Straight Edge in 88: promoting shows and putting out records.

Stepping up to the plate.

The overall realization within the punk and hardcore scene was that it couldn’t sustain the momentum from the early 80s. The raw energy element had grown progressively thin by the later part of mid-80s. The overall punk aesthetic had morphed away from its center in terms of music, dress, and attitude, and started mixing with other genres of music. By 1987, playing punk and hardcore was regarded as passé and frowned upon. In a conversation I had with Karl Alvarez (Descendents/ALL) concerning the stylistic changes in the 80s, he said something to the effect of how every band had changed sounds and moved away from punk, with the exceptions of his band and DOA who had both weathered the storm and continued playing punk non-stop for thirty plus years.  

On Minor Threat’s posthumous Salad Days 7” EP in 1985, vocalist Ian MacKaye scrutinized changes within the scene through an introspective recollection on the record’s title cut: “Wishing for the days when I first wore this suit, baby has grown older, it's no longer cute.” Similar sentiments were echoed in other bands songs including Dag Nasty’s “Never Go Back” on their debut Can I Say LP: “I'm looking at pictures and I'm thinking of those times, those times have changed man, and so have I.”

Dag Nasty represented a stylistic evolution in the punk scene. Driving at a more tuneful and melodic sound and shying away from the rough and tough hardcore grit, the members of the band spun from (Minor Threat, DYS). The resulting sound was what my friends and I started gravitating towards.

When I called Randy “Now” prior to my month-long excursion to the East Coast to inquire about bringing Dag Nasty and 7 Seconds to Denver, he was keen on having me bring his bands to Denver. Randy casually asked what happened to all the older promoters in Denver. I knew for a fact that both Jill Razer and Headbanger had distanced themselves from the scene and were both done with promoting punk shows. Honestly, I knew little about booking shows. I simply played in bands and had learned a few tricks of the trade by observing Jill and Headbanger. I naively approached the task with the attitude thinking promoting would be an cinch.

Cover of issue no. 2 to FlipOff. Collection of Author. 

I called my buddy Steve Cervantes, an old school LA Punk transplant living in the foothills of Denver, to see if he wanted to help me bring Dag Nasty to town. We were already collectively publishing our fanzine FlipOff -a nod to his homies who published Flipside back in Whittier. Becoming concert promoters seemed like a logical extension of our photocopied rag. While bands like the Germs, up until Minor Threat, was more his generation of punk, Steve was pretty open and excited by newer bands. To bring Dag Nasty and promote the show, we agreed I would do most of the legwork. His main interest in our joint adventure would be to help out financially. Steve had a real job, a wife, and was almost ten years my senior. He took me under his wing and shared stories about his involvement in the early days of Southern California punk. Steve gave me that push I needed to become a promoter and later, the encouragement to start a record label.

In late July, Dag Nasty rolled into town. I had secured the DAV Hall on East Colfax Avenue in Aurora plus a PA system for the event. The veterans running the hall were a bit skeptical when the punk rockers started trickling in. They asked for reassurance that kids wouldn’t sneak in alcohol or doing drugs in or near the venue. My high school pal, “Billy Idol” Brett agreed to work security. Brett’s task was to make sure no one damaged the PA or knock holes in the bathroom walls, and to keep booze off the property.

An hour after the show started, Steve and I were on edge because the band had a $750 dollar guarantee, but we barely pulled in $600 at the door. We were desperate for more people. Stepping out of the venue scanning the sidewalks on Colfax Avenue, hoping to spot a lost punk rocker looking for the show. We still had to pay for the PA and the hall. On top of that, the band was late, they finally showed up thirty minutes before they were scheduled to go on.

The bassist of the group, Doug Carrion, got out of the van with no apologies, nothing. The other guys piled out and wanted to start unloading. Doug sniffed me out pretty well, sensing he had the upper hand. He told his guys to stop unloading and demanded we pay them $750 before playing their set or they were going to get back in the van and drive to the next town.

The first show I promoted. Mohican Youth was a made-up band "Toledo" Pat and I created but never materialized. Collection of the author.  

This was the time I wished that I had had the wisdom of Headbanger or Jill. The conversation might have gone like this: “All we have is $500. Take or leave it.” I knew their next gig would be at least a nine-hour drive in either direction. $500 for relatively unknown band in a market like Denver was killer money. Instead, the way the real conversation unfolded was: Doug, Steve, and I walked over to the payphone near the club, called, and woke up their booking agent Randy “Now” on the East Coast. After passing around the phone for five minutes, we finally settled on a price and hung up. The three of us walked across the street to an ATM, and Steve withdrew money. We handed Doug $650. Back at the venue, Doug gave the rest of the band the green light to unload. The only parts I remembered about the band’s set was when they blew out the venue’s fuse box a couple of times. In the end, no smashed bathroom walls, no broken bottles. The kids had a great time, everyone got paid, but we lost our collective financial ass. I could hear Headbanger and Jill singing, “Welcome to the club.” Steve and I vowed we wouldn’t let another band take advantage of us like this again.

