Seattle Years Disclaimer: As I enter the Seattle years in this music blog, the above disclaimer goes double, because so much happened and there are so many details to cover in this 14 year period; so many shows, so many bands, so many friends and so much change in my life. As a result of this and the fact that the four of us who formed Treepeople found ourselves in the midst of a scene which blew up around us and attracted the eyes of the world just 2 years after our arrival, not to mention the 12 years I played music following that, I am bound to, hell, I will forget something.
This means two things: I will be coming back to entries and adding things to them over the months following publication, and, that the part of the above disclaimer where I ask for help from people in keeping me honest and in remembering things is crucial to them. I thank anyone ahead of time who was there, and, those who weren't there who have access to valid info, for helping me to correct errors in dates or chronology. Yes, I have the Internet, but many bands, scenes and things I will cover did not receive the attention I feel that they deserved and thus I will recall them mostly from memory, or rather, memories; mine and those of friends. Also, friends who were in bands which I do not happen to mention, please don't take it personally, just remind me. I have created a monster in undertaking this blog, one which I am determined to ride until the end!
Lastly, as mentioned, this scene gained national attention, and thus, needless to say and as we all know, many bands/people became famous, became rock stars, were/are admired by millions, etc and etc...This makes another part of my original disclaimer even more important. This memoir is intended to tell my story, from my perspective. I have no intention of creating a place where people can seek gossip about famous people, nor is it about 'name-dropping'. I write of my impressions of people, bands, and the Seattle scene from the '90s into the early 2000s. I protect those who are my friends fiercely because a symptom of being known is frequent intrusion into their lives beyond a level that I feel is acceptable. Thank you for indulging me this disclaimer.
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My other blogs: Short Story Long - (Top of mind, conversational, formal essays, photo essays, etc.) Artwork, Poetry
The end of the honeymoon
Since I started this blog, I have dreaded the moment when I would get to this part of the Treepeople story, because it is uncomfortable to talk about, and, the person whom I am mostly talking of is no longer alive, and thus doesn't have the ability to either approve what I write or to provide their perspective, their side of the story. In earlier entries, I wrote of the major blow out Pat had with our roadie and friend Ted during the '86 State of Confusion tour, for which I sought and received approval from both Scott and Ted to publish. Pat's ex Anna let me publish an email in which she wrote about living with and being in a relationship with Pat, that she provided, among other things "...emotional support for a man who constantly questioned his existence and his relationship to those around him. Totally my choice..."
I suppose my section header above, 'The end of the honeymoon' doesn't totally apply in that it was never really a honeymoon, at least in terms of the reason why I left Treepeople, which was, as you can tell by now, personal conflict with Pat, which had been there since the days when we were in State of Confusion together. As Scott Schmaljohn, Pat's brother and our band-mate, and my good friend of over 35 years (he and I were at this point in the history of Treepeople the sole surviving members of the first band that spawned all these bands in succession, Dissident Militia) observed in a recent correspondence, "...Nothing great ever comes easily. Just as we were getting somewhere in the music jungle, Pat and Wayne had a final blow out. I did not witness it, nor do I blame anyone for it. I was bummed, pissed and thought it was unfair that the band had to to deal with this ongoing conflict..." It certainly was a burden on the band, and I do own my part in it, and if I had a fuckin' time machine...
In writing of these events, there are several things at play which I will do my best to manage, mainly different opinions and perspectives put forth about a sensitive subject for those who loved Pat, or even for those who disliked Pat (and as a disclaimer, I knew people who may not have approved of some of Pat's behavior, but very few who actually didn't like him, and for those who didn't like him, it was often because he wasn't afraid to call their bullshit).
Wayne "Rhino" Flower and Pat "Brown" Schmaljohn, crop from 1990 Treepeople promo photo
The situation was complicated because he was complicated, one of the most complicated people I ever met (and I am pretty complicated myself, with some pretty complicated friends) and therefore no one could point a finger and say, 'AHA! He is this way because of A, B and C!' It's also complicated because the other subject this recounting touches on is mental illness, and also my own role in the conflict, my own insecurities that stoked the flames.
