How the Desecendents changed my life.

My history with the Descendents and ALL. 

(The photos were taken at the Groezrock Festival)

The following story is a bit out of sequence in terms of my other posts. The culprit, this  weekend’s quick and unexpected trip to Belgium. Here's the backstory: last year four former members of Black Flag: Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Bill Stevenson, Dez Cadena, along with Stephen Edgerton of the Descendents got together and formed the band FLAG and toured playing Black Flag songs. The only chance I had of catching this line-up would be taking a couple of days off from work and flying over to Europe. I was living in Egypt at the time and a flight to Belgium was relatively short and inexpensive. It was a no brainer, I would be going to see old friends play some of my favorite songs. I contacted Bill Stevenson and he set me up with passes for the shows. I met up with FLAG in Munich, Germany, I politely asked Bill if I could travel with them for their 3 European shows. After a short impromptu band meeting to decide: 1. Was there was room in the bus to accommodate an extra person? and 2: Did anyone object? Dez chimed in and said, “anyone wearing a Meat Puppets shirt is cool with me.” I was in. After Munich, we rode to Berlin and then to the Groezrock Festival in Belgium. I was beside myself to say the least. No, All!  

My first encounter with the Descendents music was when Jimmy ordered the Life Is Ugly, So Why Not Kill Yourself compilation LP through an ad in Maximum RockNRoll. Red Cross started off the album with a snappy little tune called Rich Brat, it was a sign of good things to come. Jimmy made a wise purchase. The following cut was, I Want To Be A Bear by the Descendents. Jimmy and I had to play that song over several times to get a grip on the lyrics. We were certain we heard, “I want to be a bear. I want to shit in the woods” somewhere during the middle and “I don’t want to smell your muff” at the end of the 40 second song. Talk about a quick, no frills introduction to a band. Not long after, the Descendents were featured on another compilation we picked-up, The American Youth Report. I’m Not A Loser not only solidified my appreciation for them, but it also became a personal anthem, maybe even a mantra of sorts. The anti-spoiled rich kid sentiment in the lyrics appealed to my outcast identity. They spoke of my day-to-day struggles in a preppy saturated school that was dominated by the likes of wannabe neo-conservative jellybean-eating Reagan supporters.

It was clear that Jimmy and I had to seek out and buy the band’s first album, Milo Goes To College. We read that the album as a posthumous release as the band broke-up because Milo did really go off to the University of California, San Diego to study to become a biochemist. In the meantime, Bill Stevenson would become Black Flag’s fifth drummer and the status of the Descendents was officially on hiatus as Black Flag was a fulltime commitment both emotionally and time wise. 

The Descendents first appearance in Denver.

Thankfully in 1985 the Descendents regrouped and released the tuneful album,  I Don’t Want To Grow Up. To date, I still consider it the cornerstone of the melodic punk genre, which would influence bands for generations to come. The timing of the release followed by a tour was impeccable. There’s no doubt in my mind that their songs offered hope to angst ridden nerdy teenage punk rockers like myself. It was a perfect mix of humor while tackling real emotions such as love and personal hardships. The song, Silly Girl was as perfect as any song to include on a mix tape for a crush or a girlfriend. I’ve been guilty of both over the years. As a matter of fact, my first girlfriend, Morticia and I went to go see the band at the German House (Denver Turnverein) at the end of summer. While slam dancing in the pit is not exactly the most romantic gesture, dropping her off at home at the end of the night finalized by that first kiss, was. The evening had all the raw emotions captured in a Descendents song.

Morticia and I lasted only a short while until she found someone new at her after-school job, which was being the potato cake fry girl at Arby’s. Somehow I always felt the Descendents were the soundtrack to my life through both the good and bad times. They had a way of expressing thoughts and emotions that were personable and not glossed over like other bands. Very few, if any punk bands at the time could pull off what they did with such sincerity. Most groups I listened to at the time screamed about how fucked-up the government was. In contrast, the Descendents sang about how fucked-up relationships can be. It was the tangible issues I could relate to. 

