Victim of Time

INTERVIEW: SONNY VINCENT's FURY Tales from NYC 1972

Todd Killings

Sonny Vincent is a true punk pioneer, we all know that already. But did you know how deep this man's well of punk madness really goes? Pull up a chair and get comfortable, as Sonny takes us for a ride through his world as a runaway kid in New York in the mid 1960s, up through the forging of punk in the early 1970s as his proto-punk bands, Distance, FURY, and Liquid Diamonds will soon attest. Sonny's voice has been sadly absent from all of the New York Punk biographies and oral histories, and now it's time to rectify this situation. Breathe in deep and read on....

What was the first band you were actively playing in? It's mind-blowing that you had these FURY recordings from 4-5 years before the Testors material.

Sonny Vincent- My very first actual band that had a rehearsal room, and did ‘live’ shows was called ‘Distance’. We had around 15 or more original songs and rehearsed a few times a week, we were teenagers.. Like I said we had all original songs. No ‘covers’. Back in those days it was super difficult to get shows if you played your own stuff, unless you had an album out etc. Unless you were established with a big album out it was nearly impossible to get any shows at all. The openness and experimentation that flourished within the ‘arts’ in the 60’s was long gone by the early 70’s. It was like a wasteland and there was really nowhere to play unless you were a cover band.

And being in a cover band? …that was not my path. So I would approach anyone, anywhere to get shows for us. Sometimes we would get lucky and play at a venue that was some discarded husk of a place left behind by the beatniks or the hippies. But that was rare and weird. One time I saw some lounge band playing an Italian restaurant directly down the street from my apartment,. This restaurant was the kind of place with red velvet flocked wall paper, small chandeliers all over the place and nice tables with white table cloths. I was gonna give it a try anyway and see if we could play there!. We went in there tenuously and nervous trying to convince the restaurant owner to let us play his small stage in front of the tables. He was a short powerful looking ‘Mafioso’ guy and he goes “You play covers?” I said “Oh yeah!” and he says “Like Beatles, Beach Boys, The Young Rascals and Four Seasons?” and I said “ Yes” absolutely and really well!” . So he hired us for a Thursday night. We go up there and tore into our originals, the whole time saying “Oh yeah… this is a song from a Beatles bootleg” or “ Here is a cool song by ‘The Yardbirds”. Well, after a whole show of us tearing it up he know we were jerking him around and he chased us out. That’s how it was generally before Max’s and CBGB. A total wasteland.

This was a year or so before FURY. The band Distance was quite prolific. We had many songs, we were two guitars, bass and drums. Funny you ask because just the other day I opened a box that I have been carrying around with me for ages and found some of the tapes.

Sonny's Car

We had a giant Wollensack reel to reel’ tape recorder and we taped a few rehearsals. I have been listening to the songs and some of them are better than I thought. So I might bring them into my set list, with a little make over. The songs on the tape are longer than my typical songs and the feel is more 60’s garage in a way, even psychedelic at times. But I still can clearly hear the rudiments that later became Testors. So maybe I’ll revamp these songs! They certainly do sound like from a different era when I listen to the old tapes.

Who were your band mates, and were they involved in any other bands?

Sonny Vincent- The line up of Distance was Joey Boutevier on rhythm guitar (now married, working a steady job and a good a family man), Anthony Vitino (convicted murderer and doing ‘life’ in prison-really! He shot the lead guitarist in his very next band, I swear it’s true!) and Bob Brown was the drummer. After the band broke up (incredibly with a huge argument between me and Anthony… man… he must have taken it out on the next guitar cat) me and Bob Brown stayed together and he played in some of the other ‘Pre-Testors’ bands I had over time. He was really good and natural. Me and Bob Bron went through a lot together.

We got kicked out of so many buildings in New York for breaking noise ordinances. Police showing up, etc. so eventually we rented a farmhouse that was way upstate New York off the Taconic Parkway in a place called Craryville. Basically the house was between farms, hills and cornfields. We enjoyed the freedom to play loud, but it was pretty isolated and we were living like the friggin’ Manson Family. We even grew beards for a few weeks which I know is kind of sinful, but we were isolated and also couldn’t bother to buy razors, we had a big enough challenge to get food! Anyway it was a very great time and we did a lot of soul searching. Bob is a preacher now in a church in Tarrytown, New York. I’m not sure which religion, maybe the one that messes around with snakes and whatnot. I hope so!!

Later I put together FURY and that was a trio, Me (Vocals and Guitar), Chris Gedney (Bass) and Victor Gonzalez (Drums).

What were you listening to in 1972, and who were some of the best bands you got to see in that era?

I sometimes would wander around Greenwich Village in NYC and go to shows in the clubs and venues. Some of the stuff in those days I saw that I liked were The Fugs, The Last Poets, David Peel, John Cage, Pearls Before Swine, John Lee Hooker. Later when I was in FURY, we rehearsed above a theater that was used for rock concerts. Bands played shows downstairs and often we wandered in during a concert. Sometimes it was cool, and some of it was dreadful. We saw a band called Traffic that was incredible to listen to while very stoned, very inspirational. We saw Santana and the early version of Fleetwood Mac. But also there was a lot of hokey crap goin down.

What was your favorite memory of seeing The Fugs, and what was the earliest that you saw them?

Before I ran away and later lived basically on the streets of NYC, I was hooked up with a few college girls. I stayed in their dorm a lot and they fed me food, literature and drugs. I was very young (13), but tall for my age and I told them I was older. It was some good times for me hangin with these girls. Opened my mind and vision. Like I said I was young and these girls were wild but sophisticated, well read and they brought me to see Allen Ginsburg recite ‘Howl’ on our first adventure. Since they had cars they would often take me down to the Village to clubs and events. I also was 13 when I first saw The Fugs. It was around 1965 and quite a shock for me, but in a good way. For a kid that was listening to the Yardbirds, Hendrix, and the Beatles to go to a store front and see a band with condoms hung all over the microphone stands and screaming ‘Fuck’ and insane stuff was really something riveting. Another Proto Punk organization. The Fugs!!!!

Once we met Blue Oyster Cult and they came upstairs to the FURY rehearsal room and we had a jam session. We were totally flabbergasted to meet them, they were so incredibly friendly, like someone’s uncle who runs a nice shoe store or something. The thing that really shocked us was that we only knew them from the artwork on their album covers and they really had some heavy attempts at symbolism on those album covers. Images like a crazy scary byzantine pyramid surrounded by hypnotic spirals in the sky and a giant Nazi derived symbol on top of the pyramid structure, or another album cover that had a plane landed on a snow bank on the side of a mountain with dangerous guys (obviously doing some serious dark espionage or worse) wearing full length leather military style coats, holding Doberman’s on leashes and lines. It all looked so ominous and dark and then to meet them and discover that in person they were some easy going, slap happy, friendly guys, almost nerds, all smoking weed and laughing it up. Certainly that was more pleasant for us than meeting Rasputin or Aleister Crowley, but it was a shock considering what we expected from their image and the whole ‘totalitarian’ symbolism they put forth.

I remember in the 80’s out in L.A. I met David Lee Roth of Van Halen in a late night club called ‘The Zero Club’, one of those places that could only exist in L.A. in the 80’s. I think it opened the doors at 3 am and people had all checker board hair cuts and punk space stuff . I was looking at a video screen and a guy standing next to me was commenting, I didn’t look at him at first but when I did I saw who it was and he goes ”Hey you want a drink?” We go the the bar and did some drinkin and he turns out to be a super down to earth guy, warm, not assuming and nice and I’m thinking “Isn’t this the guy prancing all over MTV like he rehearses in front of a mirror all day?” There are a lot of opposites running around, don’t let me get started on Jonathan Richman, let’s suffice to say ‘Rolex Watch’, ‘New Guitar’ ‘300 dollar Yves St Laurent shirt’ and non stop talking about it!! Yeah contrasts can be interesting! Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of bands and most of it is hype, even when the hype says “Oh I’m so small.” But the truth is in the music, some will last forever and some is the latest financed ‘project’. Again back to your question- I also often would go to the 50’s revival shows- The Supremes, Shirelles, Ronettes, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Roy Orbison. That stuff lasts.

What was your impression of David Peel? Did you ever play shows with him, and how did he manage to become the missing link between John Lennon and GG Allin?

First time I saw David Peel, he was playing on the street in the West Village, I was a runaway kid and the year was 1967 or 1968. Second time he was playing in Washington Square Park and the third time in a small nightclub with his ‘Lower East Side Band’. In the early ‘70s it seemed he was everywhere in the city, playing, standing on St. Marks Place, he was like a Hippie Mayor or something. Later after I had my band Testors, I would meet him at occasional parties and once when I was hangin’ out with Wayne Kramer, me and David spent some time together talkin’. I never actually was on a bill with him but I did see him perform quite a few times. David’s approach was very direct and he was a friendly sympathetic character, with a lot to say. The lyrics and song content were something very attractive to a young rebellious kid.

What bands were you playing gigs with in New York at the time? Did you know Von Lmo?