And, as I keep repeating in this blog; we were kids! We still had a LOT to learn about managing conflict and interpersonal communication. These were terms and concepts most of us had never heard of back then, and we were of the last generation as a whole (in the US anyway) who often stuffed feelings down inside until they inevitably bubbled up later, as a result of our parents who raised us and how their generation was raised (even more so for my parents, as they had me late and were of the WWII generation, members of which generally stifled personal feelings and avoided personal conflict - unless it was with Nazis!). I was guilty of this more than Pat, and Pat's father was a psychologist, so possibly that explains a difference between him and most people we hung out with.
Among the many things I admired about Pat was that he had no filter, didn't mince words, stated what he meant and thought - not always welcome or even correct - but you always knew where he stood. This had a profound influence on me, and was an important tool for navigating the often passive aggressive landscape of Seattle and the northwest, interactions with passive aggressive people in general, and most importantly, in helping me to realize my own passive aggressiveness, the one thing my dear, departed mother passed on to me I would rather not have received (God rest her) and which I am happy to say I have made massive progress on in the last 20 years.
If you have followed this blog up to this point (if not...GET TO READIN'!) you can see in my tales about Pat that we all looked up to him (which brings up another complicated aspect of this whole thing; Pat and I actually liked and respected each other!) and that he was the engine behind all we did. I can confidently speak for my remaining Brother Trees in saying that none of us, including Doug Martsch, would have accomplished what we did in music and art generally without Pat's mentor-ship in the School of DIY (Do It Yourself). I will discuss Pat here and more in later entries. In this entry I am focusing on how and why I quit the band.
The show of a lifetime that was my [second to] last show with Treepeople
Flier for my final show with Treepeople, at the Melody Ballroom, Portland, Oregon, 1991
Chris Takino managed to get us on the bill of a dream show in Portland, Oregon in 1991 with Treepeople opening, then Nirvana then Dinosaur Jr. (Nirvana played middle slot as this was just prior to them blowing up, I discuss that more later in this entry and in the next entry, and they were touring with Dinosaur Jr. as an opener for their 'Green Mind' tour). We were pretty stoked, to say the least, about this show. I don't remember details of our lives between hearing we were on the bill up to playing the show, but I can guess to the best of my abilities and understanding of how we operated as a band to determine what went down generally.
First of all, playing a show that big was a huge deal in general and would have been to any band (I am pretty sure many local bands in Seattle and Portland were saying,"How the fuck did they get on that bill?") but even more-so for us, since Dinosaur Jr. was a band that we looked up to, and that had influenced us (as previously discussed). Nirvana wasn't really a band we were all that into musically, but we respected them, and we approved of Kurt being true to his punk roots. I had seen Nirvana a couple times in Seattle; one of those shows they were really great, and at the other, they were kind of sloppy. I came to appreciate them more many years later, when I was away from, and thus had perspective on, the scene I had been so enmeshed in. I will say that I liked all of their studio recordings from the start, and thought all of them were well done.
Dinosaur Jr.'s excellent album (and one of the coolest covers ever) 'Green Mind', which they were touring for in 1991 with Nirvana opening. We opened the Portland, Oregon show for this tour
By this point in Dinosaur Jr.'s career, they were at a peak, and I have no data to back that up, it is just an observation based on my perspective in the scene I was in, so take it how you will, but it is safe, at the very least, to say that they had become pretty well known for a band who was mostly played on college radio stations, and in many ways paved the way for bands like Nirvana and so many other guitar-driven, emotional alternative bands, including, of course, Treepeople.
It is certain that our already aggressive rehearsal schedule was bumped up even more to prepare for this moment in the spotlight. And one thing I certainly remember, which ramped up to my leaving the band, was an increase in tension among us, especially between Pat and I. Up to this point as a band, we had been working our assess off and sacrificing quite a bit in our lives for recognition. This show offered an opportunity to get in front of the largest audience we had ever played for, to maybe catch the eye and ear of a major or large indie label representative, and to sell some merchandise on a scale we had never done before. In short; a hell of a lot was riding on this show.
Show night starts with a story about a bird...