The band’s next album, Enjoy! introduced the Bonus Cup (1/3 cup instant coffee grounds, hot water, and 5 spoons of sugar), the instructions on how to make the recipe was printed on the plastic mug they brought to sell on tour. Their next show in Denver was in 1986. As luck would have it, the show was cut short due to a series of unfortunate incidents. The gig was at a hall on Federal Blvd. and was plagued with several fights. The situation was further compounded by a purse-snatching at a 7-11 down the street from the hall. Someone had called the cops and blamed the punks. The police began to arrive at the hall in force. I was talking with Bill about his drum set before they went on. He was telling me how he doesn’t let anyone touch his drums and how protective he was of them. While the band was partially through their set, several officers approached the stage yelling for the band to stop playing. The band ignored the warnings and continued on. One of the cops took the initiative and got up on stage nudging Milo to the side and pulled Bill’s base drum away from him. Bill jumped up off his stool and got in the cops face. I think Bill quickly and smartly realized he wasn’t going to win this battle as more officers gathered around; the plug was pulled.

A show that never happened

My high school graduation gift from my parents in 1987 was the privilege of borrowing my Dad’s mini-Bronco to take on a road trip to the east coast for a month. I departed a couple of days following the cap and gown ceremony and drove to Ohio to pick-up my friend Toledo Pat.  We embarked on a record-hunting excursion of the east coast. Inadvertently we picked up the Descendents’ trail and caught a couple of their shows as they were touring for their final album at the time, ALL. I had talked with the new bassist and guitarist Karl and Stephen to some extent because they had been in the Massacre Guys from Salk Lake City and played Denver on several occasions. I started to get to know Bill a little better as well. As we continued our road trip, Pat and I got on the subject of how the Descendents were turning more into a philosophy, a way of life.  It was evident by their song All-O-Gistics and applying their “No, All!” ethic in the pursuit of greatness.

The album is titled after the concept of "All", invented by drummer Bill Stevenson and friend Pat McCuistion in 1980. Based on the goals of achieving "the total extent" and "to not settle for some, to always go for All" 

    

You can say Toledo Pat and I were on our own quest for All, not many late teens ambitions include spending their summer hitting every record store between Denver and Boston and sleeping in parking lots and on picnic tables at rest areas to save a couple of bucks to buy more records. Our mission was clear.   

It's always a treat to talk with the insightful and thoughtful Karl Alvarez. 

By the fall of 1987 the Descendents went into a long hibernation as Milo went off to become a biochemist. The band wouldn’t resurface until almost a decade later. Bill, Karl, and Stephen reformed under the name ALL with a new vocalist, Dave Smalley (of the Boston straight edge crew and DYS fame, oh yeah, he was Dag Nasty too!). The group released the album, Allroy Sez. I caught ALL in the summer of 1988 at City Gardens in Trenton, New Jersey. I was touring with my band Short Fuse at the time and we met the show’s promoter Randy Now (Ellis). Randy interviewed us for his radio program on the Princeton campus. He gave us a glimmer of hope that we might be added to the bill if one of the bands cancelled. Sadly none did. He was kind enough to add us to his guest list as a consolation prize. 

Andrew, the band's sound man was telling me how Bill came-up with a nickname for Chad (ALL's vocalist) to coincide with beard, he was being called Chee-ad as in Jihad. 

At the show I talked with ALL and got their booking agent information. Earlier that year I started a record label with the paychecks I was earning at Winchell’s Donut House from flipping donuts during the graveyard shift. Another ambition in the works was to become a concert promoter. Denver was suffering from a punk rock show famine as long-time promoters Headbanger, Brew, and Razor ceased doing shows. I took it upon myself to immerse myself in the often-thankless job of carrying the torch that these hard working individuals did over the years of bringing bands to Colorado. There were bands my friends and I wanted to see and they weren't just going to show up on their own. 

Both night's set-list.

The first couple of shows I booked were with my friend Steve Cervantes. We rented out a DAV (Disabled American Veterans) hall on East Colfax and brought Dag Nasty to town and 7 Seconds shortly thereafter. I started getting into the rhythm of bringing bands to Denver, I finally booked my first ALL show at the Aztlan Theatre in the summer of 1989. Allroy's Revenge was just released with their new vocalist, Scott Reynolds. I knew the band loved Mexican food so I asked my mom to cook-up her favorite dishes for the group. ALL thanked her in t-shirts each time they passed through and our friendships became more solid. I would bring ALL to Denver several more times until I moved to Birmingham, Alabama (for a girl of course) in December of 1992. We stayed in contact over the years whenever they passed through a city I happened to be or lived in.  

