Punx Unite Assholes Die: Hardcore, Violence, and the Denver Skins. Part 2

My previous post generated strong reactions, including a couple of people contacting me who I hadn’t talked with in decades. They were upset about what I wrote. Most of my audience is somehow connected to the Denver punk rock scene during the 1980’s. The loosely defined ethos of punk has been my life long commitment, I signed-up in 1982 and never looked back. I’m hardwired to its’ philosophy, which is at times contradictory and escapes definition. What the hell does punk rock mean? There are as many definitions as there are stories. My intentions aren’t to re-engage or relive the past, to hurt anyone, or to take sides. I’m a product of my father, a storyteller.  I write what is relevant and meaningful to me, the full spectrum of it. The purpose of this project is to document a time and place 30 years ago.

For some, those years were glorious, for others it is a painful period growing up. No matter what I post, there will always be two-sides. Many of us did fucked-up things, hurt people, broke the law, and engaged in other antisocial behaviors. Not everyone lived long enough, either by choice or by circumstance, to reflect on what happened all those years ago. Some former punks and skins became religious/spiritual, or got heavier into self-medicating. Others simply walked away.

There is the present: spouses, children, jobs, and everything that comes with adulthood. During our teenage years we go through the process of figuring out our shit through making series of choices. There is no doubt we made bad decisions during that time, perhaps some we’d like to take back or some we would make differently knowing what we know now. We’ll never know. I don’t want to author something that might cause someone to lose their job, the way I wouldn’t smash windows and slash the van tires of a band who’s politics I didn’t agree with. Life is tough, nowadays most of us are just trying to put food on the table. The less bullshit the better.  

Punx Unite, Assholes Die was a song on Happy World’s second album. It was a response to the increasing violence happening at the shows in Denver. The guitarist of the band and later promoter, like most people in the scene just wanted to go see shows, play music and have fun. Promoters didn’t want to lose their deposit because some kid kicked holes into bathroom walls or took a marker and tagged the place. Even Oxnard’s (and later Denver’s) Aggression in their song S.A.T.C. (Slamming At The Club) sing “then came something to fuck up our scene, assholes who throw bottles to prove that they’re mean, kicking holes in the wall don’t mean that you’re cool, when the place is close you’ll know you’re the fool.”

Happy World. Original Photograph: unknown Ink drawing: Bob Rob Medina 

As the violence at punk shows was deepening nation wide, Maximum RockNRoll ran an article in Issue 14 Breaking the Silence on Gang Violence. It featured interviews with members of BASH (Bay Area Skinheads) alongside other punks and skins. The gist of the various articles stated members in scenes across the country were being marginalized by bullies though acts of aggression. The fanzine’s publisher, Tim Yohannan, felt the values of punk were being compromised by a handful of people who were going to shows for the sole purpose of instigating violence. The issue invited participants and observers from different sides to share their opinions and thoughts on the subject. Although the interviews brought the topic out into the open, the violence not only continued but intensified.

“I thought Punk was my calling, I thought I was in it for life. Then I’m at a show and there is all this in-fighting, it was really fucked-up. I’m thinking we should be fighting against society, the system, or whatever but not each other. I thought the violence at shows was just the stupidest shit. That is when I realized I didn’t need to keep going to shows. Punk stopped evolving.” This sentiment was stated by a longtime member of the scene and is shared by many former Denver punks I have spoken with when approaching them about my project. Most are happy to tell endless stories about this and that, but in the same regard don’t want to go on record or use their names in interviews. I respect their decision and privacy.

In the mid-90’s when I first brought up the subject of writing a book about the Denver punk scene, most people were readily excited to contribute. In my initial research I observed that all the stories were funny, centered on bands that came through town. Someone always had a cute story about the Exploited or G.B.H, which have their own merit. However, the stories lacked a pulse on what it was like growing up punk in Denver. To arrive at this point, hard questions had to be asked with serious reflections.

Our selective memories have blacked out some of the darker moments in the scene. There were wild nights of heavy drinking, drugs, fistfights, pistol-whipping all to the soundtrack of fast and angry music. The more secluded the venue was, like the Packing House or somewhere down on Larimer St., the more potential for a volatile evening. The main culprit was the increase in the number of skinheads. By 1985, they adopted a more gang like mentality. They had power in numbers backed by an aggressive demeanor and controlled the temperament of most hardcore shows. The skins were a pack of sorts, bonded in unity and ready to pound someone at the slightest incitement. The dance floor grew more gruesome; it became like a slugfest. The skins had a reputation of taking cheap shots at audience members trying to watch and enjoy bands. One person I spoke with said, “Sometimes it was hard to get into watching a band, I was constantly looking over my shoulder.” A few bystanders tried to hold their ground but more often than not were met with flying fists and all signs of dissonance quashed immediately. 

