…be an idiot
not a fool.
In memory of
CR (Charles Robert) Smith
I’ve seen my fair share of new bands, catching their first
shows when the talent was raw. The more interesting performances are the young
kids just learning to play their instruments, sometimes struggling just to hold
them in place. The idea that anyone can get up on a stage and run through a
handful of songs has always been an appealing aspect about punk music. The
emotions and clumsiness of kids rocking out their tunes are pure and honest. Standing
in front of them on the dance floor, their friends cheer them on forgiving all
the off-tempos, missed parts and not-so synchronized endings. In the early days
of Idiots Revenge that’s exactly what we endured: standing in front of an
audience essentially learning to play our instruments.
One of the crucial
components to starting a band is commitment from everyone involved, in addition
to playable equipment, which was most likely second hand and/or partially
broken. When Rob, CR, Jimmy and I started to play music we were totally focused
on writing our own songs. We were
married to the idea that one day we’d be playing on stage opening up for
touring groups like our friend's band, Immoral Attitude.
For the time being, Idiots Revenge settled on my parent’s
basement as our practice spot. I still didn’t own a real amp and had to rig my
stereo so I could play a bass through it. My vintage Sear’s Silvertone
bass had a loose bridge and one unlucky strum on the E string would cause it to
fly off and whip you in the arm or worse, the face. It was a pathetic sight,
but it mostly worked. CR had somewhat of a real drum set with cracked cymbals
and duct taped drumheads. Jimmy used his allowance to buy himself a Radio Shack
microphone. His makeshift PA was plugging the mic into one of Rob’s open inputs
on his guitar amp. Rob had the best equipment out of the four of us. He managed
to get a distorted sound out of jazz amp with tons of unwanted feedback. This
was mostly due to him and Jimmy using it simultaneously. We made quite a racket
writing songs. It proved to be real work
and a test of our collective patience. With the exception of Rob, I don’t think
any of us had a clue how to play music.
Since we were all under the driving age, our parents were the punk
equivalent of soccer moms; we relied on them for transportation. CR’s dad would
pack the drum set between the trunk and backseat and Rob’s mom would tow his
guitar and amp in a similar fashion. After a summer of infrequent practices and
less than successful attempts at writing music, CR eventually decided his new girlfriend
was a bigger priority than spending time in a basement struggling to playing
out-of-tune songs. He arrived an hour late one afternoon on a motorcycle. We were in awe that he was driving around without
a license, but it was overshadowed by the fact that he was busy getting laid. His
excuse didn’t help matters. We were already bummed out from waiting and to
throw in that he was having sex when the rest of us weren’t… When he stopped
showing up altogether at the beginning of our freshman year, I was given the
duty of telling him he was out of the band.
Jimmy started off his freshman year at a new high school and
befriended a punk who went by the name of Arrow. Jimmy told him about our band
and how we recently lost a drummer. Arrow mentioned that his classmate Spike
(Ken Neubert) played drums and was looking for people to play with. We all met
at a show and immediately clicked; he was in. Jimmy and I assumed Spike got his
name from his spiked hair, leather jacket, and motorcycle boots. He had a likeness to Mel Gibson’s character
in Mad Max.
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| Before we played a show, we had stickers. Designed by Spike Sure, I have this skull tattooed on the left side of my chest. |
Idiots Revenge was back in action until Rob joined the high
school wrestling team and found himself a preppy girlfriend. This left him
little time or desire to continue playing music. He was hardly heartbroken when
I told him that he was out of the band and followed that up with dropping out
of the scene completely. Like CR, we still continued to be friends. Spike suggested
that we should jam with his friend, a fellow senior he knew through Art Club
and D&D. Mark Putt was like a mini-adult: he had his own car, equipment,
knew how to play music, was responsible, and even dated a “normal” wholesome
looking girl. At first I was a bit skeptical that he was into metal, prog rock
and listened to bands like Yes and Rush. Mark definitely didn’t look like
someone who would be into punk, much less play in a punk band. He dressed like
someone you wanted your parents to meet. Jimmy and I both instantly liked him
because aesthetically he would be that odd looking non-punk guy on stage along the lines of Spinal
Tap's first drummer (the one who died in a gardening accident) and besides we
really wanted to play in such a bad way. After the first practice, we were
impressed that Mark sounded good, but more importantly he didn’t break any
strings, which always seemed to plague Rob.
The addition of Mark was really what got Idiots Revenge off
the ground. Not only did he have songwriting abilities, but he helped develop
the band’s sound and quirkiness. We spent a little more than 8 months getting a
set of songs together.
Our first performance almost happened in the form of a party
on a snowy Friday evening when we were practicing in Mark’s parent’s garage. We
stood in a room without a heater and one lonely light bulb that hung and flickered above us.
We could hardly move our hands up and down the frets on our instruments. With
our songs barely down, the thought of playing in a warm room full of partygoers
sounded like the perfect remedy. Our dreams of a warmer setting were crushed when
the guy throwing the party never called Mark back. I suppose most people wouldn't want a punk band playing in their living room.
At the beginning of my sophomore year the band was ready to
debut and we were finally asked to play a show at the Packing House in early November.
The Packing House was a
tiny building converted into an art gallery/recording studio in the midst of
Denver’s slaughterhouse district. All the touring bands played there: Suicidal
Tendencies, The Freeze, Butthole Surfers, CH3, Samhain, The Necros, Ill Repute,
Dr. Know, RKL, and countless others that defined punk/hardcore at the time. The
space was unforgetable: lawless nights, skinheads, and especially the harsh
smell of rotting flesh. The stink attached itself to your clothing and hair and
in the morning you would have to dig out thick black snot from your nose.
