Music History Part 45: 'Missed Bits' (go to next entry if you want to continue with the sequential progression of the blog)

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 ain't 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.

Missed Bits

What is 'missed bits'? It is what I am calling entries where I add things I missed in the previous entries. As I have often whined about in this blog, there is no way I will be able to remember and cover everything that happened in my years as a semi-professional musician (emphasis on the 'semi'!) and so often I remember things or someone reminds me of something, either via email or something comes up in a conversation, or, when doing research. 

Lunch with Jello

I mean the punk singer, not the undelicious gelatin-based desert. In the '80s, the Dead Kennedys played a show at The Crazy Horse saloon in Boise, Idaho, after it was booted from the Boise State University Ballroom (as it was called then, now it is called the 'Jordan Room') where it was originally booked (someone higher up was not pleased, so they pulled the old 'you need $1 million of insurance' thing, that is, setting a number they knew could not be achieved, a common tactic). I didn't get to see this show, nor did any of my bandmates in State of Confusion. After the show, I sent Jello an SOC record. 

Flash-forward to the late '80s, when Jello Biafra (singer of Dead Kennedys) was doing a speaking tour, and spoke at none other than the Boise State University Ballroom. He remembered how the DK's were booted and made it a point to return and speak there. My girlfriend at the time had a roommate with a baby who wanted Jello's autograph for the baby (not sure why, I am pretty sure the baby didn't know who he was!). So my girlfriend, her roommate and her baby and I approached Jello onstage after the lecture (which was quite good, very political). I mentioned I used to be in SOC and had sent him a record, asked if he received it. He remembered this (not surprisingly, he is an avid record collector and it was/is a very rare record, with hand silk-screened covers, and only 1,000 of the vinyl were pressed) and he said, "I was wondering if any of you SOC guys would show up tonight!" We talked a bit and he said he was going to be in town for one more day and he asked if I could show him around town, where the cool places to eat were and the cool record stores. I of course said, "Sure."

I received a phone call from Jello about 9 am, and he said "You have got to come rescue me from this hideous corporate hotel." I picked him up and took him to the Record Exchange (still there, still cool, and at the time was the only place in town then to get cool records). We went to a nice little cafe in the Hyde Park neighborhood (Nina Mae's) where we had a fascinating discussion. He was smart, interesting, politically educational and courteous. I had a great day with him. We said goodbye and I took him back to his hotel. 

He was to catch a flight home to SF that night, but it was canceled (if I remember correctly) and he was checked out of the hotel and stuck at BSU. He called and asked if I minded taking him to the airport. I didn't mind. I don't remember our conversation on the drive (it was more than likely about punk music) but we said our goodbyes, and I haven't spoken to him since. However, my next girlfriend did, years after this, and it was a strange instance of synchronicity (well, I suppose they are all strange).

Flash forward again to the mid '90s (and take note that this part of the 'bit' is ahead of the sequential timeline in the blog thus far, so it will appear again there). I was living in Seattle, had recently quit Treepeople (a band that most members of SOC were in) and was playing in a few bands (Violent Green, Halo Benders, and Faintly Macabre') and my girlfriend (a different one than previously mentioned) was living in Bellingham, Washington (about an hour and a half north of Seattle) going to college  at Western Washington University. Her roommate was in charge of setting up lecturers on lecture circuits to speak at Western, and Jello was scheduled to do so, and was soon arriving at the airport. My girlfriend's roommate said she was unable to pick Jello up, so she asked my girlfriend if she could do it, and she was able to.

She happened to be wearing a Treepeople shirt when she picked Jello up. She was no hardcore punk fan, she knew who Jello was, of course, but he was no big deal to her (she wasn't easily impressed in general, to her credit). When Jello saw the Treepeople shirt, he said, "Treepeople! A friend of mine is in that band!"
My ex: "Who?"
Jello:"Wayne Flower?"
My ex: "Get the fuck OUT! (she exclaimed in the manner of the character Elaine from Seinfeld). That's my boyfriend!"
Life is weird, indeed.