Crowd at a show. Original Photograph: unknown Ink drawing: Bob Rob Medina  

The music shifted and became secondary to what was happening in the crowd. In my opinion, the music ceased to be original and adopted a more homogenized sound to serve the punks and skins decked out in their uniforms. This might explain the mass exodus of the original Denver punks. “Why would I want to go to shows anymore, what’s the point of seeing your friends get punched in the face for having fun.”

One might ask why did people give up their power and let acts of violence become a staple at shows? Why did people allow violence to continue when hardcore/skinhead bands like Agnostic Front sang about punks and skins being “united and strong” together against the system? Many felt the whole unity thing was a charade, words without meaning or substance. The irony was that bullies within the scene were keeping their own kind down. From what, the same type of power we were fighting against?

Dr. Know (Big Slug) Public Service Announcement #1. From the fanzine 60 Miles North. Artist: Jamie Hernandez 1983. Collection of author.  

Any type of group, skins, punks, or whatever has a hierarchy just like society. How did we ever think it would be any different? Those who possess power will impose it on the weakest members of a group. When the bottom rises to the top, the cycle repeats itself.

Many of the former Denver punks easily point the finger at the skinheads for “ruining” the scene. It would be just as easy to condemn those who stood idly by and passively let it happen. Annie, author of Archy-Type Morality stated in one of her issues regarding the CH3/Samhain show where promoter Tom Headbanger was severely beaten that Denver didn’t have a Nazi problem. The problem was rooted in uncontrolled drug use and testosterone. Her angle was Denver had a cool little scene, but it grew into a monster because it didn’t keep itself in check.  

Archy-Type Morality Issue 10 gig review. Collection of author. 

Everyone wants to be at the top. Young impressionable punks witnessed the power the older skins had. Within a period of a couple of years, the number of flight jackets and Doc Martins swelled. The Denver Skins made their own t-shirts adorned with a giant iron cross and printed business cards stating “the few, the proud, the Nazis. It was initially an inside joke. People called them Nazis. Jello Biafra popularized the term “Nazi Punks"; it was a slight on the mentality that punks should be one big happy family. When in fact the origins of punk are all about individuality, questioning everything, including the mighty Jello. No offense to him, he only spoke his mind and others followed. I can see why the original skins wanted to distance themselves from any textbook punk definition. One of the Denver skins stated, “Why did everyone have fit into one of Jello’s little punk category?” When the skins carved out their own identity, some members of the scene labeled them as Nazis, and they embraced it.

Willig Comic fanzine Dec. 1983. Collection of author. 

When Black Flag rolled through Denver in 1984, someone gave Henry Rollins one of the Denver Skins business cards. He read it to the audience between songs and proceeded to tear it in half. He then called them weak and challenged the group asking to take on the toughest one. The audience went into a frenzy chanting anti-skin slogans. Where Jello failed, perhaps Rollins would succeed. Rollins wearing nothing but gym shorts jumped off the stage while the rest of the band and roadies stood at the edge waiting. Rollins stood face to face with one of the skins backed by his posse. Nothing happened other than an exchange of words. The music resumed and the Denver punks were offered a temporary refrain from violence that evening.

I find it a bit ironic that it took a punk celebrity to address Denver’s internal bullying. Concert promoter Razer stated that the punks got what they deserved for not standing up for themselves at shows, “If you act like a victim, then I’ll fuck with you!”

Thanks to Monica Zarazua and Ana Medina for editing help. 

Uberfall, Denver’s premier punk gang.

Giving detectives a crash course on Denver punk rock.

(Part 2 of Idiots Revenge is still under construction. In the meantime enjoy this ditty from the archives. The event occurred on an early afternoon in the summer of 1985.)

Toledo Pat, Spike, and I had just walked out of Wax Trax and were about to drop off our records in Spike’s car then head over to 7-11, when two plain clothes cops showed us their badges. As they escorted us to their car I was thinking how typical it was for them to be harassing punks. We asked them if there was a problem. They said there wasn't, but they wanted to talk with us. 

