ‘Zuheir’ to keep the beat. Before we knew it we had a band name, six songs and we started spray painting ‘NA’ all over Detroit!

WBSTYN - What were the first NA shows like? What was the reaction?

PZ - It’s got to be said that John Brannon as a front man was really the star of that scene. He was the sort of guy who was always meant to be on stage and came alive because of it. In our early bands (Static and the Sleeves) we probably never played to more than 20 people but as soon as NA was formed we instantly started attracting a huge die-hard following. John thrived on this and all the crowd participation/chanting and really transformed himself into an amazing front man. The early gigs were explosive and with each one we played there would be another 30 or so kids in tow with NA stencilled on their shirt or jacket. We never expected to be in the same league as the Necros or Minor Threat but the support we were getting was very strong and so instant we literally moved into the hardcore premiership overnight. What started out as a cool name written on a wall was now a band that was turning into a real force in the Midwest hardcore scene.

WBSTYN - How long were you in NA?

PZ - Probably about a year. John and I were still great friends but musically we were really drifting. Although I loved the impact we were having in the scene I was concerned there was no room to develop musically. I was getting really bored with the 30-second songs and full on thrash approach. At the same time I started getting into the Effiges from Chicago and Iron Cross from Washington D.C. who seemed more in tune with where I was coming from musically. Since the scene was really now starting to take off I also felt it was a great time to produce my first fanzine (Real Threat). Although I always loved playing music my first love was art/photography/journalism and I just saw this as a great chance to get my fanzine started (something I had always wanted to do). It felt like a good time as any to leave the band and I called it a day. John was disappointed but cool about it and immediately they had more like-minded band members in the shape of the OP and Graham from Youth Patrol. Although I was proud of forming NA and steering John in the right direction the new band members really turned them into what people know them for today.

WBSTYN - When did you decide to form The Allied? What was the reason behind it?

PZ - I felt very stifled by the music I was playing in Negative Approach (hence my departure) and after I got my fanzine (the Real Threat) going I felt the urge to start playing music again. Although the music scene in the Midwest was traditionally very diverse, the new bands starting up seemed to lack any really originality and this inspired me to form a band that didn’t follow the hardcore/thrash rule book. Influenced by bands like Iron Cross in Washington and The Effigies in Chicago I had a clear idea what I wanted to do with the Allied and enlisted Doug Bashaw on vocals who also shared my views. I loved the energy of hardcore but I wanted to slow the pace down and in a way offer an alternative to what my peers were doing. Although we had a healthy following I was always surprised by the negative reaction to the band just because we were trying something different.

WBSTYN - The Allied seemed a bit more into Brit punk than the other Midwest bands. I mean, NA covered Oi! bands and stuff, but you guys seem to have this legend around you that you were more Brit influenced than the others. Was this a conscious decision?

PZ - You can’t ignore your influences, and for better or worse, my musical influences were always rooted deep in British music. From the Stones and the Beatles, to the Clash and the Jam to my current favourite bands like the Arctic Monkeys and the Kaiser Chiefs my musical tastes have always predominantly resided in the UK. Naturally when I put NA and the Allied together my musical influences came across in our sound. Having said that it was never a conscious effort to sound British, and lyrically we sang about the same issues most teenage punks sang about and not about being on the dole and drinking in pubs (we were all straight edge anyway).
It always amazed me how the British influenced tag went against us. We were constantly being accused of not supporting local bands, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. It was precisely because of local bands like the Necros that I had the confidence to put a band together that reflected my true musical tastes.

WBSTYN - What were some of the most memorable NA and Allied shows?

PZ - For me it had to be the Freezer Theatre gigs. I spent years going to punk shows in Detroit and the attitude towards anyone under 18 was always so negative it was so refreshing to have the Freezer, which was a place where we made the rules. When hardcore bands used to play, there was sometimes as many as 6-7 bands on the bill. You would be in the crowd one minute and the next you were on the stage. To me this was what punk rock was all about.

WBSTYN - Why did the Allied break up?

PZ - I left the band in late ‘83, which really resulted in my complete exit from that scene. I was involved in the scene from day one and my life was completely absorbed in everything to do with it for 3 years. Although the early days were fantastic (when we were all united) the scene was really starting to divide as things progressed. The hardcore bands were becoming more and more like heavy metal bands (I detested heavy metal) and the violence that was surrounding the scene was really getting out of control. I just took a step back one day and realised I had very little in common with most of the kids involved. Punk rock to me was always very liberating but I found the close-mindedness of a lot of those kids very difficult to stomach. Regarding my departure from the Allied, I spoke about it with Allied singer Doug Bashaw at length, and although disappointed, he completely understood my reasons for leaving. There were no hard feelings; it was just that I needed to move on. Coincidentally, I only found out recently that they continued as a five piece for another three years (with members of the Displaced) after I left the band.

WBSTYN - When was the 1st NA show? First Allied show?

PZ - The first Negative Approach show was at a party in the basement of Todd Swalla (Necros drummer) in Maumee, Ohio. We had only been together a few months and were completely un-rehearsed but it was an amazing gig. Both John and myself had been in bands before and were used to having NO audience participation (except people throwing things at us) but this gig was completely different. All the Necros and their friends got right behind us with their support which really helped to calm our nerves (we were very nervous). It was that kind of support that really helped to install confidence in us as a band.

WBSTYN - Talk about your fanzine Real Threat and what inspired you to do it. How many issues did you do? What were some memorable reviews or interviews that were in there?

PZ - Although I was always in bands in one form or another I never wanted to pursue music long term as my real passion was always art and design (I’m a graphic designer today). Playing music was always secondary to me so getting the Real Threat off the ground was a big ambition of mine. My inspiration came from all sorts of UK fanzines like 48 Thrills, Sniffing Glue and Ripped and Torn, which were sent over from a cousin of mine in London. These fanzines to me really represented the DIY ethics of punk rock. After the hardcore scene started taking off I started getting into local fanzines like Anonymous, Touch and Go and most importantly the Smegma Journal which Barry Henssler used to publish. Barry taught me the art of photocopying, letrasetting (a primitive form of desk top publishing) and exposed me to a whole range of US/west coast fanzines, which I was completely unfamiliar with. The Midwest scene needed another fanzine to document what was happening and I also saw it as a great opportunity to write about bands a lot of the local kids would never have been exposed to. I loved the whole fanzine process and was amazed at the reaction I used to get from kids all over the world. To this day I still have the original letters from all sorts of Real Threat readers including Thurston Moore, J Mascis, GG Allin and Mensi from the Angelic Upstarts. Because producing a fanzine in 1981 was very time consuming (no Apple Macs, no internet, no email etc) I only ever published two copies of the fanzine. The third issue was just about finished (with an enlightening interview with Ian Mackaye) when I left the Allied, which also shut the doors on the Real Threat.

WBSTYN - How did the scene start to grow? How did everyone know each other?

PZ - When the Midwest scene first started it was just John Brannon and myself, the local skatekids, the Necros and Tesco from Lansing. Within months things really stared to progress and with each show more and more kids would turn up from all over Michigan and Ohio. We would think nothing of piling in a van and driving 3-4 hours just to play to 20 people. It was a very explosive and exciting scene and word of mouth spread very fast.

WBSTYN - What was the Midwest’s problem with T.S.O.L.?

PZ - Henry Rollins and the whole Black Flag crew had a big impact on hardcore, and when he left SOA to join Black Flag, a whole new macho attitude seemed to creep into the scene. There were stories of Rollins doing push ups and pumping iron before Black Flag shows and a lot of kids from our scene also adopted this macho stance (myself excluded). TSOL were notorious for wearing face makeup and this was something no self-respecting hardcore band was supposed to do. For everything great about the hardcore scene it was backward attitudes like this that really showed how narrow-minded some of the thinking was. I always found it slightly ironic how a band like the Misfits (who funnily enough also wore face make-up) were completely idolised in our circles whereas TSOL were despised. I personally never liked TSOL, not because they wore make-up (that I didn’t have problem with) I just thought they were a dreadful band.

WBSTYN - How big of a help was the presence of the Touch and Go mag? How did you meet Tesco and Dave?

PZ - I think it’s safe to say that without Tesco and Dave Midwest hardcore would never have happened. They were not only influential in bringing a lot of those bands together but they also helped us gain a certain amount of respect in the alternative music community through their Touch and Go fanzine. Tesco was also fairly older than most of us and because of this he had a more mature attitude, but when you saw him on stage with the Meatmen, maturity didn’t come into it (and I mean that as a big compliment)!

WBSTYN - How did you guys stumble upon the Freezer theatre? Describe the place as vividly as possible. Who was the initial person who found it? Who was the main person who booked it? When did it start having shows? How long did it last? What were the most memorable shows from there? Describe the space the best you can.

PZ - I actually played at the Freezer a year before the hardcore gigs started. I wouldn’t say I discovered it but I certainly played a part in getting hardcore bands to play there. When I was playing bass in my first band the Sleeves we found it impossible to get gigs locally because of our ages (we were only 15/16). One night I attended a Rock Against Racism gig at Wayne State University and hooked up with a promoter who also ran the Freezer and I talked him into letting my band the Sleeves play at their next show. Because Rock Against Racism was big with punk bands in England (and I was wearing a Brigade Rosse t-shirt – to look like Joe Strummer) the promoter put us on the bill without even hearing us. We played our first gig at the Freezer with all sorts of Reggae, Soul and Calypso bands. We used to cover (very poorly) Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves’ and also the Slickers ‘Johnny Too Bad’ and that was enough to get us several more gigs at the Freezer with the RAR crowd. I also helped John Brannon’s first band Static get a gig there but the politically correct audience didn’t take to John rolling around the stage on broken beer bottles and smothering himself in toothpaste (Static had a song called Toothpaste and Pills).Once we met up with the Necros we told them about the Freezer and Corey (being the shrewd business man that he was) made a few calls and the next thing we knew there was a gig with about 7 hardcore bands on the bill.
The Freezer itself was nothing more than a deserted shop front stuck in the middle of the Detroit’s Cass Corridor (very dangerous and run down area of Detroit). The club itself would hold about 150 people and was without a doubt the home to Midwest Hardcore. We graffited the walls, built the stage and turned it into a place of our own. My most memorable gigs from that time were at the Freezer (especially supporting Minor Threat the night it was closed down) just because it felt like home to most of us.

WBSTYN - How did you feel once you left the Midwest and found out people knew who you were and knew your songs? Were you surprised?

PZ - Completely surprised! Funnily enough it still happens to this day. The biggest shock came a few years ago when I was at a White Stripes gig in London and I met up with Ben Blackwell from Detroit’s Dirtbombs. He told me their guitarist (and most of the band) were big Negative Approach fans and they even did a Negative Approach cover at their soundcheck! It was just hard to believe that a band I helped form over twenty years ago still had some relevance today. At the time we thought the band would last about the duration of one of our songs (30 seconds) but somehow we’re still talked about today.

WBSTYN - What kind of impact do you think the Midwest scene made on the HC scene back then? What kind of impact do you think it made on culture in general?

PZ - If you talk about American hardcore you can’t deny the influence and impact the Midwest had on it. Each scene in the US was very different but I do think the bands from the Midwest certainly had a uniqueness that wasn’t displayed in some of the other smaller scenes throughout the country. With bands like the Necros, Negative Approach, L7, Violent Apathy, The Meatmen and the Allied they all had something different about them while still retaining loyalty to each other and the scene around them. Although I didn’t agree with all the attitudes that surrounded the Midwest Scene (which were quite sexist and very homophobic at times) at the end of the day it gave many kids the opportunity to look outside the small insular communities they came from and to help them develop ideas of their own to branch out and move forward. To me that’s what punk was really all about.

WBSTYN - How do you feel about the legacy the Midwest scene has left? What do you think it was about the Midwest scene that left such an impact? Do you even consider it a legacy?

PZ - I’d say a legacy is a bit of strong word to describe what we left but if we had some impact, and influenced others to do something equally creative, then that can’t be a bad thing. My only concern is that I feel kids today should be looking forward not backwards musically and concentrating on developing a scene or musical style that is unique to them (like we tried to do). Punk to me was all about youth and change and progression and it would be great to see another movement which is as exciting as what was happening with punk/hardcore in the early 80’s.

2010-06-03T11:20:00.003-04:00

THE HISTORY OF THE FIX PART SIX...The first week of March 1981, the single, "Vengeance" b/w "In This Town" came back from the pressing plant. Tesco and Dave had handled the whole thing. One thing the Fix were not was business savvy. They delivered a couple boxes of the 200 singles to our Beulah Street abode. We promptly set a box of 15 on one of the floor heating vents, melting them into oblivion.

A week later, Craig had set us up a show in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., home of Central Michigan University about 60 miles north of Lansing. We showed up at the joint, hauled our gear up some stairs, and began line checks.

"Wait a minute, what are you doing?" The guy who set up the show came up to Craig, who turned his back immediately. It was something we heard on occasion from weak-kneed sissy bar owners, promoters and soundmen. They wanted to be rock and roll warriors until the real deal hit them in the face. We often had showdowns with them and won, because at the end of the day, they couldn't turn down the guitars on stage.

This time, though, the guy persisted. I jumped in as Craig blared away, tossing chords and notes into a semi-melodic stew.

"This is the band you booked and we're here to play," I told the guy. We had no manager and no contract, but we were not the nicest guys when you tried to fuck us over. Things tended to get stolen and broken, and I always felt we held that card.

"You cannot play that loud in this bar," the guy said. He was a preppy little brat who was used to getting his way. "So turn it down and get it together."

By now Craig had stopped, Mike was unplugging and Jeff was nowhere to be found.

"Fuck you, give us some money, we're leaving," I said. Craig stepped up the attack and seconded my demand for money. He went face to face with the guy and I scooted away, looking for something to steal. Ah, the liquor room was handily set next to the rear load-in door. I pulled two fifths of whiskey and walked out to the van. When I walked back in, Craig was taking down his gear and we were loading out. It was been decided. Here's $50, go home if you want to play that kind of thing.

It happened in places where this music was just taking hold. Episodes like this played to what a guy from the Controllers told me in 1978: "Punk rock turns everyone into their dad." People who might bang their heads to Sabbath or Grand Funk turned to spineless weasels when three chords of fire came their way.

At the end of March, Black Flag came to town to play Club Doo Bee. Fix and Necros opened, the place was packed, and a trio of local police cars sat in a parking lot across from the club. We played a tremendous set, one of our best to date, and Flag went off like a bomb. At a party later at the Beulah house, the place was filled with punks from all over and we hung out and drank 'til 7 a.m. listening to everything from our considerable music collection, from the Pink Fairies and Slade, which seemed to impress the Black Flag guys, to the Damned and the Heartbreakers. Ginn told me he had seen the Ramones a dozen times. Dez was putting some AC/DC on the stereo as I was heading to bed. They were good house guests.

In April, we were invited back to Oz in Chicago, delivering this time to a much fuller house. Babbin was there. He talked, talked some more, and impressed us with his growing knowledge of places to play around the U.S. He was in as manager. It was haste of a higher order that arrived at the decision to do a U.S. tour. The reason was simple: Black Flag did it, we can too. We never even considered that no one would care. It was just what we had to do.
DOA came to town and stayed at our place. We were now part of the network, which was fine. Any band touring at that time was solid and honored the de facto rules of couch crashing. No stealing, no pilfering of existing food supplies unless invited and no phone bills. A bit of cleaning was usually in order as well. It was the Econoline version of wilderness living: Leave it the way your found it.