The first time ALL played Denver.

During the time I was bringing ALL to Denver, my friend Chris Shary befriended the band and started doing artwork for them. Initially it was designing t-shirts and later album covers. He eventually became the main artist for both Descendents and ALL. He has been a major driving force and contributor to both band’s aesthetics. 

Milo and Karl hangout out at the bus. 

By the mid-90’s Chris and I both finished our education degrees and started teaching art in the public school system in Colorado. In the summer of 1996, my wife’s job relocated us to Atlanta, Georgia while Chris stayed in the Denver area. Chris kept me up to date of anything newsworthy from the Descendents/ALL camp since his information came down the pike directly from Bill. We were ecstatic to hear that Milo was laying down tracks for a new Descendents album. Chris was super stoked that he would be designing the shirt for their weeklong residency of sold-out shows at the Whiskey A-Go-Go in Los Angeles. The news was that their new album, Everything Sux would be coming out and the band would be hitting the road for a year’s worth of shows.

The Descendents rolled though Atlanta in December of 1996. I hung out in the van with Bill while he got the set list together. I remember calling Chris the next day to confirm that Bill was indeed Marlon Brando’s character, Colonel Walter E. Kurtz from the film Apocalypse Now. You could be sitting next to Bill and it would be obvious that he was in another world, Bill’s world. Like Kurtz, Bill has a sense of duty and commitment, his discipline mentally prepared him to go on stage. It’s a strict diet of minimal conversation, no food, and lots of coffee. He speaks only if there was some sort of reason or lesson to be delivered. My favorite characteristic of Bill is the way he seems to process information in his mind. It is usually followed-up by one of his classic delayed responses long after you thought he ignored your question. Other than a simple “hello” and maybe quick small talk, I learned over the years it’s best to talk with Bill after he’s done playing. It’s a treat to hang out with him after a show just to hear one of his many detailed stories that would blow away anyone’s mind. 

True, I was indeed on the guest list, but the Groezrock Festival has some pretty funny stipulations about getting through the gates. All guest passes had to be e-mailed in advance, in many ways the bands have no control over the backstage situation. So when Ana and I arrived at the show I had to work some of my magic at the production office. There was never a doubt in my mind that we were going to get an "all access" pass. 

As the summer of 1997 approached, Chris got the crazy idea that we should go on the Vans Warped Tour with the Descendents sporting cheap flea market straw cowboy hats. Shit, we were both teachers and had the summers free so why the hell not. We sent in our photos to have badges made and we were good to go. We were suppose to meet-up with the band in San Diego but Chris’ car blew something in engine while driving through Arizona. Ironically the car had enough gusto to pull into the Jack-Ass Acres gas station. We knew we were in for the long haul when bubba came up to us in his “liquor up front, poker in the rear” t-shirt and told us, “Your car is broken.” If we’d had known better, we would have ditched it. Instead we wasted away valuable days in the town’s only resort while the car got fixed. We made the best of the situation, but the hot weather eventually affected my health. The day we finally got the car back was the beginning of my battle with heat exhaustion. We left the desert at night to avoid the scorching temperatures and made a b-line all the way to Dave Naz’s house in Beverly Hills. The car didn't have air-conditioning so even driving at night with the windows rolled down was like being subjected to a blast of hot air blowing from an oven. Chris had to stop almost every half hour so I could shit, puke, or down gallons of water and Gatorade. When I walked into the convenience mart people quickly moved out of the way as if I escaped from a leper colony. A highway patrol car pulled us over because Chris had a busted headlamp; the officer took one glance at me and asked Chris, “what’s wrong with him?” I looked like death and felt much worse.  We made it to Dave’s just after midnight. I lied on his couch shivering and sweating; he remarked how scary I looked. 

Autographed Descendents shirt anyone? 

