Music History, Part 8 The Early Boise Years 1985 to 1986

Originally posted on My Space, August 31st, 2007

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! Also, a shout out to Paul for sending me the CD of the first ever written Dissident Militia song, Crazed. Wow.

Saints of San Pedro: Minutemen to the Rescue

I must take a step back and speak of an album I bought while still living in the SOC house by the Minutemen; Double Nickels on the Dime. This album was a life changing experience for me. I had never heard anything like it nor will I ever again. Raw but skilled, funk jazz and punk, disparate elements that blended together like completely different brothers who got along well. The lyrics were highly intelligent, politically and personally. D. Boon (voice/lyrics/guitar) was a force not to be denied, playing a crisp, jazzy funky guitar sound and leads like severed electric wires flipping around a room while snarling slightly sarcastic political manifestos. George Hurley, a machine of rhythm and heart, and Mike Watt, the bass scientist, every note planned and perfected yet still played as if it were an inspirational jam every time.

My heroes, the Minutemen

The first time Brad played me The Minutemen, [which was the 'What Makes A Man Start Fires' album] the first time I heard that bass, I never approached the bass the same way again, and my playing improved immensely. To this day, when I first start jamming with someone and they have heard The Minutemen, they notice the influence. And no...I am not in any way saying I am as good as that mofo. He is a martian. I am a servant.

If you have not heard this album [Double Nickles On The Dime]...IMMEDIATELY GO BUY IT NOW. IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT. Did I just type that? I didn't really mean it. But seriously, go check it out. I still listen to this album regularly (unfortunately, the cd version does not have the Van Halen cover song on it).
It would be a crime to mention that record and not mention the groundbreaking Husker Du double album, Zen Arcade, that came out just prior to Double Nickels, also on SST Records. In fact, in the inside cover notes of Double Nickels, The Minutemen playfully added the words 'take that Huskers!' Zen Arcade also was on the turntable constantly, even after the aforementioned beerspillage on the vinyl (writing this inspired me to finally, after all these years, get the CD).

About 6 years ago, in the Experience Music Project music museum in Seattle (which is really worth a visit and the admission. I was skeptical, but it was great: www.empsfm.org ) I saw the original Husker Du Zen Arcade artwork and it was strangely exciting for me, an artifact behind glass from my punk rock days, and it appeared to be only a simple photo colored with colored pencils. It was almost holy for me. I know, I am a dork. But I rarely get that way about music related stuff, or much art, really.

Double album brilliance that inspired me, especially Minutemen

Other bands/albums that inspired me...

Why were these records so life-changing for me? Because for a couple years I had been listening to pretty much nothing but hardcore punk; angry, negative white boys, and both Husker and The Minutemen made it ok to know how to play your instruments (though Land Speed Record by Husker Du would make you wonder, if you were unfamiliar with them) made it ok to be sensitive, vulnerable, while still being tough. It appealed to me on many levels, and I thirsted for bands that played hard music with a sense of musicianship and intelligence, a quest that led me later to bands like Bad Brains, Articles of Faith, the Rhythm Pigs, the Sluglords...I could go on...
I often think of parallels with hip hop while writing this blog, though admittedly I am fairly new to hip hop, and I don't know a huge amount about it, though I listen to some (The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, Jurassic Five, Arrested Development, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Run DMC...yes, I am pretty old school). In hip hop as in punk, the movement eventually became about rebelling, against the man, and against the previous dynasty of party music. But it ended up becoming a radio whore, and the intelligent, good groups that have something to say and can sell out large arenas can't get on the radio somehow, but really, it is because some rich white man who wants all the brothers to talk shit about women and act like thugs not only owns the label but owns the fucking radio station. Punk started angry and ended up on a shelf in Urban Outfitters. But essentially, the progression is the same.

Punk and Hip Hop share much in common in terms of their evolution

Salt Lake City Rockers

As I was saying in the previous entries, Pat had found us a van and we were mobile and we began doing road shows (although we had done brave road shows in multiple cars). In the days when Pushead reigned in Boise, he had a connection at a really great punk rock record store in Salt Lake City, Utah called Raunch Records. Pushead had designed some logos for them (one of them among my favorite ever Pushead drawings: and I am sure he knew the store first as an avid customer). Raunch Records was a tiny place, under freeway overpasses in a sort of industrial area. I have memories of my first visit to Raunch, meeting Brad Collins, the proprietor, who looked like a punk rock Stephen King and had a booming, lazy baritone voice, a laid back disposition, and a dry, wry sense of humor. See mention of Raunch Records on this edition of Pushead's section in Thrasher Magazine, The Puszone from 1988: http://www.pusfan.com/pusz16.htm

