LUNKHEADED

Part 10

A new mall was opening a few miles from Wildwood, said to be the biggest in America. None of us were real excited by this, knowing what the growth of Six Flags Great America (also nearby) had done to local traffic. Our sleepy little town was quickly becoming one of those off-ramp towns you only stop in for gas or directions. The other problematic aspect of this was that now none of us would really have a viable excuse for unemployment to our parents any longer. There were enough crappy mall jobs for every burnout, stoner, and slacker within a fifty mile radius.

So, like just about everyone else, I got myself one of those crappy mall jobs. I knew I couldn’t handle something like Banana Republic or Starbucks so I only applied at the bookstores and record stores. Since the mall was still several weeks away from opening, there was no way to know if you were applying at one of the ‘cool’ record or bookstores or not. Luckily, when I got a call and went in for an interview at Dicken’s Books, I knew it would a cool bookstore, maybe cooler than I thought. The manager, Virginia was super cool and we rapped about Bukowski and Vonnegut and I knew I had the job when I walked out. The called the next day and I was set to start that Monday.

I worked at the information desk, which beat the hell out of being a cashier. My responsibilities consisted of telling moms and dads where the Tom Clancy books were, the sailors where the books about serial killers were, burnout teenagers where the Necronomicon and the Anarchist Cookbook were, and everyone else where Stephen King was (we used to call him “Steve King” to throw off the customers). It was a pretty banal existence but every now and then you’d get a really good customer you could really talk books with, or change someone’s choice from something crappy to something good.

This is also, much more importantly, where I met Ron. We worked together on the info desk, cracking on customers and changing book titles in the computer (“Tess of the Doobie Brothers”, “A Sale of Two Titties”), we’d end up howling with laughter in the middle of the store. Sometimes we’d prank call Ron’s insane, profane uncle on speakerphone and we spent hours and hours scanning customer lists for funny names.

Another thing I love about Ron is that he shared my love for funny names. There is simply nothing funnier than a truly unfortunate or bizarre name. We discovered names like Jesse Overall IV, Scarlett D. Poon, Madonna Compton, Jew Don Boney, Jr., Hartmut Heep, and David Smelly. We compiled list after list. [Ed. Note-As I type this, there is one of these lists still tacked to the bulletin board next to me and the first name on it is Lashley Wragg] [Ed. Note 2-The funniest name I’ve ever seen didn’t come from the Dicken’s lists, it was a customer who ordered a cd from a aplace I worked at later whose name was, prepare yourself: Dick Stroker! And, he lived on HANCOCK LANE! I swear! We called him and gave him some bullshit story about having a problem with his credit card, just to see if he was a real guy. And he was, “Yeah, this is Dick Stroker…” he drawled over the speakerphone. Dick Stroker. Fuckin’-a.

One day Ron came into work wearing a Misfits t-shirt. I asked if he liked punk rock, not knowing him too well yet IU expected the reply of a bunch of mall punk bands like the Sex Pistols or the Exploited. Ron almost knocked me out when he said he really didn’t like the Misfits, it was just the only clean shirt and that he was really more into bands like CRIMPSHRINE. Crimpshrine, holy shit! In those days the truest sign of being into good music was, to me, being into Crimpshrine. You couldn’t find Crimpshrine at the mall, heck you couldn’t even find Crimpshrine on CD! We noticed all the Lookout! bands referring to Crimpshrine and heard stories about how they’d toured in a VW bug and played garage sale equipment and knew we’d better check these guys out. And they were pretty much instantly our favorite band. The production was terrible, and it certainly did sound like they were playing on garage sale equipment, but the songs were among the best we’d ever heard. Sounded like they were from the suburbs, too.

Ron was easily the smartest person I’d ever met. Not smart in the I-went-to-a-state-college way, smart in a I-read-Voltaire-for-fun kinda way. He despised ignorance in any forum and would openly mock the stupid. He’s equal parts Noam Chomsky and Randall from “Clerks”. In addition to Dickens, Ron also worked at a pizza place in Trevor owned by a guy who used to be in the GEORGIA SATELLITES, which was super cool in my book; “Battleship Chains” is one of my all-time favorite songs. And, he’s the only person I’ve ever known to get shot in the head and lived to talk about it.

Matter of fact,not only did he live, he never even LOST CONCIOUSNESS!!! Gadzooks! Think about that, a .38 slug to the head, and the dude never even PASSED OUT! To make matters worse, when the paramedics cut off his clothes (which is standard procedure for a head wound, apparently), the local cops began to make fun of Ron’s genital piercing. He was able to laugh about it later; lying on the floor, blood pouring from a gunshot wound to the head while the local fuzz point and laugh at your rig (Ron’s term of choice, he once told me). Bummer.

He had been shot by accident by his stepbrother Brian, when he was fooling around with a gun they’d found in the house. Brian was a trip in his own right. There were all kinds of crazy stories about him, and I myself own a glossy 8X10 of him in the nude. One night Ron had come home and found him sitting around naked and asked if he could take a picture of him and Brian said yes. Little did he know that a few years later, he’d be driving around his hometown frantically pulling down hundreds of Lunkhead fliers prominently displaying his nakedness. It’s funny how life works.

LUNKHEADED

Part 9

At that time Mike, Pete and I were on a shoplifting bender the likes of which has never been seen since. We stole anything from anywhere. In fact, in addition to our everyday, run-of-the-mill thieving, we’d developed a shoplifting route of sorts we began to take every Sunday. We’d start at the record store then hit the comic book shop then hit the chain bookstore (I’d never steal from an independent bookstore-I’m not a fucking lowlife) to load up on the hardcovers we couldn’t afford and Club magazines.

One particular day Mike, Pete and I went to the aforementioned comic book shop and as soon as we parked Pete’s sweet-ass Mustang Mach II we got rushed by a phalanx of local cops who penned in the car like we were bankrobbers. There was that weird moment when they make you stew while they take their time getting out of their cars (I hate that moment) and we had a quick hushed conversation, quickly figuring out our only trouble spot would be the quarter of weed in the glove compartment. It was sort of a good news/bad news thing, because while the glove compartment WAS locked, the hinge that held it on on the bottom was gone and you could easily slip your hand in there. The cops strolled over and milled around the car, peering in and poking through the clutter with their nightsticks while one told Pete his plates were expired and he’d have to step out of the car. The other cops were silent, checking out me and Mike silently while we eyed them back silently. They took Pete and put him in back of one of the cars and one of the local cops, a younger, handsome dude who looked like he’d call you ‘champ’ leaned in and rested his forearms on the window.