The remainder of our tag-along tour went without incident until we hit the Boise show where a tent stake met Chris’ leg leaving him with a giant gash. The medical team at the show bandaged it up pretty well and suggested that Chris go the hospital for stitches. That didn’t quite fit into our schedule, we had to see the Descendents and get out of Idaho ASAP as I had an unresolved issue that involved Albertsons Supermarket and the Boise Police from when my former band, Savalas played there back in 1992. I wasn’t keen on sticking around anymore than I had to. Chris and I agreed that maybe we should drive to Salt Lake City to have his leg looked at. We painfully drove the speed limit until we hit the state line. We checked into our motel room and thumbed though the Yellow Pages looking for a hospital. The front desk clerk pointed us to the nearest Emergency Room. We spent several hours in the waiting room watching gunshot and stabbing victims roll through the doors waiting for an available doctor. When we got called in, the bandaged was unwrapped and the doctor commented how gnarly the cut looked. By then, we figured we were definitely cursed and wanted to get back to Denver as soon as possible. The Descendents played early the next afternoon in Salt Lake City and Chris promptly declared that if we left after the band’s set we could be back to Denver a little past midnight. We sped out of Utah into Wyoming reflecting on the past couple of weeks. One of us made the comment “I hope the rest of the trip is boring and unmemorable” and not long after, the engine made that all to familiar clunking sound. Once more we found ourselves on the side of the road as the nearest town was about 45 miles away. Evening was quickly approaching and the temperature was rapidly dropping up in the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming. Chris stayed with the car while I hitched-hiked and caught a ride with a gay couple in a convertible coming back from celebrating their anniversary. They dropped me off at an abandoned gas station with an operable payphone. I made the call to AAA and they promised to send a tow truck to gather Chris, the car and grab me on the way back. I still hadn’t fully recover from the previous week’s heat exhaustion episode and when evening turned into night the fever and chills came back as I sat on the floor in the gas station’s bathroom waiting.

Thou shall rock out. 

The car was towed to Laramie per AAA’s 50-mile towing rule and then to Cheyenne the following morning where Chris’ parents came to our rescue. We had grown wise to just ditch the car and deal with it later. Chris’ parents were in a perky mood and decided they would be joining us at the Vans Warped Tour show in Boulder. As shitty as I was feeling, I still wanted to catch the Descendents until the puking and diarrhea returned. I was in dire need of recovery, if not medical attention and left early and returned to my parent’s house to sleep for nearly two days. The heat exhaustion took a toll on my body. It took almost 7 months for my body to reset and feel normal again.   

When the summer of 1997 came around, Chris cautiously approached me with the plan that we should do the same thing we did the previous summer, but this time with ALL and minus a shitty car and the drama that ensued. What else was an art teacher going to do in the summer? I cautiously, but enthusiastically agreed to spend another summer in the car with Chris following our friend’s band from city to city but in a more abbreviated version. And like we hoped, it was an unmemorable journey aside from the free pair of Vans we scored. 

Full-on

I had seen Bill and company only a couple of times during the past decade on off-occasions like when he and Karl rolled through San Diego and played in the Lemonheads. Before I left the states for Egypt, ALL did a short stint at the House of Blues with former vocalist Scott. That was a treat. Generally my luck worked like this: anyplace Descendents or ALL was, I wasn’t. That changed this past weekend. I was treated to a twofer. I was looking at posts on Facebook and was reminded that both the Descendents and ALL were playing the Groezrock festival in Belgium. Because of the price of a plane ticket in addition to living deep in Africa, it felt impossible. It was a Thursday afternoon and I sent my wife, Ana an e-mail jokingly telling her that I bought plane tickets to Brussels. She replied with a big What??? in the subject line. She thought I was serious. It was my not so passive way of testing out the waters. When work ended that afternoon I chatted with Chris on-line going back and forth on how I wanted to go, how it expensive it was, blah, blah, blah. He was the real catalyst and countered my doubts with reasoning;  “you can always make more money…” Perhaps it was that long-distance reach and push I needed from him. I sent both Bill and Stephen a message on Facebook and to their personal emails asking if they would add me to the guest list. Basically, if either replied, I would buy the ticket and be on the redeye flight out of Ethiopia. It was a long shot. Within the hour Bill responds with two words: “yeah, totally.” I ran down to our neighbor’s apartment where Ana was and told her “Bill wrote back.” I mentioned she should go too. Ana, the responsible and level headed family member countered with, “What about work tomorrow…” I told her we had to buy the tickets now. I made the executive decision that she was going to be my partner in crime. The Internet actually worked at home long enough to book a pair of plane tickets and within a couple of hours we were out the door with no regrets in our quest for ALL. 

