State of Confusion Reunion Shows, Boise, ID, April 21st & 22nd, 2023

State of Confusion (SOC) is playing 2 reunion shows in Boise, Idaho on April 21st. & 22nd, 2023. The last reunion was in 2011, and this may be the last (we're gettin' old!) Watch this space for ticket info end of February. 

Hope to see you there!

Poster design & layout, Scott Schmaljohn, artwork Cliff Green and Pat Schmaljohn, repspectively.

Shows played in loving memory of Pat 'Brown' Schmaljohn

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!

Music History, Part 18: The Later Boise Years 1988

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.


Drummer drink-off with Poison Idea and State Of Confusion (ending up in a result you might not expect).

This entry is the result of me discovering some errors in my entries covering the years 1986-1987, which started with me noticing that I had assumed that the State Of Confusion LP, 'A Street' was released in 1987ish but it turns out it was released in 1988 - which I could have determined by actually LOOKING AT THE RELEASE DATE ON THE RECORD...but I didn't.

As a result, my memory of a couple tours, one in 1987, one in 1988 (post 'A Street') blended together, so I have to go back and do corrective surgery on the blog, and that is what this is; the first knife cut and I suppose adding of an organ...eh, that's an awkward metaphor...moving on!

For the previous 1987 tour entries, I had the meticulous journal that Young Wayne left me, and for the '88 tour, I do not. Suffice it to say this will be a fairly short entry, and that I do not remember most of the shows on this tour. I assume it was pretty short. The purpose of this entry is mainly to insert a great tour story involving an infamous NW punk band, The Kings of Punk themselves; Poison Idea.

Above; Poison Idea around 1988/1990 (respectively) with Thee Slayer Hippy on drums (the long-haired blonde)

SOC scored an amazingly cool show in San Francisco, as mentioned, with Poison Idea. And, as mentioned in previous entries, we had bonded a bit with PI. Once, when they were playing Boise in the late '80s, they attended a party we were all at. Some outsiders infiltrated the party and were starting some trouble with one of us. Jerry and their new drummer, known as 'Slayer Hippy' (or 'Thee Slayer Hippy'), both very large, badass men, flanked us like soldiers and all they had to do was look at this asshole and he ran scared. I was impressed. They were never anything but kind and respectful to us, and we returned that vibe. It was perhaps this relationship that led to us getting the SF gig. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I assume Pat set it up, as he booked most of our shows.

The club we played at in SF, I don't remember the name of it, (up the street from the famous Paradise club) was a trippy place. There was a dance floor covering over a giant swimming pool in the middle of the floor in front of the stage. On the roof was a separate bar.

We arrived early to see one of the opening bands do their sound check, I think they were called Happy Birthday, kind of new wave, a weird singer bopped around with shreds of paper tied into her hair. Poison Idea walked in, we said hi. I remember standing next to Jerry and Tom Pig as we all watched Happy Birthday do their sound check. Jerry and Tom had looks of disgust on their faces. I think Tom asked no one in particular, "What the fuck is this?" or something similar, in that way that only Pig could do. I shrugged.

After we sound checked and PI sound checked, we headed to the bar on the roof. The bartenders were working in these little booths and wearing top hats. There were gogo dancers in bikinis dancing in random spots throughout the roof, smiling madly. It was like being in some sort of fairy tale.

Erik and Slayer Hippy hit it off right away. They parked themselves at a table and began drinking heavily. I sat with them for a time, but I was not a fan of getting drunk before playing a show. Erik actually didn't do it that often, but there were a few times when he actually passed out while drumming at a show. He was usually kind of a light-weight since he was pretty small. Often he would pass out early. But this night, Erik was the man. It began to resemble a drinking competition.

Slayer Hippy started looking a little wobbly. Erik did too, but less so. It came time for us to play and Erik pulled it off. A memory from our set that stood out was that at the time, SOC was playing a cover of the AC/DC song, 'Dirty Deeds' and the crowd loved it.

We finished our set and pulled our gear off the stage and loaded it into our van. Poison Idea was up next, but we saw them hanging around their van. As we neared, we noticed that Tom Pig was sitting in the open sliding van doorway, his feet planted in the gutter, looking in front of him with an expression of despair on his face. When we were even with the PI van, we saw he was staring at a motorcycle parked in the sidewalk directly in front of him. Then we saw that someone was...working on the motorcycle? No, it was Slayer Hippy, passed out drunk, under the motorcycle.

