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 

Vinyl junkies heading to the East Coast

All drawings by Toledo Pat made in the summer of 1987 on his then girlfriend's stationery. 

Go East, Young Man

Somehow I inched out a high school diploma in May of 1987. I was minus a band for the first time since 1983, and without direction or the ambition to continue schooling. Flipping donuts was all I had to look forward to going into the summer. For a graduation gift, I asked my dad to use his Ford Bronco for a road trip. My parents agreed, gave me spending money, and sent me on my way. Other than popping-out from my mom’s belly in North Dakota, I’ve only been east one other time: Lima, Ohio in 1975 to visit my godmother. I called my manager and told her I was quitting my job.

“Toledo” Pat was living back in Ohio, and we had remained in contact since he left Denver. Before departing east, the plan was to drive to Toledo, gather Pat, and hit every record shop from Toledo to Boston to Washington D.C. and beyond.

It sounds slightly absurd nearly 30 years later; I’m certain not many 18-year olds drive across America hunting down rare punk rock vinyl. The first day I made it a couple of hours west of Chicago, while dodging a tornado and being pelted with marble-sized hail in Iowa. 17 hours of straight driving might be early symptoms of a neurotic disorder. I reached Toledo the following day and experienced my first dose of heat and humidity.

Pat lived with his mom in government housing. His bedroom walls were adorned with fliers and original Misfits posters. Pat was old school and saw all the great Midwest and East Coast bands that graced the Toledo/Detroit area during hardcore’s formative years. Additionally, Pat went to school with members of the Necros.  

Before heading East, we trotted north to the posh college town of Ann Arbor; later on, we sampled the near desolate streets of a decaying Detroit. We did catch the Meatmen at the Graystone. The band’s outrageous front man, Tesco Vee, thought it would be cute to play Aerosmith’s Greatest Hits twice over to an increasingly irritated crowd. The band finally hit the stage and launched into their Rock and Roll Juggernaut material. Pat and I ran into Denver transplants, the Piccoli brothers- Jerome and Joe “Hardcore” at the show. I was surprised to see Joe working the door. Years later, Joe and Jerome who watched everything go down firsthand told me the reason why the Meatmen played late: a heated dispute between the band and the show’s promoter, Scary Cary. In retaliation for the shitty sound and not being paid their guarantee, Tesco walked off with the venue’s microphones. In response, Scary pulled a pistol and pointed it at Tesco's head and told him to "unload you fucking truck!"Tesco wisely surrendered the stolen property. 

East Coast, here we come…

Somehow Pat convinced his live-in girlfriend to quit her job at Bloomingdales and join us on our travels. We took the toll road towards Cleveland for our first round of record shopping. Driving through Lakewood we looked for the neighborhood of Coventry. In the days before smart devices and a GPS, you had to rely on a map. Since we only had a road atlas, we succumbed to rolling down the window and asking a stranger how to get to Coventry. His directions were along the lines of: “Go straight for 5 minutes, make a left, drive for about 2 minutes, turn right. You’ll come to a stop sign. Turn left and drive for 10 minutes…” It was wishful thinking on our part that we’d ever figure out where we were supposed to go. The confidence in his voice and hand gestures sounded plausible. We made an honest attempt of following his route by gauging our turns by the clock on the dashboard. Encountering little success, we stopped another person on the street. “Oh sure, Coventry. That’s easy. You need to drive for 5 minutes, make a right and drive for 3 minutes…” Needless to say ended up Erie, Pennsylvania.

The name of the town said it all. Tensions were high with three hungry, road weary travelers. We spotted a pizzeria and while Pat and I were okay with getting by on pizza, his lady split from the group and walked to the diner down the road. In hindsight, she made the wiser choice. We ordered the two topping special. The waitress asked if we wanted sauce on the pizza.

“Of course.”

“Okay boys, that’s one topping. Do you want cheese?”

We knew where this was going. When the small, oddly shaped, two topping pizza of sauce and cheese arrived, it was a sight to behold. For a moment we thought we were on Candid Camera; for sure Alan Funt was going to emerge from the back and declare, “Smile! You’re on…” But it never happened. Pat and I stared a good 5 minutes at what looked like a smashed loaf of Wonder bread topped with tomato sauce and grated parmesan cheese from a can. With hesitation, we ate our $4 pizza. Thinking revenge was certainly called for, we paid for our meal by dumping out pennies at the register from jar of coins Pat had brought along.