Thank you Bill, Stephen, Karl, Milo, Chad and Andrew. 

Who's excited to watch the Descendents? 

There was a time when I lived in Atlanta and read a couple of Jimmy Buffet books. I felt that Jimmy had a likeness to Descendents/ALL in that he he was on the quest for the ultimate. Jimmy is a self-sufficient guy and lives by his own rules and ethics. When I was visiting Bill with Chris Shary at the Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado I pitched my comparison to Bill. In his classic delayed response he looked at me for a few moment obviously contemplating what I just said. He was like "What?" and demanded further explanation. I don't think he ever bought into my reasoning.  

Attack, part 2.

Talking to the boss about adding an extra song at the end of the set. The next day we passed by Bill near the bands dressing rooms. We exchanged hellos and he stopped and looked at me and said "Where did you sleep last night?" Ana and I brought two carry-on bags on to the plane, one with a tent and the other with sleeping bags. We camped with Europe's finest drunk punk rockers. 

Chee-ad doing the ALL-ah. 

Huggy Bear or Swamp Zombie?

Special Tanks to Ana Medina for editing help. 

Punk Rock nicknames and the continuing saga of Idiots Revenge

What was your Punk nickname? Post yours in the comment section below. 

(Special Thanks to Jill Razer for the nickname research) 

I’m not quite sure where the concept came from that punk rockers needed some sort of nickname. Sometimes people choose their own, but more often than not, they were bestowed upon you. There were the obvious ones like “Spike” of Idiots Revenge because of his spiky hair. Denver’s show promoters had them too: “Headbanger” was an alias Tom used for his fanzine Rocky Mountain Fuse and the name just sort of stuck when people found out. Jill “Razer” said she got hers at a Ramones or Pretenders concert at the Rainbow Music Hall “from this dude and his lesbian friend. They gave me two nicknames: ‘Bertha Earth’ because I lived in Berthoud and ‘Razer Face.’ Fuck if I know why. I thought Bertha Earth was too new wave and Razer Face I didn’t care for, but I liked the Razer part so I adopted it.”  Mike “Brew” basically shortened Brewer.

I was eventually given one in ninth grade, Bob Rob. Mine came about as a necessity for differentiation.  Things tended to get confusing between Rob Wallach and myself.  Two Robs at the same school in the same grade playing in the same band simply could not go on any further. In our circle of friends this all came to a point of contention in the school’s library one afternoon. Rob and I were sitting at a table with an older punker, Mike Lee from Uberfall, and he had come up with a couple of names for me to choose from: Rhino Clit or Bob Rob. I opted for the latter even though the first was a bit edgier. Besides, I didn’t think many people were going to call me Rhino Clit. So Bob Rob it was and the rest of Idiots Revenge thought it would be appropriate to have a song immortalizing my new moniker:

Bob Rob (lyrics: Mark Putt and Ken Neubert)

Bob Rob is a real nice guy

He’ll cut your throat but he won’t cry.

He'll beat you until you're black and blue

But those aren't things he'd like to do.

Bob is bad, Bob is good

He’ll be your friend if you want him to

Bob Rob is a real nice guy

He has no friends we can’t say why.

Bob is big and Bob is bad

And Bob is really awfully mean

Bob is always in control but

Touch him off he will blow

Bob Rob-could care less-of who-you are.

Bob Rob-just wants-his bass-guitar.