“Anything in the glove compartment, fellas?” he asked, string me square in the face. I stared down at the glove compartment knob between my knees and got real warm.

“No, man. That’s broken. It’s been broken since we bought the car.” I said as evenly as I could.

“You his brother?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then why did you say ‘we’?”

Truth was, I didn’t know why I said we; everything was ‘we’ with us. I figured I’d keep it simple.

“We’re roommates. We share stuff.” I said.

He shot me a look. “Looks like it’s just locked.” He said, jiggling the knob.

”Yeah, we thought that, too, but the car didn’t come with a key for it.” I was ready for this contingency.

Supercop began to feel around under it, I was so nervous I was squirming involuntarily. He noticed the hinge defect and began to squeeze his fingers in. I could envision his fingertips brushing within millimeters of the plastic baggie of trouble. I had to act. I had only one shot: the Jedi Mind Trick.

“Dude!” I blurted, “You don’t wanna BREAK it!!!”

Time stood still.

The cop froze, his hand still halfway in the glove compartment, and slowly turned his head towards me.

“You’re right.” He said blankly, “I DON”T want to break it…” And extracted his hand.

I swear.

He turned his attention to the backseat and I could barely contain my orgasmic joy at having been the first person on record to Jedi Mind Trick a cop! I watched in the rear view mirror as Pete was released from the backseat of the cruiser he was in and handed back his wallet, giving us the tiniest of fist pumps. It was a good win for the freaks.

I could write a manual on shoplifting, but I won’t. That’s the kind of thing you just gotta learn for yourself. But, there are certain rules of shoplifting that needn’t be written down for even the most doltish of criminals. One of these, assuredly, would be: Do NOT draw any unnecessary attention to yourself! Our friend Ray lived to disprove this and often would just jump out of line at the grocery store or wherever and run screaming out the door, his arms full of Little Debbies’ and toilet paper. He had a dog that I’m pretty sure never in its life ate dog food that had actually been paid for.

Another rule probably is: Don’t recycle spots too much. The comic store parking lot fiasco was proof of that. Plus, the record store people were way onto us as well. They’d stare us down as we walked in, but every couple of weeks one of us would buy something little (trying to dig our wallets out of our pants pockets without dropping any of the cd’s stuffed up our sleeves) to keep them at bay. [Ed note: I once found there (and PAID FOR) the first LIFE SENTENCE lp. Score!} They had good used vinyl for a store in the suburbs, but was run by demonic yuppies. The type who drove Land Rovers with Grateful Dead stickers on them, so it wasn’t like, a moral dilemma, or anything. We’d stuff cd’s down our pants, stick vinyls in our waistbands, hide stuff near the door, grab and go, stage diversions; Sunday after Sunday. We never got caught, despite the pungent reek of marijuana and guilt, we never got caught. I retired soon after the comic store incident. With a perfect record.

LUNKHEADED

Part 8

Upon leaving that show, I had the first of three near-death experiences. Incidents where I didn’t die, but shouldn’t necessarily have lived, either. Mike, one of the Wildwood OG’s and my partner in petty larceny, myself, Tom, and Pete were leaving the Unicorn, which was underneath the freeway, and pulled up to the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp. There was someone exiting the highway and apparently Mike must have thought they had a stop sign also, and began to pull into the intersection. The exiting car was going at least sixty when the driver hammered on his brakes and started sliding sideways right at us. We were dead. About 10 feet from our station wagon the guys wheels caught purchase and he flopped past us, jerking his car so hard he almost flipped it. I remember the terrified-yet-still-annoyed look on the drivers face as he hurtled past within inches, and smelling his burning tires as he sped on. There was a long moment. I looked at Mike who slowly turned to me, wide-eyed, and just shrugged. We drove home in silence.

LUNKHEADED

Part 7

I had been trying to get a show in Milwaukee for some time and finally a kid who did a zine up there got us a show at the Unicorn, a local Mexican restaurant/dive bar. It was run by this guy named Gus, who looked like one of Tony Montana’s more-poorly-dressed henchmen. He was little but ripped as hell, with a really sketchy disposition. He was edgy and jumpy. And mean.

The night before the show a bunch of us had dropped acid and had a party at the house of a friend of ours (who happened to be out of town with her parents), and ended being up all night. When we got to the club, it was about 95 degrees in the shade and Gus was pissed off about something (which might have been that despite a 24 hour head start we still couldn’t make it to the show on time) and was hollering at us as we rolled iinto the parking lot.

The guys started to unload the stuff and me and Pete went to see what was up. Gus sat on his stool, smoking and eyeing us suspiciously.

“You’re late.” he said.

“Yeah, sorry, Gus we had car trouble…” I said, of course the only car trouble we’d had was about fifty terrifying near-misses on the tollway.

“You can’tplay.” He said and turned to go inside.

“Hey, hey, hey. Chill out, man, wer’e just late can’t we switch with somebody?” I pleaded.

One of the guys from RHINELANDER intervened and Gus relented. It turned out Gus was either busting our balls, or plain-old crazy because when we went in, the show was nowhere near ready to begin. We loaded the shit in down the rickety stairs in the pitch black, even the sun was scared to come past Gus into the Unicorn.

I hung out in the parking lot, still wired from the speedy acid, and drank coffee and rode my skateboard. A couple guys came up and we all wandered off together in search of more coffee. They were all from Milwaukee and said they knew where to go.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, is open in Milwaukee on a Sunday. We walked fifteen blocks until we reached an open convenience store. I was dripping sweat and had the haggard oiliniess of a dude who’d been up all night tripping. I spilled a little coffee as I studied my face in the side of the stainless steel coffeemaker.

When we got back to the Unicorn, all of our equally tweaked-looking friends were standing around. Pete came up and said they told him no guest list. None at all, I asked. None at all, he answered. Weak.

I went inside and found Gus at the bar. He said we didn’t get anyone in. We had no choice. Well then, I told him, we’re not gonna play. I have a terrible habit of getting up on my high horse, and generally getting knocked back off of it.

I started up the stairs to tell the fellas when I heard this bellow from behind me. Gus was charging across the room towards me and I hightailed it up the stairs.