We drove the 3 and a half hours to Portland, home to a sister city music scene that sometimes, understandably, had a chip on its shoulder about all of the attention that Seattle scene had received in recent years, and this was before the Seattle scene blew up. The truth is also that there were great relationships between Seattle alternative bands and Portland alternative bands. Treepeople played and attended great shows with Portland bands on the bill, mostly in Seattle, like Hazel, Crackerbash, Pond, Poison Idea, Thirty Ought Six, The Spinanes, Napalm Death, Sone, Dharma Bums and many more. To many of the musicians it was friendly competition, and the shoulder chip belonged mostly to music industry folk and music journalists. But as I mentioned, I am almost certain there was resentment about us being on this bill. I digress...
We arrived in Portland a bit early. We had been coming to Portland to play shows since 1983 when half of us (myself and Scott) formed Dissident Militia (I sang) and through the times of bands that morphed from that; State of Confusion and Treepeople, so it was familiar territory. I called Portland 'Boise's back yard', meant in terms of proximity, and we partly grew up there (and at this writing, I have been living in Portland, Oregon for 8 years and counting, with no plans to move in the immediate future). Our good friend James lived in Northwest Portland with his girlfriend (back when rent there was super cheap for cool, Victorian era apartment houses). We and other friends who lived in Portland ended up at their place to hang out before the show, catch up, imbibe adult beverages, smoke.
I wanted some fresh air, so I walked out on to the small porch into the June heat and stood on the stoop looking at passing car and foot traffic. In my peripheral vision on the left side, I saw something at the edge of the porch roof twitching around sporadically. I turned to see a sparrow hanging from the rain gutter by some fishing wire around its neck that was entwined in a mass of plastic six pack rings and various trash, but that wasn't what I saw at first, as I had had a few beers, and I was confused and thought it was something mechanical placed there to scare off crows or something.
So I walked into James' living room, with the whole group of friends turning toward me, and tried to ask him if what I thought I saw was actually what I saw, but I didn't know how to describe it at that moment. Sure, in retrospect, 20/20 hindsight and all that jazz, you scream back at your past self; "ASK IF THEY HAVE A DECOY!" but what came out was, "Hey James, do you guys have some kind of...electric, dead bird thing?" Everyone in the room looked at each other in turn with blank, baffled expressions, to see if anyone else may know what the hell I was referring to. Then we all laughed for a moment. I led everyone outside to see what I saw, realized, as mentioned, that it was actually a bird strangling in garbage, and trapped by it, snared and twitching for its life. It was heart breaking and we had to rescue it!
So Pat and I collaborated and came up with a plan. He stood out on the ledge of the bottom of the front part of the porch, clinging to the wall with one hand, so he wouldn't fall into the flower bed, and with the other hand, he was able to boost me up (a job I was chosen for as I was the tallest) to where I could just stretch up and, with my right hand, work the little bird free. I had hoped to get the rest of the plastic off of it, but it flew away. Still a victory! (and an inspiration for me, from that day forward, to cut up any 6 pack rings or stringy things like floss when throwing them away, a habit for life).
Everyone cheered for Pat and I. How strange the world is that the two of us, who were together that day when things were put in motion which would end the last 7 years running of my life in 3 bands, two bands of which occupied 6 of those years in collaboration with Pat, that on that day, we would collaborate to free a trapped bird. Life often manufactures metaphors, I have found this to be consistently true in my life and that of others. As a side note, 'Electric dead bird thing' was a story often recounted, and a term that has stayed alive in my brain and in the vernacular of me and my oldest friends. A band name, perhaps? Hmmmm...
Melody Ball Room, June 20th, 1991, approximately 6 pm...
We arrived at the hall early and hung out in our backstage green room and wandering around the Melody Ballroom, an impressive venue that had been mainly a theater before. Since we kind of knew the Nirvana cats, we wandered into their green room and hung a little, chatted with them, they were receptive and kind to us. We noticed immediately that their table of food and drinks was way better in quality and quantity than ours. We had bags of chips and bowls of nuts and a few six packs of beer, while Nirvana had full-on catered food, pasta salad, green salad, meat sandwiches, wine, beer and booze; The power of a major label rider! Pat was extremely nervous to play this show (we all were) as the hour of us taking the stage drew nearer, and at one point while we were in Nirvana's green room, he snuck into the corner of the room and puked into their garbage can (he often was nauseated before performances, when he sang in State of Confusion, he famously puked into a box of Christmas decorations he found backstage at a hall we played in Salt Lake City, a hilarious, classic event we retold often).