Musical Janitors

In the late '80s, Doug Martsch and I formed a side project from our then current band Treepeople called Musical Janitors (as we were both janitors at the time). It was an opportunity for Doug to play some covers he loved that wouldn't have worked as Treepeople covers, and some original instrumentals, all songs he played on an acoustic guitar. I played bass (as I had in the band that morphed into Treepeople, State of Confusion (SOC) and as I am really more of a bass player than drummer at the end of the day). Doug's then girlfriend, mentioned previously in the blog, who bought Doug a guitar and helped pay for our self-released first 7 inch, Laurie Samuelson, sang on one cover, Gigantic, by The Pixies, and it sounded fantastic, she nailed it. I will forever regret not getting even a boombox recording of Musical Janitors, it was really fun. 

 

Sitarist Ashwin Batish

We played a handful of cafe shows and one trippy show we landed at the above-mentioned Boise State University Ballroom with none other than Ashwin Batish, the world famous sitarist. We met him just before the show and hung out with him in his limo. He was very kind to us, and simply amazing to watch perform. He started his performance by playing and explaining tabla drums and what each sound meant, and worked his way through how those rhythms worked in the sitar playing. By the end he was playing Slayer-like leads on the sitar! It was impressive. But the set-up was really awkward for us when we opened before him as there were chairs in rows for the audience and everyone was dressed up and really taking themselves way too seriously. It was the stiffest vibe from a crowd I have ever experienced as a performer (and I have played music for a Shakespeare play before). But that was it, we may have done another cafe show but I think we only played maybe 5 times total and bagged it. A nice little chapter in my life as a musician. There was one photo of Musical Janitors that I remember, long gone, I assume.

Treehouse 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo retrieved fro the Treehouse Facebook page

 

Treehouse was a band from Olympia, Washington that Treepeople crossed paths with, and you may be thinking, 'Well, yeah, Tree themed bands all know each other, right?' ; ) but in fact the connection was through producer Steve Fisk, who had produced records by them (Fisk had also produced the band Screaming Trees; Thus the reason I gave him a baseball cap I found at a thrift store that said 'Tree Service' on it!). We played some great shows with Treehouse, their music was very cool, heartfelt rock with an indie flavor and a bit of a '60s rock flavor as well, with great grooves and hooks. They were all great musicians and many of them wrote the tunes, as I remember it. About 5 years ago, when I was still on Facebook, I had reached out to a member, Steve, and got some photos, but I have no idea where they all are now! I will post more here as I find them, and of course, anyone who has any email them to me (or videos, songs, anything): waynerayflower@gmail.com.

What I did find from that exchange was a flyer and a photo from a great show in Olympia that we played with Treehouse called Treestock (of course!) in 1991. The bands played on the back of a flatbed truck. It was pretty cool, a great memory for the books in my time in Treepeople. 

 

         Treepeople playing at Treestock, Olympia, Washington, 1991                          

I also found a Treehouse performance on a cable access TV show from 1990: Treehouse live on TCTV, 1990 


TAD, God's Balls 

I was remiss in earlier entries when speaking of my old friend and friend/ally to the bands I was in (State Of Confusion and the band it morphed into after, Treepeople) , Tad Doyle, of the band TAD, to not mention the groundbreaking and influential debut LP, God's Balls that came out in 1989, and which hit Seattle like a sledgehammer and which Trouser Press aptly called "Impressively punishing." I remember Tad telling me how he got the name for the record (and I wish I could tell you about it, but when I did so in a previous version of this blog entry, it caused it to be flagged as inappropriate by someone - so I am self censoring here in hopes that they will re-post it). It cannot be overstated how much this record influenced the music in Seattle at the time, Treepeople included. 