About a month later, the 7 Seconds show was set for the same DAV Hall. The morning of the show, I arrived to drop off the remainder of the deposit. One of the grumpy veterans told me he didn’t like the way we had moved the American flag off the stage the last time we had a show there He complained that the bottom corner of the flag had touched the ground. Of course, I apologized profusely. He disappeared into the back office and emerged with my initial deposit. “Sorry, we won’t be able to host your bands here tonight.” I raced over to the payphone and called Steve at work to tell him what had transpired with the venue. I drove home in a panic and flipped through the Yellow Pages, calling every hall and lodge in the hope that one would come through.  

Some cool kid had made this 7 Seconds flyer that I had to go around and take down because the show was moved. The original flyer I made for the show belong to Rich Jacobs and is featured in All Ages: Reflections On Straight Edge, a book released by Revelation Records. Collection of the author.  

Dave Clifford in his fanzine Given Time wrote: “7 Seconds actually showed, and it was a good thing. Bob Rob was almost in tears trying to find a place for the show, and luckily, the American Legion, run by the drunkest hick I’ve ever seen, let him do it there.” 7 Seconds and Justice League arrived early at my parent’s house. While my mom cooked and served the bands a late lunch, I told them what had happened in that morning. I was upfront when I asked them not to have high expectations in regards to people showing up and/or getting paid very much. 7 Seconds was cool and told me that anything towards gas would help; they just wanted to play for the kids.

Given Time, a fanzine created and published by Dave Clifford. Collection of the author. 

We caravanned from Aurora across Denver to the out-of-the-way American Legion Hall at the edge of Arvada. The punk rock phone tree and last minute flyering paid off: nearly 200 kids made it out to the show. My partner Steve’s favorite part of the evening was the handful of drunken old veterans piling out of the bar behind the main hall hooting, hollering, and dancing.

Sigh… It was time to make the donuts again, but more like recoup money from putting on shows. Any sensible person would have chalked up the losses and moved on. Instead, my stubbornness propelled me dig deeper, and further entrench myself into the realm of Denver punk. I dropped in at the donut shop and asked my manager for my old job back. Considering the lack of applicants flooding through the door hoping to land a graveyard shift frying donuts all night, she obliged. I signed some paperwork and was back at work the same night.

I felt slightly pathetic returning to my former job. I started thinking about several of my high school friends who were packing up and moving on to college. Then I thought about my coworkers, especially the baker who had trained me. At the ripe old age of 35, he had a reputation within the company and was respected by everybody. He was my sensei, the donut sage... I imagined myself with his sort of clout: a five star, go-nowhere, flipping donuts in the fryer in the middle of the night at 35. Fuck that! I just promoted a couple of punk shows and came off a 4,000-mile mind-blowing road trip. That first night back was a heavy dose of what I was returning to; it was the moment of clarity I needed. There was definitely more to life than living in the confines of Aurora, Colorado.

A couple of days later, I surprised my dad by telling him I wanted to enroll in fall courses at the Community College of Aurora. He was skeptical, but agreed to pay the tuition. (He didn’t think I would last more than a semester.) The trick would be to juggle a full load of college courses plus a fulltime job while promoting shows. Making donuts was the sacrifice, but it was the ticket, which allowed me to actively bring bands to Denver and eventually put out records.

The Changing of the Season

In the fall of 1987, I started making new friends in the scene. Arnold from the Acid Pigs approached me and asked if I would be interested in starting a new band with him and Jack of the Pigs. My former band, Idiots Revenge, had played together with them the year before. They were cool guys, and I dug their music, so I jumped at the opportunity to play bass in what was to become Short Fuse.

During the same time, through the shows I was promoting, I had became closer friends with Dave Clifford who played in Deviant Behavior in Boulder and a skater kid named Rich Jacobs from the Denver Tech area. I regarded the pair as the posi-straight edge crew. Although I wasn’t straight edge at the time, I admired what they were doing. Seeing people waste away in the drug and booze haze of the Denver scene had become counter productive to the creative process of making music. I latched on to Dave and Rich because they brought the fresh and raw energy the scene needed. We all looked up to what was going on with Dischord Records in Washington DC and admired their tight, cohesive, and self-supporting scene. We collectively imagined something along those lines happening in Denver.