After the doors were opened and show-goers filed in, almost all of them went right to the Nirvana merchandise table. I think we had a little corner of a table for our stuff, and of course Dinosaur Jr. had a merch table being worked by a roadie, and we sat there with our jaws on the floor at the fact that hardly anyone was buying any merchandise other than at Nirvana's table. I have to keep adding the reminder that Nirvana hadn't completely broke yet. It was building while they were on this tour, 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was quickly climbing alternative charts and edging toward the Billboard chart (by January 11th the following year, a mere 6 months after this show, the album 'Nevermind' would be at #2, an astounding, unexpected result). So seeing this unfold was an amazing spectacle to us. By the time we took the stage, we were looking out over a sea of Nirvana shirts. This, for us, was the first indicator of what was to come and we were baffled. 'Nirvana is more popular than Dinosaur Jr.? What is this, Bizzaro World?' I suppose for my younger readers, I should also add a reminder that there was no internet then, or cell phones or smart phones, so word of things like this spread much more slowly, mostly through word of mouth and through publications and radio.
Go time...
We took the stage, and looked out over the aforementioned Nirvana shirts that everyone had put on immediately after buying them (another thing I have never seen happen at a show, at least not on this scale) a sea of them stretched across the floor in front of us. My estimation is that there were 500-700 people there by that point, the largest crowd we had ever played for, adding to our nervousness. This was it.
I am pretty sure we opened with 'No Doubt', we often did, as it was a start on the dime, in-your-face tune that grabbed people right away. And, in the middle of the second song, Pat's E-string broke! And...he had no replacement! There is an important backstory here, in that I had borrowed Pat's bass the week prior to add some bass parts to my home 4-track recordings. So Pat assumed that it was of course my fault that his string broke! He even muttered something about it onstage to me under his suppressed rage, and this rage grew and grew after the show, and set the stage for the final conflict between he and I. But here is the best part of the story, and a testament to Pat's tenacity and resourcefulness; he proceeded to tie the E-string back on! I looked at it after the show and I still had no idea how he did it. It was a first in my music career, and I have never seen anything like it since. We were able to finish our set with minimal interruption, and as I remember it, we played very well, to good reception.
Immediately after playing, Pat took me aside and railed on me for fucking up his bass string. All I could say in my defense was that I had nothing to do with it, all I had done was play it softly in my apartment, that guitar strings break all the time, and he should have had a replacement. But that is the way in intense personal relationships; when one holds a grudge, often, they assign meanings to actions or words that are really not there, it is always about something else. All of this is yet another illustration of how being in a band can be like being in a marriage. Suffice it to say that this event was the catalyst for what was to come; the 'divorce' if you will.
I went on the floor to watch Nirvana play and they were great, it was the best set I had ever seen them play (see below for a bootleg recording of the show). The crowd erupted and went nuts. I was standing near the front of the stage, and I should have known better, as the swell of the crowd, as it often does, like one big creature, ebbed and flowed and pushed me forward and backward, and the people near the stage were getting crushed against it, one of whom was a young woman near the very front, I was concerned for her safety, but I couldn't get through the dense pack of people to help her, as I was wedged in myself. I am not a fan of being in large crowds like that. I am not agoraphobic or anything, but I hate being pushed and shoved and unable to control where I end up. It can be quite unnerving, especially in light of big shows throughout music history where people were unintentionally trampled to death.
So I took a break. No one was in our green room (and the food and beer was gone!) so I wandered around looking for familiar faces. Through the door of Dinosaur Jr.'s green room, I saw Chris Takino sitting on the couch, chatting with Jay Mascis (they were old friends, and that was the main reason we got on the bill, I would posit) and the rest of the band. So I walked in and chatted with everyone. I told Jay about the girl I saw getting pushed up against the stage. He smiled slightly, and, in a voice that sounded just like how he sang in terms of inflection and tone, he said, "She's probably been crushed by now." I had no response but I think in my mind I must have thought something like, 'Classic!' and smiled dumbly.