“Fuck you!” He screamed, “Fuck YOU and your SHITTY BAND!”

“Up yours, you fucking crook!” I yelled down, and that really set him off. He came running up the stairs at me and I thought for sure I was dead. This guy was like, six inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter than me, and absolutely still about to whip my big mouthed ass. He stopped abruptly on the last step. I hadn’t taken another step back when he charged me, and there was this weird moment of standoff. I figured if I’m gonna get clobbered, might as well take it like a man. We stared each other in the eye for a minute that seemed like a year. Then he put his hand forward, and I smiled and shook it. We’d come to an unspoken understanding.

We ended up playing the show and things ended up going off. During the last song a bunch of people (alas, all male) climbed on stage and got naked with us (Ed. Note: Led by a young Paulie Think). I thought for sure Gus was gonna come storming through the crown, blinded by homoerotic rage, but I saw him standing at the back by the sound booth with a bottle of Bud and a bemused smile on his face. Eventually the sound guy did pull the plug, but by then we were out of songs and out of gas, and immediately everyone poured out the door and collapsed in the cool Milwaukee evening. The sight of a parking lot full of heaving, soaked punks lying on the asphalt in various states of undress was cool, it looked llke Apocalypse Now. That’s what punk rock is all about.

We ended up hanging out in the parking lot with our new friends for several hours. One of them was this dude named Mike who had been on the earlier coffee death march, and had started up his own Skateboard company he called Beer City. I was uimpressed, I’d never met a dude who had his own skateboard company before. He showed me his board, saying it was one of his. We all rolled around doing wallies and having powerslide contests and enjoying the unexplainable feeling of rolling on a skateboard. The sky looked so cool that night, electric blue behind dark, high clouds. Perfect, like the rest of the evening.

LUNKHEADED

Part 6

One day shortly thereafter, we were all out skateboarding when John mentioned that they were having a talent show at the local high school and he’d signed us up for it. At first Pete and I were skeptical, we’d already graduated and felt really weird about going back to play with our rock band. Jeez, ya know…playing at your old high school? Sounded kinda fruity.
John was convinced it would be rad, all our friends would be there, we could go nuts and scare people, we’d bring down the fucken house, he said. Eventually we all started to see things his way and agreed to do it.
As it got closer, we started hearing more and more stuff from our friends still in school. People were amped, no denying that. For a couple weeks beforehand, everyone we ran into had heard the news and couldn’t wait. That was really starting to rub off on us, and by show day we were lit to pop.
Apparently the school officials had heard the buzz, too. Initially we were given six songs which we figured we could stretch into seven. Then John said they’d called him into the office and said only four songs. The day of the show, they told him only two songs and that they were more than willing to pull the plug.
We didn’t get it. At first the school folks had been super into the whole thing. Our friend Ben said that one of the teachers had said to him they were worried about slam dancing. I thought this was kind of strange. They wanted to see and rock and roll band, but wanted nothing else that went along with it, like dancing. I wondered if we’d be playing behind glass, like a museum exhibit.
When we arrived at the school that night, it didn’t feel like my old school. The school had been burned to the ground by a disgruntled student while I was still in eighth grade. So, my first two years they bused us to an unused school in Lake Forest and then we returned to this campus and lived around the constant construction for the latter two. I’d never gotten to see it finished so I wandered off by myself to look around after we’d loaded in. When I returned, there was a meeting going on with Mr. Chapin, an English teacher I knew well from my years on the school paper. He nodded to me as I entered and I waved and sat down with the guys and the other participants to listen to him. He was going over the rules of the show; rules about cursing, volume, conduct, and other issues that, it was painfully obvious, were directed at LUNKHEAD and not the gospel singer or the tap dancers.
After it was over he approached me.
“Matt, I really don’t want any trouble.” He said. I told him I didn’t know why they were so worried in the first place. A little rock and roll, some dancing. I didn’t see the problem. Pete, Brian, and I went out back to smoke and wait to play while John stayed backstage, getting ‘advice’ from every school official who wandered by.
After a while Mr. Chapin came out and said, “Five minutes, fellas.” He started to say something else but just kind of shook his head and went back in. We marched to the backstage area and put our guitars on while some burnout kid did a ten minute, very un-satriani-like guitar solo in front of the curtain. Tom, Rob, and Fransisco came over and took their places. They’d dressed like commandoes and were gonna stand silently on stage with us while we played. It was an idea we’d ripped from our love of good rap music like ICE-T and PUBLIC ENEMY. Besides, it looked cool as hell, you should see the video. Ed. note-here it is :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRQnoCB-2LQ&feature=related
I peeked around the curtain and the place was packed to the gills, complete with a healthy number of police officers milling around in the back aisle. I could see all of our friends in one big section. It seemed like every person I knew was sitting in this antsy mob. The Yngwie kid soldiered on, despite merciless heckling from the Wildwood crew who knew we were up next.
We had decided to do “Inspiration Point” and “Sausage Party”, and I guess a bunch of people had pledged to storm the stage when we started “Sausage Party”. I didn’t know if anything would happen, I kinda didn’t think anything would, actually. It takes a lot of balls to stand up and start a riot.
The burnout wrapped it up and walked off to tepid applause, we were introduced and the place went nuts. The curtain rose and we started “Inspiration Point’. The crowd was drowning us out and me and Fransisco laughed at the absurdity of it all for a second. The song ended and the crowd roared.
Now was the weird part. I looked at Pete who kinda shrugged and started a simple 1-2 beat and I started the crowd chanting “Sau-sage Par-ty, sau-sage par-ty”. I saw the mischeviously gleeful looks on the faces of the Wildwood crew and the stern faces of everyone else. You coulda cut the tension with a tennis racket.
To this day, there has been debate over who moved first, who was the first domino. All I know is, I heard a WHOOSH noise, looked up and saw Ben Snyder leading an army of crazed rowdies down the center aisle like the charge of the light brigade. Like a wave, they poured into the orchestra pit, and onto the stage, and back off again in ridiculous numbers. They ran up to sing and then the power got cut and it got dark and really disorienting. I ducked behind the curtain.
Backstage was chaos. We knew they school people were pissed, but they were all too busy trying to stop the melee to notice us, so we broke down in record speed and ran the shit right out the door to the waiting cars and peeled into the street, laughing hysterically and hoping everyone had made it outta there.