The Paradise Club, San Francisco (1981 - now closed) Photo by Gregg Girard retrieved from:  http://greggirard.com/work/in-the-near-distance--12

We talked to Jerry and Tom, both understandably very bummed out. We were bummed for them, but, also understandably, we were pretty blown away that our drummer drank the drummer of the infamously hard-drinking band Poison Idea under the table---nay, under the motorcycle. They had to load Slayer Hippy into the van, like some luggage, and take off. 

Inside the club at around midnight, they had peeled back the dance floor from the swimming pool and people were jumping in, some fully clothed. Even as a young punk I thought that drunk people swimming was not the best of ideas. I assume they got sued at some point.

We moved on to The Paradise club up the street, where there was a band playing upstairs and a band playing downstairs (which we thought was the coolest thing ever). I don't remember the bands. But I will always remember that night. 

Next: Treepeople record the first 7 inch record in Seattle with Jack Endino and get busted for drinking in the park with TAD, and the author gets two of the citations...how? Read on and you shall see...

Music History, Part 17: Mother Ends The Fight and New Musical Beginnings

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.

Goodbye Mother, goodbye friend

My mother's grave in Boise, Idaho

There I was at age 21, going to college after spending all of my teen years living a punk rock lifestyle. I lived with my mother, not because I had to, but because she had cancer and I wanted to be there. We had grown close as I got older. As I mentioned before, all of my siblings were much older than I. I was always Mother's baby in her eyes, but she also respected me as an adult. We shared intimate thoughts with each other (up to a point, of course). She was my friend.

I started classes in the Fall of 1987 at Boise State. I have to look at my transcripts to be sure but I took writing, art, and philosophy, I think. I had no strategy, really. I was good at art but had always done it my own way. I lucked out and had an amazing art instructor named James Russell, who was an anomaly at that school then, as BSU was really just a school to pump out business majors and football players. I am sure it has changed a lot, or maybe it hasn't. Russell and I became friends and he was a huge influence on my art, introducing me to collage and amazing artists I had never heard of. Sadly, we had fallen out of touch over the years.

I majored in art first but didn't have a definite plan as to what I would do with an art degree. I loved art, had done it since I could hold a Crayon, but when you start thinking of how to actually make a living at it, it gets tricky. I didn't want to try and make it as a fine artist, and I didn't want to be a graphic artist.

I abandoned art as a major and decided that writing would be a better choice. But I didn't want to teach and I didn't want to be a novelist or a technical writer. I had a vague idea that school was important, but in retrospect, a lot of my motivation came from doing well for my mom. She was very proud of me.

Mother went out of remission and the cancer had made it's point; it wasn't going anywhere permanently. She had chosen to fight it as long as she could, to see her grandchildren grow, to see me do well in college, which I did, I had a 4.0 GPA for a time. Soon, she began to stay at my oldest sister's place, whose husband made a good living as a lawyer. They had a beautiful house by the river and Mother could be more comfortable there, and there was always someone around to take care of her needs.

In 1987-88, chemotherapy was brutal. My mother was fatigued most of the time and she lost her hair (I always thought she looked  much better with short hair that wasn't permed and dyed). For a time, she fought the cancer as best she could.

One day in 1988, as I drove Mother to my sister's place, she looked at me with weariness in her eyes and said, "I don't know how much longer I can do this." By 'this' I knew she meant fight cancer. Within a week I got the call that she had passed away. I lost my mother and I lost a friend and I still miss her.

After my mom died, I continued to live in the apartment I had lived in with her. I had some short-lived affairs around that time (one of which was with the afore-mentioned cocktail waitress at The Crazy Horse) and eventually moved into a little house by myself, only a few blocks from where SOC was now practicing; in Pat's basement at a house he and his girlfriend and her son had moved in to. 

Doug

We had befriended a young, talented musician named Doug Martsch around the time we put out the 'A Street' album. In fact, there is a song we wrote in his honor, called simply, 'Doug'. 

