Music History, Part 19: The Later Boise Years 1988-89

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.

Note that I have begun folding hyperlinks into titles, so many of the bolded words are now hyperlinks.

The real beginning of Wayne's ear damage at the Dinosaur, Tad, Pure Joy Show in Seattle in 1988

The excellent album by Dinosaur, 'You're Living All Over Me', SST, 1987 - Note that this is a later release and displays the name 'Dinosaur Jr.', but this was originally released before they changed their name from 'Dinosaur' for legal reasons

The members of Treepeople were fans of the band Dinosaur when they were still called just Dinosaur and not 'Dinosaur Jr'., a name they switched to after some deadhead band threatened to sue them because it was also the name of their band, which formed earlier (or so I heard) [Upon reading the wiki page on Dinosaur, this band actually featured ex-members of Country Joe and the Fish, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Hot Tuna, Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Oops]. Doug had discovered them at some point and played them for us. We dug them, too. The music was raw, emotional, loud, and kind of punk, since, like us, some of the band members came from a hardcore punk background (Deep Wound).  It can't be denied that Dinosaur majorly influenced Doug's songwriting style, especially after the powerful Dinosaur album, 'You're Living All Over Me,' came out. In my opinion this album pushed him to play electric guitar exclusively, but I could be wrong. Our songs took on more of a rock edge, and this fit well with Scott's style, as he was already very rock in his playing, especially when playing leads. Many people used to tell us we sounded like Dinosaur, even some reviewers noted this, so, in the characteristically dry humor of Treepeople, we came up with the joke slogan; 'If you love Dinosaur, you'll like the Treepeople.'

 

Left: Dinosaur promo photo, 1987-ish Right: Dinosaur playing live around 1988

We saw there was a Dinosaur show coming up in Seattle with our friend Tad's band, TAD opening, so a few of us and friends made plans to go see it. I asked my friend Paul (RIP) to come with me and share in the gas money and driving, I drove my '76 Volvo 245 wagon. Doug and I believe his girlfriend drove up with some other people in their car.

The show was at The Central Saloon in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle. This saloon is billed as 'Seattle's oldest saloon' and has been around in one form or another since 1892, when gold miners still went there for dinner and drinking and thus it is a large box of a place, like all good Western saloons. We arrived and filed in to stand before the stage. By the time we got there, the place was already packed with people. 

Pure Joy took the stage and pumped out some great pop punk. We had never heard of them before. They were impressive. Next up was Tad. I think this was the first time we had all seen the band, and I remember thinking it was weird that Tad was playing guitar and singing when I heard about it. But they killed it and were super loud and BIG and bassy. We were impressed with Tad's ability to scream in such a primal way and somehow still make it melodic. As I have mentioned before, TAD was a major influence on the Seattle sound, and brought a heaviness to it that no other band did, but also brought a pure musical layer, in that, not only had Tad been a classically trained percussionist in his youth, but also the band collectively cared about the music, and that was their main focus. It wasn't about impressing anyone or trying to be a certain 'type' of band. It just came out of them and it was fantastic. See footage of this show in this excellent documentary on TAD, 'TAD - Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears' here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEAezTt5-TQ&list=UL8PJo7g1Lz-Y

Tad and Kurt Danielson reaching 'The Brown Note' at the Dinosaur show, Central Saloon, Seattle, 1988 - Screenshot mine from the film 'TAD - Busted Circuits and Ringing Ears'

Dinosaur was incredible. To this day, it was one of the top 5 live performances I have ever seen. They were RIDICULOUSLY loud and I was loving it. As I hint at in the title of this section, I am pretty sure the true beginnings of my tinnitus started at this show. I became totally immersed in the music; my hair was in my face, I threw my head back and forth, feeling it. Dinosaur was at their peak at this time, and they were very tight and focused. A lot of the intensity of the band, I came to find later after talking to friends who were friends with the Dinosaur cats, and reading about it in the excellent book, Our Band Could Your Life, came from the tumultuous relationship that Jay Mascis and Lou Barlow had. I have found in general that this kind of tension creates great music. That same idea has proven to be true in many bands I have been in as well. I see it as sort of how the tension in a sexual relationship creates great sex sometimes. Weird, I know, but I swear it's true. Think of your favorite bands and then think about this metaphor. 

After the show, we all drove up to Capitol Hill to an apartment a group of Boise people had moved into recently. We were following one of them there and he was very drunk. Before he got in his car, he threw an empty beer bottle in the air and it crashed in the middle of the street, then he tore up the road and up the hill, weaving madly in his Volvo. I could barely keep up with him. At a stop light, he got into an argument with the guys in the car next to him. Some people I was giving a ride to started getting in on it and yelling out the window until I told them to shut up or get out. The guys who my friend started a fight with followed us to the parking lot of the apartment building and were ready for a fist fight. The perpetrator, my friend from Boise, ran away and slunk into his apartment (typical), leaving me and Paul to deal with the angry young men. Somehow, Paul talked them out of wanting to fight.  

Recording with TAD's 'cultural guidance' 

H-Hour (Tad's band from Boise) had moved to Seattle around '86. They had transformed into a harder, more edgy rock band by then. The first showcasing of their new sound was on a rare compilation record put out by CZ Records in 1989 called 'Another Pyrrhic Victory' (I happily own the first pressing on red vinyl!) with a great song called 'Medley', an aptly named journey through some heavy, emotional rock driven by Tad's incredible drumming. Other bands on the record are Malfunkshun (a band that would become Mother Love Bone), 64 Spiders, Green River, and My Eye. But that record hadn't come out yet at this point in the tale, and by the time it did, H-Hour had broken up and Tad had recorded an amazing solo 7 inch record with two songs on it, released in 1987; 'Ritual Device/Daisy' that Sub Pop released, which was a large part of steering the retro-'70s style Seattle bands into playing a harder edged music with a driving, heavy beat. Other bands like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains were also helping to create this sound, a more punky, metal take on bands like Led Zepplin or Black Sabbath. The Tad single led to the band TAD.