Awesome Raunch logos by Pushead - Artwork/flyer design by Pushead

At any rate, we drooled every time we went to Raunch. Almost every record there in those days were records that could only be found through Pushead, and some even he couldn't get [Since writing this I have been in contact with Brad Collins who informed me that most of the records at Raunch were actually obtained through Pushead]. Being so broke made it hard to go there, though! So somewhere in there was our intro to SLC, I believe. As I mentioned before, in the 80's, SLC Utah had a huge punk scene. Though it was (and is and ever-shall be) the Mormon capital of the world and even more conservative than Boise (being the Mormon Mothership), it was much larger and by default more urban, more of a city. Even just using the bathroom at Raunch Records, walking through the warehouse/loft back rooms to get to it, felt more urban than anything I had experienced, hearing the cars high above, zipping by on the overpass. The kind of thing that you take for granted, or adapt to, when living in a city, but that was new and mysterious to a young Boise Idaho punk, or at least it was then.

Mr. Brad 'Raunch' Collins of Raunch Records, Salt Lake City, UT


In doing my research, I found that Raunch Records re-launched in 2009 (wonderful news!)

See article here: http://www.slugmag.com/articles/1982/The-Rebirth-of-Raunch-Records.html

Mr. Brad 'Raunch' Collins in 2009 (Photo by Dave Brewer)

The urban-nese was also experienced at the shows, that were packed with rough looking punk kids. The children of Mormons (the ones I knew), as I mentioned before (maybe? have to look!) were some of the most fucked up, crazy, promiscuous partying beings I ever met, and the urban feel added to their edge in that city then. I am not sure why at that particular time there were so many punks in SLC, my guess was the it was the same thing as many cities then; Reaganomics created an economic shift and the poor got poorer, and in towns where work was scarce and under the Mormon thumb, there was plenty of strife for a youngster to work off by wearing leather jackets and spiky mohawks, and drinking awful booze, doing drugs and getting freaky in the sack.

I honestly could not tell you the very first show State of Confusion played in Salt Lake City. I remember an early one was at the infamous Speedway Café, a large, oblong café that had shows regularly (or am I confusing that with Al's, we played both of them. Any SLC Peeps in the house?). It was packed and people really dug SOC a lot. We fed off of the energy and it fueled us to tour more places. We had our first real taste of selling our demos on the road. 'Merch' (merchandise) became a business to get us beer, food and gas. And we handed out plenty o 'sticks' (band stickers) that would get plastered all over town (as did we ; )

We had an in to the scene through our friends, the aforementioned Potato Heads and played some great shows with them, and stayed and partied with them at their apartment near downtown. Salt Lake kids were professional partiers, and took it very seriously. Many a night were spent on the roof of the Potato Heads' place, destroying 12 pack after 12 pack of Schmidt, or Milwaukee's Best. Smoking, drinking, talking and blasting tunes through a boombox. Good times, for awhile.

Salt Lake City is an insanely weird city, like a giant toy city in a giant kid's dirt and rock back yard, meticulously built appropriating the idea of a city, and the Mormon Temple is like a stone Disney toy castle offering to God. Incredibly large homes of the rich are set on the shelves of enormous stepped hills, with roads going straight up them, like some modern pyramid of capitalism, of warped, extreme Christworship (note that this is my take on it - and that I mean no disrespect to anyone's faith, after all, many of my relatives are Mormons and they are decent people whom I love...We just don't talk about religion!). Once we drove up these odd steep roads and gawked at the houses, so large, so cold and empty looking. That said, the desert around SLC is incredible, as is The Zion National Park, nothing quite like it anywhere else on earth. Anyhow, I digress (you are supposed to stop me) like I said; the scene was huge, and we were appreciated there, so we played there often.

If Walt Disney had started a church, its temple would look like this

We also went to just see shows in SLC, from tours of bands that bypassed Boise altogether (the majority of punk shows attended and were played at a hall called The Indian Center). The most memorable of these shows was The Necros (out of Ohio), who had been Gods to me for years. I had written them and got a letter back from the drummer, in a fat envelope of stickers. I was the source for Necros stickers in Boise, there must have been 50 sticks stuffed in that envelope! I was so excited.

So me and I think Brad and Erik drove all the way to SLC just to see The Necros, and they did not disappoint. They were loud and fast and sneering, and the bassplayer was super tall and wore his bass very low. The singer was much smaller than his voice sounded, and looked a little like Danny Partridge to me. I of course went immediately to the drummer after they finished and thanked him for the sticks and the letter. He was nice, but very quiet and reserved.
The singer was the opposite of he. As soon as I said I was from Boise, he started trashing Pushead and straightedge, saying how hypocritical it was. He went on and on. I just listened. No matter what he thought of Pushead, the 7 inch record cover that Pushead drew for the Necros (Conquest For Death) was one of his best drawings ever, and definitely their best cover ever. I still own it. Jealous?