The impetus for bringing like-minded positive kids together was the violence we were witnessing at shows and the adverse musical directions bands appeared to be taking. At the time speed-metal and paisley-hair rock was well underway. We wanted to move away from that and become immersed in music played with sincerity with a message. The group of kids who were mainly responsible for setting the stage for an emerging positive youth crew movement in the Denver/Boulder area were the 8 Flights Up/Splat! kids attending CU Boulder. They had tried to create a space and movement centered on positivism, living a substance-free life style, and aspects of vegetarianism.      

Colorado Krew artwork by Rich Jacobs. Collection of the author.

Bands echoing positive sentiments were gathering momentum all over the country in pockets like suburban New York City and Southern California. While 7 Seconds represented the old guard, even their sound evolved while they continued speaking on topics of equality, unity, and personal matters. Kids across America and Europe were picking up on this growing movement bands like 7 Seconds helped foster. New bands were popping up all over the map, and the kids were creating networks via touring, fanzines, and word-of-mouth.

My friend and I were swept up and excited by this infectious transformation. I was telling Rich about starting a record label to document music from Denver, along the lines of what Duane Davis of Wax Trax did, by releasing local bands on his Local Anesthetic label. Of course, there were other regional labels out there just as inspiring: Dischord Records in Washington DC and Touch and Go in the Midwest. Rich told me I should just go for it. Since the records would be financed by my donut-making paychecks, we deemed it appropriate for the label to be known as Donut Crew Records.

Colorado Krew 7" EP cover. Collection of the author. 

Rich and I thought the first release should be a 7” EP compilation showcasing newer, less established bands we already knew and were friends with. I called a couple of groups I had helped with shows such as, End of Story and Acid Pigs. Rich’s band, Atomic Dilemma, and his newer, straight edge group, Keep In Mind each wanted to contribute a track. Although, our recently put together Short Fuse band was relatively new, we recorded one of our songs for the record too. The project came together and was released in early 1988. 

By 1988, most of the people and bands that had been part of the early ‘80s Denver punk scene had changed musical direction or dropped out. Several scenesters had moved away to college or enter the workforce. My buddy Shawn befriended Choke from Slap Shot and wanted to bring the group to town for a New Year’s Eve show. We tried to collectively book them, but the show never materialized. As a consolation prize, Shawn and his brother booked rooms at the Westin Hotel in Downtown and invited Slap Shot to ring in the New Year with us…though the guys in band were straight edge. After downing several beers chased by bottles of Dom Perignon, Choke and company escorted Shawn and me to the toilet to vomit our indulgence. After worshipping the porcelain god, Shawn came up with the motto to start off the New Year: “Straight Edge in 88!” Giving up the booze made sense at the time plus most of my more recent friends already abstained from any sort of vices. It was time for me to move in that direction too and concentrate on booking shows and putting out records.  

Edited by Rory Eubank 

Parents of Punkers

It has been awhile since my last post in June. The idea was to spend the summer doing research, talking with friends, and collecting Denver punk artifacts. The fall would be devoted to wrapping-up the writing and art and have it delivered to the editor and designer by late December. This is still my goal.

As my wife Ana and I were preparing to return back to work in Ethiopia in late July, my father had a stroke and passed less than a week later. I’ve been struggling with the loss, which has affected my writing and art making. Typing out the first draft of the story below was like pulling teeth; I’ve been sitting on it for weeks. I woke up the other morning after a series of bad dreams and for some unknown reason the song “Parents” by the Descendents was on loop in my head. The song, the dreams, it all clicked. I scrapped the original draft and banged out a revision. The inks and the paints are out on the table; it’s time to get busy.

Parents, Why don’t they shut up? Parents, they’re so fucked up… The iconic song by the seminal SoCal punk band the Descendents was the soundtrack for many of my friends growing up in the early 80’s. The lyrics perfectly captured the growing pains and strained relationships between parent and child. I’m pretty certain that every person has battled and tested the will of their parents growing up. Some carried that struggle well into adulthood and perhaps straight to the grave. There is something innate about seeking approval from our parents; in short, we want them to love and praise us in everything we do. As to quote Bill Cosby, "I Started Out as a Child" and would like to include that I’ve been teaching in the classroom for almost 20 years, I feel confident in stating that all children just want to be loved.

The tender love between parent and child isn’t always a guarantee. The hardships of life are constant barriers that some adults have trouble putting aside. It takes a lot of love to unconditionally give to another person day in and day out in the lifelong contract of parenthood, though there is notion in America that the cord is cut on the eighteenth birthday. Healthy relationships seldom come naturally, it takes work to maintain them. It’s easy for an angst-ridden teen to point the finger at mom and dad. Some punk bands had their own way of verbalizing their discontent with parents. San Francisco’s Sick Pleasure had the tongue and cheek song, “I Want To Burn My Parents.” Orange County’s D.I. jokingly shouted No Moms, “What we need is no moms!  They don't understand me.” Denver’s hometown heroes, The Frantix unapologetically sang “My Dad's a Fuckin' Alcoholic” When asked whose father in the band was an alcoholic, the band nonchalantly responded, “isn’t everyone’s father an alcoholic?”