Click to hear Nirvana's set at the Melody Ballroom, Portland, Oregon, June 20th, 1991
Amazingly I found Nirvana's set on YouTube (see link above). It's not the best quality, but is at the very least a document of the night, and their great set, one that finally won me over to how good they really were (I was a late convert by Seattle resident standards, and the shows I had seen were mixed in terms of tightness). I tried to find recordings of Dinosaur Jr.'s set but no luck, and of course, no one bothers to record opening bands, so, no Treepeople set (a shame! If someone has one, or photos from the show, let me know!)
Above shots are from screenshots I took of the photos in a slideshow for a live recording of the show at Melody Ballroom in Portland, Oregon in 1991, so I do not have photographers or sources to list (it looks a lot like the work of Charles Peterson, sort of the official 'grunge' photographer in Seattle, who took most of the Sub Pop photos) and, the quality is not great, but in the bottom one, I found myself in the crowd watching Nirvana (note that I don't give a shit about Kurt stage-diving as I was too busy watching Dave Grohl play drums)! I am pretty sure the girl in front of me was the aforementioned girl I wanted to try and rescue from getting crushed against the stage, and about whom Jay Masicis said, when I told him about this, "She's probably been crushed by now."
Also, see below for some other memorabilia from this show that were part of the same slideshow:
Above: A poster for the Melody Ballroom show signed by Nirvana band members, and Nirvana's set list from the show - from the 1991 show at Melody Ballroom in Portland, Oregon with Treepeople and Dinosaur Jr.
Also, see below for some other memorabilia from this show that were part of the same slideshow:
Above: A poster for the Melody Ballroom show signed by Nirvana band members, and Nirvana's set list from the show - from the 1991 show at Melody Ballroom in Portland, Oregon with Treepeople and Dinosaur Jr.
Dinosaur Jr. also had a great set (I had never seen them play a bad one, frankly) which we greatly enjoyed. We left the show on a high.
Back home...
As is often the way with these moments, that high faded quickly. Back home, the existing tension between Pat and I reached a fevered pitch. There was other tension as well in some personal romantic relationships of band members, leading ultimately to some break ups. A tectonic shift had begun. Within less than a year, I would no longer be in the band. Within a few years, there would only be one original member left in Treepeople.
As a band, playing a show like the one we had just played put us on a new path, one with more at stake and way bigger goals than we had ever had. It wasn't like we expected to only play huge shows like this from then on, but we tasted something we wanted more of; recognition, and this became more of a driving force in the band than ever before. This is all, of course, my take on events. It seemed to me that Pat had tasted something he always wanted, as I mentioned before he wanted to make a living on the band, he felt that we should be at the same level as Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr. or The Pixies.
As all artists do, Pat sought approval and love, and appreciation for his work. I have a memory of a show we all went to in Seattle at the Off Ramp not long after the Melody Ballroom show (maybe Caustic Resin and Cows?); Pat had taken to wearing these little red-tinted, prescription, square-framed sunglasses all the time, even at night, and as I was walking toward the bathroom through the densely packed crowd, I bumped into him, he was pretty intoxicated, and I could just see his fierce eyes through the red lenses of his glasses. In his fist, he clutched some papers, I could just make out that it was a book of short stories he had been working on (which I still have, and it is really good). He looked at me and said, "I got something to SAY!", holding up the clenched roll of his manuscript, and then he wandered off. I will never forget that. He did have something to say, and he had said plenty through the bands we had done, but he wanted more. He wanted to be peers with the successful people in our scene, and with writers he admired.
The writing on the wall...
Over the years I had been in bands with Pat there had been certain points at which our conflict nearly reached the point of a fist fight. I was not a violent person by any stretch, though I would defend myself or anyone I loved if I felt that they or I were under attack. Pat could at times be very aggressive physically (most often when he was drunk) and had been in many fights in his life. He could be downright intimidating when he wanted to be. More often than not, this attitude and experience came in handy for a punk band, especially one in which 3 of the four members were fairly pacifist unless confronted directly. We used to joke that Pat was a 'pass-a-fist'.