Doug, (State Of Confusion, 1988, lyrics by Pat Schmaljohn)

This guy got drunk and his name was Doug
He was as wasted as a slug
He passed out and he didn't go home

His mother was mad at him

Bein' the life of the party
was the death of him
Now his future is mighty grim
Except when his band has to jam

Mom said he can still jam

I woke up late today
Called the boss and had to say
I won't be comin' in today

Doug's band invited me to jam

(I wouldn't get anything done at work anyway)

Doug's band and me are gonna jam...

Note: this song was based on truth; Doug's mother, wonderful woman that she was, still allowed him to rehearse with his band when he was grounded. We thought this was so cool we had to write a song about it.

Doug was originally from Twin Falls, a town just South East of Boise. When we met him, he was fronting a band called Farm Days that played fun, folky tunes with clever lyrics ('Skippin' school to go skip rocks/Skippin' out on 'talk, talk, talk'). They had played a couple shows with SOC and we were impressed with them, and especially impressed with Doug's guitar playing and song writing. Incidentally, the bass player of Farm Days was Brett Nelson, who would later play bass in Built To Spill for a number of years.

I believe when we met Doug in late 1986 or so at SOC shows, he was about 17 years old, but wise beyond his years, and possessing a wry wit. The SOC boys and Doug hit it off smashingly and hung out together often, sharing music we liked with each other. He was very into David Bowie, The Replacements, REM, The Smiths and Lou Reed/Velvet Underground at that time (among many other bands) if I remember correctly. We of course shared all the hardcore music we were into. This was an exchange that shaped the sound of things to come.

In Farm Days, Doug played acoustic guitar mostly [after thinking about it, this is not true (that memory disclaimer is for real, you see) as I now remember he played his gold Les Paul guitar in Farm Days, which he still has], but later, for a short time joined a band called Suiciety (featuring the drummer from Dirt Fishermen, Glen Newkirk, and the singer from the B-Sides, Cathie Crooks - see previous and upcoming blog entries for details on those bands). I saw them play at a garage show once. I was blown away with Doug's electric guitar playing. At that time, in that band, it reminded me a little of D-Boone from The Minutemen.

State Of Confusion ends and Treepeople begins

Around this time, Erik had been bar tending at a restaurant called Jake's (where I had bussed tables for a time). He was also attending college at BSU, majoring in business. We saw less and less of him. He rarely showed up for practice and often canceled at the last minute for shows we had set up months prior. It became clear that he was done sewing his wild oats playing punk music.

State Of Confusion at the Brass Lamp Pizza House, 1987, featuring Troy Wright on drums

Since Erik was barely involved in the band at this point, we kicked him out and moved on. A young drummer from a local punk band called USA named Troy Wright started playing drums for us. We played a couple shows with that line-up, but the chemistry wasn't there. He had big shoes to fill as far as playing drums, and he did his best, but it just wasn't working. Troy still plays music to this day and his current band, The Sandusky Furs, opened up for State Of Confusion at our reunion show last year. He drums and sings, and they were awesome.

[Since writing this, I have corresponded with Troy Wright and he brings up some other details I forgot, some involving chronology. This is exactly why I have the memory disclaimer! He remembers that the first time I played drums for SOC was at a party at a house that some friends lived in where shows happened, called the '5th Street House'. The line up was SOC, Grind and Dunce Cap (for whom Troy played drums, and this is the band that became USA minus a member). Troy recalls that I was playing drums because Erik couldn't make it, and he asked why we weren't playing any of our fast stuff, and I told him it was because I couldn't play the fast songs, so he sat in on some songs, I-84 and Public Lands and others. As a result of this we asked him to play in the band, which lasted about 8 months. Then he recalls, "Another item I remember. I was still in SOC. I came to SOC practice one day and I could hear you guys and doug rehearsing. I walked in the space and you guys were clearly excited. One of you guys asked if I wanted to hear what you were jamming on. You guys tore into Kid Dynamite by Squirrel Bait and it sounded incredible. I am not sure if you guys were named Treepeople yet....". I had forgotten that we covered that song. The drummer of Squirrel Bait, Ben Daughtry, was a big influence on me then, and a big reason why I laid down so many fills everywhere. Thanks, Troy for filling in the gaps!]

So I took up the drums and we asked Doug Martsch to play bass. There were many songs I could not play on the drums as they were way too fast for my level of skill, so we played the slower songs like 'Anarchy Street' (though this song sounds pretty fast to me today!). We played a couple shows with this line up, but it wasn't really working. Though I picked up the drums pretty quickly, I just couldn't pull off super fast hardcore drumming, period.

