A minute with Mike Hudson and Frank Mauceri, 2/4

Frank Mauceri: Persistence has a lot to do with it, because there was no defined sound in Cleveland. You couldn’t really say that all the bands sound alike. It’s not like Seattle during the grunge years. There was that sound that people just expected. Cleveland didn’t have that, so there has to be something driving it.

 

I agree about those bands not sounding the same. Do you think that there were commonalities, though? Maybe Pere Ubu’s the exception.

FM: I don’t think Ubu is an exception, because even if there’s not a common sound, there’s a common attitude. There’s a common interest. The attitude is a cynical, smart ass outlook that’s unique to Cleveland. To build a music scene on a common attitude is a lot different than other scenes, which generally just built on a common sound. It also gets mixed up with a sort of beatnik, literary thing.

Look at Ubu’s song titles and lyrics. Or look at the name Rocket from the Tombs. David’s [Thomas, Rocket from the Tombs/Pere Ubu songwriter] talked about this excessively, so I’ll only touch the surface. But there’s a huge sci-fi theme that runs through that stuff.

 

With all of these bands performing and recording during the ‘70s, regardless of there being a musical similarity, how’d the press respond? Did bands even get coverage? 

MH: That was the thing. In Los Angeles, London and New York, there was a media that really supported those bands. Here there was nothing. You can look back in the ‘70s archives of the Plain Dealer [Cleveland’s daily paper] or Scene Magazine [a Cleveland alternative weekly] and you won’t even find these bands being mentioned.  

We got so slogged in Scene every time we would make a record. They would say, ‘This is even fucking worse than their last one.’

When I released Cleveland Confidential [a compilation documenting the second wave of Cleveland punk bands] – which has done pretty well and been reissued by two other record companies in latter years - it got a lot of good reviews. Mark Holman from Scene, who’s a real asshole said, ‘A page out of Cleveland’s musical history, but not recommended for mass consumption by any means.’ It still pisses me off today, obviously.

But I think that if you ask anyone that had a band and they answer you honestly they’ll say that they did it mostly to amuse themselves. That was certainly true with us. It just turned out to be a part of an international movement.

Do you think that the perception of your work was just closed mindedness on the part of the press or did you understand what the media was saying?

MH: All I know is that every time we had any kind of interaction with those people – Scene, the Plain Dealer or WMMS – it turned out badly. It got to the point that we were going into the WMMS building with cans of pink paint – Pagan Pink, we called it. We’d go up on the roof and then dump the paint over the side of the building, because they had that horrible buzzard logo painted on the side. So, there’d be these big splashes of pink paint on it – 3 or 4 gallons worth. They’d have it repainted by the end of the week. It was like a guerilla war. We were street fighters.

A minute with Mike Hudson and Frank Mauceri, 1/4

Rendering punk in business terms doesn’t sound quite right. For the last thirty years, though, a significant portion of the public has found itself enamored, in one way or another, with some segment of punk culture. It might only be studded belts and pretend mohawks for most, but there’s a vibrant scene struggling to persist through music industry’s lean times.

As a part of that, a slew of record labels have sprung up that focus solely on the dissemination of older, lesser known bands. Smog Veil Records is the creation of a Clevelander in diaspora. Over the last nineteen years, Frank Mauceri has taken his label from the Ohio to Reno, NV and finally to Chicago. His roaming was first predicated on a desire to pursue a career in law, which he quickly realized wasn’t as fulfilling as digging up forgotten bands  and packaging the music as a sort of historical relic capable of maintaining cultural value over time.

Issuing albums mostly focusing on the late ‘70s Cleveland scene, Mauceri has recently expanded the scope of his imprint to include other bands hailing from the Midwest. In endeavoring to research punk’s history the label honcho has come into contact with a litany of important figures from the genre’s past. Mike Hudson, lead singer and main songwriter for Cleveland’s the Pagans, is one of the folks that Maurceri has worked with in order to present a band’s catalog to a new generation of music fans.

Of course, no one’s making a boat load of money, but it seems that all involved want a forgotten music to be appreciated, a previous time to be re-examined and not discarded as a low point in a city’s history. There’s value inherent in the music that sprung from Cleveland’s crumbling infostructure. It’s significance, though, is presented alongside current concerns regarding the media and business practices.

 

Why’s there still an interest in music that was record thirty years ago? Does the scene’s diversity play a role in that?

