We were creating our own songs, our own sound, and starting to really have a good time being productive. Keep in mind this is the first time for any of us in a real band. O.k., well, Dave played drums for a "band" that called itself A.I.D.S. (there were about one thousand, three hundred, and twenty two bands of the SAME name back then) but again, he only knew how to play one drum beat.
I'm not sure how much they really did, other than a show during "Grand 'Ole Day." (a local St. Paul thing every year where they block off an avenue, "Grand Ave." to be exact, and people walk around and drink, eat, and throw up on the street.) That's another thing that changed. Playing in basements started to be like going to shows rather than just going to a "party with a band." We'd open up for touring bands, people would pay, keg or no keg.
We used to play at a spot in St. Paul called the Speedboat Gallery a lot. It was a really cool little store-front art gallery/coffee house that used to have shows in it's basement.
It was pretty decent size for a basement, like two store-fronts wide.
We played with the first touring band we ever played with there called Fiddlehead. Really cool guys who were super appreciative of the crowd and we ended up swapping T-shirts with them. I think our old bass player Pete was either still making them for us, or we just had them for that long. They liked our shirts because they said "Eat A Bowl Of Fuck".
 |
| Yup. First flyer ever. |
My exact timeline is a little foggy but this was around the time we started really feeling that Jeff just didn't fit in. He was a nice guy and all, but he was a little hard for us to relate to. And he started coming up with a lot of ideas about the direction of our band and where he wanted to take it. He was really into bands like Foetus, and Skinny Puppy. Not that I think that shit is terrible, it just was VERY MUCH not us. He would come up to us usually individually, almost like he was feeling out our flexibility, and share some weird idea about our next show like, "hey, I was thinking for our next show, I'm gonna spray paint a giant red spot over my right eye so it looks like it's dripping red down my right eye.." or "I wanna start wearing costumes like Skinny Puppy does.. have you seen that guy?! He's outrageous!!! ", and we would be totally confused as to how to reply to this.
I got to where we would just kind of pretend that we didn't hear it.
Bottom line was we needed someone a little more like us. Like I said, I liked him, but he wasn't right for the Quincy Punx.
We had another bass player lined up. A friend of ours gave him a copy of the demo tape we made in the basement and I guess after he heard we wanted a different bass player, he wanted to join up. I'm really not sure how he got it really, I'd have to ask Bob.
But anyway the guys name was Kyle and he worked with Bob at Ciatti's (a restaurant I will no doubt end up writing a lot about, as I ended up working there for like 7 years.) So Kyle had been learning our songs while we were still playing with Jeff. Because we all felt shitty and awkward about firing him and none of us wanted to do it. It ended up having to be me.
But before that, we got busted. Ever been there? It's like you were fucking another girl behind your girlfriends back. We were practicing with Kyle in the basement on a night we weren't even scheduled to, so we could kinda hit the ground running once Jeff was out. And BOOM in walks Jeff. What did we do? We fucking lied.
We told him that it was a spur of the moment "jam" sort of thing, "you know baby, It just kind of happened." No shit, that's exactly what it was like.
Within a couple of days, we had gotten together with Jeff, and over a few beers, told him we wanted to go with someone else. And you know what? He reacted to it like we should have just said that in the first place. "No sweat man."
He even explained that he could see it from our point of view. And after we left I felt a lot better. Until the next morning. Bob called me and said "dude, you gotta come over here and hear this." It was a message left by Jeff the night before. I guess he went out and got all drunk, and decided to leave the depressing "just got dumped and now I'm gonna die" message on Bob's answering machine. (because we didn't have "voicemail" in those days, we had tapes!) It just seemed kinda ridiculous seeing as we never shared the same ideas...
So at this point we've got Kyle. It was through Kyle a bunch of new shit opened up. Not only for us as a band, but for me personally as well. First off, he got me into the comics Milk and Cheese - Dairy Products Gone Bad and Hate.