Editing Treepeople LP 'Gre' (pronounced 'Gree', acronym for Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment) on an AMS Audiophile digital music editor at Music Source

When I was writing the entries detailing the recording session for the Treepeople LP, 'Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment' I left out one little detail, not a big one, but it was something of its time that impressed us as a band then. The record was recorded in 1990, before digital editing or Pro Tools were prevalent, but producer Steve Fisk did edit it digitally in a way after it was mixed down to reel to reel tape using a machine called an 'AMS Audiophile.' This technology allowed for cross-fading songs from one into another, which we put to good use. I have a memory of all of us in the band being at the post production studio where Fisk worked and used the machine, and seeing the songs as bright green digital WAV forms on a screen, and thinking it was total wizardry!

Part 44: Vernon Emory Aldo Rumsey (Jan 24, 1973 – August 6, 2020) - A memorial entry

I started this memorial entry months ago and then paused, as I wasn't ready. Now as I come back, more deaths in the music world have happened since to process, and there will be entries on them, as well. 

The first word I always text back when someone lets me know of yet another death is, "Fuck," (I deleted my Facebook account a couple years ago, never looked back, FB is not for me, great for many, but as a result I hear of deaths via text, often days after others already know).

This entry in memory of Vern Rumsey was composed in part from thoughts expressed in speaking at a Zoom memorial. I am forever grateful to friends and family for giving so many of us a place to grieve in this surreal time we are living in, and for the suggestion of a family member of Vern's to take our memories of Vern to a more permanent and public forum. I am fortunate to have this particular forum in which to do so.

After the Zoom memorial, I couldn't help but think of how so many all over the world have said/are saying goodbye to loved ones this way as well; remotely, on a screen, during this time of COVID. It is all we have, and a very different grieving process, but it can still also be beautiful, more than one expects (for a wake, anyway) and, at the very least, a way to release together, which we all need to find as many safe ways to do as possible. We have to be there for each other. [As of this writing, coming back to this previously started entry, though things are slowly getting better, with a president actually interested in governing, 1,000 people are still dying a day; but, I had my first dose of a vaccine a couple weeks ago] - To reverse an Unwound record title; The Light at the End of the Tunnel is [NOT] a Train.

Vern was complex, and a lot of things things to different people, though this certainly isn't to say he wasn't genuine, or that he was trying to put on some false face (unless, of course, he was playing a prank, which he enjoyed) he was just human; As a loved one put it at the wake, "Vern was a great guy...But he was also a jerk." (I want this kind of honesty at my own funeral, thank you). I was just getting to know Vern, after not being in contact for a long span of years, as a result of the normal divergent paths two lives can take over time. 

He and I first came to know of each other from traveling in similar circles and having mutual friends for years in the NW music scene in the '90s, and we also knew each other from my connection to the Olympia music scene through a band I was in with roots there, The Halo Benders (a band that was also a connection to Sam Jayne/Love as Laughter, who opened a few shows for us; but this is, sadly, for a later memorial; RIP Sam). 

I followed Unwound's path (a band for whom Vern played bass, of course) until they eventually broke up. I crossed paths with Justin Trosper (songwriting/vocals/guitar) and Sara Lund (drums) more than Vern during the period between the band's breakup and Vern's passing. Around 10 years after Unwound broke up, I returned to the NW after 5 years living in Boston, to Portland, Oregon, in 2008, a city Sara had also relocated to years before, where she started a family, and, cool bands like Hungry Ghost, and with Justin Trosper, like Nocturnal Habits (Justin also started a great, short-lived punk band called Survival Knife later, whom I had the pleasure of seeing). Vern was doing a project then he had done for a while called Long Hind Legs, which managed to land a song on the hit vampire TV show called Twilight.

Back in the early '90s, I was living in Seattle after moving there in 1989 with a band from Boise, Idaho called Treepeople. In 1991, I quit Treepeople due to personal differences I had within the band (for more on that, check out the Treepeople entries) and by the next year, I was playing bass in a trippy goth/folk/punk band in Seattle called Violent Green (eventually so named, after 6 months under the name Dirty Hand Dance).