Necros 7 inch record cover for 'Conquest For Death' - Artwork by Pushead

We played a show with Samhain, a band formed by members of the infamous Misfits. They were bummed out because at a show they played the previous night, their vocal harmonizer was stolen. Their WHAT? Instantly, we were disappointed, before they even struck a chord. The Misfits were tough, right? Former steel workers and all that. How could they possibly be using a vocal harmonizer? And how could they be so tore up over losing it? They were ok live. I suppose my disappointment tainted it a bit for me. It felt like they were trying too hard to be 'spooky'. It wasn't goth. It wasn't punk. I had never been a huge fan of their records (Samhain) anyway, though The Misfits were up there for all of us.

Young Wayne playing for SOC, Samhain show, Indian Center, Salt Lake City, UT

We all ended up at a party afterwards with Samhain. I spent some time in the kitchen with Glenn Danzig and the disappointment continued. He was unexpectedly short, and with his famous 'deathlock' flipped back and wearing a leather jacket, he looked like a biker, not THE Glenn Danzig! In retrospect, I was being unfair to the man. He had paid his dues, made his mark, way back when disco was still king. No one was ever what you thought they were, but I had years to go before that sank in from meeting many 'heroes'. And as well, I don't remember what we talked about, he did most of the talking, but he was really nice to me, and he took the time to talk to a skinny punk from Idaho. I give him respect for that.

Glenn Danzig singing for Samhain

We also played an amazing show with a D.C. band that never really got the credit they deserved in the hardcore scene, in my mind; Marginal Man, whose song 'Friend' from the album 'Identity' was a hit with all of us, and their record spent a lot of time on all of our turntables. They were phenomenal live. Sadly, the band was to be short-lived.

Marginal Man: Amazing live, sing-along anthems, personal politics, great records, and sadly short-lived

Another band we shared the stage with in Salt Lake City was the infamous Agnostic Front, the controversial New York hardcore band that was rumored to be racist, a charge they denied in every interview, including one I did with the singer. It was my first experience talking to a real hardcore east coaster, and in his thick accent, he referenced Husker Du's song 'Pink Turns to Blue' from Zen Arcade without actually naming it, while describing the Agnostic Front sound; "We sing songs about hardcore shit, real shit, not some fuckin' hooka OD-in from shootin' dope!" Strangely, years later, Agnostic Front thanked State of Confusion on one of their albums (Cause For Alarm). I guess they thought we were alright, and they didn't strike us as racists.

Agnostic Front

Local SLC bands we played with were The Bad Yodelers, Maimed for Life, The Potato Heads and the infamous Massacre Guys, who were the local rock stars of the punk scene, led by a cat named Stevo on guitar and vocals, who at the time had super light bleached hair and was quite the ladies man in the scene. The band members were all really nice chaps, dressed in black, suspenders, like jesters of punk. A major event in my life involved the bassplayer of this band (the second one for them, I believe) Karl, years later, and it was a major fateful event for him as well. But that is, yes, for another blog.

We also played Spokane, Washington, a few times (my father grew up near there). Spokane is an interesting, kind of dirty little town (and still is, I am sure. And to all who live there...I mean dirty in the best way. My pop is buried there. Respect to the hard-workin people). There were some good bands out of there and we played some trippy shows there. One show was to be with the infamous Seattle 'splattercore' band, The Accused. But the show never happened due to a strange turn of events.
We showed up in town early, to hit records stores and try to sell merch, then headed to the hall to talk to the kid putting the show on. He was a small Asian kid, in a trench coat. He looked nervous. It turned out that the hall where the show was to be had no power and it would not be fixed that night. He was really sorry. We were bummed.

The guitarist of The Accused showed up, came in, and when he heard what happened, he was saying "Dude this sucks. I mean I know it's not your fault, I'm fine about it...but when Blaine gets here (singer of The Accused) he is gonna go off, man!" The kid (Eugene?) looked terrified. We went outside and hung out with half of The Accused. The anticipation of Blaine freaking on Eugene built the suspense among us.

Then Blaine showed up. Blaine had the voice of a demon (a loud one), was short, powerfully built; a badass. He got out of his car, walked over to us. We told him that the show was canceled and why. He got a non-plussed look on his face and said "Bummer". And that was it! We ended up just hanging out with The Accused in Spokane, the next best thing to playing with them, I guess, which SOC never ended up doing. A shame, it would have been a great show.

The Accused

Salt Lake ended up taking up most of this blog, as it rightfully should (and will return to my story a few more times over the years) I have been trying to keep these entries around 2,000 or at least under 3,000 words, as it gets into similar territory of a band playing too long. That said, I will not get to the album we recorded (hinted at in the last sign off as 'SOC on wax').

