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.

Music History, Part 14: The Later Boise Years 1987

Originally posted on My Space, January 23rd, 2009

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.

The Cruel Desert That Spawned Us Calls Us Home - SOC's 1987 Tour; a perilous journey, Part V: Green River Utah Blues

We were waiting for some money to get wired to us so Pat & Erik could hitchhike back to Price and pick up the truck, then we could head out of Green River and go to Salt Lake for our final show of the tour with Government Issue and our friends The Potato Heads. We were bored as hell; 'I'm making this entry out of sheer fucking boredom. We sat at the pool & Pat & T went to a store around the corner to purchase grub. It consisted of two pounds of Zesta saltines & 16 slices of salami. We decided we needed a change of pace you see [from the endless baloney sandwiches] We ate this meal on the lawn behind the pool where there was shade. Always the fucking flies and mosquitoes everywhere. After awhile two old bags came out and told us to leave. Damn! No more pool. We were just saying how the pool made the place bearable...' 

We moved to the park where Ted and I were tortured before and laid on the picnic tables on the covered patios, where it was nice and cool in the shade. A school bus pulled up, it was customized, with a dove, a rainbow and a yin and yang symbol painted on the outside. We saw this and hoped maybe they were 'generous hippie types' possibly willing to 'slide us some food or something' but it was a couple with a baby. Another bus pulled up and out poured several young teenagers on some sort of outing. 'Now they're eating,' observes Young Wayne '...once again tortured. I hate this pit. It's giving me cynical vision. I keep wondering who in their right mind would want to live here and how the only way I'll come back to this town is if I'm doing 90 mph through it.'

Diet of the stranded Northwest punk rocker

As we sat watching the teen group get out endless cold cuts and bread and chips and eat, Pat went over to get some water at the fountain for his cup. We must have looked pretty pitiful, like alley mutts, watching them eat. On his way back to us, Pat stopped by the troop and asked them if they wanted to use the covered tables we were occupying. They said they were fine. Soon after this, a woman and a girl walked over toward us holding a couple foil mounds. "We have something for you guys," the woman said. It was cold cuts, some rye bread and about 10 containers of yogurt. The Gods had smiled upon us. 

The group was touring around the country staying at camp sites and hotels. They were staying at a hotel that night and couldn't eat all of the food. This was good timing because we hardly had any money. It fed us almost all the way home. 'We are now watching Simon & Simon [we had a portable TV with us] awaiting the usual rain. One more night in hell. One more night looking at the rolled orange Pinto next to us.'

 

Simon & Simon + free coldcuts = HEAVEN

Before leaving Green River, we tried to beg some money from some people. Pat asked a man filling up his car with gas for money, or started to ask him, and before Pat even finished his sentence, in a hoarse voice, the old man croaked "I haven't got any money." 'How's he payin' for the fuckin' petrol, then?' asked Wayne in the journal. Ted also hit up everyone at Burger Time. Nobody gave him a dime. The town hated us. When Pat and Ted had gone to get the crackers earlier, they said there was a sign advertising that the crackers were on sale. The man at the register charged them full price. They mentioned the sign saying they were on sale, and the man tore down the sign and said "Not anymore they're not."

Our last night in Green River was spent at the abandoned 'Uranium Hotel' Erik had spotted earlier. He went in first, scoped it out, then poked his head out and told us to come in the door quickly. It was a creepy. The room looked exactly as the maid had left it, but with dust on everything. Though it was nice to sleep on a bed and without mosquitoes buzzing, it was a fitful sleep, as we heard cars pulling up and parking and leaving through the night, and were paranoid of the Sheriff finding us out. We were terrified of making noise, and so I held my piss in all night until I could hold it no more and pissed into the empty toilet. 'I'm beginning to appreciate Boise more & more every moment I am here. In fact being on the road makes you appreciate many things.' Pat and Erik left town get the truck while Scott and Ted and I killed time once again, but they were back pretty quickly with a Ryder truck and a tow bar. We hooked up our van and hit the road. 'Got the stereo hooked up, Beastie Boys blarin SHE'S CRAFTY!!!'

Meltdown in Salt Lake City. Wayne quits the band. Sort of.