LUNKHEADED

Part Five

Things really started to come together when Brian came aboard. He took his metal guitar abilities and transferred them flawlessly to bass, coming up with really inventive, rolling bass lines that really livened the songs up. John was also really starting to excel as a guitar player and I think having Brian around to push him totally helped John.

John was a prodigy from the beginning though, we all knew it. He was easily the most talented one of us. In addition to being an amazing painter and a gnarly skateboarder, he came from a family of musicians and was destined to become the virtuoso he developing into. Dave, John’s older brother, was a working jazz guitarist and had done tours overseas and their dad was a gigging bluegrass guitar and banjo player. When you would go over there for dinner, after the food was done everyone would pick up guitars and they’d have a Sampson Family Jam. They’d go on and on, playing more and more complex interweaving tunes, all made up as they went along. I’d sit there with my after-dinner coffee and wish I was a Sampson.

John is also the, for lack of a better word; wackiest person I’ve ever known. One time after practice we noticed that it was boat launch day at the beach up the street. Cars and boats were bumper to bumper in front of the house, and suddenly John is rolling down the double yellow line on his skateboard in a Batman mask and bedsheet cape. He would ride slowly between the cars, peering into the cars and SUV’s with a scowl on his face. “I’m Batman.” He told them as they rolled up their windows. Another time, back in the Kolar’s garage days, we invented this game called Retard Hitchhiking. We’d found a cache of rad 70’s clothes that had been Kev and his brothers’ when they were kids out in the garage, so we squeezed into the ill-fitting sweaters and windbreakers and put on our skateboarding helmets. Then we walked out by the main road and wandered around into traffic, drooling, without thumbs out. Cars would slow down so as not to hit any of the retarded hitchhikers as we’d moan incoherently at the, occasionally flopping down onto the road, kicking and screaming.


The first gig we played with Brian on bass was at this joint called Fotch’s. Fotch’s claim to fame was the free video games. “FREE VIDEO GAMES!!!” all the flyers would scream. Brian knew the dude who put out CAMM, a local metal magazine, and he also booked shows at Fotch’s. He booked us a show with his band, STYGIAN. For some reason this guy thought we would draw well. We drew okay, but this place was in no mans land and we were only in it for the video games and didn’t give two shits how many people showed up as long as they had Punch-Out.

Twenty or so of our friends showed up, like us, mainly for the video games, and at first the owner guy didn’t wanna turn the games on. After a near mutiny, the power was turned on, and there was a stampede into the game room. The games were all 80’s games, but free video games are free video games.

After about an hour of Tempest, Dig Dug, and Donkey Kong I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Scott Stygian. “Dude,” he said “you’re on.” “Shit, man, can you give us a few more minutes?” I asked. He kinda shrugged and wandered off so I turned back to my game. A little while later we pryed everyone away from their respective games and filed back into the bar area. We’d been in the arcade for the better part of an hour and had expected the room to be steadily filling in our absence. As we entered, it was apparent that it hadn’t.

There was nobody there. Literally, nobody. An empty room. Even the bartender didn’t show. The only people there were us, our friends, STYGIAN, and the sound guy. We asked if we could move the PA into the arcade and do the show in there but they said no. So, laughing, we jumped on stage.

The best shows are always the ones nobody sees. One time, in L.A. we got booked in with this goofy straight-edge band at an afternoon show. The five or so straight-edgers who showed up stood with their backs against the wall, and we just totally went for it. Screaming, yelling, rolling around on the stage, it was easily one of our most frenetic shows and as we walked off the stage and directly out the door I actually said to one of the dudes in the other band, “Top that, buddy.”

This was one of those shows. Shit just clicks. You hit on all cylinders and just go OFF. We did that again. We ripped through ten songs in about 25 minutes and went right back to the arcade, drenched in sweat and played Centipede while STYGIAN played to the sound guy.

Part Four

So we went back to playing the surprisingly burgeoning Wildwood party scene. Every couple weeks there was a crazy party replete with underage drinking and nudity (always dude), always ending the way any good suburban party does; in fisticuffs. The band had become something of a draw at local parties, making it a point to mix in covers everyone knew with our new songs, which people were starting to know the words to. The parties attracted a perfect blend of disaffected suburban youth. From the death metal crew, to the crusty hippies, to the rowdy-ass headbanger/BMX guys, to dudes in eyeliner. And, of course, the ever-prevelant, ever-powerful WHC crew, always making the scene.
It was around this time that our friend Dave’s mother moved back to Champaign where she was a college professor, and left the house in the care of her two sons Dave and Mike and also Arnold who was living there.
This proved to be a very bad idea.
Within a few hours it became the Delta House of Wildwood. The yard was littered with cans, the driveway full of spray-painted jalopies, the neighbors shrubbery viciously attacked.
The location was almost too perfect. It was walking (more likely, skateboarding) distance from the beach and our practice space over at John’s house.
I moved back to my folks’ house around this time, but ‘moving back home’ was really just a ruse to have somewhere to leave my stuff while I divided my time between Pete and Dave’s floors. The job I had with Roadkill had turned into an actual paying gig. Dave was going into business with a couple local dudes to start a record distributor and I was made head of shipping and receiving at $400 a month. Since my rent was also $400 a month, eating became a luxury reserved for trips to my parents’ and whatever food I could swipe outa the fridge at work. There were these two fruity industrial music types who lived at the loft we ran the distributor out of, and while they never had much food in their fridge, I didn’t eat much. Everyone would leave for lunch and I’d wolf down a couple of bread heels and some olives, then smoke a bunch of cigarettes to ease the hunger pangs.
Well, the company had a difficult time selling it’s incredibly eclectic array of records (I’d seriously heard of, like, three of the bands) and went bust after about a year. I knew it wouldn’t last, but it was fun while it did. I was 19, had my own apartment by myself in the city, a piece of shit car than ran for the most part, and while I was broke and at times miserably lonely, but for the most part it was an amazing experience. My bathroom window looked right out at the Sears Tower, and I would wile away the evenings with a little herb, the telephone, and the radio.
After the job went bust and the rent ran dry, I returned full-time to Wildwood. The party gigs had become more frequent and in a wider radius, and a small group of bands emerged to work together to get shows, parties, and each other on bills. There was JUNGLE ROT, a death metal band made up of Wildwood BMX dudes we were friends with, DYSLEXIC APACHES, a funk band our friend Mike was in, and LOCAL H, and they’re famous now, but they’ve been cool dudes since way before that. Good for them.
We had developed an honest-to-God following at this point and while they were of course our friends and skateboarding buddies, they actually seemed to like the music and we were all having a really good time. It felt special, even then. I think we all knew we had something special going on. There were bands, shows, zines, insane parties, huge skate sessions, crash pads…we knew we were doing precisely what we wanted to. Precisely what lots of kids our age wanted to be doing. We didn’t want to be part of the ‘Chicago scene’, we were our own scene. We forged our own paths, all of us.