Next entry I will cover some more good road stories, featuring DOA, Moral Crux, The Dehumanizers, and then get into the first State of Confusion album, '6.3 Million Acres'.
And coming soon; The Crazy Horse; Pillar bar of the community, a comedy of owners. And...The Dead Kennedys invade The City of Trees.

Music History, Part 7: The Early Boise Years: 1985 to 1986

Originally posted on My Space May 6th, 2007

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.
 

Wayne Home Alone

I moved from the SOC House to an apartment located close to where I grew up in the North End. The apartment was in the back of an old apartment house, above the landlady's apartment, who was a wonderful old Basque woman.

There is a considerable Basque population in Southwest Idaho, I assume because it is similar to their home climate, and that there were opportunities in the early days for experienced shepherds. Basques are like a cross between French, Italian and Spanish people to me, with extremely long names (I won't even try to spell my landlady's name) and spicy cooking, cooking that my apartment constantly smelled of, and I wasn't complaining, as I had just come from a house of unidentifiable smells.

For the first time in my life, I lived alone. I have always been ok with being alone in life, but I got bored, and often found myself over at the SOC House, where all the action was. Admittedly, I liked the partying as long as I didn't have to deal with the fallout. Scott once called me out on this, and said "…Oh, so you come over here and trash our house and go home to your nice clean apartment, eh?" The truth is that I was hyperconcious of cleaning up after myself when at the SOC House for this very reason! But his point was taken.

Shows continued to happen at the SOC House, and we continued to jam in the basement. My old room was taken over by our friend Paul, who, with the help of other friends, Ken Cole and Ted, started a fanzine called 'Silence', which SOC members all became more and more involved in, and eventually Silence became the self-formed record label on which we put out SOC records and Treepeople records later on.

Some covers of editions of Silence Fanzine

Pat started booking SOC locally wherever he could, which was a challenge in those days. Punk bands had very negative connotations associated with them, and I have to admit; understandably. Halls got trashed, fights started (even if unprovoked, they happened). But Pat was resourceful and persistent. He would rent a hall and rally some bands and we were in business.

We started playing some road shows here and there as well, though not yet full on tours. We played in towns surrounding Boise at first. Then Portland OR, Salt Lake City. Eventually Seattle and towns near there. This all started as soon as we recorded a demo, which I believe we did in 1985-6 in a studio that a local country musician set up in his house.

As you can imagine, a dirtbag punk band recording at a farm studio run by a country musician produced interesting results. And by 'interesting' I mean shitty production. He had never heard amps that loud! Music that fast! He did his best, and kept trying to convince us to turn the vocals up "You can't really understand the lyrics as it is, ya wanna turn them up." Naaa. Turn the guitar up, dude!

Farm studio where State Of Confusion recorded '6.3 Million Acres'

We were pretty stoked, no matter the quality, to have our music recorded, to be able to give it to people, something we could only do before with shitty dubs of boombox recordings of jams in Dissident Militia (sadly, Dis/Mil never made it to the studio, only bad live recordings remain, from the same tape with the recordings of Septic Death that were actually used on a record of theirs).

In those days, people had shows in their living rooms. I suppose that will always be a possibility for a band, but it did seem much more prevalent then. This made touring easier, since, if you couldn't get a club gig in a town locked down by certain bookers, you could still get a show, get paid, have a place to crash, mix it up with cute girls, etc. We began to mail tons of cassette tapes to get more road shows.

French version of SOC demo cassette ( I sure wish I had a copy of this!)

Allow me one more 'in those days', if you will...In those days, cassettes were a major innovation, and were my friend. They held a ton of material, were portable, just about everyone had a cassette player, and, you could record whatever the hell you wanted to on them, including jams, shows, spoken word, Scott snoring, you name it. And, you could listen to them in your car! Brilliant. At the time, anyway.

If someone made you a cassette compilation, it was a great honor, especially to anyone who bothered to take the time to sit and manually record individual songs and fill a 120 minute tape. It was a major pain in the ass, and therefore a labor of love. I still have some choice comps people have made me, and I swear I made hundreds for people in my time, something I became somewhat of an artist at myself. Here is a sample of bands from a comp tape I made myself that I still have, a tape now older than today's college graduates!:

Double-O

Minor Threat

7 Seconds

Gray Matter

Rites of Spring

The Stench

Bad Brains

I digress (don't I always?) So, we shipped and gave away a ton of tapes. Got it reviewed in Maximum Rock n Roll. Pat found a van. A 76 Chevy, with a home paint job; army olive green (the hub-caps too!). We were mobile.

