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Anatomy of The SOC House
The house the members of State of Confusion and Brad rented, 'The SOC House' as it was to be known, was a 4 bedroom house with a small kitchen, large livingroom and of course, a basement area that functioned as the jam room (for all us older musicians, read; 'rehearsal space').
I took a room upstairs, by the kitchen and bathroom. On my own for the first time. Except…in a house with 4 other guys. And of course, it wasn't long before the parties commenced. No parents coming home. Crank the tunes as loud as you want! I learned the hard way not to keep my records in the living room. My thinking was in the spirit of communal living. Thinking that quickly changed. To this day, my Husker Du Zen Arcade double LP has 23 year old dried beer on it.
Also, I was a bit neurotic. I mentioned that, right? I was a clean freak. Living in a party house. Recipe for disaster. And…I was 'Mr. Responsible'. In a punk band. Living in a house with major partiers; I bitched about bills not getting paid. I made sure the garbage got taken out. The beer cans crushed. The dishes done (but I soon gave up on that one!) I expected everyone to live to my standards and was a martyr about things. I made their life painful, I can see in retrospect. It got to the point where Pat finally reached his limit and had it out with me.
One of the best things about the house was that we had a place to practice whenever we wanted, no parents to consult with or their neighbors to worry about. This began a vigorous practice schedule and we got very tight as a band. We developed a work ethic that continued into the next band (Treepeople) and on into other bands I was in.
We began to craft our sound, furiously fast hardcore with flavors of 'rock'. Pat began to pump out lyrics, lyrics about saving the environment (long before this was 'cool' for youth) and about a lifestyle choice of drugs, tobacco alcohol and loose personal hygiene (we had come a long way from pretending to be 'straightedge'!). Also present were the usual themes of government oppression and rising to overthrow it, but Pat was a pretty worldly guy compared to us, and definitely compared to many who chose to call themselves 'punk'.
Since the punk 'ethic' was 'do what you want and be who you are', it attracted many losers assholes, dumbasses, to be perfectly honest (just watch the documentary film 'Decline of the Western Civilization' to get an idea of what I am talking about).The hardcore branch on the punk family tree was dominated by white males. More on that in later blogs.
I had two jobs, both busboy jobs, one during the day, one during the night. Both jobs I got through Erik, the drummer of SOC. The day job was first, at a famous restaurant called The Sandpiper, which was a little dark hole (the food was decent, though). The Sandpiper's claim to fame was that the owner was buddies with George Lucas, and had exclusive screenings of his movies before they were released to the public, like Raiders of the Lost Ark.
I may have bussed tables for people responsible for this movie. Or not. (The truth is, I couldn't find any pictures of the Sandpiper Restaurant)
I started as a dishwasher. I remember eating left over prime rib and drinking wine from unfinished carafes (things broke young ones will do). A prominent memory was of a visitor to the screen door to the back of the kitchen, one Jimmy Jive, a black homeless man who thought he was a woman and was crazy as hell. He often ended up at the hospital with 'pains in his womb'. He would show up at the back door of The Sandpiper and ask for food and cigarettes. Or he would just rant something like; "Where's that guy that one guy, that mean guy? You go get him."
Eventually, Erik got a job bussing tables, then bartending at a hip joint downtown called Jake's. I needed more money, so I got a day job there as a dishwasher (I had started bussing tables at the Sandpiper during the night by then) On my first day, the busboy had quit, so they asked if I would bus tables and I never had to touch a dish at Jake's. Each day, my routine was that I would come home from one bussing job and change into my other bussing uniform.
I had a steady girlfriend at the time, but a beautiful black girl had a huge crush on me, for some reason (I mention that she was black because there was a only handful of blacks, or minorities at all, in the entire state). She stalked me. If I were available, I would have certainly given in. But I was loyal, as, along with my backwards 'grown-up' attitude in the house, I was also always committed to one girl. While in a band. Living in a party house. Oh my, to do it all over again, especially since the same girl I was loyal for ended up cheating on me! I digress…
So this girl, we will call her Alice, would show up at our house while I was still at the day bussing job, and wait for me, annoying the hell out of my roomies. She would have presents for me; beer, a giant bong. I would ignore her (and ok, I took the presents). Her ex boyfriend, a cheese ball, we will call him Chad, was very jealous about this crush, I had heard through the grape vine. But I didn't really give a fuck, since I wasn't doing anything, and wouldn't have anyway.