SV- In those early days I did some shows with Suicide at the Electric Circus, formerly The Dom and The Dogs from Detroit. Other than that we played Club 82 a tranny club downtown. Never did a show with Von Lmo.

Circus Show at St. Marks Place October 1971

What was your most lasting impression of Suicide and what was your first encounter with seeing them?

Ahhh Suicide. In the early days I would see Alan and Marty pushing gear down the street in a shopping cart, Didn’t know who they were, but it definitely looked odd seeing them walking along the sidewalk on St. Marks Place or Canal Street pushing an A&P cart with a keyboard that had no protective case sticking out of the cart. The first time I played a show with them was at a place called The Circus/Playwrights Workshop. It was originally called The Electric Circus where all the 60’s groups like Hendrix and The Doors played. Then a bit later, it was called The Dom, and Moe Tucker and Sterling Morrison told me they played there early on when it was shortly called The Balloon Farm, and also they did a lot of the Velvet Underground / Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable performances there when it was The Dom. I think Andy rented the place sometime to put on his events.

Anyway, by the time I was on the scene with my band Distance, they changed the name of the venue back again to approximate the original name (Electric) Circus. Whatever they called it, by then it was a shabby, hulking husk of a left over place. The exciting 60’s were finished and all that was left for us was a shell. We wanted to play our music live, but we were presented with a sort of David Lynch-ian landscape to try to survive in. The truth was that bands like mine and Suicide were desperate to play anywhere, to somehow survive, so we got in there and organized a show. We were not aware at that moment that soon we would be on the vanguard of a whole new scene. But at the time even with the desolate terms before us, we were excited to be on stage.

So we printed up a shitload of posters and flyers, stuck them all over the Village, and promoted our show. The bill was Distance (my band at the time), Suicide and The Dogs, from Detroit. The Dogs had moved to NYC to try to get some exposure. I remember talking to them a couple of weeks before this show and the thing I remember was that they said they were all living in an apartment together surviving on a huge bag of potatoes. Rockers to the core! I think Keith and Brian of the Stones also had lived together in an apartment surviving on potatoes, forsaking all except their music!

I’m gonna describe the action that day for you. We pulled up in our dilapidated station wagon, the ‘Distance Mobile’ and got out in front of the venue on 23 St. Marks place, and sure enough, at that very moment coming down the sidewalk with their shopping cart were Alan Vega and Martin Rev of Suicide, now I finally knew who these characters were. 'Ah Ha,' so those two shadowy figures walking around town were performers.

Alan had on a leather jacket with a very high collar. On the back of the jacket were large metal studs spelling ‘Suicide’. It was very provocative and somehow shocking. This was light years before The Dead Kennedys, and the effect of the name alone at that point in time was somehow profound and confusing. They dragged their shopping cart up the steps and went inside. We also began to load in our amps, guitars and drums.

The place was cavernous, with a dark musty stage that was quite big. We heard from the sound man that the sound check would begin soon. I remember they didn’t turn the lights on full power yet, so all three bands were milling around in semi darkness, looking at the stage, the room, and checking out the dressing rooms. Suddenly Marty and Alan from Suicide came up to me and asked if they could borrow our drummers cymbal, snare drum and one drum stick. I said “Do you have a drummer who is gonna show up?” Alan said -“Nahh Marty will play the cymbal and snare while he plays the keyboard." This sounded a bit strange to me but we lent them our stuff and they set up on stage. They would be the first to do their sound check, and I watched Marty set up his organ and then connect a whole chain of LPB-1 distortion boxes to it. In other words he connected around four or five distortion boxes together, and then put the output of the organ through all that. Then he placed the snare drum and the cymbal to the right side of the keyboard within his reach. This was before Marty used rhythm/drum machines. He made the ‘rhythm’ with his right hand by whacking the snare and cymbal and he played the organ with his left hand. The first song had two notes, and the second song had the same two notes reversed. As he played/oscillated between the two droning keyboard notes, he robotically cracked the snare and crashed the cymbal. During this, Alan was screaming and moaning into the microphone with an ungodly amount of reverb. I was shocked and to be honest, sort of disgusted. After their sound check I went up to Alan. “ Listen man, we sent out postcards and stuff to around 12 record companies and told them to arrive early, I don’t want you guys going on before us because they will all leave and then all my work was for nothing." Alan said "Awwww maaaan, they ain’t even gonna show up. They will be sitting home drinking beer and watching T.V.” Suffice to say, it turned out Alan was right, but in my naiveté, I imagined dudes in business suits clamoring up to us, with brief cases full of contracts and millions of dollars and didn’t want Suicide scaring them off.

So it was decided that we go on first, and like I mentioned before, this place was pretty big and now the audience was there, I think it was around 19 or 20 people. We played and I remember the audience’s clapping had an echo because the place was so empty. Of course we still rocked it and had a pretty good time. Next up was Suicide, and Martin had a joint hangin’ out of his mouth as he came up and sat onstage alone before his keyboard. He then played his drone notes, crashing the cymbal and snare for about ten minutes. Right away, a few people left the building, then Alan came on stage and gave some weak yelps into the mega-reverbed P.A.

At the same time that Alan was making these sort of lamb sounding yelps, he was standing in a stiff, still, contorted pose. After that, he grabbed a 3 foot length of chain and began to beat himself across the face with it while yelping. Marty was still droning louder and louder, and more people left. Then Alan jumped off the stage and approached a woman in the front row who seemed to be the only person in the place kind of ‘into it.’ He literally stood directly in front of her face and came closer and closer. He had the mic up to the side of his mouth and was eventually nose to nose, eye to eye with this woman and yelled, over and over again “I’m too fast for you!, I’m too fast for youuuu!, I’m too fast for youuuuuu, I’m too faaaaast for youuuuuuuuuu! Aggnnggnnahhht ahhhh!” Right then, the woman jumped up and shook her hands frantically in front of her face and ran out of the building. The only thing missing was her hair was not on fire. The Suicide show lasted around 15-20 minutes and all the audience left the room except for around five people. By the time The Dogs came on, there were maybe nine people watching them because some folks came back in. In that moment I thought that Suicide was the absolute worst crap, bullshit, talentless, ton of garbage I had ever seen. For a week I went around telling people what a bunch of shit I had recently seen and played with.

But then slowly,,, like a new planet that takes time to traverse the light years into a new solar system, I began to ruminate and reflect on that event/show and the performance of Suicide, and eventually it hit me. Although it did take about a month to hit, I was suddenly astounded and flabbergasted. Bowled over by the effect it had on me and the raw artistic power. Now I was telling everyone “Man, if you are going around town and you see a duo called Suicide advertised as playing somewhere, you absolutely have to see them! It’s the most riveting, profound performance you could imagine!"

I’m sure some people ‘got it’ upon the first moment they saw Suicide, but for me it took a while. For me their performance was so intense and raw, that at first it was a shock to my entire lexicon, aesthetic, and concept of value. After it hit me, there was a sort epiphany, probably something like when people saw Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, and the early solo blues players. Later, as our NYC scene developed, I played again with them at CBGB. Years later, I heard all the techno and DJ stuff that came out and I felt that they all should be required to pay Suicide some royalties! Of course I am kidding about the royalties, but in a perfect world, it would be so. There is a certain feeling you can get when you know how things develop and how sometimes the originators get overlooked. It’s absolutely amazing how so much of that Techno and Goa Techno etc. is similar to what Martin Rev was doing so early on. Although now people don’t run away, they take drugs and dance to it!

Sonny Vincent 1972

Where was the FURY material recorded, and was there ever any interest in getting it released at the time?

I don’t recall the name of the studio we recorded in, but I do remember it was good and they understood what we wanted to capture. Our bass player, Chris, submitted a tape to a large record company and we were nearly signed but our advocate in the A&R department got pregnant and quit the job. We were going to record again but eventually broke up. We weren’t together very long. I have reels and reels of tapes of us jamming and remember people coming off the street and climbing the stairs to take a peek at us in our rehearsal room. It was summer and we had the windows open and I played with two Marshall full stacks ‘Y’ corded together! I remember we did a big show at a High School in Greenwich Connecticut, it was more like a college. I can send you an audio ad for that show that was broadcast on the radio at the time. It’s pretty funny.

Any early encounters with the New York Dolls or the Brats, what did you think of them or the Mercer Arts Center?

I met them all back in the day and I was closest to Arthur and Johnny. The scene at Mercer Arts was very colorful but for me it was often a bit too make believe ‘gay’. It’s hard to explain or correctly express/elaborate. The whole New York ‘glitter’ scene actually had a strong tendency toward roots rock'n roll and a lot of us younger kids were very impressed by that jungle vibe. It was raw and stripped down rock'n roll, something that was missing in most commercial music at the time. Yet on the other hand the imagery was at the height of the progressive ‘Rock Star’ look. You know? I think a good example of the final evolution of the image without the basic roots rock'n roll ‘feel’ and groove would be Queen, And the best example of a killer band with a real rock'n roll feel along with the progressive ‘Rock’ look was the New York Dolls. So although the Dolls were really great it also was cool to see Johnny and Jerry simplify their image and still play killer rock'n roll in the Heartbreakers. It’s as if the Dolls image (in terms of the ‘look’ and clothes) were the height of where rock had arrived and the music was where it was going. I guess Richard Hell deconstructed it all and started the raw look to match the raw sound.