As I mentioned earlier, initially, we played locally as much as possible. Our live shows were fast furious and chaotic as hell. Pat was a madman on stage, always. He had an amazing vertical leap range, and he started growing out his hair, which evolved into an awesome white-boy-fro, that made his leaps even more dramatic and animated. Between songs, he would antagonize the crowd, most of the time they deserved it, and sometimes when they didn't.

Battle of the Bands

A memorable show (which was a little bit after the time period I am in the blog now) was when Pat got us in to the local 'battle of the bands' show put on by some rock radio station. I have no idea how we ended up being accepted. You can imagine the bands we were 'battling' with, in the mid eighties, in Boise Idaho, at a bar called 'The Whisky River' (this bar was redeemed by years later becoming Boise's first gay bar, The Emerald City. Is it still there anyone?)

We went on after some band who did AC/DC covers, I think, and just wailed. I remember it being one of our tightest shows, but we had no illusions of winning. We just wanted to fuck them up. And we did. The tension in the air was palpable, and Pat heaped it on, dissing rock n roll and commercial radio, dirtbags and hicks in a fell swoop, between leaping and screaming as we rose smoke from our strings and drums collectively. I wish it could have been videotaped. We had to literally get the hell out as quick as we could when finished, lest we start a riot.

Situation Normal all Fucked Up

Another time we almost did start a riot on the road, in Twin Falls, Idaho. We had the honor of opening for the great Canadian hardcore punk band S.N.F.U, who had just released their landmark album, 'And No One Else Wanted To Play'. We played a small hall, I think it was VFW hall (a thank you and 'shout out' to Veterans associations everywhere. They were the only ones with balls enough, and who were nice enough, to let kids put on punk shows in their halls without judging us).

S.N.F.U was amazing live and the whole place, packed with kids from all over Southwest Idaho and Utah, came alive. We played a great set. All was going well, except for for our friends from the Boise band (and later Seattle based) H-Hour, featuring TAD on drums, more on them later, who were to open with their side project punk band, The D.T.s. Unfortunately, their car broke down.

Left: SNFU live (not sure where - I couldn't find any photos from the Twin Falls gig - if anyone has any let me know!)

Right: The awesome album 'And No One Else Wanted to Play'.

I seem to remember the whole scene emerged after we went to the back of the hall after the show to talk to Tad Doyle (later known in Seattle as the infamous TAD) of the D.T.s, who had managed to get the car working and had made it to the show too late to play. There were these punk kids from Sun Valley, all gussied up in British style punk duds, mohawks and all, who had been causing trouble, picking fights, and generally trying to ruin everyone's fun.

Left and Right: Flyers from the Boise SNFU show

Often, the members of SOC were like big brothers of the scenes, and we would try and root out trouble makers when we could, whether it be by preventing fights or making eye contact with each other and zeroing in on some asshole who thought slam dancing involved punching people, we targeted them, and literally took them out with a bodyslam sandwich. We were not violent overall, but were willing to do what needed to be done.

This all sounds very noble, and I believe it was, but at this show, Pat decided that these assholes needed to be shown up. As they walked through a crowd of some 50 kids gathered in the back of the hall, Pat jeered at them, gave them shit for picking on kids and being dicks in general. The one with the largest mohawk charged at Pat, and the whole crowd became one, arms and hands grabbing him, flailing, bodies swaying. A fight was avoided due to cooler heads controlling the mass and holding back the would-be warriors. But there was an intense moment there where it felt like a full on riot was going to break out.

I am sure someone else remembers the incident, as any I recount, differently. As always, anyone who was there feel free to add/correct. A few times already old friends have helped me remember so much. It makes the blog evolve and get better!

See flyers from another SNFU/SOC show in Boise, and other cool flyers here: 

http://www.treepeople.0catch.com/soc.htm

"They PISTOL-WHIPPED me, Bro,", or, Gays Bash Us

There is one night that will, as they say, Live in Infamy. We had caught wind of a party from a girl we knew, a huge party, one held every year by a wealthy older man who had a huge house in the foothills, with a giant airplane hangar on his land. Beer, drugs, girls and boys. He was an old queen, but what did we care? While we weren't exactly exposed to enough gay people to be fully liberal about it, by Idaho standards in those times, we were exposed to more gays than most, and had several friends who were openly gay. While, like many straight boys, we would justify our masculinity by occasionally making gay jokes, we would do it with our gay friends, and we would defend them any day if someone wanted to mess with them because they were gay.

The rich old queen needs a little back story. He had been in Boise for decades and was part of a huge scandal that happened there in the 50's, where wealthy businessmen hired young male prostitutes, and through a bizarre series of events, were rounded up in a witch-hunt like policy carried out by the Boise Police Department and the FBI.

They rounded up anyone who was gay and questioned them, mentally coercing many to say they had done things they had not, or twisting accounts of their sex lives with perfectly legal adults into perversions. It was the '50s, but it was one of the greatest travesties of justice in American history, to be sure. 