When I entered the jam room one day, I saw Doug showing Pat how to play some bass parts for a song he wrote, and we started jamming with this line-up. My drumming style fit well with his songwriting style and things began to click. 

Doug played acoustic guitar and Scott continued playing his crazy, buzz-twang electric country guitar through the same thrown-together amp going through the cabinet Erik built. His style, slowed down, was very unique, and kept the same punk energy while stretching out his leads to fit the slower, more folksy punk we began to form. 

We started cranking out songs because Doug had written many already, and Scott started writing slower punk songs that he sang on with a gruff, Pogues-like style. Pat became adept at laying down solid bass-lines as a backbone and I started experimenting with different beats, not really knowing what I was doing, but somehow pulling it off (it would take years for me to feel like a 'real' drummer). In listening to recordings from that time, I laugh at how I added drum fills everywhere. We quickly developed our own sound based on all of these elements. 

A band needs a name...

We went through that painful stage of coming up with a band name; nothing seems good enough, everyone wracks their brain. For me, it is constantly on my mind, I am forever thinking of names and ideas from where a name can come. I thought about how we lived in Boise, 'The City Of Trees' and came up with the name 'Tree Dwellers', but there was a local cover bar band called 'Curb Dwellers', so that didn't work, but everyone liked the 'tree' part, so we kicked around variations and came up with 'Treepeople'. Later, we found out about the environmental organization of the same name. Keep in mind there was no Internet in 1987 to simply google your name idea on and see if it was taken. The Treepeople organization still exists and you will see info on them if you google the name.

We began to play a lot of parties and after a while we were playing every weekend. We played a few cover songs, among them Cat Steven's hit 'Wild World'  which we named 'Cat Scratch Stevens' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqIznzPiai4) which was a hit among our quickly growing fans. I wrote our theme song, 'I Am A Tree', and played guitar and sang on it, (something that would never happen in this band, or any I was in later, again [I take that back, I briefly fronted a band in Seattle in the late nineties singing and playing bass and writing the songs, called 'Panic Bird']) and Doug sang backups, while Scott played drums. It is kind of a silly song, the lyrics are very hippie-ish, but I was trying to carry over some of Pat's environmental concerns he had expressed in SOC songs. His approach was far more original than mine, as you can see from the lyrics to 'I Am A Tree';

I Am A Tree (Treepeople, 1988, lyrics by Wayne Flower)

I am a tree
I got my roots in Mother Time
The rain cleanses me
And all that it can find
I'm as old as them old hills
So please, let me be
Leave the green to grow
Wild, wild and free

(Chorus)

I exhale so you can breathe
And you do the same for me
I am Brother Tree

(Repeat verse)

We ended every set with this song. We also wrote a silly, short song called 'Smokin' And Drinkin' which we always played right before we played the 'Wild World' cover. We were unaware at the time that a few bands had already done 'Wild World', like Black Uhuru. The same was true of the Velvet Underground cover we did, 'Sweet Jane', but they were crowd-pleasers. 

Treepeople in the early days (maybe not as quite as early as this entry tells of, and I have no idea where this was -The Zoo club? - or who took this. Send me pictures, Boise peeps!) 

No Mouth Pipetting demo tape

A few words about our first demo, named 'No Mouth Pipetting' by Pat. We recorded it in yet another farm studio, but this one was a little nicer, I forget the owner's name but I do know that he was in the world famous Idaho country rock band called 'Pinto Bennett and the Motel Cowboys'. He was a nice guy but he didn't really understand what we were trying to do. He got good sounds but when we mixed it, it didn't sound quite right in terms of the feel of how we sounded live. But it was our first release, with the aforementioned Cat Stevens cover and my silly hippy song. The original version of 'Size Of A Quarter' which we put on our later EP, 'Time Whore' is also on this tape. Doug's lyrics were sort of carry overs from Farm Days lyrics (and the song 'Bed Of Nails' was a Farm Days tune), lots of personal politics, and he played acoustic on all the songs, flanked by Scott's buzz twang, guitar neck climbing leads. My drumming, as I have mentioned, was hyper, and there were drum fills everywhere. 