Usually, we cheered him on when he was getting in someone's face, as they pretty much always deserved it. It could be some asshole trying to pick a fight at a punk show, for instance, who didn't count on coming across someone like Pat, who could fight back. And we knew that if anyone messed with any of us, he had our back. But being human, he wasn't always right when he got into people's faces. He got into mine a few times over the years. It happened when we were alone, and when something I said or some behavior of mine upset him. I had my own issues, of which everyone was aware, so when I recounted stories to Scott or Doug, they took it with a grain of salt, and with the benefit of the doubt for Pat. Mostly they just wanted the conflict to go away (understandably) as Scott expressed above. It was getting in the way of what were finally beginning to accomplish. The conflict itself had taken on a life of its own. This is not to say we were in constant conflict, not at all. It was just that when we did go at it, each time it became more and more intense.
At the time, I didn't ever consider mental illness to be part of any of Pat's behavior, but in viewing things retrospect, a pattern developed, culminating in his tragic death 8 years later. The saddest part of it all (our conflict) was that I realized later that the main reason he got so upset at me was that he wanted to be my friend, he wanted love and attention and respect. And, since I was kind of an emotional empath of sorts, I could actually see the conflict going on behind his eyes, and since I was much more passive as a young man, I wanted to avoid the conflict that could spring up out of nowhere, and thus, I kept him at an arm's length. He saw this as a direct statement that I didn't like him, and that I somehow thought I was better than he, but that wasn't true. And I myself was incredibly insecure, so his aggressiveness and forthrightness was off-putting to me. Socially, I was more at the periphery in general with this and any band I have been in; I always dated women who didn't quite come from or fit in to the closely knit 'Treepeople family'. This wasn't a conscious thing, it was just based on who I was, who I was attracted to, etc.
Pat and I, as I have mentioned, had respect and admiration for each other. He knew I was a good writer, visual artist and musician, he seemed to think that these things came easily to me and that I took them for granted (based on things he told me) and that couldn't be further from the truth. I struggled mightily. Also, as far as the bands were concerned, I was sort of his assistant when it came to band chores like mailing records ordered internationally or servicing the band van and so on. I learned a lot from that, which I took into many areas of my life years later. He knew he could count on me for certain things. I like to think that this blog adequately expresses my respect and admiration for him.
We both had insecurities and negative self-perception working against us, and we each processed it in different ways. Since Pat was more aggressive in general, he attacked these feelings, sometimes taking it out on those he loved, but I always felt he never meant to. It had gotten beyond him eventually. But he fought long and hard against these demons.
And so it was that one night shortly after the show at Melody Ballroom, we had an intense conflict and I decided that I couldn't deal with it anymore. As I mentioned in the beginning of this entry, this is my take on events. Scott sees it all differently, based on things he has told me and written me. And that is the way with these things. Also, as I mentioned, Pat is not here to defend himself, or offer his perspective. All I can do is give you my read of events, and why I left.
The next day I received two visits. First, Doug came by to see how I was doing. We chatted for a time. He said he had been working on some songs that didn't fit with Treepeople, and that he may do a side project. This would be the basis for his next band, Built to Spill. The other visit was from Scott and Pat, who had come to get my keys to the rehearsal space, and another conflict began to erupt between Pat and I, but my girlfriend asked them to leave.
I felt and still feel bad that Scott and Doug were innocent victims in this conflict. It ripped apart what we had been working so hard on, right when we were getting recognition. I did not begrudge them going on without me. I wish I could have taken the journey with them a bit further, but there are times in life when you have to make difficult choices to preserve your sanity. I made that choice. Though Pat and I would make up in years to come, and I would contribute articles and artwork to an arts and culture weekly magazine he started with Scott in Boise after moving back there, we never collaborated again musically.
I am proud of my contribution to this band, and to the bands that led up to it. The recordings I did with Scott, Pat and Doug still hold up, I feel, especially 'Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment'. We made our mark, and it still stands.