Many men were imprisoned unjustly. And the children affected were given no guidance, no counseling whatsoever, and what followed was a major crackdown on youth by the police and the school board that I felt growing up. It may still affect youth in Boise today. The whole story is chronicled in a well-written account called The Boys of Boise, by John Gerassi. It is a fascinating read, even if you are not from Boise: http://www.amazon.com/Boys-Boise-American-Columbia-Northwest/dp/0295981679/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-3222043-9381437?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183577529&sr=8-1

A fascinating read for anyone interested in the history of Boise, particularly history that the city doesn't want anyone to know about.

Also, here is a pretty detailed wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boise_homosexuality_scandal

Ahhh, justice.

The man's first name was Art, I remember. I wish I could remember his last name. It is a name that should be tarnished, as you will see. I am sure he has long since passed. So we drove up to Art's mansion in the dry hills. You could see the large airplane hangar like a dinosaur in the weeds as you drove up the windy road. Lights of the house came into view, a house that in the '60s was all the rage.

There were cars everywhere, music was blaring out of the house. We went inside to see kids from every walk of life inside, gays, straights, new wavers, punks, hardcore skater punks, nerds, jocks...you name it, they were there. Watching giant screen televisions, listening to blaring music, swimming in the stepped pool in the back.

I had actually been to a party at this house years before, and swam in the pool, which I remembered as being very nice. This time, there were weeds surrounding the pool, the hangar looked abandoned, whereas before it glowed with light like an alien ship. It seemed that Art was running out of money.

After awhile we were getting a little bored and decided to leave. As we left the house, we saw Art coming up the stairs from the basement that led to the front door where we were exiting. He had his hand on the shoulder of a boy, about 13, who was saying "...don't tell anyone about this." Our first instinct was to smash some things up, but Art had these older rough looking kids as kind of bodyguards, and there were not enough of us to handle that.

We decided to raid the place and steal beer and food. We rounded up a stock of both and left the house. Some of the tough kids were alerted and they followed us outside. Somehow we got a bit split up, and I was trying to find everyone on the parking area. I heard Ted ahead, yelling "Fuck YOU!! Knock it off!"

I saw Ted and he was holding his head, leaning down. In front of him was one of the tough kids, holding something. He saw me approaching, turned toward me, and pointed a gun at my head. I thought, 'this is it. Bye.' He pulled the trigger and...POP!...a blank gun. Oh my God. I cannot describe what went through my head when I thought a bullet had my name on it. I got the fuck out of there so as not to miss my ride.

I saw Erik and crew climbing in to the bug, I hopped in the back seat, behind Eric. Ted was yelling "They PISTOL-WHIPPED me!! They fuckin pistol-whipped me!!!" Then out of nowhere, Erik was taking punches to the side of his head (yes, once again Erik's head was a punching bag). It was one of the Queen's bodyguards, running alongside the VW Bug, throwing punch after punch until Erik managed to accelerate to the road. Complete chaos, and the fun was only just beginning.

We rendezvoused at the SOC House. Pandemonium there for a bit, everyone gesturing and yelling and recounting separate experiences. Ted was still yelling "They pistol-whipped me, BRO!!" At one point someone noticed that someone was missing. Pat!! Where the hell is Pat?? We all looked at each other in horror. We left Pat behind!! We piled back in the Bug and headed back to the Queen's castle, like soldiers to battle.

We drove up to the house and could see the Queen's knights peering down at us and readying for more battle. I got out of the car and walked up a grassy hill and ran into a guy holding a huge stick. I said, "We just came to get our friend, we left him behind. Then we will leave." At that moment I saw Pat's fuzzy head come into view behind the guy. He waved, beer in hand. We piled in Eric's bug and got the hell out...again.

Back at the SOC house, it was pandemonium once again, Ted still yelling "They PISTOL-Whipped me, Bro!!"

Worst Dentist Visit EVER

My mother was at a routine dentist visit when the dentist found some sores inside her mouth he had never seen before, so he sent her to a doctor, who then sent her to a specialist. And just like that, out of nowhere, my mother was diagnosed with Acute Luekemia. The news hit me hard, as I had become pretty good friends with my mother as an adult, so it was beyond just a mother being sick.

The fuckers who killed my mother.

The family prepared to rally round her. She was tough in the sense that she raised me and my sister on next to nothing, as I have mentioned (the other 3 sisters and one brother were already on their own then), but not so much physically tough. She was in her early 60's, so she had a fight on her hands. She fought it with everything she had, and stayed with us for a few more years yet.

I moved out of my apartment I had just moved into and back into the duplex with my mother, to be there for her, though eventually, she ended up pretty much living with my oldest sister and her family.