With Jimmy off to Alabama, Mark, Spike, and I started to wonder if he was going to come back. It felt sort of strange that someone I talked with on a daily basis for nearly three years was suddenly gone though we were officially on restriction from one another after the kitchen spice-smoking incident. His dad did allow him to make an official call or two from the deep South, that and a couple of letters were our few times communicating. I got most of his updates from his girlfriend Nixon (Michelle) who I talked with on occasion.  Because of her fucked-up home situation, she stayed over at my parents house now and then while things cooled down at her house. This naturally made Jimmy feel a little awkward, though nothing ever happened between Nixon and I, other than lending an ear and safe place to stay for a friend in need. Through all of this my parents were very understanding, because they had in the past temporarily adopted family members who needed some extra help getting back on their feet.

One of the lamest fliers ever made, thanks Brew!

Jimmy returned several months later and decided that Idiots Revenge should move on without him. The band turned into a three piece with Mark and I taking over singing duties. We continued writing new material and landed a couple of shows thanks to Brew who was booking shows at the Grove: an over 18 gothic venue that served 3.2 beer. Colorado was one of the only states where eighteen year-olds could legally buy beer with 3.2% alcohol.  Think of it as a transitional period, baby-steps to the future world of full-service bars. Our first show as a threesome was opening for Ante Bellum and Brother Rat. While Mark and Spike were of age, I wasn’t. There was a strict state policy where I had to obtain a work permit to play such a venue through my school. This meant I had to walk into the school office during summer hours to get the sheet of paper, have an official at school sign it, then ask my parents to do the same all in the name of punk rock. It worked. I showed up to the club, handed over the paper, and with a stamp on my hand, I was good to go. One of the conditions of the permit was that once we finished our set I was to load out and couldn’t come back in. The way around such nonsense was to move the equipment offstage and pack out at a snail’s pace. At least I got to catch most of Brother Rat’s set but missed Ante Bellum entirely. Brew liked us enough to put us on another bill, this time with the disco band, Solid Motion! We never quite figured that one out. I remember him being disappointed with the low turnout. Brew occasionally had a strange habit of matching weird bills including gothic with metal bands with punk bands. That was how we rolled in Denver; no one blinked an eye billing an industrial band like Human Head Transplant and a street punk oi band like Uberfall.  

Made with a "borrowed" pen from school.

Mark and I decided that neither of us wanted to sing fulltime and embarked on finding a fourth member. We tried out a couple of vocalists, including a guy named Tom Vanderbeak from way out in Littleton. It took him about two hours to get to practice on public transportation since he didn’t own a car. He had a shaved head with the tiniest spiked patch of hair that closely resembled a golf tee. He stayed for dinner one evening and my dad asked him if he liked to play golf. One of Tom’s hobbies included dropping acid, which was apparent after having a short conversation with him.  

My brother Tom left this illustration at the house when he was on leave. I felt the need to reappropriate it. 

Prior to our Grove shows in the summer of ‘85, Spike joined another band, Basic Black made-up of Big John who had recently left Uberfall, the newly arrived Toledo Pat who had a brother in Denver and wanted to escape the Midwest summer heat of Ohio, and Jet Black (Bart). This meant that we would have to change practice spaces again to Pat’s brother’s house. We basically toured the property, starting in the dining room, then moving to the basement and finally the shed. Spike would usually endure back-to-back band rehearsals. Big John often stuck around and perhaps out of sympathy to our plight as a struggling band, offered to become our new front man on the condition that we adopt a stylistic change in our brand of music. His idea was that we should expand on our tongue-and-cheek approach, something that would be less of an inside joke in exchange for songs that were lyrically more biting and universally offensive to bum out all elements of the scene. We all felt that punk was taking itself too seriously and bands that mocked serious issues were few and far between. He wanted to pick up where his former band, The Strap-On Dicks from California left off, which included rewriting some of their material to make it ours. Thus our brand of Idiot Rock was born.  To be continued.

"ok, we're going to take one of the Uberfall songs I wrote 'oi Uberfall' play it backwards real slow and pretty. We're going to call it 'Little Girls' and people will like it. 

To hear an Idiots Revenge practice from the summer of 1985, click here.

Special thanks to Ana Medina and Monica Zarazua for editing 

A night at the Packing House (A short history of Idiots Revenge pt. 1)

…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.

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.

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.

It was typical that each band would have their own flier.

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.  

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.

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