This account of histories of the Boise, Idaho (81-89) and Seattle, Washington punk and indie music scenes (89-2003) are from my perspective and memory only. In other words, I could be off on some things! If you were there, and want to correct me, please feel free to send me a message or email. I will try my damndest to clear the cobwebs, get it right and be as objective as possible. Also, I am consulting various friends to make sure I am as correct as can be.
Like I said in my intro blog entry, I am keeping personal details as vague as possible unless imperative to the story, and even then I will stay as neutral as possible. In other words, no juicy gossip here, sorry!
A note about Wayne's memory, and memory in general: My father passed on in the early 80's, rest his soul. I went to his funeral in Eastern Washington when I was 16. For many years, I had a distinct memory of his ashes being spread over the rolling hills by a priest, who got his ashes out from a beautiful urn. Many years later, in a conversation with my older sister, I came to find that what actually happened was that his ashes got held up on a plane and she went to get them and rush them to the service, in a simple wooden box. They were hastily buried so that my aunt, a religious woman, would not see the modest box. The priest was wrangled up last minute, and also more for my aunt's benefit than my father's, as he was not at all religious (he refused to let me be baptized!). My point is that…memory is a funny thing. So if any of this is bullshit…it was not by design!
The early years:
No history of anything from one person's perspective would be complete without a little history of the teller himself. To bastardize a line from one of the greatest comedies of all time, The Jerk; "I was born a poor white child…" in Boise Idaho, located in the southwest portion of the state, which is radically different than the northern portion. Northern Idaho is basically like the mountains of Canada, the panhandle, that is only there because when they made the territories, nobody wanted to claim the crazy fuckers that were there. This is why the Neo Nazi's found a home there. But things have changed (the former Nazi compound now an anti-hate center) and I have family there, decent folks.
Boise is nestled in a river valley in the middle of a shrub desert. Founded by Mormons, many of the same folks that settled the Salt Lake City, Utah area (which is 6 hours south and a little east, and the nearest of what could be called a 'city'. Seattle is 9 hours west). Part of being poor was that I hung with rough trade mostly, who were also children of single mothers, mothers who worked their asses off at multiple jobs to keep us alive (God bless em). I chose tough bastards to befriend, because, though they beat up on me, they did so less than the asshole jocks did (being a small, long-haired little boy who looked like a little girl with the last name 'Flower', I got beat up alot. The idiots made me stronger). As well, people messed with me less because they knew who my friends were.
This was the perfect background from which to fall into punk rock when it came around. Some of the common denominators of towns where punk scenes emerge, at least the first few, are; poverty, boredom, violent assholes who hate anything different, and an evil, bored, police force, made up of the former, violent assholes that hate anything different group. Boise had it all.
One of the first records I owned
I was born in 1966, so I was 10 when the Sex Pistol's sneering faces were suddenly seen everywhere, and when the Ramones occasionally graced late night shows. Into the late seventies and early 80's, I made the transition musically, from the very first records I received for Christmas (along with an entirely plastic JC Penny's record player) Elton John's Greatest hits, and Jackson 5, Off The Wall, KISS, Rock n' Roll Over (a gift from my step uncle) through to the Yes records I listened to with my brother when he got back from and the Army in Germany, to...Split Enz, Devo, Adam Ant and The Police.
The TV was our only way to see what went on in the rest of the world. Years before, I had seen Devo on Saturday Night Live. I stayed up late to see 'New Wave Theater', and saw bands like Bad Religion years before I knew who the hell they were. I was intrigued.
I hung with a couple buddies who shared the same musical tastes, one of whom, Scott, had been a good friend one year, in 9th grade, at North Jr. High. At that time, Scott listened to some punk that his brother sent and brought back from college in California. But he never talked about music much. We were just skinny nerd kids. We fell out of touch at the end of the year, and when I saw Scott next, as a sophomore in highschool, his hair was long, he wore black rock T shirts, and listened to AC DC and Van Halen. I had fallen in with 'New Wavers' and was dabbling in The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bow Wow Wow, The Specials, The English Beat and many other bands, as well as a new lifestyle and fashion sense, which included suit coats covered in punk band buttons (and one Led Zeppelin button, to confuse jocks), a safety pin laced red sweater and any other crazy shit I could come up with that made my mother shake her head. Scott and I would soon head toward punk rock together, playing music for years. But that is for another blog.