Over many, many beers, DOA convinced us that touring the U.S. could be done and was fairly easy. Ken Lester sat in our living room and, using a phone card, talked for hours to promoters and, at one point, Jello Biafra. We were impressed. Lester told us that no record label support was needed. Only a van and a phone book full of numbers, which he readily shared. Craig copied them down and we passed them on to Babbin, our new manager. The party that night was limited to our two bands, talking about the shows they had done and what we were up to.

Randy Rampage drank more beer than seemed possible. While Flag had no look other than an aura of menace that was more psychological than physical, DOA dug the fashion. Bandanas on the arms and legs, bleached hair, fat rings and boot chains were part of their deal. When they left our place to go to Club Doo Bee to play, some of the neighborhood kids asked them what band they were in.

"Kiss," Rampage told them without a pause.

Their show was strong but poorly attended. While DOA had been on the road since 1979, their legacy was still growing, a slow bloom rather than the relatively meteoric rise of Black Flag. Not to mention the nonexistent buzz of the Fix.
There were other bands beginning to play out around Michigan by the spring of 1981. Violent Apathy, from Kalamazoo, was a four-piece led a charismatic singer named Ken Knott. VA were eccentric in their approach, featuring a guitar player who could barely find the frets and a drummer who would occasionally fall off his improvised drum stool, his set scattering at the same time. They were green, but they had great heart and we stuck them on as many bills as we could.

The Necros were from Maumee, Ohio, and were starting to get a lot of shows around Detroit. Young, insecure, and slaves to whatever trend happened to be flying around, the Necros brought with them a cadre of junior high school kids wherever they played, who chased each other about like it was recess. The Necros sound was as juvenile as their appearance, a timid blast of sound that had some skill at its heart. When they got Corey Rusk in the band, he instilled some integrity to the operation, just as he turned the little Touch and Go label into an international success.

Little else was going on in the region. While national acts like the Ramones inspired bands everywhere they went, we cared little about legacy in that regard. And it seemed a good thing; we weren't exactly role models.

By May 1981, the Fix was plotting its tour, with Babbin doing his work out of Chicago. I somehow became his point man in the band, and he called me daily to report his progress."Oklahoma City came through, they'll put us on with the Embarrassment," Jon told me one night. It was so foreign to think of playing this music for someone in OK City. I steeled myself for trouble in some of these spots, and wasn't disappointed.

2010-05-27T12:28:00.009-04:00

FROM THE ARCHIVES OF BURP! FANZINE... BURP! Fanzine was the concoction of John Brannon and Todd Swalla under the assumed names of Clive and Berl Johnson. Birthed sometime in late ’81 and sent to bed sometime in ’82, two issues came out with a third never completed. Although slim in size, this mag was packed with info and perfectly encapsulated the Midwest HC yuckster vibe of that era. Sir Swalla was kind enough to let us hold the original layouts for these gemstones. We have chosen to share with you some of the choicest live reviews from some of the issues here on the blog. Since we here at WBSTYN are lazy a-holes who never bothered to buy a scanner, you will just have to enjoy the accompanying photos to get a grasp of the greatness of this rag. When reading these reviews, one has to wonder…did they choose these aliases so they could review their own bands? Perhaps they were just scarred of catching a beating from the Ann Arbor mods and/or The Damned (Yeah, right…)

WBSTYN will be doing a limited re-print of both issues as well as the incomplete third issue to be sold at the book release parties listed on the right. All three will come in a poly bag with an accompanying print of a Davo Schiech photo. They will be hand-stamped and limited to 100 copies. So, in the words of the late great Townes Van Zandt, ‘See you this summer…BRING MONEY!’

DEC. 23 THE MUDD CLUB N.Y. BLACK FLAG AND SACCHARINE TRUST

From the moment I walked into this place I knew it was gay, but let’s not talk about that. S.T. were really good, a hell of alot better than on record, plus the guys in the band are cool as shit. Black Flag with Henry kills. He’s on top of the crowd fifty percent of the time and he looks mean as shit. He even bit some kid during ‘Damaged I’ which made me laugh. You can’t really hear Dez too much but you still know he’s there for sure. Greg just goes nuts now and Chuck goes even more crazy. Robo was stuck in England so they flew in Billy from the Descendents to play. He was more than adequate. Great band, nobody can touch them now except for The Misfits.
CLIVE JOHNSON

DEC. 24 A7 CLUB N.Y. REAGAN YOUTH AND BAD BRAINS

Reagan Youths’ singer is the American Stinky Turner, that’s all I can say. The Bad Brains were great, ‘cept for the Reggae bullshit, plus some asshole white rasta kept saying ‘Take your neo-nazism away from here’ to us – cuz we’re skins. FUCK HIM!
CLIVE JOHNSON

DEC. 25 HITSVILLE PASSAIC N.J. – MISFITS, NECROS AND BLACK FLAG

Black Flag joined on the bill at the last minute, great gesture. They did a short set of about ten songs, totally fuckin’ great. Henry didn’t stop moving from the minute they got on stage. They should be coming here very soon (Kazoo or Detroit) Necros were the best I’ve seen them. Todd almost died, Brian went nuts, Corey kept breaking stuff, and Barry kept crawling on the floor crying or screaming. I think they struck more fear into the hearts of the Jersey people than Black Flag or The Misfits cuz they were just kids to them. Weird people. Great set totally. The Misfits were next, Jesus Christ they were great. Doyle kept stepping on peoples fingers and jamming his spike thing on his boot into their face. Jerry broke two basses. Googy is a way of life. Glenn was his usual great self. The best band in the world. Along with my other two all time fave bands. The best gig of the decade.
BERL JOHNSON

FEB 13 CLUTCH CARGOS DETROIT – THE DAMNED, NECROS & NEGATIVE APPROACH

God this place reeks of homosexual. Lots of fags running around, lots of biker types and disco drop outs and literally flocks and flocks of punked out chicks, 99% of them longing for my young punk rock penis. Shit, you should’ve seen the one I ended up scamming on, all I said was that I was here with the Necros and she started talking to me and looking at me really weird. She had on a leopard skin skirt and weird red boots and bleach blonde hair. Uh, back to the review. All the kids who could scam fake I.Ds’ did and so all the cool young kids ended up getting in. Negative Approach were great, all the assholes got thrashed and we immediately took over the dance floor. Great band. Couple of new songs, too. Necros totally avenged their supposed flop on the 6th. They ended up playing their best set I’ve ever seen them do, and I’ve seen them about 15 times. So many kids were totally into them so much, it’s great. Everybody knew all the words and we all went nuts and all the assholes got crushed by stage dives. Even Allison & Carole were diving, that’s cool when girls have the fuckin’ guts to stage dive, bet they don’t stage dive in NY or LA (DC I know they do) The Midwest should be proud to have these two great bands at the top of their scene. The Damned thought they were great and they sucked donkey penis. Captain Sensible was talking about no rules and then when you try to get on stage to dive off, two bruisers try to literally wipe you off the face of the earth. We did have a lot of fun imitating everyone pogoing. U.S.H.C. RULES!!! In other words, two relatively unknown Mid-American punk bands blew the pants off of Englands’ last of the original punk bands.
CLIVE JOHNSON

MARCH 12 CLUTCH CARGOS DETROIT – U.K. SUBS & ANTI-NOWHERE LEAGUE

What a fuckin’ hot show!!! Clutch Cargos is so loose on I.D. even Danforth got in (very young looking skater) There were all these punked out chicks after my dick cuz I cruised up with Todd (Necros) They were all over him like stink on shit. Anti-Nowhere League were really no disappointment to me or any of the kids. They were really funny and didn’t care at all what anyone thought of them. They even did a great cover of ‘Rock Around The Clock’ replacing ‘Rock’ with ‘Fuck’, plus another cover, ‘Runaway’. They were pretty nice guys too, well rather drunk but they’re English, so it’s natural. U.K. Subs were one of the best bands I’ve ever seen in my life, so fuckin’ tight and really loud. Charlie is cool as shit too. All of those guys are great guys. Nicky Garrett was totally going nuts, jumping off the monitors every second. Todd from the Necros got to do drums for their last song (Waiting For The Man) cuz their drummer conked out. All the skaters totally ruled with tons of stage dives. This lame chick that Zuheir pushed on stage got her shirt almost ripped off her back. There’s all these D.C. clone chicks here too, they look cute but you know there just copying girls from elsewhere. Charlie is totally into the U.S.H.C. bands, which is really cool. Also both Anti-Nowhere League and The Subs said that this show was better than both DC and NYC Very easy to believe I say M.W. RULES!!
BERL JOHNSON

2010-05-19T08:57:00.005-04:00

THE MIDWEST TAKE OF FEAR ON SNL...

Brian Hyland – I think there were more Midwest people there than D.C. guys. I still don’t understand how we got to do such great stuff for no reason at all when we were just kids. I think everything got blown out of proportion in regards to the damage. We did fuck up the green room pretty bad though and a camera got knocked over, but it wasn’t that bad. The funny thing is I work for NBC and that studio is [SNL producer] Lorne Michaels’ office now. Somebody asked me once if I was ever in Lorne's office and I said “Yeah, a long, long time ago!”

Todd Swalla – That whole night was a whirlwind. The password was "Ian MacKaye" to get into the NBC studio. There was lots of free Coca Cola I remember. This D.C. kid, Billy McKenzie grabbed a pumpkin and threw it on the stage and it went everywhere. The host for the show that night was Donald Pleasence; he was totally terrified. John Brannon grabbed the mic and screamed "Negative Approach is gonna fuck you up!" and it got on the air!

Tesco Vee – To be honest, I was pretty disgusted with that whole Saturday Night Live thing because there were people doing stage dives and acting stupid that would have never done that if there wasn’t a camera on them. Ian MacKaye would not have been caught dead stage diving, but there he was. I came up to the front of the stage for awhile and then walked off. All the cords were in the air, all the mics were getting knocked off. It was an embarrassment; a total cliché. “Here’s what we’re supposed to do.” Belushi and Lee Ving were getting stoned in this room and I remember I could smell it and if I had half a ball I would’ve walked in and smoked a joint with them, but I was a pussy. They probably had a goon around the corner that would have beat me to a pulp.

John Brannon – The first thing I remember seeing was some guy hanging out backstage who was dressed up like a vampire and I said to Tesco “Who the fuck is that Dracula looking asshole? Who the hell does he think he is?” It turned out to be Dave Vanian from the Damned! Everybody else was pretty straight edge at the time but I was like “We need some beers in here!” John Belushi heard me and was like “I used to work here, I know some spots.” So we started booking around the office and we found a twelve case of Bud, so me, Lee Ving and Belushi started pounding beers. I had this black, spiky hair and Belushi goes “I think you need a mohawk, dude!” Corey had some clippers on him, so him and Belushi gave me a mohawk. Fear did a dress rehearsal an hour before the broadcast and there were all these guys with headphones and clipboards looking nervous. During the dress rehearsal, me and Sab from [D.C. punk band] Iron Cross were acting like jerks and we knocked into a camera. These guys acted like it wasn’t too much of a big deal, but the front page of the New York Post the next day read “Punks invade NBC studios and cause ten thousand dollars damage.” When I got home the next day, my mom was pretty excited that John Belushi gave me a mohawk.

2010-05-13T12:57:00.008-04:00

HENSSLER FOR HIRE...PART THREE
Corey had gone to Beverly Hills High School on an exchange program in January of ’81. He went to L.A. and hung out with Keith Morris and Black Flag a little bit. He went to school at Beverly Hills High with Dave Markey and Julie Silvers from Sin 34. Do you know her dad is Phil Silvers? He must have been eighty when he had her! It was the first time we saw something like that on such a massive scale. The Starwood was probably could hold six hundred people and it was fucking packed front to back with freaks beating the shit out of each other. We definitely got the idea of skanking and all that from that video. It was an education, man. Mugger and that guy X-Head from ‘The Decline’ were stage security. People would get on stage and they would just be met with a fist to the jaw. Thinking about it now as a grown ass man, it seems insane, but then we were all watching this video being like ‘Yes! Oh yeah!’

In the Spring of ‘81, Black Flag played in Lansing and we opened up for them. I remember people being taken back at how violent we were. Black Flag got there late and did a five or six song sound check before anyone played, but people were inside the club. Everyone was anticipating them showing up, so that little sound check brought the energy up that much higher. This wasn’t the lame ass farfisa organ New Wave bands that normally played at Club Doo Bee. You would have to be an idiot to ignore it.

We scored the gig opening for the Circle Jerks at Irving Plaza in the summer of 1981. Tesco and I drove to D.C. and we met the other guys in New York for our gig with the Circle Jerks. We went to D.C. and saw Minor Threat open up for the Circle Jerks. I got to say, seeing those guys (Minor Threat) made me want to take what we were doing up a notch. It was clearly apparent that these were our peers. We were the same age and raised on skateboarding and Ted Nugent, so we could relate. They had this impact and total aggression but totally together on their instruments. They were great musicians at such a young age.

The day after, those D.C guys went up to New York with us when we opened up for the Circle Jerks and there was a lot of beef between New York and D.C. people.

You got to understand, at that time, New York did not have Hardcore. The Punk kids there were glue sniffing Sid Vicious types. It was pre-skinhead and all that shit. I remember we got there and the Stimulators were marveling at how we had a shittier drum set than their drummer, Harley Flannagen. Somebody also removed a few tubes from Brian’s amp. I don’t understand why anyone would bother trying to sabotage our shitty band. Going up to New York at that time, we all had an amped up attitude. Those D.C. guys were the people in the audience who liked us the most and were most vocal in their support.

Soon after that, all these bands seemed to spring up within a couple months of each other. Bored Youth came out of nowhere. Lariss(Strickland - L-Seven vocalist) told me about them and we went to see them as a three piece. I saw them at Nunzios’ towards the fall of ’81. All those bands started rolling around the time we did the record release party at Endless Summer. It was also the first time that people under 18 could go to something.

At that time in Detroit, it was just these bad bands with asymmetrical haircuts and jackets with shoulder pads. In a weird way, that was the crowd that L-7 came from. Their drummer was in that band Figures on a Beach and he quit. L-7 had this guy named Chuck who was from the drag queen crowd and strangely, that’s the same place that a lot of the Detroit Techno scene came out of. Detroit really embraced the New Romantic thing in a big way. I remember Larissa being sorta taken aback at how macho we were since all the guys they usually hung out with were these New Romantic club people. We broke the tradition of those New Wave bands being the only thing going on in Detroit. All those old guard punk bands had died by then. I remember seeing Nikki from Nikki and the Corvettes at that Black Flag gig at Bookies looking really dejected.
I had never been to the Cass Corridor before we started doing shows at the Freezer Theatre. It was the land that time forgot. Cement front stairwells of buildings had rotted away and people had to climb up a ladder to get into a building. Front porches were falling off of houses. By the time the Freezer started happening, right away everybody was going there. It was a tiny place, but you could get a couple hundred people in there and it was packed. Because of that, the more legitimate clubs in Detroit were thinking ‘Well, if these kids can draw these numbers on their own with just flyers and phone calls, we should be booking them’.

