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.