Seattle producer Steve Fisk, who had produced Treepeople and a Violent Green 7 inch and album (plus later records, and, played in The Halo Benders) told me about a band he had been recording from Tumwater, Washington (near Olympia) called Unwound. At the time, I believe Steve had just finished work on the Unwound record 'Fake Train' and he gave me a copy when it came out; I was floored. I will write more of Unwound in the regular course of this blog, but suffice it to say that I had played punk rock music for a decade by the time I heard Unwound, and I had never heard anything quite like them, it was influenced by the same punk stuff I grew up listening to, but on Fake Train, you could hear hints of something...different. There was even some New Wave and a dash of Beatles in the calm parts, throw in Can, Glenn Branca, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, and a whole list of other influences, post New Plastic Ideas (1994) there are even hints of bands like early Siouxsie and the Banshees, and others, that then unfolded over the course of the band as the music matured and stretched out, but they shaped it all into something new and completely their own, using influences gracefully (in full disclosure, some listed are influences band members have told me of, some are from my own ear hearing things) but they were never imitating. 

Through all the great songwriting, singing, guitar-work and stellar drumming, Vern's bass cuts through like a groaning, driving machine, deep in the earth, rising to the surface, then churning into the soil like a colossal Sandworm from the Dune books - sometimes it doesn't even sound like a bass, but more like a distorted keyboard, or some agonized beast, or just a giant texture for singer/songwriter/guitarist Justin Trosper to lay over with whatever he wanted to (at the wake, Fisk relayed a tale of the birth of this sound; during a mix, Vern leaned over the soundboard and cranked up levels until it was this particular grinding sound). And by the time Sara Lund was on drums, the legendary lineup was locked in. Quite frankly, to me, this was one of the finest rhythm sections to ever grace a set of drums and bass and rig. If you know me, you know I do not say such things lightly (and yes; Fanboy Alert).

Fast forward to the late '90s, 1997 to be exact, when I was playing bass, as mentioned, in Violent Green, plus a couple other bands on bass and drums; The also aforementioned Halo Benders (bass/drums) and a band called Faintly Macabre (drums), bands that are/will be covered here in this blog. Violent Green embarked on our first and only coast to coast tour (having previously only done scant West Coast/Northwest touring, and, incidentally, the only ever tour I was part of that made it to the East Coast) which had been booked by a rookie booker, her first ever tour, which was pretty terrible in terms of shows/attendance, as could be expected (to be fair, a show booker is one of the hardest professions out there, and especially back then, when the Internet was very new to the masses and most everything was still done old school, and only rich folks owned mobile phones, and, she was booking an obscure, hard to understand band that nobody had heard of - no easy task). 

On this tour, we scored a West Coast leg with Unwound (it must have been arranged through Chris Takino, owner/founder of Seattle's Up Records, a label which started by putting out a 7 inch for Violent Green and was still at this point our label - Takino ~RIP~ was also an Unwound fan, as I remember it). I was to the moon about the tour, of course. By then I was on a steady diet of listening to anything Unwound released, New Plastic Ideas being my favorite (still on the short list of fav albums). At one point I was on a steady, almost binary musical diet of Unwound and The Thinking Fellers Union 282 (also known as 'The Thinking Fellers Union' and 'The Thinking Fellers'). 

By 1997, Unwound had worked their collective asses off, recording, touring and playing amazing shows that spread the word like wildfire. Unplanned by the band, as is often the way, they became kind of a 'buzzword' band; A band to watch, a band like no other, and all the hype was true. I was privileged to watch them kill it, every night on this West Coast leg, at a time when they were in their peak form. Every show, they would do their trademark huddle; Locking arms at the shoulders and touching foreheads in a moment of silence, like a rock n roll prayer, endearing and fierce at the same time, lending a ritualistic, spiritual vibe to the whole set (Vern had to stoop over, his bony back showing from under the usual thin punk T-shirt that was his uniform).