No punk history of Boise, ID would be complete without a mention of Boise High School (still there), which is really where the whole scene there got it's start. My friend Scott's older brother, Pat (who will be a central character in this history later) had forged a path for us in Boise High, being there two years ahead of us. He was sent home from school once for wearing a Devo 'Are We Not Men' T shirt, maybe the tamest punk rock shirt of all time!
Boise High School; Training ground for a small group of New Waver/Punk Rockers in the '80s who braved scary hick jocks so later generations didn't have to - Photo by Jesse Reynard
By the time I was a 'New Waver' in my sophomore year (1982), Boise High was still brutal territory. I was spit at once by jocks lining the halls, and once, a monster farm boy football player named Randy threatened to throw me out the second story bathroom window. At the time, our lifestyle was a major threat, and nobody wanted any part of it disrupting the 'Leave it to Beaver' lifestyle that some people fooled themselves into thinking existed.
There was a government sponsored youth group someone heard about that funded projects put together and organized by youths, supervised by two adults. We will call it 'The Channel' here, what say? Me and a group of about 6 or 7 friends from the New Wave/Punk scene (New Wave and Punk were synonymous for a time, until New Wave splintered off as disco punk pop and succumbed to being a radio whore) met up with who we will call Jane and Rob, a couple in their late 20's, stoners, liberals, world travelers, who I am sure started out with the best of intentions being the chaperones for The Channel group.
Usually, the kind of things that groups did using the government money from The Channel was to build some memorial at a park to a kid who was hit by a car there, or to clean up highways and the like. But, after hanging out with Jane and Rob, smoking reefer and those weird little cigarettes from India they brought with them from their last trip there, we decided to put on some dances, with live bands. This is the part of the story where someone stands up and says, finger in the air, "Hey kids...Let's put on a SHOW!"
At the time, 1982, I was fully into New Wave music, right as it was beginning to do the 'splintering off' mentioned above, and before a harder edged music splintered the other way, a music that would change my life forever. But locally, there were not a lot of live bands to see that played mostly original music.
There was a band called 'The Commonauts' from Boise that was great. Sort of like the Plimsouls (of whom I was unfamiliar with then) but punkier, guitar bass and drums. They played some carefully chosen covers and an original called 'Missing Link' about asshole jocks that resonated with us New Wave kids who were always picked on. And...the topper, they put out a 7 inch record! This was the perfect vehicle for our dances and we approached them. They enthusiastically excepted (while still trying to be aloof and cool about it). Incidentally, the drummer in The Commonauts was a very confident young man, a talented, multi instrumentalist named Curt Stigers, who went on to be the next Kenny G of the sax, years later.
The Commonauts in 1982 - Photo by Gina Gregerson
So, I can say that I was involved in puting on one of the first New Wave/Punk Rock shows in Boise, before I ever played in a band. It was headlined by a bar band pretending to be New Wave kids called 'Billy Bee and the Stingers', and under them, The Commonauts. See this flyer in my 'Music History' photo group on my photo page here on My Space [See below for crappy photo of flyer].
I drew the flyer, too. It was a dude in the trademark black suit and skinny tie and wrap-around sunglasses, passed out on the dance floor. The janitor's feet and legs are seen, and a push broom, as he tries to clean up the messy floor around him. The drawing is surrounded by black and white checkered boxes (oh, how we loved those checkered boxes and zebra stripes!) and under it was the phrase 'Dance til you drop!'.
From the minute I saw kids 'pogoing' on the wooden floor of the YWCA (where, incidentally, I had gone to grade school in the basement at an alternative school that rented from them) to The Commonauts playing 'Missing Link', I knew something had started that was going to be very cool, and a very wild ride that would change my life.
Stay tuned!
I saw Billy Bee and the Stingers many times in Boise. A great New Wave group.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember them much, but I remember thinking they were ok. They mostly did covers and played bars, as I remember it. It was almost impossible to play bars in Boise then without doing mostly covers.
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