Ironically the bands that sang about parents back in early 80’s I know for a fact are parents themselves thirty plus years later. Currently the Descendents are playing a couple of Riot Fest shows with original bassist Tony Lombardo. The group is performing the entire Milo Goes To College album, which features the cut Parents and other coming of age songs like Suburban Home “I don't want no hippie pad, I want a house just like mom and dad.” That notion has pretty much has come full-circle, be it that the band had envision it or not. The band members have spouses, kids, pets, houses, and the whole enchilada. I wonder what the band’s take would be if their kids formed a band and wrote songs about their parenting skills? Perhaps they would encourage it. 

Bobage 

I had been in my fair share of bands since 1983. In 1987, my friend Toledo Pat and his girlfriend rode back to Denver with me from the east coast. They initially stayed at my parent’s house for a week. During that summer we tried to get a band going. We wanted to do something humorous, dumbed-down, and elementary to mock the current state of punk rock. Pat had mentioned that he had a joke band back in Ohio called the Lawn Honkies that played all MDC (Millions of Dead Cops) covers. The highlight of the group was actually opening for MDC. I thought that was brilliant way ridicule and take the air out of a heavily charged political band. We formed Mohican Youth (in reference influx of bands that incorporated Youth into their name). We had six songs that were more or less the same cord progression played at different octaves. Our song titles were: school sucks, works sucks, parents suck, and anything else that would be stereotypical or what we called Quincy punk (mainstream media’s demonization of punk) . We used the same lyrics, but just interchanged the noun.

Mohican Youth's first show was suppose to be opening for Dag Nasty, but Toledo Pat returned back to Ohio. Pat thought it would be funny to add ex-Necros underneath our name. He went to school with members of the Necros back in Toledo.

Pat and I scribbled down the lyrics on backs of fliers and left them lying on the floor of my bedroom. At the age of eighteen after graduating high school I was still occupying my childhood room coupled with all the perks such as mom doing my laundry. One afternoon I’m guessing sometime between classes at the community college and working at the donut shop was when my mom dropped off my clean underwear, shirts, and socks and discovered the flier with the words to parents suck. Unknown to her that Mohican Youth was purely a joke band, she took a pen and scribbled something to the effect of “we fucking love you son!” and left it on my pillow. Later that day when I discovered her note, I was beyond embarrassed, I felt horrible that I hurt the person who loved me the most. My mom immediately broke into tears when I found her to explain the joke band and lyrics. While she didn’t have the frame of reference to entirely understand the sarcasm and the mockery, but understood enough that it wasn’t a personal attack on her or my dad. It was a hard lesson in communication learned that day.

I wasn’t exactly the ideal child growing-up. I did my fair share of testing my parents. My dad in particular didn’t like that I got into punk rock, especially the aesthetics of it. He had clear rules and expectation and was always forthcoming in making sure I was aware of them. Mohawks, dyed hair, and torn clothing were out of the question. He especially hated the foul language bands used in their lyrics. Above all, he wanted to make sure punk wasn’t the gateway to drugs and crime. Other than that, he never denied or stood in the way of my interests unlike some of my friend’s parents who thought punk rock was the arrival of the antichrist.

This drawing was a birthday gift from my eldest brother Tom in 1983. I think he and my parents secretly wanted to send me to bootcamp. 

I would go as far to say that my parents encouraged my preoccupation with punk; they did take me to record stores and funded my record buying habit though chores like mowing the lawn and shoveling snow off the driveway and sidewalk. My dad drove me to shows, and when I wasn’t out of the venue by midnight, he’d come in and fetch me. There were a couple of occasions when he had to walk through the pit of slam-dancers to find me. My parents put up with the racket of my friends and I made in the garage learning to play our instruments. There was even a bass guitar under the Christmas tree one year. All the above was more or less a testament that they were ok with it all.

Like any other self-absorbed teenager, at the time, I focused on everything they wouldn’t let me do. I get it, most parents just want to protect and keep their investment alive. It’s the duty of a parent. Kids often forget their parents have a lot of shit on their plates as well. After a long day of work, it’s hard to muster up the energy or desire to drive a kid across town for a punk rock show. I understand and appreciate that now as an adult. Sometimes you need perspective, distance, and experience to truly understand. In retrospect both mom and dad were pretty great and I was very fortunate to have them. Even the Descendents had to grow up and now sing about juggling relationships, kids, and work: “Who knew the way things work in this world we’ve made for ourselves? Where I work myself to death, and you raise the kids…”

Special thanks to Ana Medina and Monica Zarazua for editing help and Chris Shary for being there and photos. 

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.