NOTE: Any Boise peeps who were around the music scene in the 80's who have photos of shows at The Crazy Horse, please email them to me @ waynerayflower@gmail.com. All photos will be properly credited (if you didn't take them, let me know who did). Thanks!
Disclaimer: Memory is a funny thing, and an elusive one. Meaning; I might have some of this wrong, as 1. My memory is not always accurate, like anyone and 2. It is from my perspective only. Any friends who were there, feel free to correct me or add things I have missed. It helps! Also, no gossip on anyone here, it aint about that. Personal details are on a surface level, and friends, girlfriends and others are re-named to respect their privacy. People in bands generally put their names out there on albums and in interviews anyway, and are not in the habit of staying anonymous, and therefore are named here. That said, anyone who is in the blog that wishes me not to use their name has only to ask.
This entry will attempt....or I will attempt in typing it, to cover the bands that played at The Crazy Horse during the mid to late '80s. I will of course forget many of them, so please help me out if you know of any I miss! Also, there will not be any chronological order to this, as it is all from memory, so...
Watt's Bald Head 7 inch record front and back
A band that stands out in my memory was a band called Watt's Bald Head, who State Of Confusion played a show with at The Crazy Horse around 1986. They were a lot of fun; punky and poppy, tons of musical skill, and a bass player who was in a wheelchair and the singer was blind, which we all thought was very cool because we had never seen such a thing, and they totally rocked it. I found a blog entry talking about their 7 inch record with the songs posted, check it out here: http://mustard-relics.com/2011/02/19/watts-bald-head-st-7/
Beyond Possession in 1987 - Photos by EQUALIZINGXDISTORT (retrieved from http://doublecrossxx.com/tag/beyond-possession/)
Beyond Possession was a Canadian punk/speed metal band (then called the new descriptor of 'Crossover') that SOC played a show with at the CH. They were incredible live and the bass player played speed metal with his fingers, which I found mind-blowing. Yes, as a bass player, I mostly noticed bass players. So it goes.
Phantom Tollbooth - Photo retrieved from https://myspace.com/pt5speed
Phantom Tollbooth, an NYC band named after the excellent children's book (interestingly enough, years later in Seattle I would end up playing drums in a band named after one of the characters in this same book, Faintly Macabre) also played The Crazy Horse. I remember liking them, but I don't remember much about their sound. Well, we have google for that to jog the ol' memory, don't we? I found a 1988 performance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTJJF3alrWY and a wikipedia page about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Tollbooth_(band)
Left: Honor Role - photo retrieved from: http://killingtechnology.wordpress.com/tag/honor-role/ Right: Flyer for Honor Role show at The Crazy Horse - from Mark Hanford's personal collection
Honor Role was an amazing punk band from Richmond, Virginia, I still have their debut album, 'The Pretty Song'. They were all immensely talented. The singer was unique, and wrote intelligent lyrics and the guitarist had massive chops. As a Trouser Press article on the band puts it; "...The prime lineup(s) set a solid foundation of throbbing, dub-punk rhythms upon which guitarist Pen Rollings could flash his indie rock guitar-heroics and Bob Schick could emote his incredibly insightful, humanist lyrics in a voice both angst-ridden and empathetic. Few bands today boast a vocalist and a guitar player even remotely as passionate or talented as the pair..." (see entire article here: http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=honor_role ). There is great live footage from CBGBs from 1987 on You Tube as well. Definitely ahead of their time.
Danger Mouse was a fun band to play with at the CH in about '86. They were also really nice people and hailed from Olympia, Washington. The guitarist, John Goodmanson, was someone who would come back into my musical life as an engineer on the first Treepeople album (Guilt Regret Embarrassment, Steve Fisk producing) [Hi, Now Wayne, future Future Wayne here! Sorry, Past Wayne, that is wrong! The engineer on GRE was actually the owner of the studio it was recorded in, the fabulous Stuart Hallerman, while Goodmanson was the engineer on a record recorded at a studio he was part owner of, that being Reciprocal and the record being Eros by Violent Green....Carry on!] and who would later go on to produce many excellent records including albums for Satisfact and Harvey Danger, and Wu Tang Clan [Well hey, Now Wayne, future Future Wayne here again, actually Goodmanson was part of producing some songs on a Wu Tang record, in collaboration with other producers...Ok now carry on!] among several others. Also on bass was the amazing and legendary Donna Dresch, who played in Team Dresch, Dinosaur Jr. and others.