I also sang a song I wrote the lyrics to called 'Lovely and Electric' which was widely misunderstood. In the song, I was trying to address something I had thought about in terms of men's relationship to porn and how that affected their relationships with women. One thing I had noticed was that older men looked at women in porn that were the same age as their daughters. They would of course kick anyone's ass who hit on their daughters in front of them, but at night they were masturbating to women the same age. I saw this as a major hypocrisy and a major affront to women. People did not take it that way. I suppose I could have expressed it in a better way. I hope I have somewhat addressed it here, all these years later.

We put this out as a cassette and Pat designed the cover on his Mac home computer, which became his role for future releases, T-shirts, stickers and flyers. We gave away tons of these tapes when we played and sent a few out for reviews to generally positive response. 

Here is a Last FM link to the No Mouth Pipetting track list: http://www.last.fm/music/Treepeople/No+Mouth+Pipetting

From parties to bars

We began to play The Crazy Horse regularly, and were able to fill the place. We wanted to play some bigger shows, like the shows that happened at a bar called The Bouquet in the heart of downtown, where some bigger, touring bands played. We found out who the booker was, a man named Allen Ireland (still active in promoting music, as far as I know) and we found out through a mutual friend that one of his favorite songs was the Camper Van Beethoven song, 'Oh no!' from their first album (an album we were listening to regularly) so we learned the song and invited him over to hear us play in our jam room. We played our set and 'Oh no!' and he booked us a show at the Bouquet with The Flaming Lips, another band we had come to listen to. This was the only time we engaged in such shameless sucking up! Hell, it got us a show, I guess...

Neon sign for The Bouquet, a music venue and bar in Boise, Idaho

I have vague memories of the Bouquet show, strangely enough. I remember that the big stage and professional equipment threw us off a bit. The crowd wasn't sure what to make of us. The Flaming Lips in 1988 had a big and loud sound and I remember being totally blown away by them and my drumming was influenced by their drummer from then on. We were playing pretty much every weekend at that point. We had a solid following of fans who were very responsive to what we were doing. We had stumbled into something pretty good and we were ready to take it where it could go.

Next time: The Zoo club shows, The Dirt Fishermen, Caustic Resin Treepeople's first demo and the search for a bigger pond

Music History, Part 16: The Crazy Horse Saloon Part II

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.

Music History, Part 15: The Crazy Horse Saloon Part I

NOTE: Any Boise peeps who were around the music scene in the '80s whohave 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.

Longest absence from the blog…ever. No apology would be worthy, so…

STATE OF CONFUSION 21.6.1986 Crazy Horse, Boise, Idaho; photo by Helge Schreiber

The Crazy Horse,  Part I

I wrote a poem at age 23 that started with the lines, ‘I was in this long, narrow, human bowling alley/Actually, it’s a saloon/they call it The Crazy Horse/and I grew up there…’ This is pretty much true. I started playing music in The Crazy Horse tavern at age 18. None of the owners ever carded any of us. And at the time, I only had a year to go to be legal, because the drinking age in Idaho at the time was 19. When they changed the law to age 21 (being pressured by the Reagan administration to do so by the threat of withholding much-needed highway repair funding) I had already turned 19, was grandfathered in and could still go to bars and buy alcohol, a rare stroke of good luck.

The Crazy Horse is still around, I am happy to say, under the name The Red Room (http://redroomboise.com/), and bands play there to this day (in fact, I just played there for a video shoot of State Of Confusion for a reunion we just did there last September, more on that later, I will probably do a separate entry on that). The place hasn't changed too much. Though years ago (until fairly recently) on the wall behind the stage there used to be a  drawing of a horse and western font spelling out ‘The Crazy Horse’…interestingly, there was no reference to the American Indian whose namesake they used. Just a drawing of a ‘crazy horse’, literally, which is comical, in one way, sad in another.

The Red Room, formerly the legendary Crazy Horse - Photo not credited that I see but retrieved from: 

http://herecomesthedumptruck.blogspot.com/2012/07/james-plane-wreck-and-sad-horse-red.html

Not a big bar, The Crazy Horse is a narrow, boxlike room (thus my description as a ‘human bowling alley’), the bar itself is to your right as you walk in and there is a stage at the back of the box. In the 80’s it was a bar that sold cheap beer and booze and was frequented by seasoned drinkers. Then the bands invaded. It would never be the same again. 