Music became even more important to me, as I was not close with most of my family in any traditional sense, it was all I had, the only stable thing in my life. We (music and I) became even better friends as I tried to be strong for my mother.

Next: Salt Lake City Rockers, SOC on Wax, Coming Soon to Your Town

Music History, Part 6: The Early Boise Years: 1984 to 1985

Originally posted on My Space, May 6th, 2007

Attention new readers, please read previous, chronological blog entries, or at least see the disclaimer on any one of them. Or...do whatever the hell you want.

Anatomy of The SOC House

The house the members of State of Confusion and Brad rented, 'The SOC House' as it was to be known, was a 4 bedroom house with a small kitchen, large livingroom and of course, a basement area that functioned as the jam room (for all us older musicians, read; 'rehearsal space').

I took a room upstairs, by the kitchen and bathroom. On my own for the first time. Except…in a house with 4 other guys. And of course, it wasn't long before the parties commenced. No parents coming home. Crank the tunes as loud as you want! I learned the hard way not to keep my records in the living room. My thinking was in the spirit of communal living. Thinking that quickly changed. To this day, my Husker Du Zen Arcade double LP has 23 year old dried beer on it.

Also, I was a bit neurotic. I mentioned that, right? I was a clean freak. Living in a party house. Recipe for disaster. And…I was 'Mr. Responsible'. In a punk band. Living in a house with major partiers; I bitched about bills not getting paid. I made sure the garbage got taken out. The beer cans crushed. The dishes done (but I soon gave up on that one!) I expected everyone to live to my standards and was a martyr about things. I made their life painful, I can see in retrospect. It got to the point where Pat finally reached his limit and had it out with me.

One of the best things about the house was that we had a place to practice whenever we wanted, no parents to consult with or their neighbors to worry about. This began a vigorous practice schedule and we got very tight as a band. We developed a work ethic that continued into the next band (Treepeople) and on into other bands I was in.

We began to craft our sound, furiously fast hardcore with flavors of 'rock'. Pat began to pump out lyrics, lyrics about saving the environment (long before this was 'cool' for youth) and about a lifestyle choice of drugs, tobacco alcohol and loose personal hygiene (we had come a long way from pretending to be 'straightedge'!). Also present were the usual themes of government oppression and rising to overthrow it, but Pat was a pretty worldly guy compared to us, and definitely compared to many who chose to call themselves 'punk'.

Since the punk 'ethic' was 'do what you want and be who you are', it attracted many losers assholes, dumbasses, to be perfectly honest (just watch the documentary film 'Decline of the Western Civilization' to get an idea of what I am talking about).The hardcore branch on the punk family tree was dominated by white males. More on that in later blogs.

I had two jobs, both busboy jobs, one during the day, one during the night. Both jobs I got through Erik, the drummer of SOC. The day job was first, at a famous restaurant called The Sandpiper, which was a little dark hole (the food was decent, though). The Sandpiper's claim to fame was that the owner was buddies with George Lucas, and had exclusive screenings of his movies before they were released to the public, like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I may have bussed tables for people responsible for this movie. Or not. (The truth is, I couldn't find any pictures of the Sandpiper Restaurant)

I started as a dishwasher. I remember eating left over prime rib and drinking wine from unfinished carafes (things broke young ones will do). A prominent memory was of a visitor to the screen door to the back of the kitchen, one Jimmy Jive, a black homeless man who thought he was a woman and was crazy as hell. He often ended up at the hospital with 'pains in his womb'. He would show up at the back door of The Sandpiper and ask for food and cigarettes. Or he would just rant something like; "Where's that guy that one guy, that mean guy? You go get him."

Eventually, Erik got a job bussing tables, then bartending at a hip joint downtown called Jake's. I needed more money, so I got a day job there as a dishwasher (I had started bussing tables at the Sandpiper during the night by then) On my first day, the busboy had quit, so they asked if I would bus tables and I never had to touch a dish at Jake's. Each day, my routine was that I would come home from one bussing job and change into my other bussing uniform.

I had a steady girlfriend at the time, but a beautiful black girl had a huge crush on me, for some reason (I mention that she was black because there was a only handful of blacks, or minorities at all, in the entire state). She stalked me. If I were available, I would have certainly given in. But I was loyal, as, along with my backwards 'grown-up' attitude in the house, I was also always committed to one girl. While in a band. Living in a party house. Oh my, to do it all over again, especially since the same girl I was loyal for ended up cheating on me! I digress…

So this girl, we will call her Alice, would show up at our house while I was still at the day bussing job, and wait for me, annoying the hell out of my roomies. She would have presents for me; beer, a giant bong. I would ignore her (and ok, I took the presents). Her ex boyfriend, a cheese ball, we will call him Chad, was very jealous about this crush, I had heard through the grape vine. But I didn't really give a fuck, since I wasn't doing anything, and wouldn't have anyway.