Primordial Soup, a Boise band, was sort of the house band at The Crazy Horse. In fact, they lived in the apartment above the bar. They pumped out wacky, bouncy psychedelic music. They played with SOC many times and were very fun to watch, and swell guys. I have a feeling I would appreciate their music much more today than I did then. If anyone has any tunes of theirs to post, I would greatly appreciate it (also, as always, pictures)!
The Rhythm Pigs - Images retrieved from http://digitalmeltd0wn.blogspot.com/2010/02/learning-3-rs-san-francisco-way.html and http://www.last.fm/music/Rhythm+Pigs respectively
The Rhythm Pigs from El Paso Texas were excellent musicians and had a great sense of humor. State Of Confusion played a kick ass show with them at The Crazy Horse in 1987 (I think?) after we played a show with them a couple years prior. This time around they stayed at my place and we talked about music and art and all kinds of shit well into the night. Great guys.
There are many more bands, as I mentioned, I am going to need some help here! But now I must move on to the most legendary show ever at The Crazy Horse, a show I didn't even attend, so again, any help is appreciated.
The Dead Kennedys were slated to play Boise in 1985 at the Boise State University SUB Ballroom, but when heads at the top heard wind of this offensive punk band playing at the then conservative and stuffy university, they got nervous and demanded a million dollars in insurance. That is what I remember anyway, anyone can correct me if I am wrong. It seemed at the time that this number was simply thrown out there to ensure that the show would not happen, and, they were successful, as it did not. I also remember that somehow, a kid whose father was a policeman convinced his dad to talk some people into letting them have the show at the Policeman's Clubhouse, but of course that was quashed (not one hundred percent sure of this memory, hell of any memory!). The last venue left was The Crazy Horse, and this was where the show happened.
You can see the tour date listing on this page, as well as other dates on the '85 tour: http://oldpunkflyers.tumblr.com/deadkennedysmain
Flyer for Dead Kennedys show at The Crazy Horse (note that the opening bands never played due to lack of time) - Flyer from Mark Hanford's personal collection
The bummer was, all the people who had bought tickets could not fit into the tiny Crazy Horse saloon, so many of them, including yours truly, were unable to get in. In fact, no one in SOC got in! We had been rehearsing and thought for sure that we could just waltz in. But due to the fire code, they cut it off. Those who were lucky enough to get in before the cut off saw the show of the decade, I am sure. I heard it was insane.
So, the SOC boys headed back to Scott and Pat's apartment next to a cow pasture in the Southeast part of town (where we practiced) and we played a little show for the people who couldn't get into the DK show. Not long after we finished playing, DH Peligro (drums, Dead Kennedys) and Klaus Flouride (bass, Dead Kennedys) showed up at the party, as they had heard about it from some people at The Crazy Horse show. I don't remember what we all talked about, but I remember they were very nice.
This whole shuffling around of shows and display of conservative paranoia inspired Jello Biafra, years later, on one of his speaking tours, to make sure that he performed at the BSU SUB Ballroom. I was at that performance with my girlfriend at the time and her room mate. Through a series of events, I ended up spending an afternoon in Boise with Jello. But that will come later in the blog.
It is odd, I have to admit, not having been at that show, after all I had worked for and been through in the Boise punk scene! But such is life sometimes, eh?
Suffice it to say that The Crazy Horse was Boise's CBGBs, or its Satyricon, (both sadly gone). While the Horse (as we always lovingly called it) is gone, the building is still a music venue. As mentioned, last year, State Of Confusion played a reunion show, which I will of course write more on. The show wasn't at The Crazy Horse, but we did shoot a video at The Red Room, which is in that old building (as mentioned last entry). Walking into that place again was such a trip after so many years. The walls are red (of course) but the place is the same. The smell is the same. When I took a piss I felt like I was 19 again. Long live that building. May many more bands get off the ground in that dark little 'human bowling alley.'
Next: SOC meets a kid with guitar chops and Treepeople is born.