One of the advantages of having more people coming to the shows meant we got to see video of ourselves. One time we were at Pete’s after a show at the Gurnee VFW we’d put on, when we noticed something seemed off. It looked right, it just didn’t sound right. Pete, Tom, John, and I watched the video in Pete’s room, trying to figure out what was wrong. As the camera shot panned across the stage at one point, John said “I don’t think Kevin is playing.” We rewound it and watched it closer. Sure enough, the reason it sounded weird was because THE BASS PLAYER WAS JUST STANDING THERE! It seemed unbelievable. We scanned ahead in the video and it became evident that Kevin was only playing at the beginning of the song, then he would lose interest and just kinda stand there swaying back and forth and bouncing his bass on it’s lame-ass elastic strap (Really, who uses an ELASTIC guitar strap?) like a creepy bobble-head doll. We were dumbfounded to say the least. Pete suggested we check some of the other videos, less frequently, but at some point or another, Kevin would just stop playing and stand there like a goof. Our friend Brian showed up and sat down on the floor with us to watch. “Kevin’s not playing.” Brian said. We told him we’d just figured that out. “That’s weak.” He said, picking at a guitar. He p;layed guitar for a local metal band and was into Satriani and stuff like that, and was just a RIPPING guitar player.
Pete, John, and I discussed what to do. It seemed like we had no choice but to kick him out. You don’t play in a band and DON’T PLAY IN A BAND, right? We decided to call him and tell him right there. We marched into Tom’s room, the three of us, and called him on speakerphone. At first he kinda freaked, yelling at us in this bizarre, croaky voice and calling us names. He swore he always played, and after having seen the video, he might BELIEVE he never drifted off and forgot to play mid-song, but the evidence was right there. After going back and forth with him for the better part of an hour (he was taking it surprisingly badly), we hung and went downstairs to tell Tom, Brian and Jim how it went. We all sat around discussing what had went down and what we were gonna do about bass, when Brian, who was still picking at that guitar, looked up and said “I can play bass.” Like it was a revelation. He said he’d never played before but it HAD to be easier than guitar. Two less strings, right? We agreed and were at John’s showing him the songs within the hour.
Later that evening when we returned to Pete’s, Kevin was waiting for us across the street. We hadn’t recognized his mom’s car when we’d driven past and went inside. When we walked in Jim said, “You know Kevin is sitting in his car on the street, right?”
I asked him how long he’d been there.
“Pretty much since you left.” He said with that wry Jim grin.
There was a loud knock at the door. We looked at each other. Good lord, why was he here? John went and answered the door, but Kev didn’t wanna come in. He wanted to talk to me. I think he wanted to fight me, but I still didn’t bother to put on shoes or socks to go out into the gravel lot.
I think he’d been crying. I was nice at first. “Look, dude, were kicking you out of a crappy punk band. It’s not this big of a deal.” I told him. He didn’t wanna hear it and eventually started spewing a staccato mishmash of curse words at me, in a less threatening than pleading sort of way. I left him standing there under the streetlight. It was time to move on.

LUNKHEADED

Part Three


But those days ended soon after when Mr R left and didn’t come back, and Marge and the boys sold the house and moved on. Luckily, all this happened right around when we all started to get cars and drive ourselves around. Every weekend featured a show at either MacGregors or Wrigleyside, and a foray into the city to buy records. I was primarily into East Bay punk bands like CRIMPSHRINE, OPERATION IVY, and GREEN DAY, and it got to the point where I would buy any record with the LOOKOUT! name. Which was sorta cool cuz you discover new bands, but for every MONSULA I discovered, there were five BRENTS TV’s, YEASTIE GIRLS, and PLAID RETINA’s.

I had this deal going with Dave, the guy who ran Roadkill Records, a small local label that put out a WEASEL album, the SLUDGEWORTH 7”, and the BHOPAL STIFFS classic “e.p.a.”, among others. The deal was I’d drop off flyers for his shows throughout the northern suburbs and I got into any show I wanted. It was a good deal. Because of this deal, I was at MacGregors a LOT. At least one night a weekend and so I got to know Matt, the guy who booked the shows there. So, as I stood outside handing out flyers to punks leaving the latest BILLINGSGATE or OUT OF ORDER show, I’d chat Matt up about letting LUNKHEAD play there. Every week I’d bug him, and he’d hem and he’d haw, he needed a tape, blah, blah, blah. Fuck the tape, man! I’d say. We’re GOOD! Just let us play, you’ll see. It went on like this for months. I’d stand on one side of the departing crowd and he’d stand on the other and I’d cajole him over the top of people’s heads. Finally, one day he calls me at home and do we wanna play with NO EMPATHY? Fuckin’ of COURSE we wanna play with NO EMPATHY!!! I book the show right then and there and called the fellas to tell them the good news.

So we really got down to it, practice-wise. Wrote a couple more originals, including “Sausage Party” and “Inspiration Point”, which both actually kinda sounded like real songs (there was even a guitar solo in one), and our confidence was sky-fucking-high. The show was that weekend and we were ready to make a splash on the Chicago punk rock scene. It was on a Sunday night which was customary in those days. No self-respecting bar would give up a Friday or Saturday night’s receipts to host an all-ages punk show. MacGregors was a sports bar the other six nights a week, which was also customary in those days. Dreamerz had burned down (during a POISON IDEA show, as the story goes),and Medusa’s had become co-opted by skinheads and the punx-with-an-X crowd, so good shows were often relegated to sports bars. That had it’s good points, too. It was in the suburbs, had a big parking lot you could hang out in, a little forest right off the lot you could sneak into for a smoke or a drink, and since you needed a car to reach it that kept away most of the panhandling, stud and spike crew. They had the Punkin’ Donuts in the city and we had the sports bar in the suburbs. It was the dumbest turf war ever.