H-Hour

Our first experience of the Crazy Horse was to go see shows there. H-Hour was a popular local band who played mostly original songs, and their cover choices, for the time, were pretty non-mainstream; Joy Division, Shriekback and various then contemporary 'new wave' hits (just before new wave became a radio whore). I have waited to talk of H-Hour until now, because they are inexorably linked, in my mind, to The Crazy Horse saloon. H-hour, during that incarnation of the band, (there would be one more a few years later in Seattle) around 1984, was a great live band and all the young women loved them because of their dance-able music and because of their singer, who had a British look and sound about him, though he was from the US, and a pretty decent stage presence.

H-Hour packed the bar and the owners, whomever they were at the time, loved them. People came and danced and drank. I remember many a fine evening spent watching them. I was especially impressed with their drummer, Tad Doyle, a large man who drummed with authority (one of my top 5 favorite drummers of all time, I shit you not.). He was most often dressed in a white dress shirt and slacks, his hair short. He was a butcher at Albertson's meat department (the store was born in Boise, FYI), fairly mild-mannered, friendly and extremely intelligent 

By 1985, I had become pretty good friends with Tad. I would visit his apartment in Hyde Park (the Boise version!) and we would exchange music and talk into the night. I would play him Bad Brains, Articles Of Faith, Minutemen and Husker Du and he would play me amazing new wave stuff like Joy Division, Shriekback, Gang Of Four and Killing Joke, bands I had heard of but never heard in depth, and still listen to to this day.

Tad was the first person I knew who made music on a computer. In 1985, it totally blew me away. He had an amazing ear, approaching music in a way I had never thought of. This influenced me hugely, though it took years for it to manifest, and he credits me with introducing him to ‘the dark side’, which cracks me up. Suffice it to say that we both influenced each other quite a lot, and we are still friends to this day. He began to hang out regularly with State Of Confusion and our crowd, a friendship that would become crucial when we moved to Seattle as The Treepeople, 4 short, yet long, years later.

Tad was also a pioneer in the Boise music scene, playing in bands prior to H-Hour such as Red Set in the early '80s. Little did any of us know that Tad Doyle had far more lurking inside him. He would, within a few short years, become, in my mind (and the minds of many others) one of the most influential musicians in Seattle, and would also become one of the fathers of a whole new sound to come from that wet, sleepy burg which would take over the world. He has just never gotten proper cred for it. More on that later.

The last thing I will say about Tad is that once when SOC played a show with H-Hour at The Crazy Horse, I was fucking around on Erik’s drum kit after the sound check and after I finished, Tad asked me, “So, when you gonna start playing drums?” I have to admit it was a huge compliment (though I may have played it cool at the time) and was quite a prescient question, since in 3 years, I would end up playing drums in Treepeople. I credit him, partly, with giving me the confidence to do so.

“You’ll never play here again!”

By late 1984, State Of Confusion also had enough of a following to fill the place, and our crowd were drinkers, so whomever owned the bar at any given time may have hated our music, but they loved the business we brought in with us so they tolerated it. That is to say, to varying degrees, through various owners. We went through around 5 owners in two bands during our time playing there.

Some owners fade from memory, as it was uneventful during their ownership, or, they didn't own it for long. What I do remember is that a few sets of owners got sick of the punk music and sometimes rowdy crowd and at some point had said to us “You’ll never play in this bar again!” Within a few months after such a proclamation, new owners came on the scene and there we were again at the door, guitars in hand and drinkers behind us (not literally, of course, but doesn't it make a cute ‘movie moment’?) and we were back in action. We always had the last laugh. And this did become a standing joke among us “You’ll never play here again!” was often said in different variations in response to some situation or another.

There are two owners, or a set of owners and a single owner, I want to speak of here, as they were the most entertaining reigns during the glory days of the bar happened under them.

The first was Dale, a short man in his '50s who was straight out of the mid-'70s with his cheap plaid suits and his round, plastic-framed glasses that sat atop his bulbous nose. He was a former insurance salesman, if memory serves me, and he looked it (with some used-car salesman thrown in). He had a gruff, growling voice, as if he were trying to sound like one of the Rat Pack.