I didn’t have much contact with the Brats, I know after Testors broke up Gene the guitar player of Testors and Jeff the drummer put a short lived thing together with one of the guys from The Brats. Later Jeff played with Johnny Thunders and then in The Waldos.

Did you ever encounter any of the lesser-known early 70s NYC bands such as Jack Ruby, Luger, Mong, Manster, Why...You Murder Me, or Teenage Lust? What were your impressions?

I saw some of those on the list, but they were playing on the scene during my heavy phase with alcohol and Quaaludes. So although they were good, my cognition was pretty low. Went to a lot of shows then but often somewhere during the festivities I was passed out! I’m sure you know what I mean. Later I cleaned up quite a bit. In fact most of the time in Testors it was all work and we were relatively straight… well, sometimes, ha ha!

It all went in phases I guess, long periods of concentrated work and then also some wild times. Actually I crashed the stage at a Teenage Lust show. The Planets were opening and I went onstage with a joint in my mouth and had some delusion of jamming together with The Planets. I remember the bass player took a hit and also the drummer, but the singer was not happy with me standing there as if we were in a rehearsal room together. I’m going “you guys wanna jam?” Eventually a stage hand gently led me off stage before I really made a complete fool of myself! Really despicable of me if I think of it now, but those were the days of getting blitzed and I suddenly was inspired by them and wanted to jam!

Fun times but eventually after crashing my car into the façade of a night club and being taken in for ‘evaluation,’ I had to cut down on the pills mixed with gin. Sometimes I meet people who saw some of these antics and I guess since they also were under the influence, it was somewhat entertaining to them. I saw Manster once, I think Charlie Martin (the sound man/booker of CBGB) at the time was managing them.

How influential was the Coventry scene out in Queens, where KISS emerged from dressed in their cowboy attire?

SV- I know Joey Ramone went out there to Coventry a lot. I went once. With FURY we played mostly in Manhattan and Westchester. Later with Testors, I usually stayed in Manhattan. As far as the influence of the scene that was happening at Coventry on the general NYC scene, I think it was mostly evident at Max’s not at CBGB.

Funny thing... There was a time when you had to make a choice to be a band that played CBGB or a band that played Max’s. There was a clear division at one point. But with Testors we played both places and didn’t have a particular loyalty to either in terms of exclusivity. We liked both places and desperately played any shows we could get.

Did you ever get to see Jeff Hyman's (Joey Ramone) pre-Ramones band called Sniper?

No, I never saw Sniper but I did often see Joey walking around town looking very cool and strange in the pre-Ramones times. Joey was very open and warm, also quite smart, in fact, very smart. Well read and all with that strong Queens accent. I’m thinking of Joey now and I really remember the accent. Can I tell you about it ?

To a lot of us, the Queens accent sounded a bit thick but that’s the way it is. There is a certain amount of unfair prejudiced that gets laid on in the perception of accents. Some of the boroughs in NYC have a strong classic form, a very thick accent that comes from the early immigrant days. Do you hear it sometimes? Also it shows up in the grammar, I’m sure I have some of that myself too. Did you ever hear the Kiss song where they go “Get Da Firehouse?” That’s typical. It literally means that someone should make a telephone call to the fire station to summon the firemen to come. But in the Queens vernacular, it comes out as “get Da Firehouse”. I find it charming, the Queens accent, all the Ramones had it. But the prejudices remain and exist on different levels, unfair but existing in some form or another in all of us. Who would you rather have operate on your brain, a guy talking out of the side of his mouth like Sylvester Stallone “Yeah dare is a ding in yo brain I gotta yank the fuck outta dare,” or Robert Redford/Cary Grant? Anyway I just wanted to mention that with those Ramones it was super charming and Joey was very erudite and sharp! Here is a clip of Joey and Dee Dee talking on my answering machine.

At one point Joey and Daniel Rey were going to produce an album of mine but then the financing fell through because a greedy lawyer got involved and was squeezing the label for a fortune and he ruined the deal. Joey and Daniel were cool, I was cool, the band was cool but this lawyer really got his head full of ego and in the end, jinxed the whole deal. Now I hear he is on the staff at the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, probably one of the guys who votes “no” each time Grand Funk comes up for nomination. Screw him! I told him to be careful, I said “Listen man, I would record this album for free and float over to Detroit from Amsterdam in a Styrofoam coffee cup to do it.” But he didn’t listen, eventually I got other financing and the album was recorded in Nashville with me, Scott, Captain, and Cheetah, without a producer. It sounds like a friggin demo, but the songs are pretty good.

I really would have loved it if Joey and Daniel could have produced it, I miss Joey a lot, what a sweet person he was. Definitely from the heart and nice to be around. Long answer to “did I ever see the band Sniper?' but the truth is that when someone mentions Joey I must say more. He deserves it. Someday I will write a chapter on the guy. Lots of funny stuff too, going to see a movie with Joey was a real adventure, on the way out he had to touch all the seats in our row, he had some form of OCD, so that led to many strange occurrences.

And not to blow my own horn too loud, but you know that leather jacket he always wore? He told me once that he carried a cassette of some of my songs in one of the zipper pockets of that jacket so that when he was producing a band or trying to demonstrate to someone how it is done right, he would whip that cassette out and use my stuff as an example. I know that might read strange since it sounds like I’m claiming I’m so damn great, but it ain’t where I’m coming from. I just had a cool connection with Joey and want to share some of it. We were on the phone one time and he was crying about the girlfriend he lost and he said he had been listening to my song ‘Crazy Game’ and broke down. The guy was soulful and that’s the best quality a person can have.

Were there any other bands you were involved with after FURY and before Testors?

SV- There also was one band between Distance and Fury that was called Liquid Diamonds. We recorded four or five songs and did a few shows. One was in New Jersey and one in NYC at the Bottom Line. Those were memorable. I have tapes from that band as well. (Check out a clip below of Liquid Diamonds, recorded in 1973, from an upcoming HoZac Archival 7" release):

I have been lugging trunks full of tapes everywhere I’ve gone, for years man! After Testors broke up I moved from Bleeker Street in NYC to Minnesota, then from Minnesota to Holland, then from Holland to Los Angeles and then again back to Europe, and moving around in Europe as well. Always carting these huge heavy trunks everywhere I go and flipping out at airports if they even try to x-ray them or even attempt to put them through any sort of metal detector device. I think it’s cool Hozac is putting something of it out there! Now the trunks are a little bit lighter to carry.

What's the story behind the '100% Proof' song?

SV- The song is about 100% commitment.

And with that, the fine folks at HoZac Records give you the FURY debut 7" in it's intended original format, stream the A-side "Flying" below and grab your copy of the 1st pressing today.

Use these links to pre-order the FURY 7" right here:

US residents, CLICK HERE:

Can/Mex residents, CLICK HERE:

Overseas residents, CLICK HERE:

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Fast forward to 1976: if you're not familiar with Sonny's best known band, TESTORS, you need to take care of that problem right away. Sorely overlooked in almost all of the historical pieces on the 1970s NYC punk scene, TESTORS were possibly too raw and too incorrigible and too care-free to even try to get it together with a record label. They shared many a legendary show at all the usual spots, but their sole release during their existence didn't arrive until 1980's 'Time Is Mine' debut 7" which showed a drastically different side to the band, a streamlined powerpop single that was great on it's own, but only hinted at what ugly stains stayed hidden in the shadows. It wouldn't be until the great punk excavation of the mid 1990s that Incognito Records in Germany took the initiative and issued the two now-classic 10" EPs that would indelibly scar the surface of the "known" NYC punk history for years to come. Check out the 2LP/2CD set issued on Swami Records in 2003 for further proof of this sorely overlooked yet iconic New York punk band.

And luckily, you can still catch Sonny Vincent live in an intimate setting, as he's currently recording and touring with his new band the Bad Reactions, featuring members of the Carbonas. Great stuff, still as raw as ever, and don't forget to keep up with Sonny on Facebook HERE, as well.

EXHUMED: Bizarros Complete Collection 1976-1980 2LP

Brian Costello

With the hindsight of thirty-plus years, it’s clear that Ohio, statewide, was the reigning champ of mid-70’s to early 80’s seminal underground greatness. No other state produced such broad-spectrumed nonconformity—from the avant-whuh? coming out of Hospital Records in Cincinnati (to say nothing of Scum of the Earth’s legendary appearance on WKRP) to the oft-chronicled/better known p-u-n-k and art-shart oozing out of Cleveland and Columbus.