It was pretty gradual. It wasn’t like one day we stepped back and said ‘Woah! Look at this!’ It became more noticeable when we started playing shows at places like the City Club, these established venues. Going to the Freezer was like going on an adventure. It wasn’t like going to some established club where there’s a bartender and all that. When you were at the Freezer, you’d just go down to Rayis Brothers and grab a 40. It just became more noticeable when the venues got larger and you could see that were more people coming out that weren’t from the original inner circle. I wish I could tell you something like ‘The next thing you know, there were eight million people there holding a bed sheet with the Negative Approach logo on it! Girls were on their boyfriend’s back flashing titty!’ but I can’t paint a picture like that. It’s just that as the bands got more of a following and appeared more legitimate to club owners, more people came around.

By the Fall of ‘82, we were on tour with the Misfits. By that point, there was clearly this thing where people were embracing it for real. The show we played with the Misfits in L.A was at a place called Bobs Place in Watts. The next night they played with Discharge at Florentine Gardens, a real rock club. Discharge wouldn’t play ‘State Violence State Control’ because the single had just been released, some sort of regular Rock attitude. They had a pro rock band vibe that rubbed me the wrong way. By the time most of these bands had albums out, it was over for me. By the time we recorded those tunes on the ‘Conquest for Death’ LP, our minds were already elsewhere. We were listening to Motorhead or Black Sabbath more than any thrash at that point. Once there were Hardcore records influenced by Hardcore, it was done. It’s almost like Hardcore has been in a constant state of nostalgia. I think the last hardcore record I bought was that first Poison Idea single. I remember walking into Schoolkids’ and there was that D.R.I seven inch that had twenty two songs on it and I was like ‘This is so done’.

By the time the ‘Conquest for Death’ LP came out, Corey left the band and then wanted to be back in the band. Larissa told me that Lisa (Rusks’ girlfriend at the time) told Corey that if he went on the road she would have to seek other sexual partners. I think that was one of the things that prompted him to quit. At that time, we really hated Corey. We went swimming to go celebrate and then were like ’Let’s call Ron’. We liked Ron and he had long hair, so he was in. And then Corey was like ‘I want back in the band’ and we were like ‘We have already been practicing with Ron and he’s quit his job, so you better think about this’. We did a tour on our own in 83 and that was great. It was successful and we made money. I just remember going out on tour and every band was like a Minor Threat cover band and then the next year it was a Slayer cover band. And then there were these people who were starting to hold fast to what they considered a hardcore tradition. Those people were fucking idiots! This was a music of no tradition. The whole point was ’Fuck the past! Fuck what all these people have done! We’re doing it our way!’ I really feel America never had punk rock until it had hardcore. America’s punk IS hardcore. Patti Smith was a boho hippie, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but when it comes to this clean slate thing where theres some sort of progress and something that hasn’t been done before, it’s hardcore.

It went from the most open minded people to the most close minded people. The whole reason it got so boring to me was I heard ‘Ascention’ by John Coltrane and Albert Ayler records and I was like ‘Shit man, this is gnarly!’Hearing that shit changed the whole thing but there was no way we could approach something like that. Once I heard that I was like ‘Who cares about Uniform Choice?’

2010-05-06T09:42:00.005-04:00

MIDWEST MEMORIES WITH MACKAYE... Below are some choice moments/quotes from the interview WBSTYN did with Ian MacKaye about his interaction with the Touch & Go people in the early 80's. As expected, some inspiring words...

The way I became aware of any sort of Midwest thing going on was finding a copy of Touch & Go Fanzine at the Virginia Record and Tape Exchange sometime in 1980. It had a picture of Penelope Houston on the cover and I was blown away because I didn’t think anyone besides us in D.C. knew who the Avengers were. At that time, people were on little islands. So anytime there was any sign of life from anywhere, we jumped at it. When The Teen Idles 7” came out, we sent a copy to them, but it got broken in the mail. They thought the cover looked so cool that they taped the pieces of vinyl together but obviously the needle couldn’t track the sound, so they wrote for another copy. We became friends and pen pals and Tesco introduced me to Corey and the Necros guys. The first time I met them all face to face was June or July of ’81 when they came down to D.C. to see Minor Threat and the Circle Jerks; the infamous show where I blew my voice out. They stayed for a few days at various houses of ours. Tesco was great to us because he was a bit older than us, but super encouraging of everything we did. We were used to the older people in D.C who were constantly poo-poohing us and calling us wanna-bes. It was a rarity to stumble upon an older person who didn’t make fun of us.

I think the other thing that drew the Midwest and D.C. people together was we were both really obsessed in what was going on in L.A at the time. We were all reading Flipside and were very aware of what was going on out there. Corey went out there at one point and videotaped some shows and the Teen Idles were out there the summer of ‘80, so we had this parallel thing of both experiencing it. We were also all skateboarders too, so that was another connection.

The amazing thing about music – to me- is that it can be an incredible education if you want it to be. I would go into Yesterday and Today and I’d hold up some record and be like, ‘What does this sound like?’ and the owner would be like, ‘It’s kinda Velvet Underground-ish,’ and I honestly didn’t know what the Velvet Underground was. I really thought that when punk came along that it was the beginning of underground radical music. I had no idea that there had been radical music before punk. I didn’t know about Iggy Pop or the Stooges until Black Flag started talking about them. I thought they meant like…The Three Stooges!

The first time we tried to go out to the Midwest to play was sort of a bust. It was the summer of ’81, and Minor Threat and Youth Brigade tried to tour all the way out to California. We tried to play in Chicago and that didn’t work out. The Effigies guy booked a show that wasn’t all ages and we were furious about it but the guy was saying that we had to play the show. As soon as we started the first song, I ran over and pushed open the emergency door of the club and we had all the D.C kids run in…so the entire show was just management throwing the kids out. I think also in Chicago, this guy tried to rob my brother on the street and I remember twelve of us running down the street after this guy. That was the kinda crap going on, you know? Hijinks! Life was good! (laughs) Suddenly, it came as a shock to us all when Tommy from Youth Brigade was like, ‘Hey, I gotta take the van back’. We were like ‘What?’ I guess he took this vehicle without his parents’ permission and he had to take it back. Now we were down to a Volvo wagon. It was ragtag to say the least. We made it as far as Madison, Wisconsin and that’s where we met all the Tar Babies. I know that in Madison there was a tremendous fight, it was at this place called Merlins’. We played with The Bloody Mattresses, which was a precursor to the Tar Babies, and there was this brawl that literally went down the stairs. We made it to Windsor, Canada to play with The Meatmen and Necros. We had to borrow equipment to play Windsor and we were at this bar where there was this crazy French woman who was trading Canadian for American dollars one to one, which was not to her advantage. There was this big fight that happened with Zuheir, the drummer for Negative Approach. He hit my brother and I do remember him getting kinda bloodied by us. That night we met all these kids from the Midwest who were friends with Tesco and Necros guys and it was great. We’d meet all these kids and be like, ‘Let’s roll! Let’s fucking do this!’ Don’t accept the idea you can’t do this because your kids; we should do this because we’re kids.
The guys in the Necros liked the sound of the Minor Threat EPs’ and asked if I’d come out there to help them record their second EP (“IQ32”) We recorded at this house with this older hippie dude. Basically, the control room was in the dining room and the band played in the living room and Tesco and Dave Stimsons’ brother Rich were all there and they did the background vocals. We recorded it there and I mixed it at Dons’. That was a good session. That single was lean and mean, I really appreciate that record.

The second time we made it out to the Midwest, we played in Lansing and Detroit at the Freezer Theatre. There was a major riot at that Freezer show. I remember going outside to see something that resembled a battle from the middle ages. Police cars started flying out of nowhere and in the midst of all this, I see the promoter of the Freezer Theatre look around and start running down the street. I started running after him because he’s got the fucking dough. I chased that motherfucker to an apartment about three or four blocks away. I finally catch up to him and he’s like “Oh, hey! There you are! I’ve been looking for you!” So he takes me into this apartment where there’s this guy in his fifties and a transvestite teenaged boy. While I’m in this strange apartment arguing with this guy about money, the rest of the band are back at the Freezer wondering where they fuck I am while police are going ballistic, beating on all these kids. Detroit was always a fucked up scene. Black Flag played at Clutch Cargos while we were in Detroit and we were at that gig. That was a really fucking intense gig. It was Henrys’ first show in Detroit, and he cut the crap out of himself with a broken beer bottle; just hacked his chest opened. Chuck had pneumonia, and I remember he came off stage and he was completely drenched in sweat, his body was just letting out everything, and he collapsed and I actually undressed him and wrapped him in towels; it seemed like he was going to die. It was incredible, just this really intense show.
When Tesco and his wife moved out here to D.C. in ’82…that was great. Cynthia and I used to go over to his house every Tuesday night for dinner and Tesco would put on this record called ‘Soul Gumbo’ when I’d come into the house. It was supposed to be my theme music. Gumbo is one of my nicknames ever since; it’s used on the ‘Dutch Hercules’ record. I remember reading this interview with Tesco where he was sure that record (‘Dutch Hercules’) was the biggest regret of my life and how ashamed I must’ve been, and it was really not true. I actually enjoyed that session a lot and yeah…it was juvenile but I think that was sort of the whole idea of the record.

A lot of people – especially men – have this idea that history is a real important thing; that they have to be a part of it. When I was growing up, you always heard older people saying ‘I was there when Martin Luther King gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech’ or ‘I was there for Pearl Harbor’. So now, for men who are in the second part of their life, the closest they can come to saying they had a brush with history was to say they were at a punk show or rode a skateboard in a swimming pool in the early eighties, you know? I wasn’t in the Battle of the Bulge or the Selma marches, but I was at a Necros show! I’ve come to terms with that idea because in the long run, it’s just important to talk about these things and share your knowledge. I do not believe in the philosophy of ‘That will never happen again’ or ‘You Had to Be There’. By believing that, you negate the existence of it in the first place. I can assure you in 1979 or 1980, there were people telling me ‘You kids are a joke! You missed the boat!’ All I had to say back to that was ‘Fuck You!’ But that resentment fueled what I did and I hope kids today come across statements like that in films like ‘American Hardcore’ and say the same thing; FUCK YOU! How can anyone even begin to do anything when all they’re being told is it’s over? What if you were born in 1985? ‘Just forget it, you weren’t there to see The Fix, so give up now…’ You know what I mean? My whole thing is I want these kids to come across this history and say ‘That’s cool, but check out what we’re doing now’ and hopefully it blows that shit away.
Images courtesy of Ian MacKaye and James Sinks

2010-04-29T07:19:00.002-04:00

THE RECORDING OF THE FIX 'VENGEANCE' SINGLE AND THE ARRIVAL OF BLACK FLAG IN THE MIDWEST AND OH SO MUCH MORE! -- THE HISTORY OF THE FIX PART FIVE... When we began the Fix, we would ply ourselves with as much beer and liquor as possible to make the party real. By the end of the year, we started to take things much more seriously, and the music's pace made it difficult to keep up with if we got too drunk.

An exception to that rule was the first single sessions at the Recording Workshop, in Chillicothe, Ohio in December 1980. Jeff had a pal who was taking a recording class there, as advertised in Rolling Stone. Real credibility, we scoffed, as if that hippie rag could endorse anything worth a fuck. But the place was a pro-looking joint and it even had a little dorm for the bands to stay in that was eerily similar to summer camp. Mike didn't play this session, refusing to go with us. He was angry from the previous night when we played in East Lansing at a house party and no one would give him a ride home when he wanted to go. So his childish revenge was to not go to the session. No big deal. Craig grabbed Mike's bass and off we went.

The three remaining Fixers jumped into Jeff's Chevette, loaded up on beer and headed out. By the time we stopped to refuel somewhere in Ohio, Jeff was so drunk he staggered into the path of car at the gas station as sleet fell. The car missed. Jeff drove us on.

The sessions went well, two days worth. One day, they laid down the basic tracks and I did a scratch vocal. To accomplish the sound we wanted, Craig and the engineers wired together a stack of guitar amps, I mean, a literal stack maybe eight feet high. It was something to see. We made some Van Halen jokes and moved on, hitting liberally on a bottle of Crown Royal. And more. And more. Enough so that at one point, during about the 3rd take, Craig fell over backwards into the amp stack, toppling the speakers on top of him as we all laughed helplessly. Craig included.

"Are these guys alright?" one of the engineers asked Jeff, who was keeping it together somewhat.

"Oh, sure, they'll be fine," Jeff said, hammering beer #10 and watching Craig and I stumble around on the floor, attempting without luck to pick up the amps and put Humpty-Marshall back together again. It was the end of night one of recording. We had most things down.

On night two, we started sober, which helped. The bass tracks went easy. From that point on, I only recall standing alone in a vocal booth that was almost pitch black, surrounded by a growing mountain of beer bottles, raging until things came out right. We packed up and left in the dawn's early light, drunk, pointed north to home.
A week later, Black Flag was playing in Chicago. Two sets, one night, with Dez still singing. Jeff and I jumped in the Chevette and drove to the Cabaret Metro. The reason we used Jeff's car all the time was simple: it was the only vehicle between us that could make it cheaply and money was very short among most of us. Mike was the only one with a job, as a union food handler at Michigan State. Craig and Jeff were poor college kids. And I was getting unemployment from my Census job. We could milk that kind of thing in Michigan, where years of ham-handed Democratic rule, coupled with four years of ineptitude from the Carter White House, had put unemployment in the state at around 10%.

Black Flag was doing a U.S. tour and we wanted to know how that could possibly happen. I mean, who listened to this music outside our own cadre of freaks and outcasts? It was exactly what I asked Chuck Dukowski when I saw him in the dressing room at the Metro. He was generous with his time and more than willing to share his numbers. He also promised to try to set up a date in Lansing when the band hit the road again that March. We left emboldened by Black Flag's relentless, fuck-you tirades that left me breathless. Dez Cadena was the real deal, a skinny guy with some fat cords. Ginn essentially exploded his guitar in a way that was very Craig-like, and I saw the jagged similarities between the Flag and the Fix.

In February 1981 the Fix scored a weekend of shows at Oz in Chicago, which was getting on the map with its own blue-collar punk rock, led by the band that would define the city. The Effigies had opened for Black Flag at Metro and I dug their Angelic Upstarts/Sham/rock base. Singer John Kezdy was a grim motherfucker, and the music had zero sense of humor. It was led by Earl Letiecq on guitar, a wild man with a serious metal bent and a yen for all substances.

Oz was located on Broadway in one more shady part of town, its third location under the same name. We were booked for two nights, Feb. 12 and 13, a Thursday and a Friday. Oz consisted of two adjoining rooms with unisex bathrooms, a couple bins of chilled Old Style and the bands set up at the end of one of the rooms. When we got there, about a half-dozen punks were milling around, drinking cheap beer. These were what we ended up calling "leather-jacketed meanies." They copped their flow from the English punks, with their jackets adorned with slogans and the names of their favorite UK acts flying between studs and buttons. They were caricatures in a way, and I had to frown because it was surely not a look endemic to the U.S. But they were a pretty cool lot who eyed us with suspicion, clad as we were in simple overcoats and mufflers, with longish hair covered by knit caps and wearing high tops to a man. We were not one of them, and felt it. We drank our beer alone before our first set, which was to begin at 3. The place was freezing, outdoors, the temperature hit zero, but folks kept filtering in as the morning progressed from midnight, to 1 to 2. By the time we shed our coats and walked onto the floor, there was a decent crowd, mostly guys, looking at us with doubt, murmuring to themselves.