We got to the show and unloaded, we were the first band there. Did our first sound check ever, it sounded good, then we sat around outside waiting for showtime. Soon after, the NO EMPATHY van rolled in and we hung with them for a while. They’d been easily the best band in town for years, and we’d been going to their shows forever. Their singer, Marc, is one of the most talented people I’ve ever known. He just has an AIR about him, I guess that’s what they mean when people talk about charisma, but Marc takes it to a whole other level. When he talks, you listen. I was telling him about our first show and wondering how the more urbane MacGregors crowd would take to us and he said to me, “You know Matt, even if the whole crowd hates you, HATES you-there’s gonna be one guy who thinks you’re THE ABSOLUTE SHIT!” Ruvolo’s a cool cat, and I’ve been playing for that one guy ever since.

Eventually a crowd started to build up. VICTIM’S FAMILY were playing as well as THE ALIEN BOYS from Germany, and both were sorta big so we figured there’d be an okay draw. More of our friends were showing up and Pete and I stood outside, smoking cigarette after cigarette in preparation. Finally, Matt poked his head out the door and told us we were on.

We plugged in and went. There were no introductions, no theme music, no witty repartee. Someone closed the door to keep the noise in and the late afternoon sun out and off we went.


There are several rock and roll Truths. Truths like Always have a sober person handy, and Always have duct tape. You learn these eternal truths the hard way. That day, we learned one of these Truths. Always have extra guitar strings, or better yet, an extra guitar handy. Always.

Midway through the third song, as the crowd was still meandering in, John broke his A string. We had no spare strings. We had no other guitar. We couldn’t go on. I asked through the mike if THE ALIEN BOYS or VICTIM’S FAMILY would loan us a guitar but they ignored us (dicks), and NO EMPATHY had gone for food. We looked at each other in amazement, we couldn’t believe this was happening. We held a quick band meeting and decided to try and play around it. We then lurched our way through “Above Average Retard” and called it a night, crushed that we’d only gotten through three songs, embarrassed beyond words at what the fourth one had sounded like, and miffed that the majority of the people had started to come in while we were fiddling around with the guitar. It was like all these people had heard this rad band from the parking lot, but when they got inside they realized they must have been mistaken.

We loaded off, unable to make eye contact with the crowd, and filled up the cars to leave. A couple people came up to say hi, but I think most people respected our embarrassment and left us alone.

I lied on the floor of my apartment on my back all night that night, thinking, pondering our disaster, and was literally sick to my stomach until the sun came up fiery in the morning window.

LUNKHEADED

Part 2

Soon after, Kev called me to tell me we had a show. His hillbilly uncle put on this daylong outdoor party called Fieldstone at his farm in Wildwood every year, where local redneck bands would play and people drank all day, downing Solo cup after Solo cup of this weird concoction the uncle prepared in garbage cans with cantaloupes. It got really rowdy we heard, so we told the uncle we were a go, then called John and Pete. John was skeptical, but into it. Pete, however, was not so optimistic. He would continue to be voice of reason within LUNKHEAD until the end of our days. As usual, he was right. As usual, we ignored him.
That week we practiced like madmen, going for hours to attempt to forge the slightest of repetoires. By show day on Saturday, we’d amassed six songs; three originals, a Weasel cover (Supermarket Fantasy), a Naked Raygun song (Managua), and the ubiquitous “Wild Thing” to close things out.


Saturday night came all to soon, and the next thing I know, I’m standing on the ‘stage’ (an unhinged flatbed trailer), trying to convince Pete we HAD to play.
“Dude, it’s too late to back out now, we gotta do it…” I was saying.
“I don’t know, man…”, he looked out over the crowd, “What have we gotten ourselves into?”
We assessed them from behind the amps. It was the cream of the Wildwood crop. Lots of old bikers and hippies, Jim and his burnout crew, our skater buddies, the usual. Wildwood is a tiny lake town about forty miles north of Chicago, which is just far enough to retain it’s redneck edge.
There was a weird air of anticipation for LUNKHEAD. Everyone was talking about the first ‘Wildwood Punk Band’, I thought it was cool, but destined to let them down.
The country band wrapped it up and we loaded on at nightfall. I remember looking back at Pete and wondering how someone could look so pale without actually vomiting, but he was hanging in there like a trooper (which would become one of LUNKHEAD’s better traits; the ability to play under duress. One time on tour we all got super sick and played with bottles of Chloroseptic spray duct-taped to the mike stands just to make it through the show.), and he never missed a beat.


It seemed like it was over before it started. I looked up and we were done. And it wasn’t that terrible, ya know? I mean, I see the video now and I totally cringe, but back then, I don’t know it worked. I remember forgetting some words to “Managua” and the Broken Hope guys moshing to “Supermarket Fantasy” and it was over. Afterwards, me and Pete amended one of the four goals- now we had to play a REAL show.


Pete. Man, I’ve never felt closer to anyone in my life than him during those years. We were like brothers. Lived together, hung out constantly, played together. If I could pick my own brother it would’ve been him, no doubt about it. We finished each other sentences, knew each others birthdays. Shit, I don’t know ANY of my other friends’ birthdays (well, except Isatalo, but his is Halloween and that’s easy).
We tried everything at the same time, for the most part. I remember one of the first times we smoked pot, we used this bong that belonged to Pete’s brother, Jim, that he kept hidden in the garage. So we climbed up and pulled it down (along with the Vanna White issue of Playboy) and put this little bud we had into the bowlpiece. Pete knew about the carb on the bong, but neither of us knew you were supposed to add WATER to these things. So we sucked and sucked, spewing out enormous clouds of reefer smoke like two teenaged pot volcanoes. Later on that afternoon, the normally docile Pete would punch our friend Cara in the stomach during an unusually heated game of HORSE. Cara was the second girl whose breasts I was privy to, the first being Erica the neighbor girl, upon whose mother I had once vomited when she was substitute teaching my second grade class.