And then there’s Akron. “Where the rubber meets the road,” said Mark Mothersbaugh to Dick Clark, when Devo appeared on American Bandstand in 1981. While surely an accurate city slogan, Akron was also home to The Bizarros, who obviously never got the national recognition others from their region received (even with a 1979 LP released by Mercury Records), but with Windian Records putting out this Bizarros 1976-1980 double LP compiling the Mercury LP, their singles, their split LP with Rubber City Rebels, three demos for a second LP that never materialized (previously unreleased), and three live tracks (including a killer cover of Music Machine’s “Talk Talk”) from 1979, now is a good time to (re)discover a band who—in spite of whatever creative debts they owed to one Louis Reed, Alice Cooper (perhaps?), and Cleveland legends like Peter Laughner and David Thomas—created a prismatic collection of well-executed music that both straddles the line between artsy and punksy and therefore quite often sounds like it could have come out last week.

While so many of their contemporaries the whole wide world over were learning to play as they went along (assuming they even bothered trying to learn to play), what’s immediately apparent in every Bizarros song across these four sides is that these guys knew their instruments and could therefore realize their vision…with an end result like something akin to Television if you replaced the urban sophistication with a rust belted frenetic twitch. Their drummers play possessed (their first drummer, the late Rick Garberson in particular) as they use their whole kits in precise propulsion. The bass line in “Lady Doubonette” is a snake-sneak of instant earworm. The guitars downstroke in Sterling Morrison subway rhythms, then break into these unorthodox (especially for the time) one note at a time scale-skipping like in “New Order” or “Nova” or “Seeing is Believing.” Over all of this, Nick Nicholis talk-sings of “clocktower dreams” and poetic street imagery so representative of the times, while still finding time to lament the coked-out malaise of disco queens in “Quiana Girls.” In the transitions, the songs start, stop, hop, jerk, then shoot into the next parts in a bold creativity rarely heard from anyone—then or now.

Between the ease of finding new music and the steady reissues and rediscoveries of bands like Bizarros, it’s a great time to be a music fan and/or a musician ever on the hunt for inspiration. This collection has a lot to offer both camps.

Pick up a copy of the 2LP collection right HERE, and check out "Lady Doubonette" from The Bizarros' first EP from 1976:

5 Shots: 2012 Blackout Friday

Canderson

May 2012 found me back in Chicago again for yet another Blackout. The opening night pre-party art show over at Volcano Room was wild and woolly and helped set the stage for the first official night at the Empty Bottle. You can see more from this night over on my canderson click blog.
I did something a little different this year than previously–shot both stills and video, though I only had my Nikon V1 for video. It does a great job but the audio isn’t exactly the best, mostly because I’m usually right up front next to the monitors and right in front of either one person’s amp or the drums or whatever. The best place to stand would probably be in the back center. Or it’s even better to just get a mix off the board. I did no such thing, though. I reckon the videos are good enough to give you an idea of what each band sounded like. I pretty much hate describing what bands sound like to people. So this year I got photos and video, a full-on media extravaganza and AV club overload!!!

Screaming Yellow Zonkers

Cozy

Plateaus

Video

Spider Fever

Davilla 666

INTERVIEW: REDD KROSS

Chuck Nolan

On May 19th Chicago will be treated to the return of Redd Kross, who are in town for the Hozac Blackout Fest at the Empty Bottle. They will be performing the first [1980] Red Cross EP and the first full length Born Innocent [1982] in their entirety, along with some surprises. On the eve of this momentous occasion, Steven McDonald has been kind enough to grant Victim Of Time an interview.

VoT: This year’s Hozac Blackout lineup is the greatest ever. How did this extra special first Red Cross EP and Born Innocent in their entirety show come to be? I’ll admit I was stunned to find out you guys got booked!

Steven McDonald: [Laughter] How did it come to be? Well…for me the catalyst was Mario Rubalcaba of Spider Fever who’s playing Friday night, and he’s also the drummer of OFF!, a band that I play in with Keith [Morris of Black Flag and Circle Jerks] and Mario. Mario, ... one of his other bands (Spider Fever), he plays in a few, had done stuff with Hozac, and so he’s known Todd [Novak – Hozac Records] for a while, and at any rate him and Todd got to talking so they kind of dreamed it up together. Mario clued me in and the next thing you know now it’s happening in [a few] days!

Check out RED CROSS 1st EP (Posh Boy Records 1980) right here:

VoT: I’m glad it’s happening!

SM: Yeah, me too!

VoT: A lot of musicians seem to musically “evolve” and they lose interest in their early work, if not show outright disdain for it…

SM: [Laughter]

VoT: For example, I’m not holding my breath for a Modern Lovers first LP reunion tour, or The Replacements 'Sorry Ma Forgot To Take Out The Trash' tour. Now you’re a guy who can play his ass off, has backed Sparks, which must mean you’re a virtuoso –

SM: [Laughs]

VoT: …what inspired Redd Kross to do shows, playing songs you wrote as kids? Not that I’m complaining mind you, I think it’s great!

SM: Well, y’know, I’m proud of those records! We’re still doin’ newer stuff too, we’ll play some other stuff as well. The EP and LP are maybe a half an hours worth of music. I think the night will go a little longer than that. I think there’s a sense of confidence about what we do anyway. It’s not like we had that one hit song that was massive and then we never had any success after that, it’s like everything’s underground weird shit!

[Laughter]

Red Cross 'Born Innocent' lineup 1982

VoT: The Red Cross EP came out in 1980, Born Innocent came out in 1982, pretty near the birth of LA punk, and damn near ground zero of LA hardcore. Your first gig was opening for Black Flag, Ron Reyes [Black Flag] was in the band at one point, Greg Hetson too [Circle Jerks/Bad Religion]. It’s one of the most documented musical era of all time, it seems like, books, video, kids view it as legendary. What story or stories did you personally witness that you find yourself telling people you meet, kids, over and over and over again that didn’t make it to a book, like, say…We Got The Neutron Bomb?

SM: I found myself talking the other day about being at an X show when I was a little kid, about 200 people at a crowded little club called The Hong Kong Café. Darby Crash of The Germs, who was like my biggest idol at the time, loved X. Everyone knew he kinda hated everything, but he loved X. He was in front of the crowd, sitting on the stage against the monitor worshipping them. At the time, this was kind of bizarre. To me it was like if Mick Jagger was front and center for, um, like you know…[pauses]

VoT: T-Rex?

SM: Yeah [chuckles], like some other British Invasion band, and in the middle of the set, in-between songs, Billy Zoom the charismatic guitar player stops and says “get him off the stage!” It was an awkward moment, [Darby] started cryin’, everyone was like…some big power move, and then Pat Smear jumped up on stage and punched Billy Zoom in the face!

VoT: [Laughter]

SM: …and then ran into the kitchen of the club which was just off the stage. So, for me being a little kid and watching all that, that was like, uh, my idol's in a ridiculous showdown.

VoT: Yeah, ha, I’m assuming they’ve kissed and made up since.

VoT: I don’t know! I don’t know if Pat and Billy Zoom ever talk much, I don’t know what went down, I don’t think anyone ever chased Pat into the kitchen, but it was pretty funny [laughter] the show just went on.

Red Cross live at Santa Monica Pier 1982

VoT: You guys covered "Cease To Exist" by Charles Manson, the secret track on Born Innocent. Has Charlie ever commented on it, and who receives the royalties for the song?

VoT: I don’t know, I don’t have an answer for either of those. I don’t know who his publisher is, I suppose someone’s collecting either the BMI or ASCAP for that. Y’know, at the time we were a little bit freaked out. I think Sandra Good and Squeaky Fromme, it hadn’t been too long since they had attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford. There were still like some freaky stragglers who could have came you know, looking for us, or just like, wanting to connect with us for all I know. We kinda didn’t really want to invite that into our lives. We were just at that time kind of discovering the folklore and mythology about Los Angeles in the late 60’s. Growing up, everybody was affected by the Manson Murders and my parents had a copy of Helter Skelter in the living room and looking at the pictures with the blacked out bodies…so creepy. Then later on hearing the rock ‘n’ roll stories, hearing about Dennis Wilson, hanging out at Charlie’s house, and vice versa, and all the hippies moving into Dennis’ house, there was this rock ‘n’ roll story that didn’t seem all that different from the environment that we were living in. It was kind of bizarre; it was like a piece of LA heritage. Not that I idolized him, it was more just creepy to realize that I was part of the same culture. It not that long, it’s a decade later and I think it was just kind of fascinating to us.

VoT: I’m imagining you checked your groupie’s foreheads to make sure they weren’t covering up an X…

[Laughter]

VoT: 1984’s Teen Babes From Monsanto. I’ve owned this record for years, it came out on Gasatanka Records. It’s a prophetic title, since you guys have been on some labels that have uh…run out of gas.

Redd Kross 'Teen Babes of Monsanto' era 1984

SM: Ha ha ha! Gasatanka was the brainchild of Pat Fear of the band White Flag, he’s been a friend of ours, it was his label and it went through Enigma Records which was one of the big indies.