When we lit into the set, though, it was like hitting a home run. Eyebrows raised, beers went down faster among the crowd, and we nailed it, dead on. We ran through five songs in a row to start, typical. And when we ended that fifth tune, the boys erupted in a belligerent, hearty cheer. It worked. We passed the litmus test with a crowd that damn well got it.

Not that we really gave a fuck. After a second set at 5 a.m., we left to our appointed crash pad for the night - the Evanston basement apartment shared by Kezdy and a short, chatty fellow named Jon Babbin. We were well into the booze by the time we got out there, and Craig and I heralded our arrival to the burbs by breaking a number of empty beer bottles against a brick wall. We did it with gusto and a good degree of anger.

The next night we repeated our performance and headed home. Babbin asked us if we were looking for a manager. We said we would consider it. He dug our din and was obsessed with the business end of punk rock and the idea of touring. We hated business, but were game to take our noise to more strangers like Black Flag was doing.

2010-04-22T09:05:00.006-04:00

DANFORTH!!! DANFORTH!!! DANFORTH!!!DANFORTH!!! In this weeks' blog installment, Detroit skate lord and WBSTYN cover star Bill Danforth talks some shit and drinks some brews...

I got introduced to Punk Rock when I saw it on ‘Good Morning America‘. The Sex Pistols were causing all kinds of havoc across England and it was just this short little thing I saw on there in sixth or seventh grade. I saw it before going to school one morning and it was the first time in my life I ever thought music could be cool. Music at that point was just something that played in the background.

The one major thing that drew us all together was the Endless Summer Skate Park out in Rosedale. That skate park was our grade school, our middle school, and our high school. Skateboarding was the thing that drew us all together, and that’s what drew the entire Punk Rock community to the point where we were so tight, we didn’t need to find any other friends, we had friends amongst ourselves. We were the ones that didn’t fit into - what at that time - was the normal high school attitude. We weren’t listening to Led Zeppelin; we didn’t give a shit when John Bonham died. The guys who listened to Led Zep in our school were the burn outs and the stoners and the losers. The Punk thing showed the creative minded people that we could create our own thing, and that’s what skateboarding was at that time. We always got this shit like, ‘Hey! You’ve got a skateboard and not a football helmet! Well, you’re not going to make anything of yourself that way!” The whole early Black Flag scene got put in skate magazines first, so that’s how most of us found out at first. Then you’d see the guys from the Necros coming to the skate park, and they’d ride, we’d all hang out, and it was like, “Oh yeah, our bands playing tonight.” So it was a brotherhood but it was all skateboard related; one hundred percent it was skateboard related. The big thing is we were turning up the radio at the skate park and we were putting in all these demo tapes, which were really harshly recorded stuff. People were bumming on it because it wasn’t J.Giles; this was original music. You could always pop a Devo tape in at the time, and everybody was into it, but this stuff really divided people. The Necros would show up to the skate park and there were backyard parties where bands were starting to form, and sometimes it was really horrible but it was back yard Punk Pock; it wasn’t what you heard on the radio and that‘s all that mattered. It’s not like bands did covers, they were writing original songs. Before Youth Patrol and before Negative Approach, Chris Moore (second Negative Approach drummer) was in a band called the Dead Reagans. They played in backyards close to the skate park, after contests or before contests. One of their hit songs was ‘E.S Boys’, which stood for “Endless Summer Boys.” There was a rival skate park out there called Skateboard USA, and the song went “E.S…ES Boys/Kills all those U.S.A Gay Boys.” But that was the beginning of it, before those Nunzio shows.
We went to a lot of the shows but could never get in, until I was fifteen and I got a fake id. But August 21st, 1981, there was a Necros show at Nunzios and I actually got in. There was no such thing as an all ages show in Detroit, that didn’t come until way later. My whole Detroit Hardcore scene was from ‘80 to ‘84, I moved to California in ’84 when I went to college. But ‘80 to ‘84 was the best period ever here in Detroit because it was just so fucking raw, real and dirty. This was the days of the Freezer Theatre, and after the Freezer it went to places like the Clubhouse and Cobb’s Corner. The Greystone was going but that was always for bigger shows. There are big name bands that sleep in the Raddison these days that slept on the floor of the Clubhouse. Social Distortion was one of them. The Misfits were horrible when they played The Freezer; they were just a wall of absolute crap. They slept on that dirty floor that never got mopped. I’m really glad some of these bands slept in my spit and piss. When you can’t afford to have running water in the place, how the fuck are you going to mop the floor?

We were good kids but we were just fucking skate punks. We weren’t out there trying to start riots but we’d fight to save our life. We were out there passing out flyers on the street for the shows, trying to encourage people to come in. We got a lot of suburban kids into the scene and a lot of bands started from that, which was fantastic. The only reason we had those ghetto clubs is because it was so cheap for us to keep those places. There was also the hint of danger going to the ghetto. What’s more punk rock than that? Are your windows going to get broken out?” There was also the ghetto Burger King down there that had a special called ‘The Burger Thang’ where you get three hamburgers for a buck and a quarter. 3 burgers for a dollar and a quarter…how the fuck can you not eat that?
We never tried to one up any other scene, we tried to be original and we tried to be our own. Corey and Tesco already had the Touch & Go label going, and the D.C scene set the precedent, but I think we grew a little faster than they did and touched a few more people. To me, it didn’t seem like the D.C scene touched the skateboarders the way we did. I think we contacted a lot more skateboarders, and I think we had more connections because we had more sponsored skateboarders in our scene. I was sponsored by ‘81, and so I had been contacting the west coast all the time. I was already exchanging flyers with the skaters out west. They’d be like, “Man, we want some Necros stuff,” so I’d get a couple of records from them and then I’d send them to the west coast before they could probably even get distribution over there. You’d write a letter on the back of a flyer that would be for a show with the Necros and The Damned and someone in California would be like, “These guys played with The Damned?” and that really fucking bolstered it and grabbed some skaters attention.

What was Detroit’s perception of California bands? We didn’t like them! Those bands just sounded like power pop to us. Social Distortion and Youth Brigade weren’t well received in Detroit. For TSOL, we printed out a lot of fliers that said ‘LOST‘…T.S.O.L spelled backwards. We were just very protective of our scene. When some band would drive up in a 1982 brand new van and ask “Do you know where to find a cheap motel to stay in?” we didn’t like it. The cool bands would sleep on the floor of the fucking Clubhouse! You’re in your brand new van asking, “Where’s a good restaurant around here?” Well, the fucking Burger Thang is down the street you son of a bitch! We were dicks to bands that came in from out of town. I mean, we took care of them, they came in and out through the clubs, but we weren’t going to go overboard for any of them. Basically, if you approached us with an attitude, we were going to tell you what neighborhood to go to and have fun in to make sure you never came back to Detroit. Trust me, they would have done the same thing to us out in California and I know it for a fact. When I moved out there in ’84, I thought I had the hook-up out there but the Punk Rock brotherhood didn’t transfer fucking west of the Mississippi. “Oh yeah, the best burrito in the world can be eaten in Watts! Why don’t you go down there and eat it you white, bald boy”.

2010-04-20T08:14:00.003-04:00

THE SKINNY ON THE BOOK RELEASE PARTIES THUS FAR...

Alrighty...here's what we got so far as 'official' book release parties so far. Remember, these are all dual parties between the WBSTYN book and the 'Touch & Go -- The Fanzine' book being published by Bazillion Points. There will be books to be signed (and purchased)...shirts to be worn (and purchased)...'zine repros to be read (and purchased) Bring cash and a good-time-havin' attitude please!!! Here are the dates --

7/16/10 -- Now That's Class/11213 Detroit Ave/Cleveland, Ohio -- TESCO VEES HATE POLICE/WHITE FLAG/HELLMOUTH...more TBA

7/17/10 -- The Abbey Pub/3420 West Grace St/Chicago, Ill -- TESCO VEES HATE POLICE/WHITE FLAG...more TBA

7/31/10 -- St. Andrews Hall/431 East Congress St/Detroit Mi -- NEGATIVE APPROACH/SORCEN/TESCO VEES HATE POLICE/VIOLENT APATHY/HELLMOUTH

8/27/10 -- Northstar Bar/2639 Poplar St/Philadelphia, Pa -- TESCO VEES HATE POLICE/AMERICAN SPEEDWAY/HELLMOUTH

8/28/10 -- Santos Party House/96 Lafayette St/New York, NY -- NEGATIVE APPROACH/TESCO VEES HATE POLICE/HELLMOUTH...more TBA

Ticket info will come both here and the Facebook page. Stay tuned!

2010-04-14T12:22:00.007-04:00

STEVE SHELLEY SPEAKS OF NO ZONES, NEW WAVE AND NICEITIES...Sonic Youth skinman Steve Shelley raps about the early Michigan punk scene, joining the Crucifucks and oh so many exciting things in this weeks’ blog installment...

The first band I was in was The No Zones. It was mostly covers; just a teenage basement thing.But then my friend (and future Crucifucks bass player) Scott Begerston and I started playing with a New Wave band from Lansing called Faith and Morals and that’s when I met Doc Dart (vocalist for Crucifucks) We were playing at Club Doo Bee and we started talking to him; it certainly wasn’t at a Black Flag show like that article in Vice states. I never saw Black Flag ever in my life. I don’t remember an exact date when I joined Faith and Morals, but I know there was a point where Scott and I played in both that band and the Crucifucks. Playing in Faith and Morals was fun. At the time, Scott and I really didn’t know too much about the bands that the singer Ron was into like Joy Division or New Order, but we were sorta learning as we went along. It was a very keyboard driven group.

At the time, there was The Fix and all these New Wave bands in Lansing. There was this band called Trainable, which actually featured a guy, John Erskin, who became a sound man for Sonic Youth for awhile. There was also a band called Let’s Talk About Girls. I was aware of everything. We’d go to Lansing because there was a record store there called Flat, Black and Circular, and we’d buy import records and try to go to shows if we were old enough. Most weekends were either spent in Detroit, sleeping on floors and going to shows, or going to Kalamazoo, or Lansing. I saw the Fix at a place called Dooley’s in Lansing which was a college kid’s bar that was starting to get other things going on. I met Steve Miller (vocalist for The Fix) early on, and he later ended up playing in a band I was in, Strange Fruit; the band was also called The Spastic Rhythm Tarts at one point.

Scott Begerstons’ parents were divorced, and his dad lived in the Hermosa Beach area of Southern California. So Scott would go visit him over Christmas break and come back with a lot of records. Scott liked anything that was just new, it didn’t matter how good it was. So Scott would bring home records from Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, but he’d also bring home records from the Plasmatics. Anyting that was outrageous and new, he was really into it. Also, we were at a time where punk had already happened, and the post punk thing was going on; so our lives were just as informed by English stuff, post punk and even new wave, as it was by the California scene. So we were a bit different from the kids in Maumee where the Cali punk thing changed their lives. We were interested in The Clash or The Jam, but we were still interested in The Who or Neil Young. We never threw away our Led Zeppelin records, which a lot of people did, and then ended up buying again in the late 80's. I wasn’t interested in people who had a poster of Sid Vicious up in their house. That wasn’t exciting to me. There was this whole other world of possibilities. One week you heard about P.I.L and the next Gang of Four. There was this whole progression going on and it was insanely fun.

Going to Lansing and finding those issues of Touch & Go really helped as well. There were just like little pieces of the puzzle and every time you’d visit Lansing you’d learn about something else. It came in fragments, it wasn’t all of a sudden you knew all about punk rock. Today, there’s an instant gratification of things, and it’s such a big deal with youngsters today. Back then, everything was so mysterious, you had to figure it out. My favorite thing was mix tapes. The best thing about them -to me - was if your friend didn’t do a particularly good job of writing down which band did which song, you’d get confused, which was actually a good thing. You might buy the wrong record by mistake and discover something even cooler! You’d learn about drips and drabs from friends. It was a lot of fun.

Doc seemed so much older to us. By that time, he had to be in his late twenties or early thirties. When we first started to practice, there was this guy Terry who was the guitar player, and he had a similar history to Docs’. He may have been in Vietnam, so he didn’t stick around very long. He was even more mentally fragile than Doc was as far as dealing with people went. He may have made it through one practice, maybe two. He’s mentioned in one song where Doc screams, “I hate the government, and so does Terry.” He was replaced with Docs’ cousin Joe Dart. He was a high school kid who wasn’t really into new music that much, he was more about being a rock star. So he became the guitar player for a little bit, and then he was replaced by Gus Varner. Gus was a much better fit musically. His two favorite things were Black Flag and Jimi Hendrix.

I know that everything happened really quickly with The Crucifucks. We started opening up for bands really quickly and we kinda went all over, because there was no town that was big enough to keep you active or interested. I think we did really well obviously because of Docs’ antagonistic character; it made us stick out right away. I don’t think we ever considered ourselves a hardcore band, but we played on a lot of hardcore bills. Doc specifically had an antagonism towards hardcore, making fun of the kids, especially when things got a little more meat headed and macho.

I don’t know when I first came across L-Seven, but to me they were the greatest thing in Michigan at the time. It’s sort of hard to describe that band to someone who wasn’t there, but the one description I could come up with is an American version of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Larissa had the John Lydon vibe and she was just great. I tried out for them once and I didn’t make it, which was probably the best disappointment in my life because then I moved to New York. It was all the more a drag when Kory Clarke ended up leading this Warrior Soul band on Geffen Records. It was such a disappointment, he was my favorite drummer. All the hardcore kids were so mean to Kory because he was totally cute and got a lot of girls and he was a real musician.

I guess I was around before the hardcore thing really happened in Detroit. When we’d go see L-Seven, a lot of times it would be at gay clubs because that was the only place where you could have weird music. I saw a couple of my favorite shows at Bookies, like Killing Joke. But more so than Bookies was this club called Nunzios, and Scott Bergerston started working there for awhile, as well as two guys that were really important to the Detroit scene, Bryan Mullen and Brett Mullen. We were really niave, we were really fresh, so everything was okay with us. We would walk in that area of Cass Corrider and felt nothing was going to happen to us. We didn’t have any money anyway, but we were very niave because it was the red dot of the murder capital of the world at the time, but we were just like, ‘We haven’t got anything, no one’s gonna bother us, we’re not the bad white people!’. But shortly after, something happened. The Detroit or the Maumee kids went to DC, and they all came back and shaved their heads, and it kinda ruined something. All of a sudden there was this anti-gay thing, and I wasn’t into it. We learned about so much cool music in the discos and the gay clubs, like Kraftwerk. But that’s when something happened where this hardcore thing and this New Wave thing really had to have a divider, and not all of us felt that way inside, but the shows became different events though. So the Freezer theater developed its own thing, and it was just four walls of concrete and madness.. L-Seven was the only band that could straddle all sides of it, like they’d play Nunzios and they’d play the Freezer Theater.

I know at one point, we recorded an EP with Corey Rusk that was supposed to be released on his subsidiary label, Special Forces. Special Forces was somewhat assigned to that whole thing of, ‘Well this isn’t hardcore but we kinda like it’ vibe. The recordings just sort languished and never happened, but I think Doc might have alienated someone and Corey might of been like, ’We just won’t put that out.” Maybe Doc and Tesco stopped getting along at a certain point. They got along for awhile because they were the two older guys, but I think Doc might have gotten jealous of Tesco’s power by the Touch & Go fanzine.