Pete lived with his brothers Jim and Tom in a townhouse near my folks’ place in Wildwood. They used to live a block behind us, but their parents got divorced while we were in high school and the four of them moved over there. Their dad was a trip. He was a salesman of some sort and was always rushing in and out. During the summers Pete’s house was the hangout and with three brothers and three sets of friends coming and going it was a busy place. And every day, at some point amidst the chaos, Pete’s dad would appear, poke his head down into the basement and call out, “Hey guys. Any calls? Messages?” Every day, the same question and a half. Any calls? Messages? It was his mantra. The crazy part is that there were NEVER any calls! OR messages! EVER! Then, one day, someone actually DID call for him and left a message, and we all sat breathless with anticipation for his arrival. Eventually his Chevette rolled into the driveway (when Pete first started driving, we’d tell chicks he had a ‘Vette- a CHEV-Vette!!!), and Pete’s dad strode into the house. His head poked down, “Hey guys. Any calls? Messages?” We exploded in cheers. It was as if he’d won the Super Bowl. “YES, Dad! There IS a message!” Jim hollered proudly. And he came down the stairs to get it to rousing applause, looking confused.

LUNKHEADED

Part One.

Maybe I shoulda set my goals a little higher. Maybe I should have placed “make lots of money”, or “play on Lettermen” amongst them. But I didn’t and we didn’t, and I wouldn’t give a fucking second of it back.
Making money playing music was never even a consideration, let a lone a goal. The list I’d mentally written when I decided to start a band consisted of four items:
1. Start band.
2. Play at least one show.
3. Record something.
4. Tour.
I remember lying on the smelly hot floor of our green Econoline with Pete as we drove home to Chicago after the last show of the first tour. I said that I guessed we were now legitimite. He agreed, we were officially a real band now.


The first practice was unlike anything the world had ever heard. A lot of Rock Dudes will say things like that, “It was unlike anything you’ve ever HEARD, MAAAAN!”, but that’s bullshit. This was, in fact, unlike anything you’ve ever heard before-it was the most repugnant, horrifying excuse for rock and roll ever to defile God’s green Earth.
We had no equipment at all and we played in this local dude Kev’s garage. His dad had been in some local country bands and had a pretty good selection of gear. I played guitar (I’d never played before in my life and wouldn’t again for years, but more on that later), Mark sang, Kev played bass, and Kev’s semi-retarded younger brother Jamie played drums. Jamie wasn’t Jamie’s real name. I don’t know what his real name is, we all called him Jamie because he looked EXACTLY like Jamie, the older brother on SMALL WONDER, that TV show about the robot girl and her adolescent brother; except that our Jamie was big. Really big. Not like, big-boned-this cat was pro-wrestler big. I heard that in later years his freakish size would alienate him from his peers (it certainly did from us) and he would turn to a life of ill-repute. Jamie was in the band because he could supposedly really play drums, and besides, that drum machine we found in the garage turned out to just be a metronome. Bummer.
We didn’t have any songs yet, so we all agreed to start with a cover tune. Something easy. Kev’s dad recommended “Wild Thing”, saying it was about as easy as it got.
Five hours later, my hopes for rock and roll were smashed. We never even got CLOSE. Hell, it never even sounded like MUSIC. You ever heard that band, THE SHAGGS? It’s a bunch of five and six year old girls who were given a day of recording as a gift. They weren’t a band before that, and they weren’t a band after that, and they were little girls and they FUCKING BLEW US AWAY! It SUCKED! Even with just power chords and that fucking encephalapod just tapping the snare drums we couldn’t play it. I had no idea how hard playing music was. Or how bad I was at it. Whichever.


So we gave up on that pretty quick and went back to skateboarding, shitty community college, and trying to avoid our parents nagging about getting jobs. We’d mostly all been out of high school a year or so, and were having the times of our lives. None of us wanted college or a real job fucking that up.
One day several weeks later, we were all over at Pete’s smoking weed and listening to SCREECHING WEASEL records when I decided we needed to try that band thing again. After all, I said to John, you know how to play the fucking guitar! Kev has a bass. I should be a singer. Hell, I AM a fucking singer! But what about drums, John asked.
Hmmm, what ABOUT drums…? We pondered the question as the bong made a few more lazy passes.
“I got it. Pete’ll play drums.” I said, trying to sound convincing.
“Whaaaat?!?!” said Pete.
But it was idea we were all firmly behind. Pete HAD to be iin the band, and it was the only slot left, so it was pretty logical. After a few more bong rounds we had a lineup, a practice space (Kev’s garage), some equipment (Kev’s garage), and a song John had written called ‘She’s a Dyke’ about his lesbian, cab-driving aunt Michelle. We did, however, keep the name Mark had come up with a few weeks prior, LUNKHEAD. One word, two syllables and easy to spell. The perfect band name.
That Saturday, we tried it again. This time, it worked. It was still incredibly sketchy and probably still worse than THE SHAGGS, but at least you could tell we were playing SONGS. We also figured out “Wild Thing”. That ruled.

The Best Punk Show I Ever Saw.

The best punk show I ever saw was put on by a 70 year old black man. If you've never heard of the reggae group CULTURE and their iconic lead singer Joesph Hill, stop reading this right now and do some sonic reasearch.

You back? Ok, I'll continue. Around the time I discovered punk rock, I also stumbled onto reggae music. What's weird about this is, two of the most influential things in my life I discovered by stealing from my friends' fathers. The first was a copy of Slaughterhouse Five (I admit it, it was because of that scene in "Footloose" where they talked about banning it (hell, I read The Carpetbaggers because of that scene in "The Outsiders"), but fuck, I was like 13 years old, give me a break)), and the other was a Bob Marley cassette I stole from my buddy's dad, who was this weird old military guy, who owned 3 Yugo's (red, white, and blue-no shit) and spent all his free time watching videotapes of chinese karate movies. He'd even watch the undubbed ones, he loved 'em all (but didn't know karate himself, strange). The first time I ever heard Bob Marley, I felt changed. I suddenly knew that music wasn't just what I thought it was. The usage of music as an actual OUTLET became clear (soon enough, my older sister would give me a copy of Enjoy! by the DESCENDENTS, who'd played at her school, and it was ON, motherfucker! But, that's a different blog for a different time). We danced around the pool table in his basement like fools for hours listening to that cassette over and over.