VoT: 1984, a full two years after Born Innocent, why were you guys inspired to release a collection of covers? [Steven Laughs] That’s something a band usually does when, uh, The Spiders From Mars are about to break up, or Guns ‘N’ Roses are about to strangle each other…

SM: Well, we were probably just smoking too much pot to write our own songs [laughter] and also we were kind of going through a transition and that was the music we were listening to. In retrospect if you think about this band from the punk era…the first album was ’80 but we recorded in ’79 and we started in ’78 so we definitely caught sort of the peak of the first wave of LA punk rock even though we were so young, and so for in ’84, ’83 I guess, we started covering influences like The Shangri-La’s, Boyce & Hart, and Kiss and Man Who Sold The World-era Bowie, - showing off where our heads were, trying to turn our friends on to stuff we thought was really cool, and doing our own take on it. […] I dunno, it’s a cool record, we’ll probably play a tune or two off that at the Blackout.

VoT: I’ve journeyed to L.A. a dozen times or so, and among the rock scene there’s this obsession with the Partridge Family. What’s the skinny on that? Looking at the slipcover to Teen Babes, I’m wondering if Redd Kross somehow spearheaded this.

SM: Well, probably on Teen Babes, we planned on including a Partridge Family cover but we couldn’t afford enough studio time to record it properly. We used to cover "Somebody Wants To Love You." Dave Markey had a film called The Slog Movie that documents early 80’s LA hardcore and we’re in that video doing a Partridge Family cover. I think we were playing with a bunch of hardcore bands, and the Suicidal Tendencies, they weren’t even a band yet, they were a gang and they were in the crowd […] and it’s not documented in the film, but what happened was that the Suicidal gang really decided that they had had enough of these weirdos playing Partridge Family covers at a punk rock show and they started throwing kiwi fruits. These hippies were selling kiwi fruits, the first time I’d ever tasted a kiwi fruit! [Laughter]

VoT: Hopefully not involuntarily!

SM: Nah, yeah, not voluntarily, it was kinda funky, a cool moment because we didn’t back down, and then afterwards they offered us protection. We earned the respect from the Suicidal gang. For us it wasn’t an LA thing, for us, I think I was raised by television as much as I was raised by my parents and it was impossible not to look back at those previous 10 years of our lives as we were writing songs and trying to think of things to talk about, things to reference. We had just gotten though a very psychedelic experience which was popular culture in the 70’s. This is stuff that people were throwing away, they thought it was disposable and we were like wait, dust that off. The truth is, that stuff was masterfully crafted. Great pop songwriters like Carole King and The Wrecking Crew played on that stuff. We loved it and we weren’t afraid to wave that flag. A lot of people kind of connected to that perspective and it might have been considered very “un-punk.” At some point we found ourselves fueling off these things. We were rejected by a lot of the so-called counterculture, the rebellious subcultures like punk rock and stuff. We found those environments to get very regimented and they ended up having more rules and more strict rules than mainstream culture and that was a drag. It became a thing for us to just like piss off the supposed rebels. We were always finding ourselves in these weird situations playing with bands like Social Distortion and the audience wanted to kill us! [Laughter] How do you shock a room full of weirdos? Do something weirder!

VoT: Your next LP, a lot of people consider the definitive Redd Kross LP, 1987’s Neurotica. You were absorbing your cultures, your LA mythology, eating bowls of Frosted Flakes and ready to record your new record. You found new members [guitarist] Robert Heckler and [drummer] Roy McDonald. Are they playing the upcoming Hozac show?

SM: Actually Robert can’t make the show so we’re playing with a fill in guitar player Jason Shapiro who was a brother in arms from the same era from an LA band called Celebrity Skin.

VoT: Oh yeah, wow, cool, totally familiar with them.

SM: Yeah, we did a record recently and we’ve been playing with Robert, and it is essentially the Neurotica lineup. Yeah, Robert joined the band at that time [Neurotica era] and [he] actually joined when we started touring which was right after Teen Babes From Monsanto, and yeah, he’s a wonderful weirdo!

VoT: You guys must have loved him, you let him write songs. Those are usually a musician's last words, "hey guys, I've got some songs!"

SM: Ha ha! Yeah, I think we’ve always been very inclusive. We’ve had many different lineups but we only use people that we’re inspired by. I think they’ve had some effect on how things have mutated and some records had very different flavors, and y’know we were excited about working with different people and Robert is such a bona fide unique artist.

VoT: Neurotica – the definite Redd Kross record to a lot of fans, and certainly to the press, do you agree?

Redd Kross 'Neurotica' lineup 1987

SM: I don’t know, I think it was just the culmination of what we talked about in Teen Babes From Monsanto, taking all those influences and mixing them up into our own experience in the post-punk era, and mixing it up into a brand new stew and I think that record was a really fresh moment for that and it just turned a lot of people on. How the record holds up? For me it’s kind of hard for me to be totally objective, I like our new record best [Laughter] - very Paul Stanley of me to say! I’m proud of that record. We’ve never played it in its entirety. I would do that sometime.

VoT: Cool. Okay, Chicago has always been fascinated by power pop type stuff…

SM: Oh yeah.

VoT: Off the top of my head, Cheap Trick, Material Issue, Urge Overkill, even Celebrity Skin for that matter were some bands that were embraced by Chicago. I’m imagining you guys were heralded as living gods around the time Neurotica came out in Chicago. Would this be fair to say, and please tell me any impressions or recollections you have of Chicago when it came to touring?

SM: I can’t remember, it must have been Neurotica – the first time we played Chicago it was an all ages venue…

VoT: Medusa’s.

SM: Yeah Medusa’s, exactly, with The Meatmen, it was a daytime show and it was a hot summer day so we didn’t know what to expect and it ended up being really really sweltering, and really really bitchin. It was a packed club and kids were just going crazy, it was super fun. And that’s what sort of started our positive rapport with the city of Chicago! It’s a town that has always been a highlight for us on tour. Maybe Omaha wasn’t great [laughter] but Chicago you knew was going to be a blast. And as you said, Cheap Trick, shit like that, we felt kind of a kinship too.

Redd Kross with Meatmen and Rights of The Accused at Medusa's

VoT: After Neurotica was released your label Big Time folded and you guys were in limbo for a while. Was there any particular opportunity that was missed as the result of this legal situation that was particularly upsetting?

SM: Uh, [chuckles] I don’t know…maybe. I don’t remember! [Laughter] There was momentum with the record and then the label fell they kind of lost their funding. The guy who owned the label I guess he had funded everything on money that wasn’t really his. While we were on tour he got sued and so by the time we were home the label didn’t really exist anymore so I think we could have had maybe more marketing support but y’know, I was pretty oblivious to that stuff at the time, I didn’t really know. I was just off doing my job being a bass player extraordinaire!

VoT: This brings us up to Third Eye on Atlantic Records. You guys were on a major label. Good or bad experience?

SM: Uh, eh, well, you know it was fine, it was a little awkward. It was a little weird for us. I don’t think it really envisioned what we were doing, making sense in that world but it was the obvious next step to do. I don’t think we’ve ever really had a community that we felt, outside of that first year with that weirdo Black Flag community but everyone was different but by the time we were doing the Third Eye record we just wanted to take the stuff that we were doing a step further with no expectations of what was going to happen. The major label world, it’s hard not to feel their expectations and when we didn’t turn into like The Bay City Rollers overnight that just kind of ended very abruptly. It was kind of jarring.

VoT: The songs were there, I like the record, but in the press I read that Third Eye “threw some fans” and they didn’t get it, but it doesn’t seem that far of a jump from Neurotica. Did this press perception have anything to do with the fact that it was the start of grunge, and you’re dressing like the Bay City Rollers, The Quick, like uh…glitter rock dudes?

SM: Yeah, probably that, probably also the sound of the record, but we just got really, really bubblegum. I think my brother was thinking, well, how do we interact with mainstream culture? What’s been mainstream that we’ve enjoyed? He’s coming back to early 70’s mainstream radio which I don’t think was necessarily a very competitive move at that time. We were doing our own thing and people wanted us to compete with Jane’s Addiction, and instead we were competing with 1910 Fruitgum Company! [Laughter] I think now days maybe that would translate easier. At the time people just didn’t get it. It was also a little bit of an oddball record for us too, we were having some personnel changes when we were making the record, had I been older and wiser maybe we would have gotten our personnel straightened out. Like I said, members of the band have such a big effect. We lost our drummer during that record and he’d sing some amazing lead vocals at the time […] his name was Victor Andrizzo, he was in the band for a couple of years. He’s a big session player these days, a sweet guy but at the time we were having creative differences and it just became a struggle. Also, we were working with a producer…we hired someone just based on [that] it seemed like they were very passive. We were walking into a major label situation and we just wanted to make sure that we controlled this conversation creatively. I think I would make that decision differently now because we ended up working with someone we had absolutely nothing in common with creatively but that we thought that they seemed passive, that we would be able to control them and tell them what to do. And unfortunately what happened is they just pouted a lot.