In the meantime, Jello Biafra got interested in the band. Through either Timmy Yohannon (editor of Northern Californian fanzine Maximum Rock ‘N’ Roll) or the M.D.C. guys, Jello heard that tape we did in Corey’s basement. He invited us to play with them at the City Club that summer. I think Jello saw something of himself in Doc and wanted to take us under his wing. He invited us to do a northwest tour with them and asked if we wanted to do a record on (Jello's label) Alternative Tentacles. To all those Detroit punkers, the Dead Kennedys were already something that was totally passé. Being involved with them was not cool at all, but they provided us with opportunities that didn’t exist for us in Michigan.

After that, we went on the Yippie sponsered ‘Rock Aginst Reagan’ tour in ‘83 or ‘84. We rode in a school bus that the Yippies had, which was really uncomfortable. We met up with The Dicks, and I think D.R.I came for part of it and then M.D.C showed up, so Doc found some real kindred spirits there. I wasn’t the biggest M.D.C fan but I became really close friends with The Dicks. Those shows were pretty huge and we learned a lot. We played clubs but then we’d also play state capitols and stuff. W played in Madison Wisconsin near the capitol and I remember joints being rained down on the audience, because the Yuppies were all pro-pot, so it was this “Reagan sucks, smoke pot!” moment.

We recorded the first Crucifucks album out in California with Spot. It was kinda weird being out there because we stayed at SST and we kinda were met with this paranoid caution because we were recording for Alternative Tentacles. The SST people were like ’Why aren’t they recording for us?’ We just liked the records Spot had made and we were big fans of the Minutemen. I remember Spot telling us he was really proud that he just finished this new project which was ‘Meat Puppets II’ and Doc and I were giant Neil Young fans, so he played it for us and we loved it. The line up that recorded that first album was the last real line-up of The Cruicfucks. Both Marc Hauser and I moved to New York in the Spring of ‘85 and subletted Kim and Thurston’s apartment and I joined Sonic Youth shortly after.

Credits - 1st image -- Brian Turner/2nd image -- Courtesy of James Sinks/3rd image -- Originally on the lyric sheet of the Cruicfucks 1st lp...now it is plastered all over the interweb/4th image -- Courtesy Bill Danforth (originally from Inside View #1)/5th image -- Courtesy Ian MacKaye/6th image - Courtesy Bill Wend.

2010-04-07T14:19:00.012-04:00

ROB McCULLOUCH TELLS HIS TALE OF NEGATIVE APPROACH...GATHER 'ROUND... Original Negative Approach guitarist Rob McCullouch gives us the skinny on the rise and fall of the OG NA..

Prior to joining Negative Approach, I was in bands with Graham(McCulloch, Robs’ younger brother and future NA bass player) Chris (Moore, future NA drummer) and Bud Bucar, who was the drummer for the Allied. We’d change our name every time we played out. We’d play in peoples’ backyards and our high school Battle of the Bands. The jocks would show up and try to beat us up for being Punk Rockers. At the battle of the bands, we played under the name Dead Reagans. We played half covers and half originals.

I didn’t know any of the other guys who were starting Negative Approach. I was just hanging out at Endless Summer skate park in Rosedale, Michigan and a friend of theirs told them about me. They came up to the skate park. They just wanted to see if I wanted to jam at Johns’ house in the basement. That was towards the end of the summer of ‘81. They already had three or four songs when I went down to Johns’ basement and I had the music for the song ‘Negative Approach’. I think we had four or five songs by the end of the night.

Earlier that summer, we went over to Coronation Tavern in Windsor Ontario to see Minor Threat. The one thing that sticks out about it was the D.C crew beat up our original drummer Zuheir that night. He was acting like a drunk fool and the DC crew didn’t tolerate drunk fools! He was stage diving like he was diving into a swimming pool and they just didn’t like his goofiness.

Seeing Minor Threat that night was a total revelation. The fact that those guys were all so young really meant something to us. Black Flag always seemed like grown-ups and older than us and compared to anything we knew, they were like a ‘big’ band to us. But here were a bunch of guys the same age as us that were selling their records out of the trunk of their car. We all left there saying ‘We could do this’. That show totally started the whole thing for us.

You know, it’s really cool that NA get’s all this attention on the internet and all that, but I’ve always felt like the Necros don’t get the recognition they deserve. If there were no Necros, there would be no Negative Approach and then there’s no Detroit scene at all. They couldn’t have been more supportive to us when we didn’t know anything. The essential thing for us from day one was to have a band good enough to open for the Necros. That was our goal.

The first show we did was in the fall of 1981. We played in Todd Swallas’ basement. We were really intimidated by the Necros and we wanted to impress them and we sucked so bad! Johns’ voice sounded like this high pitched wail. It sounded nothing like what it sounded like in practice. I guess he was really amped up to play maybe. I remember being real embarrassed afterwards. I went skating with Todd after our set and he was super encouraging. He made me want to try again.

A month after that we opened for the Necros at a club called Nunzios. That was the first time I ever did a sound check or stood on a proper stage and played. Those Detroit people were still into the 70’s drugs and drinking scene and they didn’t get into us at all. In fact, I’d say they hated it! The Necros asked us to play with them in Chicago in the winter of 1981, but Zuheir and Pete quit the day of the show. That’s when I asked Chris and Graham, who were in Youth Patrol at the time, to join us.

Our original bass player Pete Zelewski was getting more into the Oi! sound; just the music, not the racist element that came along with that stuff. Zuheir wasn’t that into the band. We’d always have to chase him down to practice.

As far as any other bands go…we saw the Fix a few times up in Lansing. They were really cool guys, but they were just older guys and there was a definite cultural difference there. A different vibe all around.

Bored Youth were fantastic. We first saw them at this real nasty pick up joint in the suburbs of Detroit. We hung out with them after their set and said ‘You should come play at this place we started having shows at, The Freezer Theatre’.

I never thought it was too scary to hang out in the Cass Corridor because there was always twenty of us walking in a pack. We definitely looked intimidating. The Necros looked like they’d kill you with the big heavy chains they wore around their waist. If there was ever any trouble, Todd and Corey were the first people jumping out of a car to beat the hell out of someone.

In the summer of ’82, we went on the ‘Process of Elimination’ tour with the Necros and the Meatmen. We all piled in Corey’s parents motor home, except Tesco who drove his little red Toyota. We whipped a lot of crap onto his car from the motor home. We had these guys as our roadies that we called the Sleestacks after the guys from ‘Land of the Lost’. Everyone always thought they were the band since they looked more like the band sounded than us. They were these huge skinhead guys. They had a telephone repair van that had grills inside. That was the equipment van. I think the toilet was stopped up on the motor home so everyone would pee out the window while trying to hit Tescos’ car. Playing in New York was amazing. We stayed with Doyle from the Misfits. We stayed there for a few days before we headed over to Boston and then to D.C. I don’t really recall any problems with the New York. It was so early that there was no rivalry. You were just happy there was someone else from a different place into the same thing you were and it made the numbers a little bit larger at the clubs.

What do I remember about recording the EP? We went down to Maumee and Corey had just set up a recording studio in his parents’ basement. He was still trying to figure out how to record things. He had a quarter pipe in the driveway, so we just skated and waited around to do the back-up vocals and all that.

At one point, John and Larissa (Strickland, vocalist for L-Seven and guitarist for Laughing Hyenas) moved into this apartment behind the Fox theatre and us and L-Seven were using the Clubhouse (DIY show space) for practicing and we were paying some money for rent. We would also practice in the vacant apartment above the Clubhouse. That’s where we recorded that one demo with Dave Rice.

One day at practice, Chris sprang it on us that he was quitting. If Chris was out, I figured I was out. I was leaning more towards the songs he was writing. I remember saying ‘Let’s talk to Corey and see if he wants to put out an album before we break up’.

There was a lot more tension in the band at the time. When John was living at his Moms house he was a completely different person to what he became when he moved down to the Cass and moved in with Larissa. It’s not like any of us were doing anything remotely constructive with our lives, but we weren’t just sitting around in an apartment all day drinking and watching TV. We were all leading very separate lives at this point. Also, I thought we were playing out too much. I remember talking to John saying, ‘We shouldn’t be playing so many shows. People are going to get mad at us taking all the shows and people are going to get bored of us’.

When we went in to record the ‘Tied Down’ record, I was pretty oblivious to everything because I was still a teenager and only concerned with this six inch area in front of my face. I didn’t really think about it until I got there. Graham was still in the band techincally, so John and Larissa were pro-Graham and very short with Chris and I. What was really awkward was we couldn’t get a good guitar sound the first day, so I had to come back the next day and record my guitar tracks. Neither Chris or Graham showed up, so it was just me, John, Larissa and Corey and the engineer there; real awkward.Larissa and John were an item at this point and she knew the band was pretty much all John focused on. I think she was just mad at us for taking that away from them.

At this point, it really felt like the scene was fragmenting. The Necros were getting more rock oriented. You had the skinhead factions showing up and that was becoming more prevelant. It didn’t have that tight feeling it once had. You miss a few shows where before, you wouldn’t miss them for your life. Then you miss one, you miss two and after that you just lose track of what’s going on. Chris and I moved on and formed Crossed Wire and I really don’t know what happened to the scene after that.

2010-04-04T14:47:00.002-04:00

FIRST BOOK RELEASE PARTY ANNOUNCED...CLEVO IN MID-JULY...WILL DWID SHOW UP? WBSTYN is back from his meditation workshops and green chile enemas in the mountains of Northern New Mexico and proud to announce the first of many dual book release parties between the WBSTYN bk and 'Touch & Go Fanzine - The Book'. On July 16th, Now That's Class in Cleveland, Ohio will be hosting the first party for both books and we couldn't be so thrilled. Since Clevo is the home to Confront, Easter Monkeys, Homostupids, Death of Samantha and many of our faves, we're making mud in our pants at the idea of having our first release party in this town! Hi-Oh!!! More info on the event can be found here -- http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=105281602846192&ref=mf

More info here as it comes...Until then...it's a sunny day here in Guidoville, we're gonna blast the first Adolescents LP and drink more Old Speckled Hens...why not do the same???

2010-03-29T07:53:00.003-04:00

MORE FIX...MORE POOH STIRRIN'...MORE...MORE!!! Tesco, duly impressed, became our pal. One night he invited us to a party that his little band, the Meatmen, were playing at a storage space in the suburbs. In attendance was a cadre of ridiculous teenagers that Tesco knew through the magazine. They called themselves the Necros and were led by a portly, pimply red head named Barry, who looked like an adolescent version of Curley from the Three Stooges. Barry was bent on being the most ridiculous parody of what punk rock was supposed to be, screaming, pouting, and drinking beer from a keg via the nozzle. Remember the punk episode on "Eight is Enough?" Barry was out of central casting for that, a little fool.

The summer of 1980 was a storm of Fix appearances in Michigan. Empty joints in Detroit, Flint, Lansing, Kalamazoo, all of them found the Fix blaring away to no one. We played a biker fest in a field in northern Michigan and were embraced by the methed-out crowd, who had to respect the sheer velocity of the music. One Friday night we sat on our porch after a rehearsal in the basement of the Lansing house Mike and I shared, drinking, kickin' the Pork Dukes, and one of our neighbors came by. The 'hood was a mix of black ghetto and white trash, and our ebony and ivory band fit nicely, aesthetically, anyway. This neighbor was of the white trash influence, but he liked us and cadged weed from us on occasion. So he had a deal and we listened: His dad ran a bar in St. Johns, a farming town about 30 miles north of Lansing and the weekend house band had backed out at the last minute earlier that day.

He could get us $300 a night plus beer for three sets a night for the weekend. By this time, it was 7 p.m. and we were well into our buzz, hitting off 40-ouncers and the occasional pull on a bottle of bad whiskey.

Of course we'll play.

We loaded up the gear and drove out there, conveniently missing a sound check but in time for a 10 p.m. first set. We launched into our version of "Tell Me," the Stones song so adroitly covered by the Dead Boys. We moved through some other covers we had, like "Build Me Up Buttercup." Blank stares. How about a version of the Monkees' "I'm a Believer?"

"Slow down," one of the sodden regulars yelled at us.

Bar boss was getting a bit miffed. Fix guys getting a little used to being stared at. But we were also used to moving through the set quick, which we did, giving them maybe 30 minutes of noise like they had never heard before and would never hear again. The bar paid us $300 and asked us not to play any more.

"And if you don't mind," the boss said, "could you leave? You're making these people uncomfortable."

We played a roller skating joint in Flint one weekday afternoon, and when we were done, sat in the locker room drinking wine while the kids and their parents filtered through. At times the Fix looked like boys caught between trashy glam and MC5/Stooges bare bones glitter. Hair was longish, booze was ubiquitous and the girls who traveled along as seedy as us. Those girls; we were being taken for a ride by some of them and we dug in.

At the same time, we honed our craft, though, and the songs came fast and furious. We would find covers to work in, old three-chord pop songs by bands like Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Box Tops that lent themselves willingly to our sound, which kept getting faster and faster.

In Detroit, we played at a place called Nunzio's, a shitty little enterprise in Lincoln Park that nobody went to on weeknights, which is when we came to play and get our $25. Within two years, the place would be taken over by copycat punk bands who dragged 20 of their best friends along to be part of their little club, making Nunzio's a happening place for about 10 minutes.

We also played the Red Carpet, getting some Sunday night shows to practice on a stage. These were great shows for checking in new material, and we would sometimes play the set twice to fulfill an ageing rock promoter's idea of how bar music works: Two sets, at least. We just dove into our bag of covers to fill out a set that by the end of the year included "Vengeance," "Famous," "In This Town," "Candy Store" and some stuff that would never be recorded, like "You" and "Statement" (which is actually Alice Cooper's "Caught in a Dream" reworked). The Fix was blasting at these places to no one who understood or wanted to understand, and we did it because we felt it. There were none of our friends to impress and we didn't care. In September, Craig, Mike and I moved into a house at 823 Beulah across from the city zoo in Lansing. It was a three-bedroom dump in a shitty neighborhood that rented for $350 a month. The basement, which fit four guys, their gear and little else, was where we would write and rehearse all of the Jan's Rooms session as well as things that would never be recorded.

The practices were as frantically fast as our set -- 20 minutes and we-gotta-go. Figuring out a new song might attach another 20 minutes to a practice or two. "Off to War" and "Rat Patrol" took exactly that. By the time those songs came along in early '81, we were a machine that absorbed each other's thoughts. We wrote our parts telepathically, in fact.

We didn't know shit about what hardcore was or what any of those weak labels meant. We just played. We never tossed our Aerosmith or Zep records, either. We just took the new stuff that we would hear, like Black Flag or the Germs, and pushed it into the creative mix. I remember playing a show at Club Doo Bee, our local venue, and coming home and slapping on the first Psychedelic Furs lp. And it sounded good. We played what we did because we felt it, not because we were aping our heroes.