One fine day, as I was in my room changing from one busboy uniform to another, there was a knock at our front door. Then I heard "WHERE'S WAYNE????" in a booming male voice. I was shaking in my socks, with my pants around my ankles. I didn't move. I heard bits of conversation. Then the door closed. I slowly came out, peering around the corner.
The visitor was Alice's father, a very large white biker. Apparently, Chad had gone to her father and told him that Alice was hanging around with a 26 year old man named Wayne Flower, that Wayne was feeding her acid, told him where 'he' lived. Pat and I forget who else had answered the door, heard him out, and explained that I was in fact 18 and that I was avoiding his daughter like the plague. He accepted this (thank GOD) and left.
I know this doesn't really have a lot to do with the 'music history' of Boise…but it is such a good story, I couldn't resist! It does relate to the fact that people began to regularly think of or go to the SOC House when trying to find missing teens, such was the reputation of the place.
For a short time we had a guy crashing on our couch who was sleeping with some girl, and she ran away from home. She had stayed at our place a couple times. The parents called the police, and a cop showed up at our door. He was like a cartoon cop, round and ridiculous. He said to us "I know you guys are porkin' teenage girls over here…" I swear to God. 'Porkin'! Nothing ever came of that, of course. But we had heard through the grape vine that our house had come up at a meeting of the Boise Board of Education. We made the big time, man! I wrote a poem once in an art and poetry magazine called FOOD that Pat and I put out briefly which had lines about this period at the SOC House that later ended up in a State of Confusion song; "we didn't rob the corner store/we don't have your daughters".
One day, Brad decided he was going to rake the leaves in the lawn into a nice pile in the front yard. But he never put them in a bag, he just left the pile there. Over time, the grass beneath the leaves died. I remember after we moved out of the house, I drove by it once and saw this ugly little tree planted in the spot where the grass had died, which was in an odd spot, not a place where you would normally plant a tree. I assume it is there to this day.
The notorious SOC House, Boise, ID. Note Brad's pile of leaves (mentioned above)
Other highlights from the SOC house; I had a GI Joe doll that I taped to a crucifix made of cardboard. I hung it up by a window in the 'dining' area. Over time, people would add things to it here and there; electrical tape, candy wrappers, all kinds of crap, until you could barely see that it was GI Joe doll. It was known affectionately as 'GI Jesus'. I have a polaroid photo of it somewhere, along with two other polaroids; one of a huge wooden propaganda sign from Russia that was above the fireplace, and a picture of Pat squatting in front of Erik, who is laying on the floor while someone [actually Cory Wees and Brad Kromennhoek] braids his hair into a punk rock do (unusual for Erik, and in preparation for the last Moose Lodge show we played). I also have a polaroid of the front yard and Brad's aforementioned pile of leaves [this was obviously written prior to me having the photos. See above and below].
Above: G.I. Jesus, in the (plastic) flesh Right: Pat, Erik, Cory, Brad braiding Erik's hair
Erik Hansen sporting his new do at Moose Lodge, Boise, ID
A typical gathering at the SOC House
We had shows in the basement sometimes. Often, close to a hundred people would show up. It was off the hook. During the time of these basement gigs, we would invite out of town bands on tour to play, take up a collection for them. One of these bands was a band from Salt Lake City called The Potato Heads (depriving Boise punks of a perfect band name!).
Salt Lake City had a thriving punk scene in the 80's, and since it was the nearest 'city' (6 hours southeast) we often played there, eventually having a much bigger following in Salt Lake than in our own town. More on that in future blogs.
The Potato Heads as a band played Minutemen style tunes but punkier, were skilled musicians playing punk rock, but not in a snide way. As people, they were made up of college students, or just normal middle class drunk kids. This was the biggest show we had at the house, complete with a thrash pit. Great fun. Our connection with the Potato Heads was the first of many Salt Lake City connections.
The Potato Heads, SOC House basement, Boise, ID
Left: Chris Moor, John Morris
Right: Jonathan Clark
Above: Wayne and Pat SOC House (note Pat's shiner)
Right: Scott and Wayne at SOC House
The SOC House was a punk rock incubator. Many of our best songs were written there. Life, for a time, was pretty much bussing tables, playing the Crazy Horse and stumbling to the house afterward to get even more drunk. "One day stumbles in to the next/Take it easy man, I'm doin my best!/I'm in a State of Confusion". But eventually, I could no longer take the endless partying. The endless mess. The young old man martyr in me had had enough. I moved out after a year into my own apartment across town. My stay there would be short-lived due to an unforeseen, life changing event.
Next: Illness strikes, low rent touring begins, and at a party thrown by an aging queen, gays bash us.
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