We walked towards the diner to gather Kristen. She was finishing up her slice of pie. In many ways, we felt fucked the whole day and seeing her eat blueberry pie just rubbed me the wrong way. 

Regrettably, our day was far from over. We continued onward towards Boston through New York. While Pat and I resigned ourselves to the fact the Bronco could double as our sleeping quarters, Kristen had other ideas. Every motel sign on the highway into New York read NO VACANCY. We drove into Syracuse to try our luck in the city. We pulled into a vacant lot across from what looked to be a turn of the century building. With a little imagination, you could sense its past glitz and glitter. Perhaps another era long ago it was the primo spot to stay. Pat and I got out of the car and walked across the street towards the entrance. In matter of seconds, we were racing back. Kristen asked, “That’s quick. Did you get a room?” While I was peeling out of the lot, Pat laughed. “There was a black man pacing out front waving a pistol yelling for Leroy to get his ass down there.” Forty-five minutes later, we pulled into a rest area on I-90. I bedded down on a picnic table while Kristen and Pat stayed in the Bronco.

Apparently, during the night my body had served as a feed trough for hungry insects; they left the evidence of bites all over my arms and legs. The early sunrise and humidity on top of a picnic table made sleeping a nearly impossible task. By seven, we were on the road towards Northhampton, Massachusetts. Pat said Main St. Records is one of the best stores on the East Coast. Maybe it was, but he was talking to a  zombie.

Kristen turned me on to double espressos, and that was enough to fuel us to Boston. Still sleep deprived, we hit as many record shops as we could from Kenmore Square onwards. Our lifeline was slices of cheap pizza and coffee. We ran into Bill and Milo from the Descendents walking around. In typical Bill fashion, he pointed at my shirt and asked if I liked that band-Uniform Choice. They were playing TT Bears, and we had planned on going. We met them back at the club outside their van. Kristen, Pat and I were cooked. We told Bill and Milo we’d meet up in Toledo.

Maybe we’d have better luck outside of Boston. We drove around looking for a cheap room to bed down but ended up finding a parking lot in the suburb. I slept under the car.

 

I was more fucked up the next morning, suffering from a caffeine hangover. It was the first time I felt like my mind was slipping away. The desperation to find a room was at a critical stage. We merged on to the freeway, only to be served a heavy dose of rush hour, Boston style. It was a shit show, like blindly bumbling into a hornet’s nest. Shoulders became ad hoc driving lanes by motorists hell bent on riding our ass perhaps hoping to plow us in a cement median. We were weeded out at the first motel we spotted.

Forty fucking dollars was the price to regain a glimpse of sanity. We emptied our wallets on the motel’s registration desk. The clerk sensed our desperation from our red eyes and was kind enough not to milk us for the third person. She must have thought we were some sex fiend, punk rock tweakers.

Fuck Boston. Pat thought we should head south to Providence, claiming we could score some great vinyl at a store he knew about across from Brown University.

Up on the wall behind the counter was the first Germs record, Forming EP. There was an outrageous price tag on it; something in the neighborhood of $50. The guy running the register was a huge Buzzcocks and UK Subs fan. I scored a fan club Buzzcocks single in Boston along with a rare live UK Subs cassette. I offered him the single, tape, and $10 for the Germs record. He took it.

At the start of the summer, I had flipped through the pages of Maximum Rock’n’Roll and came across an ad for the booking agent of Dag Nasty, 7 Seconds, and other bands. The guy was Randy “Now” Ellis. I called the number in the ad to tell him I was interested in bringing bands to Denver. He told me that if I was ever near Trenton, New Jersey, I should look him up.

Pat, Kristen and I had a choice to make: we would either go to New York City or further on to Philly.  I told them I had a friend, Todd, in Philly, and we could crash at his place, or we could take our chances in New York and risk sleeping under the car again. I also mentioned Randy from Trenton. We found a payphone in Providence and called Randy. He asked us to come down for the Exploited and Dr. Know show; he’d put us on the guest list. It certainly sounded more appealing than the uncertainty of aimlessly wondering around the streets of New York.