2010-03-24T08:20:00.006-04:00

SIMPLY BARRY -- PART DEUCE...(OF MANY MORE...IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING)
Above photo -- Barry at CBGB's showing off the ancient Finnish secret of soaping hair and stamps. Photo by Greg Licht

At the time, Detroit had this sorta dorky/funny hat goofy punk thing that was a big masquerade; that was always the vibe of all these bad bands. All these bands like Coldcock had this jokey/schticky vibe that didn’t resonate with me at all. That Coldcock record (‘I Wanna Be Rich’/’You’re A Mess’) could have been ‘Six and Change’ by The Pagans and I still would’ve hated it. For some reason, they gave a bunch of those records to Touch and Go for promotion and I remember Tesco had a drum set and we used to replace the cymbals with Coldcock records, and just smash these Coldcock records so they couldn’t be given away. Clearly we never had any respect for the old guys of Detroit. We didn’t pay a lot of attention to stuff that was going on and we’d almost see these bands by accident. Like I remember going to see Bored Youth for the first time at Nunzios and they were opening for this band whose name I forget but they seemed to be thousands of years older than us, even though they were probably like twenty years old. We were radically different from these people and a lot younger, which clearly pissed these people off. It was always this thing of ‘…You little kids...’ I really resented that. So were there any really good bands in Detroit back then? I guess my answer would be no.

There was definitely no respect given back and forth between ourselves and this old guard of Detroit. These guys just played Detroit over and over again and had one little single out. As soon as we got contacts like the D.C. people or the Circle Jerks and knew we could play out of town, we didn’t even care about Detroit. Once the Necros started going on tour, we ended up playing Detroit twice a year, and that’s from ’83 and up. Negative Approach would play all the time locally; they were clearly the Detroit favorites. It wasn’t cockiness that drove us to play out of town, it was sheer naivety. We were like, ‘Well why not? Let’s try it’ and it went from there.

The Germs and Black Flag had this mythical thing going back then for us when we were in Maumee. I remember reading that review in Slash about that Pollywog Park show Black Flag did and being like "Woah, I gotta check this band out" and I mail ordered it, because that was something you definitely weren’t going to find in a store out here.

We were also real into The Misfits, obviously. When we opened up for them at Bookies that first time, we really didn’t know what to expect. There was nothing heavier than the mystique of The Misfits. Those records had such a presence to them; we wouldn’t be surprised if they were nine feet tall. We hung out with them and they were super cool and they kinda took us under their wing and made us a real band. Glenn had this amazing attitude towards self promotion that was really inspiring. Once we started to grow up and started seeing people like Glenn as peers and not mentors, that’s when things got weird.

Tesco and Dave had made like a hundred bucks or something like that from subscriptions and then we matched that with seventy-five dollars of our money and we did the ‘Sex Drive’ single. It’s really weird to look at all this stuff in retrospect and where it’s fallen into place. At the time we decided to do that first single, it was almost a joke. As a band, we could barely keep it together, so the idea of doing an actual record was sort of funny to us. We sent the record to Ken R’s music, which was a jingles studio and they advertised in the back of the Toledo Blade ‘Make a Record!’ So Todd took it down there.

It was gone so fast. I think Schoolkids’ had five copies that sat there forever. It got sent to Flipside and whoever wrote to Touch & Go or Smegma Journal. It’s weird to think about people handwriting letters and sending records through the mail and communicating that way seems so archaic with the internet. Talking about it now, I feel like I’m saying ‘We walked ten miles uphill in a snowstorm to put out a record’.

I’ve got a buddy of mine who runs a label in Seattle is always asking me these questions about the ‘Sex Drive’ single. ‘Are the plates around?’ ‘Were there any test pressings?’ and I’m like ‘Man, Todd took the tape down to that studio and a month later UPS delivered a box of records to my house. There were no test pressings, no acetates, nothing’. We were pretty naive. We just saw that ad that said ‘Make a Record!’ and we were like ‘O.K!’

2010-03-18T11:46:00.005-04:00

STIMSON!!! PART ONE OF (OF COURSE) MANY...
As anyone worth their weight in Punk Rock salt knows, Dave Stimson was the other half of the (cough...cough...splutter) editorial staff of Touch & Go Magazine with Tesco Vee and a major league record collector/wheeler dealer. He was a real pleasure to talk to and right now we're just gonna go through some of the early 80's happenings that revolved around the mag and its' evolution. Dig...

NAILING DOWN THIS ‘HARDCORE’ THING…

Well, I have to say that obviously the first hardcore record I ever bought was Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown. That was a record you couldn’t buy in a store, I had to send away for that. I know I bought a few records before I met Bob (AKA Tesco Vee) that were similar like The Misfits and The Middle Class ‘Out of Vogue’ single, which I’d call one of the first hardcore records.

THE FIX

When I heard ‘Land Speed Record’ by Husker Du, I was like, ‘These guys must’ve been there when The Fix went through Minnesota’; it sounded just like them! Not as good obviously, but they must’ve heard them and got the idea, ’Hey! We can do that!’ I’m not sure if The Fix ever made it out to the Northwest but I’m sure every member of Poison Idea got the same idea because when you hear that “Pick Your King” EP, it’s The Fix all over again! But again, not as good. If you saw The Fix live back then, especially when they came back from their first U.S. tour…they killed! All those bands that tried to play that kind of style, whether it be Discharge or any of those groups, they were never as good. If they could ever be on the same stage, The Fix would’ve just blown them off. Look, I saw Discharge when they first came over to America, and they were ok, but they were not in the same league as The Fix.

FIX/NECROS AND THE FIRST TOUCH & GO RELEASES

The Fix and Necros sort of evolved together, and played some shows together, like at Club Doo Bee opening for Black Flag. There was certainly…I don’t want to say a riff, but maybe a competiveness between those two bands. I thought both were really good in their own way, but I think The Fix first record (‘Vengeance’ b/w ‘In This Town’) is more professionally done and I think had a greater impact, although how much impact you are going to have when there’s so few records out there, I don’t know. The Necros and The Fix handled the actual releasing of the record, and I handled the sleeves. I was taking this graphics class at Lansing Community College, and I was able to do the covers during the class for free. Since we’re only doing a 100 or so of each, I could do them all in one night. The Necros printed up that elaborate insert with the photos and stuff, I had nothing to do with that. There was no insert for the Fix record. Putting out records seemed like the natural next step to us. The magazine had done a number of issues so far and we had some cache to our name, so why not? So we went about pressing up these singles without really knowing what we were doing. Who prints up only 100 of a record? That’s ridiculous! It seemed like a lot to us though at the time. We were sitting around thinking ‘How are we gonna get rid of them?'

TOUCH & GO – THE FANZINE

For me, it was just something to do. If people read it outside of the Midwest, hey that was fine. If they didn’t, then that was fine too. For me, it was just fun to do. I guess if we printed up a hundred or so issues, then that was a lot for us. Fifty was the minimum. So,we were probably trying to print up 100, maybe 200 on an average. I don’t know how many Bob ended up printing up at the end, since I had already moved on from doing the magazine by then. When the first issue of Forced Exposure came out, I could see we had some influence on people, because it was a carbon copy of Touch and Go, especially if you look at the early ones. Toward the end, it really came into its own and it became way more professionally done than any issue of Touch & Go.

FORMING THE SCENE

The Fix and the Necros sparked interest in others starting bands. Obviously, the guys in Negative Approach were going to see the Necros. Bored Youth had that one great recording that showed up in that Lost & Found boxset in the 90s’. It’s a shame we never got around to doing a record with them. Then you had Larissa’s band L-Seven, which was different. They weren’t hardcore, but they were still part of the family. And then you had the Kalamazoo kids. Kalamazoo had some bands earlier, like this band The Brain Police, who I never saw, but they had one good record. I saw a lot of the earlier Detroit bands, back when it was just sort of punk groups like Cynicide and Cult Heroes. Those guys were all pre-hardcore and they never became a part of the hardcore scene when it took off in 81-82. Those guys kinda disappeared. At the time, if it wasn’t in that particular niche that we were listening to at that time, then we didn’t want to know about it. In retrospect, that Cult Heroes ‘Berlin Wall’ single was actually pretty good. You know, when you got thirty years to reflect on a record, it doesn’t suck as much as you thought it did! If it wasn’t played at 100 miles an hour, we basically weren’t interested.

THE MIDWEST/D.C. CONNECTION

They sent us the Teen Idles single and the first one they sent came in pieces. Bob picked it up at the post office and I guess they just didn’t pack it well or something. They must have gotten a copy of the magazine in some store in D.C and sent us a record when it came out. We immediately wrote them back with cash in the envelope asking for another one because it looked so great and that started a line of correspondence between us. The Necros, me and Bob, and maybe a couple others, drove to New York and saw the Circle Jerks at Irving Plaza, and the D.C kids came up as well, and that’s when I met Henry and Ian for the first time. I was very impressed with Ian. He seemed very down to earth, very unpretentious, and very approachable. The D.C. scene had gotten some sorta rep even by then, and they obviously had a particular look. The Midwest kids were more rat pack looking and were less concerned with how they looked. The D.C. kids were way more into a particular look, and then the Boston kids kinda took that same look and made it worse. They became a little more dogmatic about the attitude and look I thought. The biggest difference obviously was me and Bob had no problem getting drunk, where that was sort of taboo, as highlighted in the Meatmen cartoons in Touch and Go.

2010-03-15T08:15:00.002-04:00

....COVER OF 'WHY BE SOMETHING THAT YOU'RE NOT' LEAKED TO THE PUBLIC...CHAOS ENSUES...FILM AT ELEVEN... Check it out! We've deemed it necessary to let the cover of 'Why Be Something That You're Not' be unveiled here on the blog. Behold it in all it's glory! Our only question is...will Danforth attempt to replicate that same famous stagedive at the book release party in Detroit on 7/31/10? Oh no! I've already said too much...

Let us know what you think...

2010-03-10T09:23:00.010-05:00

HISTORY OF THE FIX PART THREE - DS & A 'TALL BLONDE HAIRED WEIRDO' ENTER THE PITCHER...

The musical landscape in Lansing in 1980, aside from the occasional show at Dooley's, included punk rock nights at some of the local establishments, which meant kids in B-52s outfits listening to the Pretenders. It was savage for us, who were digging Cockney Rejects and the Dickies. We realized out of the gate that finding a place to play would be a challenge, so we contented ourselves with practice. Jeff turned out to be great, a college prep boy from northern Michigan. He knew nothing about punk rock and we set about giving him an education. And he picked it up quick, the song-style changes, the pissed-off tension we were seeking.

The songs came together quickly. Craig showed up one night with "Vengeance." He had the lyrics down, the chords and change in place and said he had written it a while ago. We launched into it, Jeff stuck the drum shifts in there and it turned out to be the A side of our first record.

Not that we were thinking of such things at the time. The thoughts raged anti-social, oddly, because we were just suburban kids with happy childhoods. For some reason, though, anger had always been riding shotgun with me. It was the adults I really disliked, authority figures who asserted themselves by subjugating young people. Gym teachers, coaches, assistant principals at the lower level, bosses at third-rate jobs on the next level. Pompous college instructors on top of that. As far as I could tell, most of them knew little about what made my mind work, and their assertions of knowledge meant nothing to me. I wanted to be alone in my head, even though I relished having friends. It was a conflict that I'm sure created some rage in itself.

The first Fix show was held in a basement in an MSU student ghetto for maybe 25 people who were drinking from a keg of Bud sitting in a tub of ice 20 feet from where we played. People paid attention because it was really hard to ignore the wall of guitar we had right from the start. I was the reluctant singer, relegated so because we had to have one. We wore thrift store rags, a habit we picked up quickly and shed within a year when we realized that the music was more important and clothes could be a distraction.

A week later, we played another party, this one outdoors in a vast space behind a student apartment complex. It got cold in the evening and the guitars began to weave in and out of tune. Add to this that we were just starting out and my guess is that this was not a great show.

There were more kegs and this time more people, college types, guys who were jocks and felt that this new wave thing was going too far with the Fix.

"You guys are terrible and should go learn how to play," one future drill sergeant informed me as he juggled two plastic cups of beer. He had caught me alone walking the grounds, something we quickly realized was not safe when there were drunken frat boys around.

"And fuck you for showing up," he added, as I turned and walked away, dreaming of the day when we would have some roadies who could turn that thick-necked asshole inside out.

Yea, more hate. More songs. Perhaps those sentiments would leave me if I had a blade to stick that fledgling pig with. But I didn't and the hate for mainstream culture festered.

In that spring, 1980, I was working as an office hand for the U.S. Census Bureau, sitting at a large table and, mindlessly and in variously addled states, filing census forms. At my table was Dave Stimson, a former high school football star whose name I recognized immediately. He was a big deal when he played at a neighboring high school as we grew up in the area. Now, here we all gathered, losers in the game of workaday life, hardly using our brains. But what we both had on the side bonded us and made a big difference to both of us.

Dave and his friend Bob Vermeulen had a little magazine called Touch and Go, a pasted together rag that, despite its rugged and anti-pro appearance, lauded some of the best sounds going. We could read about Discharge, the Birthday Party and the Germs in those pages. Dave liked good music, mostly pop along the lines of the Undertones, but also dug into the brand of blitzkrieg ferociousness that the Fix was starting to embrace and exude.

I informed Dave that I was part of a little local combo that embraced punk rock. In May 1980, he came to see us play a house party in East Lansing, where we ripped apart the place, literally, as aroused crowd members knocked a stairway railing into next year and tossed it out into the street. The damage was cool to us. We wanted to burn it down anyway. We had some fans. And Dave was one. He dutifully reported back to Bob, who introduced himself as Tesco, a tall, blond-haired weirdo that we all liked immediately because he was so fucking funny. Even while slapping on the most brutal of sounds at our place, where he would appear with a stack of records and some cheap beer, he cracked wise and cool at the same time. For our part, we sucked down the suds and the tunes, amazed to find there were bands in LA playing the same kind of cacophony that we were. Speed was the musical buzz and fury was the order of the day. We swooned hard to the blend and kept moving.

Tesco saw us in June in the back room of a small restaurant in downtown Lansing. We showed up late on a hot rainy night, for some reason waylaid as we got our gear together. It was unusual for us not to show up for a sound check, since our work habits were meticulous. At this place, though, we had to wait until closing to even get in, 9 p.m., so we bagged the check.

We started to play around midnight, and it was as if the crowd knew what we were up to. The music pulsed, one song into another, a whirlwind of violence playing off of the preceding thunderstorms. Aroused, some audience members pulled the fire extinguishers off the wall and began hosing down the place, starting at the back of the small room and working their way forward. I couldn't breathe, couldn't see and sure as hell couldn't sing. It was great, complete mayhem as people ran to escape the fumes and sound at the same time. The Fix was catching on.

Imagery courtesy of Richard Bowser, James Sinks and Tesco Vee.

2010-03-03T12:57:00.003-05:00

FLAG HITS LANSING....LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS AND/OR RARE HAWKWIND LP'S... This weeks' entry for the blog is an excerpt from the book regarding Black Flags' first trip to the glorious state of Michigan in the Spring of '81... A magical event I'm sure you'll agree...

Black Flag made good on their promise to play Lansing, Michigan and rolled into Club Doo Bee on a Sunday night in March of 1981 with the obvious choice of The Fix and Necros as the warm up acts. The latter group had lost yet another member to collegiate pursuits in guitarist Andy Wendler, but were quick to bring another local punk convert, Brian Pollock, into the fold. They had also finally found a bass player; the video toting Corey Rusk. Both new members would be playing their first live gig opening up for Flag. As expected, the young punks were eager to flex their muscles and show off what they learned from the videos Rusk brought back from L.A. Once Black Flag launched into their set opener “Damaged II” and Andy Wendler rammed head first into a local record store employee, chaos ensued.