Mike Hudson: The funny thing about the ‘70s scene was that on any given night, you could have Pere Ubu, the Pagans, the Dead Boys, Devo and the Nerves from Los Angeles on a bill. None of the bands were like each other. Until ’79 it hadn’t really been codified into, ‘You gotta wear this,’ and leather jackets. So, everybody was just doing their own thing. As long as it was original stuff and you weren’t a cover band, nobody really thought anything of it.

There were only fifty people that came to shows. It was the same fifty people all the time. They were mostly friends of one of the bands. It was a very, very small scene. Devo hit first. One night we were supposed to play with them and they didn’t show up. Next thing they were on Saturday Night Live. I remember seeing Stiv’s [Bators, the Dead Boys’ singer] picture in Time magazine. And Pere Ubu left too. They didn’t get as big, but they did well.

Harley Flanagan and the Progression of Hardcore

Music from New York City very frequently presages genre movements in the rest of the country and even throughout the world. Wherever hardcore actually came from, one could make an argument for New York being its birthplace. While we all think about that, what follows is a quote that Harley Flanagan, drummer of the Stimulators and lead singer of the Cro Mags, left in the comments section on Killed By Death Records:

YOUR ALL A BUNCH OF IDIOTS HAHAHAH

YO
WHEN UR A KID U SIT AND MAKE MUSIC FOR FUN NOT FOR CRITICS OR TO MAKE MONEY JUST CAUSE YOUR INSPIRED TO DO SO, FOR FUN…
IF UR LUCKY MAYBE IT COMES OUT..
YEARS LATER IDIOTS WITH NO LIVES STILL SIT AND CRITISIZE IT HAHAHAHAA U PEOLE GOT NO FUCKIN LIVES HAHAHA AY YOUR STILL TALKIN ABOUT US AND OR ME ALL THESE YEARS LATER SO I AND OR WE MUSTA DONE SOMETHING RIGHT??! OR YOU PEOPLE REALLY HAVE NOTHING AT ALL BETTER TO DO HAHAHA AND ARE USELESS FUCKS WITH NO LIVES SITTING ROUND CHIRPIN ABOUT SOME OLD ASS SHIT FROM YEARS AGO HAHAHAH
PITYFULL
PEACEOUT
HF

All caps notwithstanding, Flanagan’s right. What makes us look back at music that, at its best, is a sloppy mess? Well, it’s probably just because it’s a signifier. Within the brief history of Flanagan’s pre-Cro Mags career, there’s a litany of stylistic variation that serves to exemplify the come blossoming of independent music in the States, but also the disparate cultures that went into the mix.

Even during this early point in punk and hardcore’s development, Flanagan and his crew were able to cobble together musical ideas from places outside of their own immediate sphere of knowledge. Heading to England on tour, Flanagan met with a skinhead culture that he embraced not just outwardly, but in his music as well. The reggae of “Blind Ambition,” which might also be contributed to the Bad Brains kicking around at the time, illustrates the coming wave of tough guy attitude. Some might be surprised by that take on Jamaican music’s influence on American punk, but skinheads don’t tolerate any sort of mess. And this particular song should be considered as Stimulators’ embracing that stance.

Spliced together on Loud Fast Rules!, the band includes ‘70s styled punk, the aforementioned reggae stuff and some tracks that look towards the coming mid ‘80s hardcore thing. “M.A.C.H.I.N.E.” comes off like a Bad Brains’ track, but with the tempo being ratcheted up to such a degree, it sounds as if Flanagan is already figuring out what to do with Cro Mags.

This all might just be a bunch of overblown nonsense, but the fact that Flanagan, from his pre-teen years until now, has maintained a constant presence in underground music, points to the odd cognition he must carry around with him everyday. He probably won’t grace this particular post with any snide comments – we can hope, though. Dismissing the dissection of his music might be modesty as much as anything. But most likely it’s just harkening back to his attitude during the heady days of hardcore’s birth.

Classic Compilations: Another Shot For Bracken

The ‘80s have seen a renaissance of crappy music spring up as an homage of late. And while it’d be relatively easy to malign the entire decade – what with its pop and synth nonsense – there was as much incredibly enticing stuff coming out over that ten year period as in subsequent times.

You just have to dig for it.

None of this directly leads to an examination of Another Shot for Bracken (1986), but the compilation, which was released through 7 Seconds’ record label, grants listeners a wide ranging taste of what was going on in the underground. Of course, not every genre is represented over the 17 tracks here, but there’s more than just hardcore.