About four years ago there was an exhibit at the music history museum Experience Music Project in Seattle on Nirvana that Steve Fisk had done the theme music for called 'Taking Punk to the Masses', and Fisk told me there were some items on Treepeople and State of Confusion included, so I went with my brother and my then girlfriend. There was a listening station for each scene that had become part of or had a connection to the Seattle scene in the '90s. For the Idaho bands there was a potato icon (of course there was!) and the bands listed included H-Hour [Previously incorrectly listed as TAD] , State of Confusion and Treepeople. I took this photo of my girlfriend and my brother listening to the songs (not the best quality photo):
There was also a display case with the vinyl albums of bands who were part of the Seattle scene with Nirvana and the Treepeople lp 'Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment' was there. This was a moment of pride for me, and I allowed myself to feel it.
There was much more to come for me after leaving Treepeople, as I entered the most productive period in my musical career, and, some of the most challenging times in my personal life. And that is for next time.
Up next: Treepeople quickly gets a new drummer and records a new EP, Wayne picks up the bass again and joins a unique new band, Nirvana explodes and changes music forever, and opens the floodgates for people wanting to be 'the next big thing'.
As a band, playing a show like the one we had just played put us on a new path, one with more at stake and way bigger goals than we had ever had. It wasn't like we expected to only play huge shows like this from then on, but we tasted something we wanted more of; recognition, and this became more of a driving force in the band than ever before. This is all, of course, my take on events. It seemed to me that Pat had tasted something he always wanted, as I mentioned before he wanted to make a living on the band, he felt that we should be at the same level as Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr. or The Pixies.
As all artists do, Pat sought approval and love, and appreciation for his work. I have a memory of a show we all went to in Seattle at the Off Ramp not long after the Melody Ballroom show (maybe Caustic Resin and Cows?); Pat had taken to wearing these little red-tinted, prescription, square-framed sunglasses all the time, even at night, and as I was walking toward the bathroom through the densely packed crowd, I bumped into him, he was pretty intoxicated, and I could just see his fierce eyes through the red lenses of his glasses. In his fist, he clutched some papers, I could just make out that it was a book of short stories he had been working on (which I still have, and it is really good). He looked at me and said, "I got something to SAY!", holding up the clenched roll of his manuscript, and then he wandered off. I will never forget that. He did have something to say, and he had said plenty through the bands we had done, but he wanted more. He wanted to be peers with the successful people in our scene, and with writers he admired.
The writing on the wall...
Over the years I had been in bands with Pat there had been certain points at which our conflict nearly reached the point of a fist fight. I was not a violent person by any stretch, though I would defend myself or anyone I loved if I felt that they or I were under attack. Pat could at times be very aggressive physically (most often when he was drunk) and had been in many fights in his life. He could be downright intimidating when he wanted to be. More often than not, this attitude and experience came in handy for a punk band, especially one in which 3 of the four members were fairly pacifist unless confronted directly. We used to joke that Pat was a 'pass-a-fist'.
Usually, we cheered him on when he was getting in someone's face, as they pretty much always deserved it. It could be some asshole trying to pick a fight at a punk show, for instance, who didn't count on coming across someone like Pat, who could fight back. And we knew that if anyone messed with any of us, he had our back. But being human, he wasn't always right when he got into people's faces. He got into mine a few times over the years. It happened when we were alone, and when something I said or some behavior of mine upset him. I had my own issues, of which everyone was aware, so when I recounted stories to Scott or Doug, they took it with a grain of salt, and with the benefit of the doubt for Pat. Mostly they just wanted the conflict to go away (understandably) as Scott expressed above. It was getting in the way of what were finally beginning to accomplish. The conflict itself had taken on a life of its own. This is not to say we were in constant conflict, not at all. It was just that when we did go at it, each time it became more and more intense.