The three of us sat in the back seat of a squad car. The cop on the driver’s side locked the door so we couldn't leave. We were feeling pretty anxious. We thought they were going to take us somewhere and beat the shit out of us. I've seen a couple of Denver’s finest lay into other punks pretty hard for no reason at all. Their taunting tactics starts with name-calling, you can see it in their eyes how they itch for a reaction or the slightest provocation to make us their punching bags. Their hatred for us was purely based on the way we dressed. The mentality was; if you’re living outside the conventions of what “normal” people wear, then you’re obviously a threat to society. This was one of the symptoms how punk was negatively portrayed in the media. They asked for our ID's. Spike and I handed ours over. Toledo Pat searched for his and said that he left his wallet at home. They ran a check on our licenses while they gave Pat a shit storm for not having his. “Pat, we need social security number, DOB, address...” The officers were irritated. I could see them letting us go and driving off with Pat. Ten minutes had gone by and we were becoming a little more nervous, sweaty palms and all. We saw a few of our friends pass by on the way to the record store. This was good. I was thinking that if for some reason they decided to take us away, we had witnesses. Our thoughts were becoming irrational at this point because nobody was saying anything. The officers in the front were waiting for a call on our ID's. Like a dumb ass, I asked the cops why they had us in the car when a voice came over the radio. Then one in the passenger’s seat hushed me mid sentence.

Hey Dan, will you look at those punk rock faggots. I bet they a part of that nazi Uberfall gang.

"OK boys, you two are fine," he said looking at Spike and I. They went off on Pat again for not carrying any identification. They continued waiting for Pat’s background check to come in and told him “it was the law for all American citizens to carry identification with them at all times.” It sounded like they were going to let us go. We weren't about say anything else. We figured that the more we talked or asked question the longer we would stay in the squad car. We were just happy that the silence broke. The cop on the driver’s side asked Pat what the symbol on the back of his jacket meant. Pat was wearing his roommate, Big John's, jacket. Big John played bass in the band, Uberfall (lit. overthrow). Uberfall's logo UF closely resembled a swastika, perhaps intentionally designed for shock value. The band had stickers, and spray-painted logos all over Capitol Hill. One cop asked us if we belonged to a gang of Nazi's. We laughed out loud. That bummed them out. Pat said that it was his roommate's jacket, and it was a symbol of a band. The cops weren’t buying it. They asked again if we were part of any gang, as if they hadn't heard us the first time. We said "No" in a more solemn tone. “Tell us about the Uberfall gang.” We explained that Uberfall was just a punk rock band. "Why is their symbol everywhere?” It wasn’t our band, we didn’t know, but it was in our best interest to tell them something, anything. While we were spouting off something lame to the effect of, "The guys in Uberfall want to be famous blah, blah, blah…" Flye, Uberfall's vocalist, crosses the street in front of us wearing his leather jacket with a big Uberfall symbol painted on the back of it. Pat, Spike, and I spotted him and tried not to stare or laugh. The cops were to busy being consumed by whatever bullshit we were making up that they were oblivious to the world outside the car. The thought occurred, "If you want to know what the symbol means, ask their singer, Flye, he just walked past.” We just sat there caged, finishing our symposium of why the Uberfall logo was all over Denver.

Early computer graphics

HQ called back. Pat's background check produced a clean record. There was no evidence that any of us belonged to the "Uberfall gang," or any other gang for that matter. They finally handed back our IDs. The cops went off on Pat yet again, telling him that he was lucky they weren't going to haul him down to the station and throw his ass in jail for not having an ID. We sat there politely and took the last of their shit, while collectively thinking, "Fuck these assholes and their ego trips." We had nothing left to say; we hated them for wasting our time with their head games.

They both got out of the car. The cop on the driver’s side hit the latch to open our doors. They thanked us for our time and told us to stay out of trouble. We walked back across the street towards Wax Trax to find Flye. The cop on the passenger side yelled at Pat to remember to carry his ID. We just snickered and stuck our fingers in Pat's face telling him, "Don't forget your ID, boy!" in our quasi redneck “boy, you got a pruddy mouth” accent.

Another Uberfall sticker design. 

We walked into Wax Trax and Flye was at the counter. He asked us what we were doing in the cop car. We told him that the cops were looking for him, "The leader of the Uberfall gang."  "What?!," Flye broke from his usual soft-spoken gentle voice. Flye a gang leader? Violent? Hardly. He was the son of a preacher. Flye thought we were pulling his leg, especially the gang part. We told him the story of what just happened. His face got red; he was sort of embarrassed. He put his hand up to his face and giggled. The clerk finished putting Flye's records in the bag. We told him that the cops were still out there and that he had better take off his leather jacket. We walked out the door and gazed over at the cop car and saw two more punks in the back seat. We didn't cross the street to find out who was in there. We’d have to wait to find out later that night at the show.

Flye and a couple other punks were featured in The Rocky Mountain News newspaper in a pull out section. 

“They got two more. Shit. We’re thirsty.” Spike said we should walk to 7-11 so he could get a Dr. Pepper Big Gulp. While we were sipping our drinks and waiting for our bean and cheese burritos in the microwave, Spike told me how Pat accidentally took a big swig of windshield wiper fluid in his car yesterday thinking it was cheap King Soopers blueberry punch. We all laughed. The buzzer on the microwave went off and we were out the door on the way to band practice.  

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