It’s not a standout track for any reason other than the fact that it’s the album’s oddity, but Scram works up a reggae version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The band doesn’t seem ill suited for the task. While discussing the drawbacks of ‘80s music, though, it’s worth noting that most of the Jamaican related stuff released anytime after ’83 or so really suffers from a variety of problems. Most apparent here is the fact that a buncha white punkers just aren’t able to inject too much soul into the proceedings. It’s not a comment on Scram’s musical ability, just that the band didn’t generally work with these tropes. So, even the familiar portions of Lennon’s song are rendered in a lilly white, throw away manner. ‘E’ for effort, though.

Another Shot for Bracken also sports its fair share of nonsensical ‘80s hard rock stuff – not dissimilar to what SSD figured out over there in Boston. And at this point in time, those tunes are only really enjoyable, because the band’s back-catalog has ingratiated itself to the masses. The Brigade might be the most egregious example of this here. Over most of the other offerings that approach hardrock tropes – Short Dogs Grow and the Sins specifically – The Brigade chooses to eschew almost all of punks past. It’s not exactly Krokus, but it’s worth skipping.

With Adrenalin O.D., 7 Seconds, Flag of Democracy and Youth of Today the compilation is rightly perceived as a hardcore focused release. And as the songs whiz by, the ‘80s style positive force hardcore stuff seems as vital as it ever did. Beginning the album FoD gifts listeners with the two minutes of “The Family Knows.” The burst of speed that propels the track forward after its drum intro hints at what’s next.

A few bands move beyond expectations even as they’re each able to maintain at least a portion of hardcore’s history in its song-craft. 5 Balls of Power and its “Radio Station A.S.O.L.” work out a skewed rhythm while keeping pace with the faster offerings. Verbal Assault, on the other hand, contributes something that might have been befitting of a latter day Fugazi disc. It’s still tied to ‘80s rock stuff, but odd in its tone and construction.

There seems to more to be confused about here than ecstatic. But either way, Another Shot for Bracken is worth a listen or two.

Alien Kulture x Politics

Just further proof that there's no end to the parade of unknown rock acts from the past. They're political and they like aliens. But it seems that the band was formed specificlly to combat the wash of racist sentiment that the National Front was spreadin across the UK. So while it's entertainment of the highest degree, there was a point to it all.

Saccharine Trust: The SST Stable

Greg Ginn’s SST label worked as hard as any other independent imprint of the early ‘80s to push the boundaries of what should rightly be considered punk and hardcore. Of course, other imprints like Touch and Go functioned in the same way. But those other labels weren’t earlier so specifically tied to the hardcore idiom – and yes, I know who put out the Necro’s records. SST, though, gave the world Black Flag’s discography.

Beyond SST’s biggest act were groups like the Minutemen that were able to – moment to moment – shift stylistic gears. Taking a listen to the acoustic “Cohesion” after anything else on the band’s Double Nickels on the Dime is going to make that point well enough.

Lesser known and unquestionably not as influential was Saccharine Trust. The group, which revolved around Jack Brewer and Joe Baiza, was just another Southern Californian band. Beginning as something of a screwy punk outfit there were still early signs of what was to come. Eventually, the band would embrace a mode of aggressive playing that retained its ties to the punk scene but included enough nods to free improvisation as to make the act an oddity amongst its peers. And while the band isn’t generally mentioned in the same breath as a number of the other SST bands, Kurt Cobain still figured the band as a seminal piece of punk’s history.

First issuing Paganicons in 1981, Saccharine Trust arrived at the tail end of the first wave of punk. In its music, though, is the same sort of snotty abandon that could be found in earlier groups. Along side that – and on top of the relatively derivative nature of the band’s first release - was a surprising wit and ability to follow each other through seemingly difficult passages of music.

“I Have…” might just be an odd amalgam of musics. The track sports innumerable tempo shifts and Brewer’s vocals go so far as to ape a few different accents along the way. A bit further into the disc, the thirty six second “Mad at the Co.” finds the band making use of a jittery rhythm with the vocals landing just his side of Jello Biafra. And that’s really the only criticism that needs to befall this early effort – it’s still tied to a somewhat ‘traditional’ sense of what punk was.

That being said, in previously mentioning the musical acrobatics that the Minutemen were capable of, Saccharine Trust’s “Success and Failure” might be every bit as obtuse. There’s an odd shuffle that persists throughout the entire song with only the slightest breakdown serving to demarcate it as what something that could be considered punk.