At the time, I didn't ever consider mental illness to be part of any of Pat's behavior, but in viewing things retrospect, a pattern developed, culminating in his tragic death 8 years later. The saddest part of it all (our conflict) was that I realized later that the main reason he got so upset at me was that he wanted to be my friend, he wanted love and attention and respect. And, since I was kind of an emotional empath of sorts, I could actually see the conflict going on behind his eyes, and since I was much more passive as a young man, I wanted to avoid the conflict that could spring up out of nowhere, and thus, I kept him at an arm's length. He saw this as a direct statement that I didn't like him, and that I somehow thought I was better than he, but that wasn't true. And I myself was incredibly insecure, so his aggressiveness and forthrightness was off-putting to me. Socially, I was more at the periphery in general with this and any band I have been in; I always dated women who didn't quite come from or fit in to the closely knit 'Treepeople family'. This wasn't a conscious thing, it was just based on who I was, who I was attracted to, etc.
Pat and I, as I have mentioned, had respect and admiration for each other. He knew I was a good writer, visual artist and musician, he seemed to think that these things came easily to me and that I took them for granted (based on things he told me) and that couldn't be further from the truth. I struggled mightily. Also, as far as the bands were concerned, I was sort of his assistant when it came to band chores like mailing records ordered internationally or servicing the band van and so on. I learned a lot from that, which I took into many areas of my life years later. He knew he could count on me for certain things. I like to think that this blog adequately expresses my respect and admiration for him.
Pat Schmaljohn and Wayne R. Flower, playing a show in the band State of Confusion, in 1987 - Photo by Brian Bothwell (cropped by the author)
We both had insecurities and negative self-perception working against us, and we each processed it in different ways. Since Pat was more aggressive in general, he attacked these feelings, sometimes taking it out on those he loved, but I always felt he never meant to. It had gotten beyond him eventually. But he fought long and hard against these demons.
And so it was that one night shortly after the show at Melody Ballroom, we had an intense conflict and I decided that I couldn't deal with it anymore. As I mentioned in the beginning of this entry, this is my take on events. Scott sees it all differently, based on things he has told me and written me. And that is the way with these things. Also, as I mentioned, Pat is not here to defend himself, or offer his perspective. All I can do is give you my read of events, and why I left.
The next day I received two visits. First, Doug came by to see how I was doing. We chatted for a time. He said he had been working on some songs that didn't fit with Treepeople, and that he may do a side project. This would be the basis for his next band, Built to Spill. The other visit was from Scott and Pat, who had come to get my keys to the rehearsal space, and another conflict began to erupt between Pat and I, but my girlfriend asked them to leave.
I felt and still feel bad that Scott and Doug were innocent victims in this conflict. It ripped apart what we had been working so hard on, right when we were getting recognition. I did not begrudge them going on without me. I wish I could have taken the journey with them a bit further, but there are times in life when you have to make difficult choices to preserve your sanity. I made that choice. Though Pat and I would make up in years to come, and I would contribute articles and artwork to an arts and culture weekly magazine he started with Scott in Boise after moving back there, we never collaborated again musically.
I am proud of my contribution to this band, and to the bands that led up to it. The recordings I did with Scott, Pat and Doug still hold up, I feel, especially 'Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment'. We made our mark, and it still stands.
About four years ago there was an exhibit at the music history museum Experience Music Project in Seattle on Nirvana that Steve Fisk had done the theme music for called 'Taking Punk to the Masses', and Fisk told me there were some items on Treepeople and State of Confusion included, so I went with my brother and my then girlfriend. There was a listening station for each scene that had become part of or had a connection to the Seattle scene in the '90s. For the Idaho bands there was a potato icon (of course there was!) and the bands listed included H-Hour [Previously incorrectly listed as TAD] , State of Confusion and Treepeople. I took this photo of my girlfriend and my brother listening to the songs (not the best quality photo):
My ex-girlfriend and brother listening to audio of Treepeople and State of Confusion that was part of the Experience Music Project's Nirvana exhibit; 'Bringing Punk to the Masses'
There was also a display case with the vinyl albums of bands who were part of the Seattle scene with Nirvana and the Treepeople lp 'Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment' was there. This was a moment of pride for me, and I allowed myself to feel it.
There was much more to come for me after leaving Treepeople, as I entered the most productive period in my musical career, and, some of the most challenging times in my personal life. And that is for next time.
Up next: Treepeople quickly gets a new drummer and records a new EP, Wayne picks up the bass again and joins a unique new band, Nirvana explodes and changes music forever, and opens the floodgates for people wanting to be 'the next big thing'.