Barry Henssler – I remember people being taken aback at how violent we were. Black Flag got there late and did a five or six song sound check before anyone played, but people were inside the club. Everyone was anticipating them showing up, so that little sound check brought the energy up that much higher. This wasn’t the lame ass Farfisa organ New Wave bands that normally played at Club Doo Bee. You would have to be an idiot to ignore it.

Todd Swalla – We were pounding the hell out of the New Wavers trying to pogo. We were stage diving off of tables and for the first 10 minutes it was like a fist fight set to music. Then the New Wave folks finally got the fuck off the dance floor and we had it all to ourselves for the rest of the set. Not really as much fun but still cool, it was fucking Black Flag in your face! I got to play drums during “Louie Louie” which was my main goal that night!

Steve Miller – A trio of police cars sat in the parking lot across from Club Doo Bee the whole night, which both frightened and excited me. I didn’t want the cops to break up the show, but I figured something must be going right if it brought this sort of reaction in this town.

Tesco Vee – I remember leaving the club and having the soundboard tape from the show. We had just left the show and we were already listening to the tape in the car, listening to Dez (Cadena, then Black Flag vocalist) scream “I’M NOT A MACHINE!” over and over again.

Richard Bowser – I spoke to a guy a few years ago who was in this band in the eighties from Chicago called Strike Under and he was at that show. Every few years, I run into someone who was there. It seems everyone who was at that show went on to form a band or was in a band already at the time.

Steve Miller – The beauty of the whole situation is it happened in Lansing! It wasn’t New York or anything. It was truly a people's idea and notion to get this together and it had nothing to do with fashion or anything like that. We had a kick ass party at our house after that with the Black Flag guys.

Craig Calvert – Greg [Ginn, Black Flag guitarist] and Dez [Cadena] cranked out some Beatles and Neil Young on our stereo at that party. That certainly surprised a room full of punk rockers. I think that might have been the night someone set our couch on fire. I remember the police weren’t so happy about that, and shut the party down.

2010-02-25T11:57:00.011-05:00

SIMPLY BARRY -- PART ONE OF MANY MORE... Necros in SoCal circa '83 -- Photo by Joseph Henderson

When I was interviewing Ron Sakowski (Bass player for Gerbils, Affiliated, Necros, Laughing Hyenas and the revamped Negative Approach) for the book, he declared 'Barry Henssler invented Hardcore and that's that!' Although he was just having a little fun with that statement, Ron had a similar story to many people interviewed of being turned onto the sounds eminating from LA, DC and beyond by Barry and his legendary record collection. It boils down to this, Barry and the boys were beyond being the catalyst for Midwest hardcore. If it wasn't for them, you wouldn't have your precious Negative Approach...not even your beloved Suburban Anger! Gadzooks! In this initial installment, Barry goes over the origins of the band, first gigs and all that jazz...

'Hangin' out on a Friday night...' Barry Henssler, Todd Swalla and Andy Wendler

Andy (Wendler; Necros guitarist) and I were real into collecting records pretty much right off the bat. When the punk ’77 thing happened, there were a bunch of record stores around us run by these well meaning hippy types who were real into Dave Edmunds and shit like that. They ordered these punk records and they would just sit there, so we ended up getting a lot of great shit for real cheap. I remember buying the first Suicide record on Red Star for two bucks. Anyway, we discovered the Drome record store in Cleveland when I was waiting on line at a Tubes concert at the Toledo Sports Arena and this guy was talking to me about records and he was like, "I got this crazy single called ‘(I’m The) Hillside Strangler’ from this band called The Child Molesters" and I was like, "Oh really? Where’d you get that?" and he said he got it at a store called The Drome. Cleveland is like 100 miles from Maumee, so we didn’t get out there that much except for that time there was a Patti Smith in-store with The Pagans playing next door. I remember flipping out over how tiny Patti Smith was. In pictures she looks like she has this real presence, but she’s really tiny. She had this scarf wrapped up like a burka and I remember my first reaction being "Aw man, she looks like a monkey!" Next door, the Pagans were bringing in their own gear and we went over there. I can’t express how much that gig meant to me. That show was really pivotal in a way. The Pagans made us realize it could be done, and plus they were so fucking great. Tommy Metoff, who played guitar for the Pagans, had this real authoritative sound. It was inspirational. It was our next phase as people; clearly we needed to start a band.

Todd’s (Swalla; Necros drummer) family was very musical. His mom played piano, and he had a bass and would jam it really loud and he also had a drum kit. We had stopped hanging out with Andy for a little bit because I was going to a different school and Andy started hanging out with this other cat from his neighborhood and they got way into collecting beer cans. When Andy’s parents would go away, he’d ask them to bring back specific beers. He built these special shelves in his basement and he was a contributor to some beer can collector anthology. So I have to say we saved Andy Wendler from intense nerdiness by making him join the Necros.

After our first bass player Dave Cooke went to college we had (Brian) Hyland play bass, but Hyland’s whole thing was to dance around like Paul Simonon. He was such a bad bass player that we didn’t even turn his amp on the first time we played out. When he got a girlfriend and started getting steady pussy, he flaked on the band.

The first time we played live was at the Brass Bell, which was a University of Toledo bar. There was this band called The Best who would play Elvis Costello covers and the lead singer and the bass player were brothers who worked at this record store called Boogie Records. They were cool and we’d hang around there and one day we asked if our band could play with them on Halloween of ‘79. The crowd dug it because it was Halloween and they were just having fun. We went over really well and were really surprised. Maybe a month later we played again there and we weren’t nearly as well received, and to top it off, it was really humiliating because my aunt was there! I was 16 and told her, ‘Hey! Don’t tell my step mom about this!’

We started so much at ground zero that we sounded more like the Shaggs, it was that primitive. And this wasn’t for a couple months, it was for awhile we’d actually try to play out sounding like that! In January of ’80, we played in Windsor, Ontario and we were so shitty. This friend of ours whose nickname was Zonk came up to us after the set and was like, "God, you guys are fuckin’ terrible!" He was aghast of how shitty we were. We covered ‘1977’ by The Clash and it was so bad.

'81 line-up of the Necros (minus Andy) graces the cover of Touch & Go #14

Around this time is when I saw an issue of Touch & Go at Schoolkids (record store in Ann Arbor). I sent them a copy of Smegma Journal (fanzine edited by Barry) They didn’t believe we were the age that we were until we met. We started meeting up on Saturdays to go record shopping in Ann Arbor and hang out. Tesco and Dave were the best/worst influences you can think of. They were probably the first older people who weren’t dismissive of us. Ann Arbor had all these hippie commune places and we got a show at one of them in the summer of ‘80. It was us and some really fucking shitty band with Lori who worked at Schoolkids records. I think we had gotten on our feet a bit because Jeff Lake was playing bass at the time and he took to the bass quickly. He moved to L.A. a few months later and joined that band Symbol Six who came out on Posh Boy. He changed his name to Donnie Brooks. He was a decent bass player and we probably sounded pretty good at the time. Tesco and Dave showed up at the show and they were hilarious, they always had beer. Tesco used to always smoke these weird, pink colored playboy guy cigarettes. They really stood out from these Ann Arbor granola hippy type people that I remember being there that night. They were real encouraging of everything we did and they’d also buy us beer which was a plus in our book. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t think the Midwest hardcore scene would have existed.

2010-02-18T11:28:00.012-05:00

REMINISCING WITH DUH BOWSER (PART ONE)...

Hey y'all...sorry for the brief abscense. To make up for that, we got a trip down memory lane with none other than Richard Bowser, guitarist for those Kalamazoo hardcore pioneers, Violent Apathy.

I caught up with Richard around this time last year when I went on a week long sweep of Michigan interviewing anyone and everyone I could who was involved in the early 80's hardcore scene out there. After a night of drinking with Bill Danforth, a rocky interview with The State and a four (or so) hour drive from Ann Arbor to K-Zoo, I'm sure I looked pretty haggared when I stepped onto Dick's porch in the late afternoon. I remember Richard taking one look at me and saying something like 'Good God man, you need a beer!' Since he had never met me before in his life, I thought it to be pretty astute of him to really zero in on my wants and needs.

Soon enough, Bowser and I were speeding along the backroads of Western Michigan until we got to Old Hat, a brew pub owned by Tommy Fuller, second guitarist for VA. From there on in we settled in with a gargantuan sized folder of flyers and fanzines Richard brought along and just rapped about that voodoo that VA did so well. One of the more pleasant memories of last year was sitting in Old Hat with Tommy and Richard drinking fine ass ales, smokin' cigars and lettin' them spool out the stories I'd wanted to hear for quite some time. Here's what the tape took down of what Mr. Bowser had to say...

When I was in high school in the seventies, I was into Prog Rock like ELP, King Crimson, Camel and stuff like that. One night, a friend of mine came over with this tape and said ‘This is the Ramones, they’re all brothers and they’re going to change music!’ After that, I pretty much started going out and buying a lot of punk and new wave records.

When I was in my first year of college at Western State, I heard the Cramps coming out of somebody’s dorm room on my floor. I knocked on the door and it was Eliot Rachman (first and future drummer for Violent Apathy) He was like ‘Come on in man! Have a bong hit and listen to the Cramps!’ After awhile he was like ‘You gotta hear my friends’ band, The Fix’. About a month later we saw them at the Whistle Stop in Kalamazoo. Seeing them kind of opened up another door of music I wasn’t aware of. Craig (Calvert, guitarist for The Fix) would wear a lot of scarves and Steve (Miller, vocalist for The Fix) would do a scarf and make-up thing. Mike Achtenberg (bass player for The Fix) is one of the weirdest dudes I ever met. He got a job in the cafeteria of MSU when he was seventeen and as far as I know, still works that job. He lives a very hermitish lifestyle. Jeff (Wellman, the drummer of The Fix) was just a frat boy dude.

Violent Apathy started out as a band called Gratient with me on guitar, Eliot on drums and Kenny Knott singing. We played at Club Doo Bee one night and Dave Stimson (co-editor of Touch & Go magazine) came up to us afterwards and said ‘You guys sound like this band from California called The Urinals’. I was like ‘Who the hell is that? Should I check them out?’ Dave Stimson was a big influence on me and welcomed me into it all in a real cool way. I remember the first time I hung out with him, he was playing this mix tape and every song that came on, I would ask ‘Jesus! What the fuck was that?’ and he’d say ‘Oh that? That’s The Middle Class’ The next song would come on and I’d be like ‘Wow! Who’s that?’ and he’d say ‘That’s The Controllers’. He’d act like everyone knew what this stuff was. How he became so hip in the middle of Lansing is still a mystery to me.

There was a show in Flint with The Fix and Necros in November of 1980. I remember being so psyched to see the Necros. There was this tape that Eliot had that I always thought was the best sounding shit the Necros ever did. It was this 5 song tape that had ‘I Hate My School’ and ‘Police Brutality’ on it. I remember ‘Public High School’ started off the tape. So we ended getting there late and missing the Necros.

The first time I actually got to see the Necros was when they opened for Black Flag at Club Doo Bee. I spoke to a guy a few years ago who was in this band in the eighties from Chicago called Strike Under and he was at that show, Every few years, I always run into someone who was at that show. It seems everyone who was at that show went on to form a band later or who was in a band already at the time was at that show.

Sometime after the Minor Threat and S.O.A singles came out, that’s when we started getting into that hardcore vibe and changed the name to Violent Apathy. My friend of mine Jim from high school was the one who got the named Violent Apathy from a study he read about prisoners on death row. One of the first shows we ever played under the name Violent Apathy was in Battle Creek with the Necros. The opening band, Eddie and the Wolfgang, did a Necros cover. That was weird. There was always a weird rivalry between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek that almost got physical. Kalamazoo was always perceived to be rich college kids and Battle Creek kids thought of themselves as working class punkers. Battle Creek had the Latin Dogs, who did a great seven inch back then and were super political. They were friends with D.O.A right from the beginning. Battle Creek also had The Lipps Are Back and Eddie and the Wolfgang. How the fuck did these guys in the middle of nowhere start such an advanced hardcore scene in the beginning of the eighties?

PS -- If you're ever in the Lawton, Michigan area, do yourself a huge favor and stop into Tommy's Old Hat Brewery and Grill. Get an order of fried pickles, an order of the Cordon Blue Balls and a Billy Bock and you'll be in heaven fo' sho'. http://oldhatbeer.com/

2010-02-14T13:37:00.002-05:00

FOR THE LONELYHEARTS ON VALENTINES DAY -- PART TWO OF THE FIX SAGA...

The music scene in Michigan at the time was, as always, torrid. But punk rock was a fledgling notion, and we had one venue to hit. Bookies, a small club with a black-and-white checked floor, had a tattered but screaming PA and a long, well-stocked bar. It was the premier punk rock joint in the Motor City, socked away on West McNichols next to a gay bar and across from a Church's Fried Chicken. Punks were periodically robbed at gunpoint around there, and the small parking lot was rimmed with barbed wire and a rent-a-cop on the premises spent most of his time smoking joints in his car. Bookies pulled in the best acts with alarming regularity. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers played an achingly terrific set there on a steamy, stormy night in July, 1979. I saw Pere Ubu, the Dead Boys, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Iggy Pop, and Magazine there. Local bands who made their mark at Bookies included Coldcock, which featured a local hairdresser named Andy Peabody as its singer. He was a glammy Bators rip and he did it well. They ran over some great covers, including "YMCA" and "I Can't Help Myself," done with two guitars and a fat rhythm section.

Destroy All Monsters played around Michigan all the time, a deadly boring act led by former Stooge Ron Asheton. DAM was Asheton wanking with no restraint while a singer who called herself Niagra sipped from a can of Tab and pompously waltzed around looking disaffected. That band's ostentatious presence was countered by the monstrous post-MC5 damage of Sonic's Rendevous Band, who were good every time out.

Mike and I were spectators at these shows, secretly going home and bashing away on the guitar, taking turns showing each other some ham-handed lick.

So when we stuck an ad up in March 1980 in some MSU-area laundries, we wondered what our hard work might get us. Neither of us could play a thing, really. We had listed as musical interests such acts as the Dead Boys, the Ramones, Thunders, Buzzcocks, some more obscure stuff like Live at the Roxy, Lurkers, Depressions.

"Well, I'm calling about your ad," Craig Calvert said to me when he responded. "I like a lot of that stuff," he continued. "And if it helps, I'm black."

Craig came over with his white Strat and some good joints in a nice case. Mike and I looked at him, he looked at us, and it was good. We liked him and he seemed to like us. We smoked, talked about what we wanted to do - "play fast music and piss people off" - and set out some possible covers. He said he had a drummer he had jammed with, some MSU kid who "is pretty goofy, but he's actually really good." We agreed to allow him to bring this kid named Jeff Wellman over.

Then Craig took his guitar out and played a little bit. Oh shit. He was really good. I mean, good as in, fuck, we couldn't hold a candle. I played guitar, but I sucked. Mike played bass and he was better.

"Why the hell would he want to play with us?" Mike asked me after Craig left. "I mean, he can actually play."

"I dunno," I said. "Maybe he actually feels the same way we do about music. Not everyone wants to make a million hits. Some people feel alienated by that idea."

2010-02-12T08:33:00.004-05:00

'STEVEN TYLER RARELY INVITES YOU OVER TO EAT HIS MOM'S MEATLOAF' -- THE 'PROCESS OF ELIMINATION' TOUR

...Dig on this excerpt from the book about that magical jaunt the Touch & Go crew took to the east coast in the summer of 1982 known as 'The Process of Elimination' tour...