We made it to his club, City Gardens, in Trenton just in time for the bands to start. Unfortunately the Exploited didn’t hold our attention, so we left and drove in the rain to Philly. We found a payphone and called Todd repeatedly. No answer. Tood lived off of South Street, so we scoured the blocks in the vicinity looking for a place to crash. We found a room in what we later discovered was a sex motel full of junkies, whores, and chickenhawks. Kristen screamed when she found a used condom under the bed. We even moved the dresser in front of the door. It was fortunate none of us ended up with scabies or a knife in our back…

I had met Todd a year earlier when our bands played together at Norman’s in Aurora. We hit it off and hung out quite a bit. He eventually left Boulder and moved to Philly.

We reached Todd the following morning. He knew we were coming in late the night before, so he disconnected his phone so we couldn’t wake him. What an asshole! He made up for it by letting us crash at his place for a couple of nights. We needed to get our head back together, eat regular meals, shower, laundry…Todd taught us a trick: cut aluminum cans into the shape of the coin slot of the washer. Free laundry! While we were washing our clothes, Todd pulled out a record according to him, was the worst band ever, Youth of Today. He mentioned they were some generic straight edge, hardcore group. He regarded the record so awful he didn’t even play it for us and made me vow to carry it back to Denver. Todd did confess he had new band, New Glory. He described it as American Oi! and said Rock-O-Rama in Germany was going to release their record.

While doing the record store circuit, Pat recalled a guy approaching us asking for spare change. His stomach appeared cut open with his guts falling out. Our initial shock was immediately interrupted by two approaching police officers. The guy ran off. The cops said it was his shtick to pry change from newbies. 

The final stop on our tour would be Washington D.C. I guess we were too cool for school to swing by the White House and the other monuments that adorn in the nation’s capital…a missed opportunity rectified years later. Instead, we hit the trendy new wave Commander Salamander in Georgetown and Y&T Records in Rockville, Maryland It proved to be a fruitful outing until we ended up camping out behind a donut shop. I slept underneath the Bronco again until the cockroaches started crawling up the legs of my pants. The hot, humid night with muscle cars spinning out in the adjacent parking lot didn’t enhance the moment, either. We jokingly mentioned driving over to the Dischord House like Youth Brigade and Social Distortion did in the film Another State of Mind. 

It was an early start in the morning to head back to Toledo. We made a pit stop in Pittsburg to sniff out record stores. We pulled up to a guy standing on the corner with the intentions of asking for directions. The minute he said, “I don’t know the area well. I’m from Cleveland,” Pat immediately rolled up his window and I laid on the gas pedal. No more cryptic “Drive for 5 minutes and take a left” bullshit kind of directions. Yeah, we were guilty of discriminating against the Cleveland dude.

We couldn’t have been happier driving into the parking lot of Pat’s complex. There was nothing better than a shower and falling into a real bed. We had to get our beauty rest for the 4^th of July celebration down at the Riverfront. A nearly washed-up Billy Squire would be the featured attraction.

We heard “The Stroke” with chants of "Stroke Me" from afar, and figured we should keep walking to dodge the hordes of Toledoans wearing their red, white, and blue. The good news was the Descendents and the Doughboys were rolling into town the following night to play the Cypress Lounge. While driving to the show Pat warned me he didn’t have a favorable rapport with some of the younger punks because of his tongue and cheek humor towards the newbies. One kid at the show was complaining the scene in Toledo sucked, so Pat talked him into checking out Council Bluff, Iowa, saying it was the hottest scene in the country. Bullshitting kids and cutting up zines published by others for the sake of parody were the sort of antics that earned him a reputation in his hometown.

I had been out for almost a month and was about out of cash. It was time for me to head home. Pat wanted to bring Kristen along and take another stab at spending part of the summer in Denver. We piled into the Bronco and headed West with a pit stop in Chicago to check out the rather thin bins of Wax Trax Records.

Just before slipping into Colorado, Kristen asked if there were stoplights in Denver. I jokingly told her Denver just got our first paved road and in the following month we were due to get electricity. Tears were rolling down her cheeks when we spotted the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Felling sorry for Kristen, Pat and I came clean. We reassured her Denver was indeed a modern city and had amenities like electricity and running water…

If you haven't got yourself a copy of Denvoid and the Cowtown Punks, what are you waiting for? You can visit my secure website. https://bobrobart.bigcartel.com

Funky Cold Medina makes the donuts

No promises: While sitting in the Denver airport awaiting my journey back to Egypt following the book release event, Sonny sent me a messaging saying his plane was delayed. A couple of gates separated us. We met up and the conversation turned into the possibilities of working on a follow-up to Denvoid. What about a part 2 covering 87-96? I pulled out my laptop and started jotting down notes. 