Kyle introduced us to the THD House, Jason Parker, Tim Kelly, and still one of my all time favorite local bands the Kung Fools. Jason Parker for those of you who aren't from around these parts ran a record label called THD. Which I always thought was a great name for a label. (the term THD stands for "total harmonic distortion" which if you didn't know is a spec term used in describing speaker/microphone/amplifier ratios in sound reproduction) THD was host to bands like Swiz, Gauge, Inspector 12, Holding On, Fury, and Pinhead Gunpowder.
Jason liked us, and agreed to put out a 7" for us. And back then, this was a really big fuckin' deal to me. It still is but for other reasons. Then it was the whole idea that I would be able to own a copy of a record, that's MY band! No shit. A real record.
Now, it's a big deal because even though I hardly see him anymore, I think Jason Parker is one of the most decent guys I've ever met. And looking back, I think we were really lucky to hook up with a guy like him on our first time around. He agreed to put out 1000 copies of what was supposed to be titled the "Darby Was A Martyr" 7". We even plagiarised the cover of the Germs (GI) album. Both front and back covers, right down to a line on the back that stated "Not Produced By Joan Jett".
However we neglected to put that title on the record anywhere. Instead, people referred to it as "(ME)" (which to us, stood for Medical Examiner ala Quincy M.E.)
 |
| What is the title of this record? |
It was recorded it in the THD house basement by Chad Dziewor who called it Temporary Studios. A fitting name as it just consisted of a small board in what I think was made to be a walk-in closet (the engineer booth) and the basement itself wasn't huge, although the THD house hosted more than it's share of shows. At the time, we recorded I think 13 songs. There might have been more but if there are, we never used them for anything. We recorded it all on 1/4 inch tape and this would be all the material used on our first two 7' E.P.'s. The (M.E.) 7" ended up having 8 songs on it.
They were;
-Darby Was A Martyr
-Safety Pins
-Heavy Metal Black-Mass Orgy of Blood
-Punker than You
-Brady Bunch
-Cereal Killer
-I Wanna Be A Dyke
-Boot Party.
It ended up being THD #10 and was released in 1992. The day we got them was really cool. We had our first "Stuffing party" If you don't know what that is, first off, get yer mind out of the gutter. It aint that.
The records were pressed and put into plain white paper sleeves and came just like that. The covers were done at a printer locally, and we had to insert the record into the printed sleeves, along with a separate lyric sheet (that was overflowing with misspelled words because it was hand written by myself), then insert those into individual poly sleeves. Now do that, one thousand times! It was a pleasure.
A lot of you reading this have done this plenty of times and there's nothing you probably hate more. But you gotta remember that first one. The THD basement was the first of many other "Named" basements around town we began playing at this time. Touring bands would come through and play there.
It was the beginning of a really active time in the local punk scene. The next wave of new bands was sweeping through the city with locals like Scooby Don't, the Kung Fools, Downside, Impetus Inter, The Strike, Dirt Poor, Bloodline, The Rejects, and Skaterbait, and Vile Babies.
For a long time a majority of the touring bands that would come through I would see in basements like the THD House, The Lizard Lounge, and and the Scooby Don't House which called itself the 35th St. Entry.
 |
| Clutch at the THD House - photo: Tim Kelly |
Tim Yohannon wrote us a decent review in MRR and the 7" began selling pretty good. Jason sent a copy to Tesco Vee of the Meatmen, who was a bit of a role model for us, to which he wrote back; "Jason, Thanks for the record, It Rips!"
Later on we would end up playing a couple shows with the legendary Meatmen, and I'll get to that. But Jason had sent a copy to a guy he knew in Torrence CA. named Todd Congeliere. Todd was a pro skater and is the founder/owner of Recess Records, and he got a hold of us because he was interested in releasing a second 7" from us.
Things are definitely picking up. -M
No comments:
Post a Comment