A few years ago, when Vern and I reconnected on Facebook, he revealed to me his new addiction that was out of control; Legos! Vern and I had plans to connect in person, but he got sick. Then some mutual friends, just before I did see him, told me he looked quite a bit different than when I had last seen him, which was some years before, as a strapping, cocky young Bass God, a cigarette burning in his mouth (I always marveled at how the smoke never affected his vision, or his impressive playing). 

 

Vern around when I met him in the '90s - (image retrieved from Unwound's memorial Twitter feed)

 

Vern around when we reconnected in 2018 (image retrieved from Unwound's memorial Twitter feed)

 

Random photo from an image search of 'Legos bass' which Vern would've appreciated
 

And he did look different; he was even thinner than he was already (famously so), his naturally dense hair grown long, his face hidden in a thick beard, but he still had the signature mischievous smile I remembered well cutting through it, and the wing-like, upper body enfolding hugs of his arms and long upper torso were still a part of experiencing Vern. For all his complexities and troubles, whatever else he was, Vern was often pretty loving and generous (I cried describing these wing hugs on the Zoom wake call, because it was when everything hit me at once, just as the call was about to end...You don't hug like that if you don't mean it; The King of Hugs). 

 

                                                      Vern's mischievous smile. It is missed. 

In 2018, I would go, with a friend, and catch shows of Vern's solo project when it came to Portland, Oregon (sometimes accompanied by a band) called Red Rumsey (songwriting/singing/guitar). Vern and I would catch up in that odd way people do with decades spanning between the beings they were when they met and the beings they had become; The young, beautiful musicians at the top of their game, and the now middle aged men with afflictions and health issues (and for me, my own well known thinness had eh, changed) and who were still riding the music train, for fun, if for anything. 

And Vern was having fun, touring in a very Spartan way, even when joined by a band, as he was when I invited him to open the Portland and Seattle shows on the Treepeople reunion tour in 2019. Red Rumsey (in which Vern was joined by Aaron Finkle on drums and Gretchen Guydish on bass, also of the band Mr. Finkles Tragedy, a band Vern loved) toured in a giant old classic car, crammed in with some equipment on laps. I admired that. Backstage in Portland Vern was ecstatic to play with us and we had a moment, this being the first time where we actually had time to catch up in that weird way mentioned above. Vern was praising me for the music I had played in my life, and I stopped him and said, "You don't understand how big a deal you are to me as a musician, and how big a deal Unwound is to me!" And so we effectively humbled each other. It was sweet, a moment I am glad we had, I am grateful that before he left this plane, I got to tell him that.  

   Red Rumsey playing at Doug Fir in Porrland, Oregon at a Treepeople reunion show, August 8th, 2019. Photo provided by Aaron Finkle.

 

Red Rumsey playing in Olympia at McCoy's Tavern, Christmas, 2019. Photo  provided by Aaron Finkle

At the Seattle show, Red Rumsey, killed it. Vern's songwriting was ambling and slightly dirty, like Southern rock a bit but overlayed with his underground sensibilities, similar to me in feel to say Royal Trux. It was cool to see him up there, having fun, after he had been so sick. The shows were both great (also opened by the amazing Boise punk band Itchy Kitty). At that same show, I was asked if I could take Vern's guitar amp and cabinet back to Portland with me, and he would pick it up later. Sure. But after Red Rumsey left, all we had was the amp, and we searched like mad everywhere at The Crocodile club in Seattle for the speaker cabinet, to no avail (I annoyed the hell out of the poor staff there for weeks after, calling to see if they found it). I felt awful! I had lost Vern's cab! But, as it turned out, Red Rumsey found it sitting out and grabbed it, which I found out weeks later via an email response from Vern. We reconnected later and he got his amp back from me, which lived in my kitchen for months. 

Thank you, Vern, for all the beautiful, fierce bass playing and unique song-crafting and for being a crucial part of one of the best bands ever. You will be missed. I hope there are lots of Legos (and maybe a Lego bass) where you are, Brother, and that you are having a blast pranking the angels.

Unwound: New Plastic Ideas

 Wayne R. Flower, 4/21/21 I y