VoT: [laughs]

SM: We’d say we don’t want that guitar sound, we sound like G.E. Smith, we want it to sound like The MC5, and he didn’t understand that - so he would just pout! Thinking back to making the record, it wasn’t a very fun process. We weren’t ready for it, but I hate to weigh down the experience people have with my weirdo insight because I think that I think people who connect with that record, it means a lot to them. I think that sometimes the whole story, is uh, even though I lived it doesn’t mean that it’s a more relevant story than what just a listener had. Maybe things would have been different had we had the Phaseshifter [1993] album but we weren’t ready to do that yet. Part of the Redd Kross experience is we were so young, and we were making records, going through puberty, ha, and going through stuff like that and I think that the evolution of it for me is like watching us learn how to do what we wanted to do, having these grand ideas but not really always knowing how to execute them. But I hate saying this stuff because in some ways it sounds like I’m admitting defeat or that I agree with the haters. I don’t. It is what it is, and if you dig it, great! It’s only the new record that I finally feel like we know how to make records. I’m 44 years old now so I better know how to make records!

[Laughter]

VoT: Great answer! [Steve laughs] Okay, 1993’s Phaseshifter and 1997’s Show World, [both on Mercury] the haters were gone, no bad hype over those, "Lady In The Front Row," "Teen Competition," some of my favorite Redd Kross stuff of all time…

SM: Oh, thank you.

VoT: You guys really stayed true to yourselves which is admirable in that post-Cobain era of big advances, signings, buses full of A&R guys... Well, do you have any specific story, maybe a funny example of the record company trying to get you do to do something you weren’t comfortable with?

SM: I don’t think Redd Kross was ever enough of a real concern at the corporate level, at the top of the chain for anybody to even try to tinker with what we were doing. […] Y’know all those clichés like SST, around the time we signed to Atlantic there was this bumper sticker “Corporate Rock Still Sucks” [Chuck laughs] and whatever. I could get into a fight with Steve Albini about this stuff and he makes some good points about why major labels are not right for bands, but I don’t think they really make that much sense, anymore for sure. It’s a very different landscape but at the time for what we were doing it made total sense to give it a shot and see what happened. I don’t regret anything about being on majors, I just regret that we didn’t have a home, one single home for doing all these records because it would have made the catalog a lot less confusing to have them in one place, just from the logistics managerially. We were very nomadic for many years as far as business side, going to different labels, and it was only in the 90’s that we made 2 records on the same label!

VoT: So no guy ever showed up with a cigar, and a leisure suit saying “say, you guys should wear some ripped jeans and flannel, the kids are into that!”

SM: No, that would have been awesome, but it probably would have been a better sign, that we were going to get more attention at the record label had that happened. [Laughter] That guy never showed up, and you can’t blame that guy for a record that you don’t like. There was no background deal where we sold our soul.

VoT: Here’s an important question. Redd Kross’s hiatus of 15 years. To put this in perspective, that’s more years than you were on the planet when your first record came out. I know you’ve done other stuff, but why so long?

SM: Well, it was a 10 year hiatus from playing live, 15 year hiatus from making another record. Y’know, I just wanted to do other things. I continued to do music but by the time we were done with Show World, I had been doing Redd Kross for 20 years. I had made career decisions about my life at age 11. So at 31 I was like I’m not even sure as an adult, I totally back these decisions I made when I was 11. So I had to see, maybe I’d be more fulfilled in music behind the scenes, or being a side musician, studio musician, or producer and what I found was I enjoyed all these other jobs and for me as long as I do it well, I like whatever I do. Ultimately, I realized that performing is a big part of what I do, Redd Kross is a big part of who I am, and now I’m a grown up and I realize that I don’t need to put all of my eggs in one basket. I can spread them out and that keeps me from actually ever getting bored. It keeps me grateful. We actually started the [new] record pretty soon after the hiatus ended. There were some things that started to take precedence at some point and we got distracted. We did like 70 percent of the record in a couple of weeks but then just doing the finishing touches, the mixes took about 5 years!

VoT: Wow…

SM: Ha ha, yeah, but I don’t think that’s going be obvious to someone who listens to it because the record doesn’t sound like a shelved record or an overworked record. It sounds like a really spontaneous rock record by a great rock band!

VoT: Cool. Punk rock fans have this tendency to worship “the old stuff” with almost religious zeal, and sadly seem to not embrace the “new stuff” by their heroes, when their heroes reach middle, or old age. Yet your punk rock supergroup OFF! seemed like it was universally heralded! There remains quite a buzz about the band and its music. How did that feel?

SM: Surprising. It’s great, fun, awesome, it’s still the same, it seems to be the case. We just released our 2nd record and with the exception of Pitchfork which still gave it a respectful, review but the first record was just like [critically] over the top. Ultimately when I think about it, I think maybe one of the reasons people really respond to this, is in the current landscape I think people are kind of inundated with new stuff being presented to them. The beautiful thing about the internet is you don’t need a lot of middle men to get your stuff out there. The downside of that is it’s overwhelming to people how much stuff is out there.

VoT: I agree.

SM: Ultimately I think people kind of go, there’s so much stuff but what’s the real stuff? What’s the authentic stuff? I think that’s the chord that OFF! struck with people, was an authenticity chord. I think the same is true with the new Redd Kross record. Now that I listen to this record, I think this is just a really great fucking rock record! My brother wrote all these tunes and he’s like a bona fide “Gabba Gabba Hey, we accept you one of us” weirdo and his point of view is very unique in his way of expressing rock and roll. It’s very pure and authentic. I’m just very grateful that I get to be part of projects, and I really believe in them. I think we struck a chord with the other “misfit toys” on the island!

VoT: Ha ha! How would you describe the styles on the new record? It’s called Researching The Blues, which made me wonder. I know you’re a Jack White/White Stripes aficionado, and went viral with that whole situation where you recorded bass lines over their record and posted it on the internet. Did that inspire the title?

SM: You know, it’s just a really great rock record, it’s all territory that Redd Kross has referenced prior, I just think it’s done in a way where we’ve executed and realized it to its fullest, and that’s satisfying to me. The title, Researching The Blues, my brother wrote that title, and I think for him it’s just funny… [Laughter] For me I think there’s something a little deeper to it. I do think it’s humorous but I also think there is something very real about it. You’ll have to judge for yourself when you hear it. Some of it is very esoteric, some of it is sort of literal, but ultimately all of it has the ability to make you feel a bunch of different things and I’m just very proud that we pulled it off.

VoT: Well, you’ve had plenty of years to come up with it [Steve laughs] so I’m really looking forward to it. Would you say there’s plenty of power pop that Redd Kross fans know and love on the record?

SM: Yeah.

VoT: Cool, my remaining question, do you still enjoy a good bowl of Frosted Flakes?

SM: Yeah, of course, but now I have a 3 year old to eat them with me!

VoT: Thanks Steve!

Check out Redd Kross HERE and soak in these incredible video clips:

"Blow You A Kiss In The Wind" official video:

An incredible cover of Kim Fowley's (Jimmy Jukebox) 'Motorboat'

Hozac Blackout Fest 2012

Todd Killings

This year's annual Hozac BLACKOUT Fest is upon us and we're excited to say that it's possibly the most staggering lineup we've pulled together yet. Since 2001 (OK, well, we took 2007-2010 off) the BLACKOUT has been a glorious mess of Springtime in Chicago, doing it all, and, of course, "Overdoing it," over a long weekend, all to the best live soundtrack you can imagine. The lineup this year is as great as always, but maybe even a little more so with the startling addition of one of the first psychedelic rock'n rollers, Roky Erickson, into the fold, not to mention the long-running 'project of figuring out a way to get Redd Kross to play their early material' in an intimate live setting! Yes, we're excited beyond belief and we hope you are just as well. But how would it even be possible without the strong crop of modern bands we've brought together who are running at the peak of their game? If you look hard enough, there's a very small wealth of underground bands cranking out amazing, and even sometimes polarizing rock'n roll savagery in many of its ambiguous forms, and we feel like we've put together an incredible lineup of relevant bands coming from all different directions, yet all sure to win over even the most hardened musical isolationists. From the raucous pumping pop of Davila 666, Ketamines, Gentleman Jesse, Plateaus and COZY to the destructive smash of VIDEO, Human Eye, Rayon Beach and Homostupids, right on down to the heavenly introspective haze of Bare Mutants, Fungi Girls and Medication, it's a massively diversified conglomerate of bands that all have one thing in common, but we just can't figure out what it is! They just all sound great, and that's why Hozac isn't just a one-dimensional record label with one fixed direction, but a divergent collection of many different exciting sounds from all across the underground, and this is what truly sets us apart.

And this year we've brought the whole mess back to the Empty Bottle, where the terror and exhilaration of the original series of Blackout Fests came into it's full force back in 2004, and this year expects to blow even that experience straight through the roof.

Thanks again for being the adventurous type, there's really not enough of you out there anymore and we appreciate checking out new bands that you haven't quite heard of yet!

Get tickets NOW!

Thursday Art Show / Opening Party: ORDER TICKETS HERE

Friday - Sunday at Empty Bottle: ORDER TICKETS HERE

Check out a live clip of Redd Kross performing the Posh Boy EP in its entirety right here:

EXHUMED: Mentally Ill 'Gacy's Place' 7"

Collin M.