Marc Berie (Necros roadie, Host of 'Why Be Something That You're Not' television show) -- One road trip I'll never forget is being a roadie on the Process of Elimination tour. We had this little freaking RV camper and I had so much fun on that trip. Brian Hyland had this big old painting of Pac Man, and roped it to the back of the RV and that was pretty much the theme of the trip. Everybody basically played video games and had a two liter thing of Coke at the ready because nobody drank.

Barry Henssler (Necros vocalist) -- The most important thing about Corey being in the band to me was we could borrow that motor home whenever we wanted.

Chris 'O.P' Moore (Negative Approach drummer)-- New York seemed the most mystical. We were a little nervous when we played there. Rob was tuning his guitar forever, he was so nervous. Glenn Danzig was in the front row. The Beastie Boys were there. Going to D.C. was fantastic. Meeting all the Minor Threat people was nice. We stayed with Jerry and Doyle from the Misfits in New Jersey. The Boston people seemed harder to connect to personally.

Tesco Vee (Meatmen vocalist) -- We stayed with Jerry and Doyle from the Misfits and their mom made us homemade egg sandwiches and lobster while we swam in their pool.

Tim King (Negative Approach roadie, Heresy vocalist) -- When we

stayed at Jerry and Doyle's house, I dove into their fucking swimming pool and broke my nose at the bottom of the pool. We played Boston the next day and those guys were fucking nuts, dude. Guys were diving off the stage with casts on their arms and they were out for blood. Everyone of those motherfuckers was gunning for me because I had a broken nose and two black eyes and they were trying to bust me in my nose!

Brian Hyland (McDonalds vocalist)- I had been listening to the Misfits 'Beware' for a year straight and here's Glenn Danzig saying 'Yeah, stay at my house, we'll watch shitty horror movies and silkscreen shirts'. I was like 'This is fucking awesome, man!'. It was like meeting Aerosmith to me. Steven Tyler rarely invites you over to eat his Mom's meatloaf. Jerry and Doyle would dye their hair black and flick it up and the dye would splatter on the ceiling of their basement. I remember their mom screaming in this thick New Jersey accent, 'Ya got the god damned dye on the ceiling again!'

Rob McCullough (Negative Approach guitarist) - Everybody traveled in the motor home, except Tesco who drove his little red Toyota. We whipped a lot of crap onto his car from the motor home. The toilet was stopped up on the motor home so everyone would pee out the window and try to hit Tesco's car.

John Brannon (Negative Approach vocalist) - O.P (Chris Moore) was only fifteen at the time, so he would tell his mom, 'Hey, can I spend the weekend at Graham's house?' and off we'd go taking him past state lines. I remember within the first five minutes of being in New York seeing Johnny Thunders walk down the street and fall down a flight of basement steps. I was telling all the guys in my band 'That's the dude from the New York Dolls!' but they didn't care at all.

2010-02-10T12:08:00.009-05:00

A BRIEF DISCUSSION ON WITTGENSTEINS' 'ON CERTAINTY' WITH MR. TESCO VEE...

Were you born and raised in the Midwest? I know I read somewhere that you moved to Lansing as a teenager because your dad got a job as superintendent of a high school or something…

Born and raised in Kalamazoo, original home of Gibson Guitars, and Checker Marathons and not much else..then moved to King Of Prussia, Pennsylvania when I was 14, then back to Lansing area when I was a senior in High School. People leave Michigan, but like a moth to the flame always return...

What was some of the first music that grabbed hold of your (uh...) mind? Did music immediately lead you down a path ofcollecting records and digging for obscure bands, etc.? Were you aware of the MC5 or Stooges when you were younger and living in Michigan?

When I was four, I can remember Chubby Checker's 'The Twist' was the 1st Rock &Roll record I had heard and I can still recall the feeling. Then it was The Beatles I suppose and then Cream and all the acid tripping stuff. I made my mom take me to the Miracle Mart when I was twelve and buy me the 'Disraeli Gears' album with that hot pink psychedelic freak out cover..if she only knew..I became aware of the MC5 in ‘67 as well when 'Kick Out The Jams' became a regional hit..I can remember thinking it was the coolest thing I'd ever heard...so raw and primal..weird that a live cut became their big hit..I wasn't old enough to go to any shows but I heard stories of them playing The Dells along Lake Lansing, an old dance hall as did The Stooges but that was early like around 1970-72 and I was still out east then… Collecting records was a natural obsession that followed the hero worship…I've always been a fan of hype..back pre-internet when info, ideas, and musical movements were allowed to percolate and concepts were allowed to evolve like Glam, Prog Rock, Punk...I followed it, collected it, still dig it!

Where you attending arena rock gigs while in high school? What were some that stick out in your head?

My first show was Brownsville Station/Cactus/Amboy Dukes at some Movie Theater in Battle Creek Michigan in 1972 when I was 17...now that I think back what a great bill to kick it off!...2 out of 3 bands were from Michigan and Cactus is still one of my faves with Jim McCarty (Detroit boy) ranking in my top 5 axe men of all time...I remember Nugent doing the cheesy thing where they brought a glass orb out and sat it on the amp and then he wails on some ear piercing note that supposedly breaks the orb, but actually some schlub is offstage with a pellet gun..we were young, stoned, and believed the 'Nuge' made it happen..I saw Blue Oyster Cult in '72 at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo on the 'Tyranny and Mutation' tour..they were in their prime...leather smoke, flames and weird evil lyrics...fuckin’ amazing show...

When you entered college, what kind of stuff were you listening to?

That was the early 70's so hard rock like Thin Lizzy, Foghat, Montrose, I discovered The Move and became a lifelong fan of Roy Wood, I used to hit the Imports hard at Record land in the Mall where a cat named Ian Burgess worked and was ordering the records..he went on to be an engineer of note in Chicago, and I was buying all this Progressive rock he would order like Guru Guru, P.F.M., Amon Duul 2, but the greatest Prog ever is the King Crimson 'Lizard' album!!! ...I smoked my first doobie to that record and to me it will always be the penultimate art rock album ever created, I also was way into Van Der Graaf Generator,as well as poppy stuff like T.Rex..bands back then put an album out every 6 months..you could set your watch to it..I can remember thinking to myself..’I betcha theres a new Lizzy album out this week..’ I drive down to the Disc Shop in East lansing and there sits 'Jaibreak'!

When did you first venture out to the live music scene of Michigan (ie -- clubs not arenas) ? What kind of bands were playing at the time? Was anything remotely 'Punk' going on at the time? Was there even an inkling of the MC5/Stooges vibe still there?

Believe it or not, the national and international bands that came thru Lansing in the 70's were amazing..most played a place called The Brewery that changed names and just this week got torn down cuz the owner got into tax trouble, went out in the woods and blew his brains out.... I saw Kiss there. They played 2 nites in '74 when 'Hotter Than Hell' had just come out I went on nite one and was 10 feet from the stage, so close you could feel the heat of the flames and the girls were grabbing Gene's 'blood' and smearing it on their faces..I remember being really stoned and it kind of freaked me out, but in a good way…My wife Gerta went on nite 2 and didnt like it and left..that's OK she's still the coolest chick on the planet..married to me for 25 years you kiddin? The Tubes, Rory Gallagher, Status Quo, Robin Trower all played there..Iggy played there but not sure why but I missed it...MY BIGGEST REGRET was the f'n NY Dolls played at the Lansing Drive In in 1973 and I was at a party in a neighborhood behind the theater and I DIDN'T GO..Holy crap what a boob! I was with some lame chick that didn't wanna go..I had the chance to see the frickin Dolls in a 1 horse town like Lansing and I blew it! Then when punk exploded Club Doo Bee happened...a few little ol bands played there like...D.O.A. Black Flag, The Fast, Lydia Lunch...of course The Fix and The Necros were regular openers..one nite Andy Wendler did a leap in the air and crashed right thru the stage...the place was a shithole but what a glorious shithole it was! We used to drive to Detroit to see all the UK stuff in the late 70's like 999, Revillos, Gang Of Four, and I got to see Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers twice in their prime...just the best!

Was the UK Punk thing the 1st thing that turnedyour head around as far as finding out about more bands/records etc.?

Ya, the UK thing pre-dated all of that..I happened into a newstand and saw the Melody maker cover of the Bromley Contingent with Sioux, Idol, Rotten et al in their famous scrum wrestling pile shot..not sure if that was late '76 or '77 but that day changed everything..then shortly thereafter a little box showed up at a local record shop of import punk 45's...I flipped out and bought like half the box, Sex Pistols, Cortinas, Lurkers, Generation X, Chelsea, Johnny Moped , Metal Urbain they were all there..at $3 a shot I dropped my load in more ways than one! I started taking huge stacks of Prog Rock and sold it at Flat Black and Circular and started goin’ whole hog on buying every punk record I could find..Of course now I wish I had all that Prog back!

2010-02-08T07:27:00.003-05:00

FOR THOSE WITH CABBAGE TO SPARE...

For those expecting a large tax return this year due to write-offs of illegitimate children in Walla Walla and other such false bizz, I present you with an auction for the holy grail of Midwest Punk wax collecting, the Necros first single 'Sex Drive'. Pressed in the ludicrous amount of just one hundred copies, this thing is tougher to find than a non-sticky Agnetha photo over at the Vee compound. If you gotta have it, follow the link below. Here's a few sneak peak/choice quotes on the 'Sex Drive' single from the book...

Barry Henssler – On the last song on the single, “Caste System,” there’s this guitar breakdown that comes out of nowhere in the middle of the song. It turns out there was this other track of Andy just screwing around on guitar that was left on there. When we heard it, we just left it on there because it sounded so fucked up. It was just one of those happy accidents.

Dave Stimson – If the whole thing sounded like that break in “Caste System,” they would have had a record!

Barry Henssler – The funny thing about it is Tim Story went on to become an artist on Windham Hill. He was nominated for a grammy for some project he did with Glenn Close. I just think of this guy doing some sort of Klaus Schulze soundscape and then being like “Oh, and here’s my other latest recording project” and it’s fucking “Sex Drive.”

Tesco Vee – Every week I’d go to Flat, Black and Circular and I’d count the copies they had of The Fix and Necros singles and think “Yeah...still five of each.” These records that are now worth thousands of dollars sat there for weeks...months.

Barry Henssler – I’ve got a buddy of mine who runs a label in Seattle and he’s always asking me these questions about the “Sex Drive” single. “Are the plates around?” “Were there any test pressings?” and I’m like “Man, Todd took the tape down to that studio and a month later UPS delivered a box of records to my house. There were no test pressings, no acetates, nothing.” We were pretty naive. We just saw that ad that said “Make a Record!” and we were like, “O.K!”

http://cgi.ebay.com/NECROS-Sex-Drive-7-Original-KBD-Punk-Hardcore-NM-NM_W0QQitemZ320484137409QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl?hash=item4a9e57d9c1

2010-02-05T11:19:00.003-05:00

THE HISTORY OF THE FIX...PART ONE OF MANY, MANY MORE...

Hey there and welcome to the blogspot for 'Why Be Something That You're Not', an oral history of the Detroit Hardcore Punk scene in the early 80's being published by Revelation Records in the summer of 2010. For those who are not familiar with what we're talking about, we have listed some links on the righthand side of the blog to get you up to speed. For those of you who know why you're here, prepare for some serious nerding out on here in the next few months leading up to the books' release. Be on the lookout for interview outtakes, book excerpts, flyers, photos, videos, collectors showing off their early 80's Detroit Punk booty, etc. It's gonna be a blast I tells ya!!!

For our first post, we are putting up the first part of a 16,000 word history of those Lansing, Michigan Hardcore pioneers, The Fix written by none other than the groups' vocalist, Steve Miller. Steve has been cool enough to let us use this and we're chuffed to bits to present it to you. Let's stop wasting time and dig in...

Without a tinge of self-consciousness, four Midwestern guys - in the factory town of Lansing, Michigan, no less - picked up and delivered the punk rock goods in 1980-81. I have no way of knowing why this serendipitous magic went down, but I have a guess: We didn't know any better.

The boys in the band were all plagued by idyllic childhoods and healthy appetites for booze. We had no choice but to fuck things up.

Craig, guitar, was pure aggro, fed by the politics that he was being exposed to as he attended Michigan State University. He was moody and amped up, betraying a creative nature that made him sometimes sullen. We both had strong personalities and battled often as people. But we meshed well when it came to music. We bonded over disdain for almost everything.

To look at drummer Jeff was to see a college guy on the move. He took engineering classes at MSU, drank beer on the weekends with his buddies and watched football. He was even tempered, stocky like a linebacker and grew up in Northern Michigan, where punk rock meant the Cars. He was also a beast on the drums, the one guy among us who seemed to get better every day. He didn’t listen to music; he absorbed it and spit it out. Jeff could also be a bit of a space case, but we always gave him the respect he earned.

Mike played bass, and he was my pal since high school. I would watch him change over the 22 months of the Fix from a kindly guy into a hard-drinking, often foul-humored behemoth. He stood 6-foot-4 and was an ex-jock with little drive for much of anything but playing music. He was a steady workhorse in that arena.

I had wanted to play guitar but when it was decided Craig was the axe man, I took one for the team and became singer. I was scrawny, mouthy and angry. It worked.

Ladies and gentlemen, for better or worse, the band.

We started out, like other bands of that era and those immediately proceeding, with one leg in the dress-up stage of musical caterwaul that the New York Dolls and the Stooges purveyed, and an arm in a simpler fashion realm that allowed nothing to speak but the music. The latter won out for no tangible reason. I suppose hitting the thrift store on Michigan Avenue got to be an annoying habit rather than a pleasure, especially as we became attached to rehearsing every day.

The cast was set quickly, especially when you consider that the end product was decidedly both flamboyant and progressive. And to think it was all started at a local prep bar in East Lansing, home of Michigan State University. When you have the 1979 Big Ten champion basketball team and an academic program that is reputed to be among the tops in the nation, complemented by a pulsing auto manufacturing scene, there is little room for iconoclasm. But that was the word when Mike and I stepped into the basement of a little nightclub called Dooley's. It was a benign college joint in the main puke-on-your-shoes section of town, which was the only area to see any kind of music in Lansing.

Dooley's hosted the Stranglers on April 5, 1978. The British louts would eventually end up scattered due to drug habits, but at the time they were a vibrant and thudding representation of the British scene. Both of their LPs were in rapid play at the apartment Mike and I shared. While this show was held in a bar that held around 400, we were accustomed to seeing bands in venues like Cobo Hall - where we all saw Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep - or even Masonic Auditorium - where we caught Lou Reed and Patti Smith. It was out of context to see a headline band on a stage that was 5 feet tall.

We walked up to Dooley's that night in a slight rain and were greeted by some protesting lesbians who felt that singing about peaches on the beaches and the merits of pubescent girls was indecent and sexist. Hairy-faced bitches paraded the sidewalk, signs in hand. We dug the anti vibe the Stranglers evoked. Clad in jeans and t-shirts with Pony hi tops, we paid our $5, wandered in and snagged beers.

The Stranglers ambled onto the stage, fired up "(Get a) Grip (on Yourself)," and the Fix was born. The Stranglers lacked both pretense and perfection; it was cacophonous and bitter. The guitarist, Hugh Cornwell, wasn't playing anything complicated, certainly nothing that we couldn't figure out.

We went to Kmart the next day and bought a guitar. We spent the next two years learning to make a racket with it.