The best part about the
venue was that it was almost impossible to find. I remember the first time my
dad drove Jimmy and me there. We spent close to 30 minutes looking for the place.
Finally, a drunk near 7-11 pointed us in the right direction. Naturally, my dad
was a bit hesitant about dropping us off. There were no signs of cops,
authority figures, or other adults. I convinced my dad that everything would be
fine once we went inside. After all, I was a 14 year-old freshman in high
school so I thought I could take care of myself. To tell you the truth, when my dad drove off
I wondered if I would be alive at the end of the night. It wasn't like going to
see Black Flag or GBH where the show was in a neighborhood with a pay phone around
the corner in case shit went down. The atmosphere of the Packing House was like
that of the Old West: every person fends for themselves. You didn't want to
piss off the wrong person. The first experience going there was definitely a
crash course on independence and self-preservation.
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| Try following this map. |
Hours before loading up the car and heading to the show we ran
through our set in the garage to make sure we had our songs down. The line-up
that night was a six-band local show. We were the openers, followed by The
Lepers, The Druids, Bad Circus, Uberfall, and Immoral Attitude. When we hit the
stage, about 30 people came in to watch us. We played our eight-song set of
sloppy punk tunes overwhelmed by nervousness. By the end of our set, most of
the crowd went back outside in the cold to drink. We were pretty forgettable. Our
performance didn’t matter because it felt great to be on stage. It was like an initiation,
a rite of passage into the Denver punk scene. We were just thankful our drum set
didn’t fall over or we didn't break a string. When we were tearing down,
Tommy from Immoral Attitude was the only person who came up to me up to say we
sounded good. I always remembered and appreciated his encouraging words.
The Lepers were a late addition to the bill and Uberfall was
Denver’s newest street punk/oi band on the scene following the footsteps of the
newly reformed and improved Immoral Attitude who traded in their skate punk
roots and adopted a more English punk sound in the vein of GBH and Chron
Gen. The Denver Skins were starting to develop a reputation. They were mainly a
bunch of skater kids with shaved heads that danced harder than others in the
pit. A couple of years later they would eventually grow into a monster and
become a destructive element in the scene, but at this time it was mainly a
small group of friends who would fuck with people by calling themselves skinheads.
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| It was typical that each band would have their own flier. |
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| Unite, really? |
During the third or fourth band a drunken longhair dude jumped
up on stage and said something to the effect of, "all you skinheads are a
bunch of fucking assholes." A few seconds later, the guy came crashing out
of the barn-like doors. One of the doors literally broke from its hinges and
was on the ground with the guy lying on top of it. He staggered to stand up and
the skins dragged him 100 or so yards in the direction of the Platt River. Minutes
later, I saw the same longhair walk past me heading back into the club. I'm
thinking, “that guy has some balls to show his face again.” His balls were much
larger than I thought. Not only did he walk back into the space, he got on
stage again to call the skins assholes. He was either determined to get his
point across or suicidal or just plain stupid. Once again he came crashing
through the doors chased by an even larger group of skins. They kicked his ass
all the way down to the river and supposedly threw him in it. I kept watching
and listening for the longhair's third appearance. He must have finally figured
out that being at the Packing House wasn’t conducive to a long, healthy, and
peaceful life.
Shortly after our debut show, Idiots Revenge would play one
last time with Jimmy, a party in bum-fuck-Kansas (east Aurora towards the
abandoned missile silos). The show was in the basement of Jeff’s house, a
classmate of Jimmy’s. Most of the people attending all went to school together,
including my newest crush, Jenny. The sound was terrible as it bounced off the
unfinished cement walls and we played worse than at the Packing House. Maybe my
jaundice view of that particular night was exaggerated by getting turned down
by Jenny and waking up the following morning with a terrible hacking cough and
a slight fever. I blame the clove cigarettes we all carelessly smoked. Being
depressed from the night before and trying to get Jenny out of my head, I put
on a Kraut album to lose myself in the music. My dad barged his way into my room yelling at me at the top of his lungs, “Turn that shit off!” He had a rare
crazed look in his eyes like he was going to start breaking my records or
possibly me. Maybe he had put up with my punk rock shit long enough. After
yelling at me some more he eventually left, slamming the door behind him. I
spent the rest of the day in bed hidden under my covers.
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| Ok, everyone call KAZY and ask for the Sex Pistols. |
Maybe a month later, Jimmy’s dad caught us smoking kitchen
spices in his house. True, we raided the spice cabinet because we were curious
to see if smoking parsley, oregano, etc. through a soda pop can would get us high.
He was convinced that we were smoking marijuana and claimed, “No one’s that
stupid!” I readily responded, “We are.” One look at his face, I had a gut
feeling that the wrong words said in the wrong tone had just escaped from my
mouth. We naïvely hoped his dad would be understanding since he was a former
hippy and all. Those hopes were immediately dashed when Jimmy’s father sat us
down and told us we were prohibited from seeing or speaking to each other for an
entire year! After the severe reprimand, his dad drove me home in silence. Our
observance of the restriction lasted a little over 24-hours until Monday afternoon. His dad wasn’t at the house when Jimmy got
home from school, so we used that window of time to spend hours on the phone.
Sadly, Jimmy’s parents got a divorce and his dad and the new girlfriend decided
to move to Madison, Alabama taking Jimmy with them. It was a motherfucker of a
winter, but Ken, Mark and I managed to continued on.
Special thanks to Ana Medina and Monica Zarazua for editing
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