Future releases found the band becoming more assured of its talents. And while that occasionally resulted in some blustery nonsense, the fact that Saccharine Trust believed in its abilities came to be as important as actually being adept musicians. Even with a string of strong discs and an odds and sods round-up, Saccharine Trust today, ostensibly, remains a footnote in punk history.

The Suspects: DC Street Punk...

Some punk bands age better than others. That’s just life. So when looking back at the groups that one was weaned on, it’s important to recall that all of this music was at one time interpreted through the lens of those wide, wide teenage eyes. I don’t mean to intimate that youngsters don’t have any taste. And certainly, today with the ever expanding role of self education through the interwebs, there’re some kids that can’t drink as of yet, but know as much about music as your nerdiest friend.

But going back to revisit what one recalls as a lost punk classic occasionally results in some disappointment. Of course, the notes are all the same, it’s just that you don’t always have ten of your drunken, idiot friends around to sing the choruses with.

All of that’s pointed towards Washington DC’s the Suspects. And no, they don’t stink, but after more than a decade away from its music, the Suspects weren’t exactly what I recalled. That being said, tracks like “Pistol Whipped, ”from 1996’s New Dawn in the 21st Century, are more than capable of standing next to any other work from the ‘90s. And by comparison, the song would appear to place the band amongst the upper echelon of that huge street punk thing that cropped up.

There’s at least a little bit of that Oi! influence that was going around at time. But the vocals are perhaps more aggressive than anything found in the genre during the final decade of the 20th century. Part of the reason that this all came off so well is due to the fact that Marty Munsch, of Punk Rock Records fame, helmed the sessions. That alone probably accounts for the crispness of the bass line that’s so prominent in “Pistol Whipped.”

Munsch is still a well respected and highly sought after producer. On the Suspects’ disc, though, it becomes clear very early on that there’s not going to be too much space left in the mix. Every note has been devised to create a wash of endless sound. At times, as on “No Escape” each disparate element of the band gets drowned out as it approaches thrash territory for a moment.

In the ability of not just Munsch, but the Suspects as well, that brings such an enthusiastic and broad approach to the genre and makes New Dawn in the 21st Century an effort that’s worth revisiting. All the sing alongs don’t hurt too much, even if your old tyme friends are gone.

As the decade came to a close, it would appear that the Suspects and its volatile line up dispersed. That was the case with most bands that trod the street punk path. Unfortunately, that leaves us with the question as to why that scene all but disappeared. Granted, there are groups working in that vein today, but none as popular or prolific as, let’s say Dropkick before it turned into an old man’s Irish band. There’s no answer, but that entire street punk thing needs to be properly examined before all this old folks forget the answers to the questions we have.

Classic Compilations: Rodney on the ROQ, Vol. 01

Oh, radio stations. Why don’t most of you matter any longer? Why is it that for anything new or genuinely interesting the left hand side of the dial seems to always a better option? That’s not the way it should be. And while we all understand that money is at least a portion of the story, the fact that it’s become more business than art or fun is problematic. It hasn’t always been that way, though. Wait, yes it has. Damnable Alan Fried and your payola.

Rodney Bingenheimer, though, wasn’t as dastardly a figure. He may have been just as despised by some folks, but whatever drawbacks the deejay’s approach to running his show or featuring bands that he liked was mitigated by his assistance in nurturing a nascent LA punk scene.

Working at KROQ from 1976 up until the present day has allowed for this deejay to watch a music mature and be doled out like candy after being co-opted by huge record companies. But during the ‘70s, that wasn’t the case. And in fact, the music that Rodney went in for was such a niche commodity that he and Posh Boy Records decided to release three discs entitled Rodney on the Roq. Each disparate volume was met with varying success, but the series’ first installment remains the most favored recording.

Volume One includes a great deal of music that any passing fan of ‘70s punk would expect. There’s some Black Flag, a track from the Circle Jerks, the Adolescents and, of course, “Bloodstains” from Agent Orange. Each of those tracks are going to be available elsewhere, but for whatever reason, the recordings used on this compilation are all different than what would be released by the bands on singles or albums.

There is, of course, some stuff present that didn’t ever get extraordinarily big. And for good reason. David Microwave, despite his incredible moniker, turns in such a fey new wave effort that there’s nothing redeemable about it apart from the fact that it seems to be a pro-feminism track. But even that fact is almost obscured by the sax solo that comes in towards to end of the track.