The years went by and my record collection grew. I still listened pretty much exclusively to punk rock and reggae music. I still think that they're the only two that really have anything to say (and some rap music, but not much anymore). It was during this period that I discovered Culture, The one thing I look for more than anything in music is authenticity, and few reggae groups were more authentic than them. They'd been around since the 70's doing a three-peice harmony-type of roots reggae, led by their lead singer Joesph Hill. Joesph is a complete trip, he would play wearing gold lame suits and top hats, had a glass eye and used a cane, tottered around onstage, making jokes in a heavy patois and chuckling to himself, stopping the band to blurt things at the crowd; he was an amazing frontman.

One day I saw in the Suntimes that a group called Culture was playing at the Cubby Bear on a wednesday night (site of me and Cassandra's first date some years earlier-a POISON IDEA show but, again, that's a different blog for a different time). Thing was, it was only listed in the classified portion of the listings, there was no ad for the show. Also, it was a wednesday night, these guys played to THOUSANDS in their Jamaican homeland, there was just no way this was THE Culture. Probably just some coincedentally named awful cover band or something. I decided to call the Cubby Bear anyway. I asked the chick who answered the phone, "Is that Culture that's playing wednesday night, the reggae band from Jamaica?" "Well," she answered "I know they're black." Good enough for me.

Me and Cassandra drove down wednesday night and figured we were outa luck when we got to the Cubby Bear a half hour before showtime and saw that the Cubby Bear parking lot was only like one-third full. These guys were HUGE, this had to be a mistake. We pulled in and I told the lot attendant that we weren't sure if it was the right band, and could I just park and run in real quick and make sure. He said sure and I parked and started to jog around to the front of the building, leaving Cassandra as collateral. I came up alongside a tour bus parked next to the building and as I rounded the corner I heard a firmiliar high-pitched cackling. I stopped and Joesph Hill came walking slowly out of the bus, leaning on a can, top hat pitched rakishly on his head. It was like what catholics probably feel when they meet the pope. I stood in reverent silence as he passed, smiling at me, and absobed his aura. This cat was oozing with charisma. I ran back to pay the lot guy with an ear-to-ear grin.

All of the truly great shows I have either played or been to are shows were there's a small crowd who is completely into the band. Like early Screeching Weasel shows, those two shows WAX played in the same week, house parties, the Amoeba show at Fireside, among many others. There was probably only 30 or so other people at this show, but everyone knew every word to every song, and sang along; it was epic. Culture came out after a snooze-inducing opener that played about one set too long and were on FIRE. They played like it was a sold-out Wembley Stadium, and Joe was in rare form. He would dance off the low stage into the crowd inducing people to sing with him, dancing in circles, stopping the band to make a point. One time, in the middle of "Sweet Freedom" to launch into a three-minute rant in a patios so thick, I don't think the even band understood him. They were used to it, though, they just kinda shrugged and waited to him to finish and when he did, they four-counted right back in where they left off. By the end of the set, even the bartenders were dancing and sweat was condensing on the windows like any good punk show. And like any good punk show, I was soaked in sweat. And like any good punk show, it was fully audience-participatory. I shook his hand and thanked him in the parking lot afterwards and he did the same to me. We drove home blaring the new cd we'd just bought from his punk-style merch table and drinking in the cool night air.

A couple weeks later I saw on the internet that Joe had died. Culture had played a show in Germany, and Joe walked off the stage and dropped dead of a heart attack. The perfect death for a musician, one we should all hope for, and a perfectly fitting one for him. R.I.P. Joesph Hill; a great showman and a true gentleman.

What's in the bag, Dan?

Things with the DAGGERS were getting crazier and crazier. We had devolved from a punk band into some sort of violent minstrel show. One night we were playing with our backs to the crowd, chuckling to ourselves at our rapier wit; and next thing you know, Rob is trying in vain (in horrible, painful vain) to break a beer bottle over his own head onstage (I finally snatched out of his hand after about 10 swats. Either that bottle was unusually hard, or Rob's head was; cuz he was really blasting himself, over and over, and the bottle wouldn't break; it was brutal, the crowd screaming in shock after each unsucessful try, I will never forget that awful "GONG!" sound it was making. I finally grabbed the bottle away and shook it at him like a scolding babysitter "What are you doing?!? Are you trying to give yourself a concussion? 'Cause I'm not driving you to the hospital!"). We had a show one night at Fireside and I shoulda known what kind of night it was gonna be when Dan showed up with a black garbage bag in hand that he wouldn't explain.

Dan woulda been perfect for "Jackass". He's funnier, tougher, crazier, and more charming than every one of those guys. I once watched him sweet talk his way out of a red-handed DUI to a female cop, and in his teens he broke both legs jumping a fence while running from the cops, amongst countless other tales. Everyone who knows him has one. He's mad at me right now and hasn't spoken to me for a while, and that's cool. I still love him. He's just that kinda guy.

So, when he walked into the club with a VERY conspicuous black garbage bag in tow, it didn't seem that unusual. Not that it wasn't gonna be BAD, it just wasn't unusual, ya know?

We set up our shit and when Rob asked him about the bag, Dan just chuckled to himself and laid it behind his bass amp. We launched into the set and things started out great. Good crowd, we sounded realtively musically coherent; cool. Maybe we can just play a normal show, get all the way through the set, and leave the stage like a normal band for once.

But it just wasn't meant to be.

About three songs from the end, Dan decided the crowd was losing interest and figured it was time to liven up the joint a bit. He dropped his bass onstage in the middle of a song and while we played on, watching him, as he walked over and grabbed the garbage bag. We all smiled to ourselves, knowing whatever this was, it was gonna be good.

The crowd noticed the bag too, and seemed to surge forward a bit, perhaps expecting free goodies. Bad move.

Dan sauntered up to center stage, holding the bag over his head. You could feel the anticipation in the room. A true showman, he held it up and witha great flourish he ripped off the bag to reveal: a cow's head. Not a cow's SKULL-a cow's HEAD. Eyeballs, nose, the whole nine. It was revolting. He held it up for a second so the crowd could really see what it was, then lofted it deep into the Fireside crowd. People were literally screaming and running for cover as the bovine corpse's head (which had to weigh a good 30 pounds) flew through the air. I watched people dive out of the way as it bounced across the scummy floor. People were throwing it at each other, everyone was screaming, all hell was breaking loose. It flew onto the stage and landed hard on one of my guitar pedals, smashing it with a sluice of dead cow head juice, and I figured that was my cue. We loaded up and walked right out the front door, stepping around the scum trails the cows head was leaving as it was kicked around the floor like a morbid soccer ball by belligerent punks.