Despite a fertile proto-punk underground of writers and artists and an early recognition of the styles and sounds of the incipient new wave, the Chicago punk scene of the late 1970s was likely the most disparate and disjointed of any city of its size in the entire U.S. Of its bands and performers who today are whispered about in hushed reverent-tones (The Exit, Sundog Summit, J.T. IV, The Crucified), nobody knew they put out records, nobody even saw them play – outside their local neighborhoods, nobody even knew they existed. So while cities half Chicago’s size could boast trademark sounds, vibrant local indies, entrenched club and bar networks or even major deals with overseas labels, the pre-hardcore, pre-Wax-Trax Chicago bands eked out a solitary, solipsistic existence. You can hear it with your own eyes.

And while this lack of commercial outlets likely proved personally frustrating at the time for the musicians involved, one undeniable benefit wrought through toiling in isolation was the creation of an unfettered interzone outside and beyond the doctrinaire pale of new wave hip chic. In bedrooms, practice spaces or open mic nights, the chances of someone looking askance at a Roxy Music cover or the lengths of one’s hair or the shape of someone’s guitar became negligible. Approval of influences not directly specified within the canon of three-chord thrash also ceased to be a point of controversy. Sounds were allowed to develop and evolve or devolve like overgrown lawns. Inside the bubble, it was musical Amish country; time stopped at whenever the group or groups decided. Which are just some of the reasons why records recorded under such psychologically Spartan conditions often have endlessly more to offer than the most ideologically straight-leg genre release.

And in speaking about records of this ilk, the one that nearly always springs to mind first is ‘Gacy’s Place,’ the 1979 debut by Deerfield, Illinois the Mentally Ill.

Now, I am not here to attempt to act as gate-keeper or regent for a record that requires the imprimatur of no one; not least an anonymous internet bozo like myself. A long-established classic which produces the rarest of things within the music community – consensus – also shows no attenuation of its abilities to both attract and to repel. The band name doesn’t matter, the subject matter doesn’t (though both are memorable). This record could in another language – by a folk band reading the phone book in Hebrew – and it would still make me uncomfortable, in the best ways possible.

Like being trapped inside a one-room corrugated metal hell house with Africanized-bumblebee-in-a-mason-jar-style-fuzz and a singer who sounds as if his summary vocal influences were the echoes from the midnight intake room at some local asylum – that’s around the habitat in which this record particularly slithers and congeals. Comparable to little else outside of early Chain Gang sides, ‘Gacy’s Place’ is the stained and fetid little black dress inside which every record collector so desperately desires to squeeze. And now, thanks (AGAIN) to the one-man wrecking-crew of Last Laugh Records you can finally affordably try it on for size. Mr. Last Laugh also has more than your best listening interests at heart too – he quite obviously values your personal happiness as well, which is why he has made this quality reissue’s street-date February 14th: the perfect treat for your funny valentine. Order your copy HERE.

ALSO, if you’re a gig-going sort in the Chicago-land area, you can do Mr. Final Guffaw one better and CATCH the Mentally Ill – live and in person – tonight at the Ultra Lounge with fellow original Chi-town square-pegs, Tutu & The Pirates. Furthermore, to commemorate the event, the Mentally Ill will be selling an extremely limited hand-full of reissue test-pressings with alternate picture sleeves specifically made up and designed only to sell at this show. Less than 60 will be on sale, with less than 15 on red vinyl and once they are gone they are gone. Don’t risk getting caught without or you could wind up in the collectorscum padded cell.

Guilty Pleasures LP

Todd Killings

God, it's been so long, but I'll be damned if the Guilty Pleasures still don't sound incredible, blasting out of the speakers on this fine evening. What you have here is one of the long lost studio albums of the cream o' the crop of the turn of the century's finest rock'n roll bands, firing off at the top of their game, but slipping through the cracks of history, ...until now. It would be unfair to leave out their origins, as they were all Chicago transplants from the great 'burg of Bloomington/Normal IL., only three quick hours south of the big city, who grew up immersed in the rich rock'n roll culture that this oddly ahead-of-its-time college town provided so very early on, as a haven for the seedy garage underworld. Rock'n roll flourished there like you wouldn't believe, and everyone could feel its thrilling pulse every time they walked past Mother Murphy's record store, or saw one of the incredible bands rolling through town at The Gallery. The Guilty Pleasures were no different, and in hindsight, were clearly its best musical by-product.

The Guilty Pleasures came together in Bloomington, IL roughly around 1997, and as a new Chicago resident uprooted from area myself, we found ourselves ironically taking the train to O'Hare airport to hop on a bus, headed back down I-55 south to see incredible bands that couldn't penetrate the wall of indifference in Chicago, booking-wise, at the time, usually with this great new band opening up the night's debauchery. They immediately showed promise well beyond their confines, as they got much tighter, more explosive, and quickly outgrew their hometown and made lasting friendships and connections that showed something much brighter up ahead. By the time they'd pulled themselves up to Chicago as their new home a couple years later, this ragingly shambolic band was delivering it as raw and nasty as any of their peers, inciting frenzy, delirious confusion, and hysteric hyperventilation any time they'd grace the "stage" at such spots such as Pop's On Chicago, Roby's, and the now legendary Big Horse Saloon. Their debut 7" single on Sack O' Shit in 1999 laid down their most notorious anthems for mass consumption at last, yet their looming, never-quite-materialized LP, always seemed to escape the ultimate realization ...until now.

When the Guilty Pleasures headed up to Ghetto Recorders in 2001 to record their debut album, we (The Horizontal Action magazine crew: Uncle Ted, Larry Loudmouth (featured on the front of the LP, sneakin' a toke), Canderson and yours truly) tagged along up the I-94, huffing canned-air pretty much the whole ride, simultaneously blastin' rods and screaming along to the endless hits pumping out of the car radio. We knew it was going to be an important record, and the trip was a blast, as was the crazy moment we were living in at the time. Windsor strip clubs, hotel lobby destruction, weird late-night phone calls, and general insanity was around every corner, and this album was the filthy soundtrack. The finished recording was unreal when we first heard it ten years ago upon its completion, and it still sounds just as intimidating today, writhing with slick punk hooks, drenched in the slime o' the times, yet still as fresh and devastating as the day these songs were conceived. The LP is full of classic tracks like "Stretch Marks" and "Endangering" that were sadly unavailable to the general public for too long, so here's your chance to revisit this little piece of history, now right at your fingertips. So stop that trembling already, and put on one of the era's best kept secrets of the underground, and one of Illinois' finest rock'n roll messes to ever grace your eardrums.

ORDER HERE!

check out a live clip of Guilty Pleasures in Milwaukee last month, and don't miss em Friday Jan 27th at Burlington for their Chicago release show!:

EXHUMED: Pumphouse Gang LP

Collin M.

I can’t remember if it was Stuart Home, Johan Kugelberg, John Savage or that guy from the Pooh Sticks who infamously touted the superior arithmetic of U.K. power pop (that is, ‘77’ year zero punk + Merseybeat = gold). Whoever it was though, suffice it to say, I find their reasoning flawed and their equations extremely unbalanced.* For me, much of what has been accorded classic killer status across the pond is missing most, if not all, of the elements that make power pop so much fun to listen to. There’s no schmaltz, there’s no shamelessness, there’s no drama. There’s not nearly enough guitar solos or stadium-style sing-a-long choruses. No Small Faces. Little to no perms or mustaches either (and besides, anyway, NO FOREIGN JUNK!).

Now, I fully realize and readily admit that this complaint is born out of an unreasonably stringent personal aesthetic, which someone once described in a method meant to wound as being defined as much by the width of collars and lapels as it is content (they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover; I say why can’t you have both?). That said, I don’t know if there’s any Teenage Treats/Low Down Kids/Bloodstains-style money-record mega-rarity that I’ve heard from the U.K. that does the job at satisfying my personal pop prerequisites better than buck platters by the likes of the Only Ones or Generation X.

However, the good folks at Sing Sing Records seem intent on nothing so much than relishment in watching me swallow down my Monroe Doctrine prejudices whole, and with this long-playing collection by the Isle Of Wight’s great white hopes, the Pumphouse Gang, they may yet get their wish (and sooner rather than later).

Long-time faves at Worthless Trash and, yes, Low Down Kids too, this time it seems the doyen-dons of Blighty obscurity finally got their times-tables correct. Indeed, forgiveness could be extended, if, initially – upon needle hitting groove – one thought they were listening to the cutting-room floor of some aborted Junk Shop Glam comp or Trevor White out-takes. The sound of the Pumphouse Gang – fantastic, post-glam pop-rock – owes as much to the Saturday gig style of ’75 (Mott The Hoople, Sweet) as it does to the Brickfield Nights of ’78 (Boys, Roll-Ups, Marseille). Sounding right up to date without having to engage in any histrionic bath-water draining or pre-punk baby jettisoning, the Pumphouse Gang are the spiritual heirs to the great stiff mantle of the Jook and, sadly, shared about as much commercial success. …which is just as well now, thanks to this tidy little package which gathers the Gang’s best single moments and a handful of unreleased recordings for you, the darling consumer.