Tad Ritual Device/Daisy 7 inch on Sub Pop, 1987. There was no cover for it. I still have it. It still rocks.

Tad Doyle had settled in to the Seattle music scene very quickly, and had made excellent connections, which was a major benefit to us for years, and it is not an over-statement to say that we (Treepeople) would not have gotten as far as we did in Seattle without his help, which he offered kindly and consistently. The first manifestation of this help was to connect us with a recording session at Reciprocal Studios with the infamous Jack Endino, who had been recording/producing all the Sub Pop bands at Reciprocal, including TAD.

  

Jack Endino standing in front of Reciprocal Recording Studio, Seattle - Photo retrieved from: 

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/467485/producer-jack-endino-recalls-recording-nirvana-soundgarden

As we arrived in Seattle for the session, I realized I had forgotten my drum cymbals! This greatly stressed me out, and I was given a hard time by my bandmates about it, understandably. Luckily, Tad loaned me his cymbals. We arrived at Reciprocal, which was located in the Fremont area of Seattle, and was one of the tiniest buildings I had ever seen. It was in a triangular shape to boot. Jack Endino was welcoming and mellow, with a friendly, crooked smile and a head full of hair. We set up and got to it.

It was our first experience ever as musicians in a 'real' studio with a producer who understood the type of music we were playing, and Jack Endino definitely knew what the hell he was doing (we worked with him again on our next session, more on that later). It was intoxicating, and it focused us. I believe that after this session, 'it got real', as they say. We realized there was so much more we could do than just play for fun and record demos. There was a whole machine in place in Seattle, and it was a friendly machine, at least it was then. People in the scene were nice to us, and nice to each other. Bands were in friendly competition at the time and the scene wasn't that big, though Sub Pop's marketing genius made it seem much bigger. Things hadn't blown up with Nirvana yet, and the, as Tad calls it, 'major label feeding frenzy' hadn't commenced. But shit was happening, and we would never approach our band the same way again.

The result of this Reciprocal/Endino session was our first 7 inch record with the songs 'Important Things/Handcuffs/In My Head'. If you listen to the first demo tape and this record back to back, you can hear the departure we had made musically. Besides Doug playing an electric strat now, the songs were more serious in terms of subject and tone.

Doug and Scott began to form the 'jigsaw' guitar puzzle they became known for, with each of their styles complimenting each other in an odd way. In the studio when you mix tracks together, you start by dialing in a sound for each instrument. While you do this, you mute out everything else. During this process while mixing Treepeople records, I was always struck by how one would never think, hearing Doug's guitar parts solo and then Scott's solo, that they would go together at all. But they did, and I think the jigsaw puzzle metaphor is apt. With this 7 inch, it became a signature of our sound.

Also, I began to focus more on creating some space in the drumming, adding far less fills, and the fills I did add were more strategically placed. This was due in large part to my listening to the drummers who were influencing me like Murph from Dinosaur and Mark Pickerel from the Screaming Trees. I still felt like I was kind of faking it as a drummer, but less so. Looking back, I was better than I thought I was at the time.

Busted

Seattle Bicycle cops in Volunteer Park, Seattle - Photo retrieved from: http://www.seattle.gov/police/units/bike_patrol.htm

During this trip to Seattle, we went with Tad to Volunteer Park to hang out. We went past some bushes to a trail at the end of the park to drink some beers. Riding up the trail were some bicycle cops, a man and a woman. They wrote us up citations for drinking in the park, which was a bummer. Doug was not of legal drinking age at the time and had been using an old ID of mine to get into bars. The cops didn't even notice this, as they split us up into two groups to write us up, and Doug and I were in different groups. This was great for Doug, but shitty for me, since I ended up with two citations! Later, after getting back home, I called the Seattle Municipal Court about this and played dumb. "Somehow I got two tickets," I said, making sure to sound bewildered. The woman on the phone said, "It sounds to me like that cop had it in for you. We will drop one of them."

First Treepeople 7 inch record, put out on our own Silence label - Note that in the picture of Doug on the record label, the mic stand was an upside down ski pole. That's how we rolled. Also notice that we credit Tad with 'Cultural guidance', which was indeed an apt credit - Design by Pat Schmaljohn, photos by Todd Haley

Finishing touches on the record

We returned to Boise with a 1/4 inch tape of the mix of our recording session which Pat edited himself (as in put the songs in proper order and chose the precise endings) on a reel to reel tape machine he bought. This made us all a bit nervous, watching him take a razor blade and scotch tape to the recording we had just done, but he pulled it off.

He also designed the covers on his Mac home computer, using a photo that a friend, Todd Haley, had taken of us playing in our jam room for the back cover, and one of me individually from a photo essay he was doing for school for the cover. It is of me buffing the floor at the Boise Co-op that I cleaned at the time on a graveyard shift. The floor buffer, incidentally, was named 'Lucinda' by me. I like the picture and I think that the oddness of it (many people could not tell what I was actually doing) helped sell the record a bit (see pictures above).

In general, I think this record, both in terms of music and packaging, was the best thing we ever put out ourselves (on our own label, Silence) and I am still proud of it. We now had a decent calling card and we began to send it around for reviews to see what the world thought. 

Hear the song, 'Important Things' here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmqJ6FEYzMM
Hear the song, 'In My Head' here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJoWVtxN8P8

Read a review of 'Important Things/In My Head' 7 inch here: 

http://onebaseonanoverthrow.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-stayed-away-from-what-doesnt-want-me.html

Next: From the small pond to the big pond

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