One fine day, as I was in my room changing from one busboy uniform to another, there was a knock at our front door. Then I heard "WHERE'S WAYNE????" in a booming male voice. I was shaking in my socks, with my pants around my ankles. I didn't move. I heard bits of conversation. Then the door closed. I slowly came out, peering around the corner.

The visitor was Alice's father, a very large white biker. Apparently, Chad had gone to her father and told him that Alice was hanging around with a 26 year old man named Wayne Flower, that Wayne was feeding her acid, told him where 'he' lived. Pat and I forget who else had answered the door, heard him out, and explained that I was in fact 18 and that I was avoiding his daughter like the plague. He accepted this (thank GOD) and left.

I know this doesn't really have a lot to do with the 'music history' of Boise…but it is such a good story, I couldn't resist! It does relate to the fact that people began to regularly think of or go to the SOC House when trying to find missing teens, such was the reputation of the place.

For a short time we had a guy crashing on our couch who was sleeping with some girl, and she ran away from home. She had stayed at our place a couple times. The parents called the police, and a cop showed up at our door. He was like a cartoon cop, round and ridiculous. He said to us "I know you guys are porkin' teenage girls over here…" I swear to God. 'Porkin'! Nothing ever came of that, of course. But we had heard through the grape vine that our house had come up at a meeting of the Boise Board of Education. We made the big time, man! I wrote a poem once in an art and poetry magazine called FOOD that Pat and I put out briefly which had lines about this period at the SOC House that later ended up in a State of Confusion song; "we didn't rob the corner store/we don't have your daughters".

One day, Brad decided he was going to rake the leaves in the lawn into a nice pile in the front yard. But he never put them in a bag, he just left the pile there. Over time, the grass beneath the leaves died. I remember after we moved out of the house, I drove by it once and saw this ugly little tree planted in the spot where the grass had died, which was in an odd spot, not a place where you would normally plant a tree. I assume it is there to this day.

The notorious SOC House, Boise, ID. Note Brad's pile of leaves (mentioned above)

Other highlights from the SOC house; I had a GI Joe doll that I taped to a crucifix made of cardboard. I hung it up by a window in the 'dining' area. Over time, people would add things to it here and there; electrical tape, candy wrappers, all kinds of crap, until you could barely see that it was GI Joe doll. It was known affectionately as 'GI Jesus'. I have a polaroid photo of it somewhere, along with two other polaroids; one of a huge wooden propaganda sign from Russia that was above the fireplace, and a picture of Pat squatting in front of Erik, who is laying on the floor while someone [actually Cory Wees and Brad Kromennhoek] braids his hair into a punk rock do (unusual for Erik, and in preparation for the last Moose Lodge show we played). I also have a polaroid of the front yard and Brad's aforementioned pile of leaves [this was obviously written prior to me having the photos. See above and below].

Above: G.I. Jesus, in the (plastic) flesh Right: Pat, Erik, Cory, Brad braiding Erik's hair

Erik Hansen sporting his new do at Moose Lodge, Boise, ID

A typical gathering at the SOC House

We had shows in the basement sometimes. Often, close to a hundred people would show up. It was off the hook. During the time of these basement gigs, we would invite out of town bands on tour to play, take up a collection for them. One of these bands was a band from Salt Lake City called The Potato Heads (depriving Boise punks of a perfect band name!).

Salt Lake City had a thriving punk scene in the 80's, and since it was the nearest 'city' (6 hours southeast) we often played there, eventually having a much bigger following in Salt Lake than in our own town. More on that in future blogs.

The Potato Heads as a band played Minutemen style tunes but punkier, were skilled musicians playing punk rock, but not in a snide way. As people, they were made up of college students, or just normal middle class drunk kids. This was the biggest show we had at the house, complete with a thrash pit. Great fun. Our connection with the Potato Heads was the first of many Salt Lake City connections.

The Potato Heads, SOC House basement, Boise, ID

Left: Chris Moor, John Morris

Right: Jonathan Clark

Above: Wayne and Pat SOC House (note Pat's shiner)

Right: Scott and Wayne at SOC House

The SOC House was a punk rock incubator. Many of our best songs were written there. Life, for a time, was pretty much bussing tables, playing the Crazy Horse and stumbling to the house afterward to get even more drunk. "One day stumbles in to the next/Take it easy man, I'm doin my best!/I'm in a State of Confusion". But eventually, I could no longer take the endless partying. The endless mess. The young old man martyr in me had had enough. I moved out after a year into my own apartment across town. My stay there would be short-lived due to an unforeseen, life changing event.

Next: Illness strikes, low rent touring begins, and at a party thrown by an aging queen, gays bash us.