Once-and-shoulda-been-contenders on offer here include the Sparks-y ‘Spotlight,’ the Kidda Band-
gone-starry-eyed-stadium-rock of ‘When We Were Young’ and my two personal stand-outs: ‘Teenage Lament’ – featuring First Class backing vocals, vulnerability and cry-baby guitar, virtually demanding the parenthetical sobriquet (’79’) - and ‘Stay With Me’ – whose overlapping Venn Diagram circles of Cheap Trick commerciality and Ian Hunter compositional quality cannot be, and should not be understated. If you haven’t ordered this one yet, I don’t really know what to say to you.

They can play better than the Kidda Band, they can sing better than Billy Idol, they CAN DRESS (almost) as good as Graham Parker (okay, 2 out of 3) – the Pumphouse Gang earn from me the highest praise I can reserve for any U.K. new wave act: they almost sound American. So, if you’re sick to death of flat, warmed-over Jam-copy with lyrics about being young (today) or living in the modern world (today) featuring patented Paul Weller marbles-in-the-mouth vocals and having about as much to do with power pop as fogged-up moped side-mirrors or white reggae, then you should consider investing your money (today) in the genuine article. Grab it HERE.

Oh I wish it were true: “No Elvis (Costello), Police or Boomtown Rats in 1977!”

* I checked and it was that guy from the Pooh Sticks. However, that dude was also in What To Wear so
what does he know!

Here's an audio clip of Pumphouse Gang's "Stay With Me":

The Spits 'V' LP

Todd Killings

The Spits are as engrained in modern punk music as ever possible, yet they still manage to devour the rip-offs and influence the youth of today without even looking like they're trying. Going strong now for over fifteen years, smashing the windows and tearing down the walls of our minds every time they roll through town, these truly vicious visionaries have cooked punk down to it's most powerful base form, crawling like Neaderthals through the muck, and creating a flaming trail of hits that'll take quite a spell of dementia to ever forget. A perfect distillation of punk's original open-ended weirdness, and modern's music's serrated salvation, The Spits have proven themselves to be no one to fuck with, over and over again. True headliners, never to be followed and for good reason.

An old tape passed along through one of their biggest and earliest supporters, Sir Lord Bob Kondrak of Seattle was what really blew up the spot everywhere we managed to hijack the stereos during that magical summer of 2001, and ever since, The Spits have been setting the bar high, throughout the Midwest, and soon after all over the world. With their ingenious amalgamation of DEVO's early synth work, along with the absolute best Thug-Punk grunt the Ramones could ever maliciously muster, The Spits never tried to reinvent anything, they just rip it's head off and drive it home every time.

They've always been one of the most original bands of the twenty-first century, yet it never really seemed like they weren't doing anything too experimental, save their signature, yet refreshingly just-ahead-of-their-time, synth/drum machine noise they forced the fickle punk crowds to gladly swallow. When we finally caught wind of them, the demonic void that they filled was utterly too much to handle, and they became the number one band everyone wanted to see, as we became the first of many fanatics to fly the band into town for the Chicago Blackout festival. It was that pre-information overload-type of underground music mystery that just gets all the endorphins rushing. I mean, were they even real? And the way the throbbingly addictive songs just dripped like sticky tar out of the speakers, the guitars that sounded like food processors seemed to dull all your senses, just at the same time that the impeccable lyrics invigorated you beyond belief.

Possibly one of the only modern bands that has several of their songs already covered by their contemporaries, The Spits have already done so much, but still have so much more to come, as they continue to influence anyone with a penchant for irresistible punk music, played like there's nothing to lose.

Pick up The Spits latest earthshaker right HERE and/or grab some of their excellent back catalog HERE

EXHUMED: Laurice Best of Laurice Vol.1 LP + GRUDGE/SPIV Singles

Collin M.

There are certain records when you first hear them that illicit an almost primal-like response from deep within the id which bellows out for their immediate and ruthless acquisition. Such were the feelings that accompanied the Fatima-like emergence upon my radar-screen of the two songs which comprised the entire official output of an aggregation known cryptically only as the Grudge. Truly the ‘Voices Green And Purple’ of glam, everything about the Grudge single was and is perfect: melodic, danceable, hummable, sadistic, great. Bubblegum misogyny at its best-and-blackly-humorous. I remember getting the record in the mail in one of the most lopsided trades I have ever been party to and marveling at the single’s intricate inscrutability and playing it non-stop. Like a piece of the True Cross, the Grudge single became the prize reliquary with which I would attempt to consecrate under-attended DJ nights and brandish at mostly apathetic after-party audiences.

A few years on, Robin Wills, owner-operator of the wonderful Pandora’s-Box-to-the-poor-house PurePop blog, unraveled the Grudge mystery which he had first unearthed back in the early 80s and identified the author of its two estimable tunes. Turns out, the gentlemen in question also had a hand-in-leather-glove with a pair of my other favorite singles of the era: Paul St. John’s Bolan-ic UFO anthem ‘The Flying Saucers Have Landed’ and Spiv’s mammoth glam-psych hard rock two-sider ‘Oh! You Beautiful Child’ b/w ‘Little Girl.’ Titanic efforts all; further cementing the divinity of their creator, Laurice Marshall. Grudge in three persons – blessed trinity.

Now, if rapture was mine in personal possession of the gospel of the Grudge (and Spiv), my reaction was
more St. Vitus (the condition, not the band) when the great Harry Howes of Last Laugh/Mighty Mouth
Records revealed to me the existence of additional Laurice recordings and his intentions to issue them
forthwith.

Now, I do not blame even the most zealous of believers for questioning the quality of the material on this record. In an age where Rave-Up false-prophets have deceived the whole world with toilet-bowl-level quality controls and inattention to basic details, logic would suggest that the likelihood of this record proving necessary listening would be slimmer than the needle in the camel’s eye. Thankfully, miraculously, happily, the Best Of Laurice Vol. 1 beats the odds and stands resplendent and resurrected; bedecked in shiny black leather and cradling you in its amyl-nitrate embrace.

He who has a rear, let him glisten…

Like the Dead Sea Scrolls of glitter rock, the Best Of… opens with Laurice’s most enduring and universal parable: both sides of the Grudge single. Recorded in isolation and issued on Cyril Black’s Black Label impress in 1973, it’s hard – when you first hear the vocals – not to immediately think of the Ramones
and harder still – when you hear the lyrics – not to instantly think of Nobunny or Hunx & His Punx.

‘I’m gonna smash your face in, I’m gonna smash your face in, bay-beh, I’m gonna smash your face in, oh yeah, my paper doll.’ Campy, ironic, outrageous and absolutely doomed to radio quietus in 1973, both ‘I’m Gonna Smash Your Face In’ and ‘When Christine Comes Around’ sound like nothing so much as the beyond-self-aware lyrics and approach of the Child Molesters or Albertos Y Los Trios Paranoias four years early.

Next epistle in line: another highlight – ‘Ain’t Got Enough To Give’ – which plays like a Joe Meek version of ‘Day Tripper’ (or is that ‘Gay Tripper?’) with a fuzzed-out night-train solo and boffo Screamin’ Lord Sutch scream-outro.

Closing out side one, both ‘Shy Baby’ and ‘That’s Nice’ emit a late freakbeat vibe, suggestive of a vintage much earlier than 1973; coming off closer to Kippington Lodge or Tomorrow than Roxy Music or Slade. The vocals on ‘That’s Nice’ are pure, erect and quivering Vince Taylor.

On side-two, affairs start to get much more mucho-macho and pink-triangulated with overt S&M themes and disco beats lubing up and slipping into the fore (‘take that yellow handkerchief out of your pocket!’). I don’t know what it says about me, but I find the Jobriath-y ballad, ‘He’s My Guy,’ extremely romantic and Jr. prom appropriate (please don’t tell my mother). Reinforced from slow dancing, ‘Rock Hard’ may be Laurice’s strongest post-Grudge offering: groovy gay hustler disco glam-punk-pop vibes ala the Mumps, Smokey, Wayne County or The Fast. It may not be Alex Chilton, but dudes will still certainly fist pump to it.

The dessert finale ‘Born To Serve’ and ‘Wild Sugar’ both skate dangerously close to Icecapades/Xanadu farce, but stick their landings with unnatural sodomite grace and unflinching commercial depiction of the seedier sides of the horizontal dance-floor.

So…the rhetorical question stands: do you need this record in your life? The rhetorical retort comes: ‘yes.’ Laurice’s harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, therefore send out workers into the harvest field so that all may know satisfaction and bliss.

Remastered from the original unissued acetates and with a ‘Volume 2’ already in the offing, Best Of Laurice Vol. 1 stands as irrefutable proof that there still remains gold lame’ in them thar hills. Order the LP, the Grudge and Spiv 45 today (Grab all 3 records HERE) or risk having your lampstands of credibility extinguished forever.

Check out a clip of the GRUDGE 7" right here and try to hold your love back, it's impossible!