After arriving in Salt Lake City, UT, we found Jonathan from The Potato Heads' house (or as we called them, 'The Potheads') and Jonathan and Brendan were sitting on the couch on their front porch. We told them our sad tale and then went on the roof and proceeded to knock off a case of beer between us. We ended up sleeping on the roof. 'It was a nice sleep. The sun woke me up about 9 or so and I called my mom. She's anxious to see me now that she knows I'm coming home...It's pretty depressing thinking about the shows we are going to miss, I try not to. Tomorrow night is our show with the G.Is [Government Issue] so at least we get to meet them and play with them...I hope it's a good gig. It's good to be in a comfortable place among friends with no flies or mosquitoes to drive us insane.' 

What happened next is one of those times you tend to not want to remember. But here I am, writing a blog. I chose to go here. I will preface it by saying that Pat and Ted were both pretty in your face personalities. Ted is probably reading this, and I know he would not argue with me, and I know he has calmed down, is a father. These are young men I am talking about here, including, of course, myself. Pat, however, is no longer alive, and can’t really defend himself. Therefore, I had Scott, the brother who survived him, approve this entry (Ted, too). So the two ‘in your face’ personalities got in each other’s face in Salt Lake the next night at Jonathan’s place.

It started as some silly argument about how Ted liked Uniform Choice (a hardcore band) and Pat saying they ripped off Minor Threat (a more famous, influential hardcore band) and this led to Pat accusing Ted of talking shit about SOC. We had all just been through some rough times, as you have read, and we had all been drinking a lot of beer. These things were undoubtedly factors as well. At any rate, the conversation ended with Pat punching Ted in the nose, and to a broken-nosed, bleeding Ted taking his duffel bag and walking off into the night, calling his girl, and getting money wired to him so he could go home.

Uniform Choice VS State Of Confusion = a broken nose

I went out looking for him, walking alone and drunk into the dark Salt Lake City streets. After a few blocks, I noticed a really sketchy looking dude who was clearly following me in the shadows cast by the trees under the streetlights, like I was in some horror movie and he a monster in pursuit. I was so on edge and drunk that I walked right up to him, figuring it best to take him by surprise and use that to my advantage. So I walked up to him, got in his face and asked him, "You got a problem following people or something???" He looked instantly scared. "N-no. No." So I left him and he stayed where he was until I walked away. I asked around at 7-Elevens and places still open if they had seen a Mexican kid with a bloody face. None had.

I walked back to the house and crashed as the sun rose. I said I was quitting the band. Pat asked if I would play one more show, the one that night. I agreed to do that. I never ended up quitting. And Pat and Ted made up right after we got back from tour. But I would threaten to quit again, and eventually would, but not in this band. That is for later in the tale.

We had a lackluster rehearsal in The Potato Heads’ space. I wrote in my journal that we had a great set at the show that night and that Government Issue was good. We played at a place called ‘The Poultry Shack’ because that is literally what it was, an industrial sized barn at a chicken farm that put on shows in the mid '80s. It was actually a great place to play, plenty of room for over 200 people and they had a professional sound system. We played there again not too long after this show with the notorious Texas hardcore band D.R.I (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles) who had just started the whole ‘crossover movement’ (hardcore bands switching to dirgey metal).

Before leaving for this tour, I once again decided to go to college, this time (as opposed to when I was 19) driven more by my actual desire than my mother’s desire, though admittedly, it was also for her in that she was sick and needed something positive to look forward to. I had applied for grants and loans and put everything in place to start school in the fall of 1987 once I had returned from tour, at Boise State University. I was nervous about it but also excited to learn and change my life. I had chosen to be an art major. Not that I knew what the hell I was going to pursue in art. But there it was.

(People familiar with the Descendents and their first album will get this joke...If you are not one of those people, google 'Milo Goes To College')

We returned home, I recovered from the life of poverty and adventure I had just been in, licked my wounds from a brief affair I had in which my heart was broken and set my sights toward ‘higher education’. I was 21 years old. My life would change radically in less than two years, starting with the death of my mother, a new band and a move to the ‘big city’ with said band. But before I get into all of that, I want to take a little side road and devote next entry to the Crazy Horse Saloon, the bar where so many Boise bands got their start (and still do). The tale of Boise’s music scene cannot be told without it.