Last week I went through a spurt of writing...maybe 10 pages over a couple of days. I'm thinking a similar format to Denvoind, a narrative at the beginning leading into interviews. I haven't picked up a brush yet. I miss the discipline of posting every Wednesday. Again, no promises.

If you haven't got yourself a copy of Denvoid and the Cowtown Punks, what are you waiting for? You can visit my secure website. https://bobrobart.bigcartel.com

Below might be the beginning of the next Denvoid. 

Time to make the donuts Funky Cold Medina.

Long before people started calling me “Funky Cold Medina” in the late 80s, friends would constantly tell me it was “Time to make the donuts” repeating the infamous Dunkin' Donuts commercial. Far too many times I would up and leave in a middle of a band’s set and head to my night job as a baker at Winchell's.  

Late Summer or Fall of 1987.

To clear up the “Funky Cold Medina” remark, I did encounter Tone Loc outside of a bank in Oakland in the later part of the '90s. A friend pointed him out and I walked up to him and said, “Thanks, thanks a lot!” and walked away never turning back to see his reaction. It probably wasn’t the first time someone bearing the last name Medina walked up to him and razzed him for writing the song. I’m certain every Medina across America suddenly awoke one morning to a new funk-a-fied moniker. Perhaps it was a term of endearment, a way people showed they were hip with the latest rap hit. I’m sure all the Mrs. Robinsons were suddenly branded cougars after Simon and Garfunkel’s hit. I felt their pain. Though it has been over 26 years since the song came out, I still get the occasional Funky Cold shout-out and more recently Mista Dobalina, Mista Bob Dobalina. 

While researching my boxes for Denvoid, I came across a roll of negatives I never printed. I decided to scan the roll and see what came up. To be honest, I don't recall the day these were taken and I'm fuzzy with the names of the people in the photos. It was a long time ago.  

Now that the name nonsense is cleared-up, we'll to move on to the how I got involved in the Donut business. I finally secured a driver’s license right before my 17^th birthday. With driving a car comes responsibility and expenses. I needed a job and saw a sign posted in the window of Winchells Donut House across the street from Buckinghan Square mall. I walked in, filled out an application, chatted with the manager and was hired on the spot. It was my lucky day. Since I had the last period of school off, I was given the 2 pm to 10 pm shift 3-nights a week. The duties were light: clean the shop, get everything ready for the baker, and hock donuts that have been sitting in the case since the morning. I probably worked about two solid hours and did goofed off for the other six. At $3.35/hour it was easy money.

A friend coming in to curb my boredom.

Donuts would be my profession for the remainder of high school into community college. The summer between Junior and Senior year was when I transitioned into a baker to the whopping sum of $4.50 an hour. Of course it meant surrendering weekend nights plus the hours were gnarly; 10 pm-6 am and that is if my replacement showed up on time. The hours cut into my punk rock as far as weekend shows went. I would show up to gigs in my uniform then cut out early to go fry those precious nuggets of dough and deal with drunk and indecisive customers after the bars closed.

When you have friends visit you at work. 

By the time I graduated high school I was putting in 32-40 hours a week, not ideal for someone who was a borderline dropout. I befriended a lesbian coworker couple that dropped hits of LSD at the beginning of their shifts. Both were high school dropouts and a few years older. They were heavily entrenched in 70’s rock music and tried to convince me punk was junk. As gesture to convert me, the pair bought me a ticket to go see a real concert. That show ended up being Stevie Nicks at Red Rocks. The catch was I had to drive the three of us. The pair were super excited the event was being taped for HBO. 

When I arrived to pick them up, they looked like they walked out of a Fleetwood Mac video. Maybe they were under the impression they would be in a crowd shot. Already one step ahead of them, I had taken a marker and attacked an old white undershirt redrawing the Rotters-Sit On My Face Stevie Nix EP cover. I wore it to the concert, my coworkers giggled and surprisingly several cokehead bikers in the audience praised my Rotters rendition. “Man, I wish Stevie Nicks would sit on my face” was repeatedly thrown in my direction walking up and down the aisles at Red Rocks. There were moments I had to explain the shirt to a suspicious fan, but was usually given thumbs up afterwards. 

My homemade Stevie Nicks concert shirt looked like this.