Dale was pretty enthusiastic and was always coming up with marketing schemes to draw people into the bar. The scheme he goes down in history for was the ‘$5 for all the beer you can drink’ scheme. You read correctly. Like a buffet, but for beer! Once the town drunks caught wind of this, they camped at The Crazy Horse day and night. The SOC shows were packed full, and needless to say, everyone got drunk as all hell. As a result, the shows were pretty rowdy. I don’t remember Dale ever really caring about that fact, or that our music was so obnoxious. All he cared about was making money, though, with schemes like all-you-can-drink $5 beer, I am pretty sure he was never in the black and was more than likely losing money, fast.

What stands out most from the reign of Dale (which was very short, in my memory it was the latter part of 1984) was the one that sank him. One night, after a particularly busy evening, Dale was in very good spirits and was buying the band and other people beers and then he announced to all within the bar that he was having a party at his house, none of the invitees had been carded, and many of them (myself included) were underage. We did not attend this party, as it sounded like a bad scene that would be busted quickly. Sure enough, Dale was busted for serving minors alcohol and for contributing to minors (which I am sure was not all they threw at him, considering the circumstances in such a conservative town). Thus, this was the end of the reign of Dale.

Creeps

There was a couple that owned The Crazy Horse; Mel and Martha (I shit you not, their real names). My guess as to when they owned it is around 1984 to 1985. Mel looked dead up like a hick version of Bluto from the Popeye comics; tall, with a slight gut but a muscular build, an incredibly thick black beard and rug of hair and a flesh beak of a nose that protruded out over his thick mustache almost touching his upper lip. I never saw him in anything but a t-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap. His face was always twisted into an angry looking scowl, though he had moments when he was nice. He was, after all, married to Martha. Poor, poor man.

Martha can only be described as looking like a hick, female version of Jabba The Hutt, with bleach blond hair and voice that could curdle milk and freeze liquor, a voice that is forever immortalized on the State Of Confusion album ‘A Street’ from a recording of her in action which Pat captured one night. He was trying to record some of the bands we were playing with by using batteries in a Fostex 4 track machine. He wore it on a strap, plugged in a mike, and wandered around the bar. Needless to say, the music can’t really be heard well. Mostly you could hear the crowd, and it was incredibly entertaining to hear a tipsy Pat randomly interviewing people and asking them bizarre questions, interwoven with his unique, signature chuckle. At one point, someone whom Pat gave the recorder to while SOC played catches an exchange between Tammy, the cocktail waitress, and Martha.

Martha     &    Mel

Tammy was tall, possessing a full-bodied farm girl beauty, and though she was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, she was sweet as pie and she loved the State Of Confusion boys. Come to think of it, all the waitresses loved us because we brought in people and made them tip money. I actually had an affair with one of the waitresses at one point, a very brief one (I am allowed to gossip about myself in this blog, fyi;). Tammy was waiting for some drink orders she had put in to Martha. SOC was on stage, between songs. Then you can hear Martha’s loud, piercing voice “Oh, Tammy’s clappin' ’, where’s all your taste…in your ass?”

Tammy is heard in the background but her words can’t be made out except for a few here and there. What I hear is her saying something like, “Hey don’t you be sayin’ that kinda shit, I like these guys,” and though she can’t be heard well, you can tell by her slurring that she is completely drunk. Then Martha says to her “Well why’nt you take ‘em home with ya an' all their equip'ment so they can play for ya...? Yeah, they're goin’ home with you tonight and playin’ for ya all night long.” Behind all this, you can hear Young Wayne saying “…This poor rabbit has to listen to all of this,” (it was near Easter and someone had hung a stuffed rabbit in front of the stage) and then you can hear the crowd yelling at me, at us.

This snippet ended up as the intro to the last song on the SOC album ‘A Street’, called 'Creeps', Pat’s idea, and a brilliant one at that. The Crazy Horse, forever memorialized on vinyl. Poor Mel and Martha…I wonder what became of them?

Hear the song Creeps here at about the 2:01 minute mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-AI_wNWytA

Stay tuned for The Crazy Horse Part II; Local bands and touring bands that played the Crazy Horse included Danger Mouse, Beyond Possessions, Honor Role, Tex and the Horseheads, Watt’s Bald Head, Phantom Tollbooth and the infamous Dead Kennedys (as well as any other bands I remember or that you remember! Let me know!) and the band who used The Crazy Horse as an incubator; Treepeople.