A few of the second tier LA punk acts show up and turn in decent work. The Crowd, which is as much power pop as punk, gifts the disc with “Right Time.” Even a bit more obscure is Rik L Rik. The singer might be best known for his latter day inclusion in an Electric Frankenstein line up, but here he’s fronting his own ensemble. Rik’s “The Outback” summons nothing other than images of Seattle’s Murder City Devils. The ominous keyboards and dirgey entrance by the guitar sets the track up to be something of a downer masterpiece. And when Rik’s vocals kick in, it is.

Nothing included on this portion of the Rodney on the Roq series is going to come as a great revelation, but it’s noteworthy for documenting a scene and for the fact that it must have served as a good way to get new band’s heard. Too bad none of this really goes on any more.

Teenage Head Gets Canadian

When one hears the name Teenage Head, if sex acts aren’t the first thing to come to mind, it’s usually San Francisco’s the Flaming Groovies. And that makes sense.

The Bay Area band was criminally disregarded by its hippie peers on the music scene during the latter portion of the ‘60s. It’s kind of understandable seeing as how the extended jams of those Dead styled ensembles was in stark contrast to what the Groovies were trying to work out. But in the band’s adherence to its source material – ‘50s rock and roll, trashy blues and British Invasion groups – the Groovies wound up presaging punk with a few tracks.

“The Slide” should rightly be considered the band’s pinnacle – it’s all fast, nasty slide guitar and whopped vocals. But another song, “Teenage Head,” ended up being the band’s proper legacy. During 1976 some Canadian miscreants found the song to be so agreeable that they - Frankie Venom, Gord Lewis, Steve Mahon and Nick Stipanitz - set up shop as a band under the song’s auspices.

Today, the group isn’t generally thought of too much outside of Canada – although if you watch enough Kids in the Hall you’re bound to see a Teenage Head poster plastered up on a wall somewhere. But over the course of its first few albums, Teenage Head rivaled the popularity that Ramones had in its own home country. Of course, only one of those bands wound end up being an international foundation of a genre, but life isn’t always fair.

The group’s first album, a self titled disc released in 1979 was met with a decent reception from fans and remains Teenage Head’s most singularly focused disc. The 1980 follow-up, Frantic City, finds the band pulling in some of its older affinities. There’s still a healthful amount of straight punk represented over the course of the disc, but the early ‘60s is aptly represented as well.

Even in song titles like “Let’s Shake,” it should be clear to listeners that a time in rock and roll during which everyone wore suites was to the band’s liking. The bluesy progression doesn’t work to dismiss that take either. Of course, since the song is followed by “Infected,” it’s rather crunchy guitar and round bass line, punk was seemingly the underlying through-line Teenage Head needed to craft its work.

The cover of “Brand New Cadillac” works in much the same fashion as the Clash get a nod, but so do all the earlier rockabilly players that served to inform the song. Frankie Venom’s crooning works to good effect here while the guitar and piano run up and down scales for the entirety of the song. It’s not necessarily a highlight, but it is a well conceived cover.

And that’s pretty much what the majority of Frantic City feels like: a tremendous homage to what came before Teenage Head. Even in the band’s physical appearance the past had as much to do with it all as whatever punk fashion would become. Teenage Head certainly wasn’t classy, just not straight outta the gutter.

Mean Jeans: A NW Pop

It’s funny to think that the Ramones are responsible for such a wide breadth of latter day punk stuffs. The approach that the New York band took to music was a relatively straight forward one. Including the tossed off charm of its garage rock heroes, the Ramones liberally applied girl-group sucrose to its punk to arrive at an undeniably important – and moreover, listenable art form.

With that basic blue print laid out bands like Screeching Weasel, the Descendents and whoever else was out there would take a bit of the Ramones’ pop frenzy and add various other takes on the genre based upon where the bands were located to create a second wave of Ramonesy rock. That formula has basically kept every disparate scene knee deep in pop-punk since the ‘70s. Some proponents – the Lookout! bands specifically – were able to catch the ear of the nation during the ‘90s. And while Green Day’s still kicking around, the band doesn’t any longer retain it’s auld tymey sound.

Thankfully, though, bands like Mean Jeans have showed up to fill the void.

Portland isn’t really generally thought of when mentioning new time punk foragers. Surely, the low brow rock of Eat Skull comes to mind. Or even the defunct Hunches. But most folks would associate the town with art school dudes who moved down from Seattle, packing their beards and brining them along for the ride - not straight punk.

Mean Jeans don’t have beards. I don’t think. It doesn’t sound like it at least. But judging from the first track on Are You Serious? they might not have a pair of pants that don’t hug their nuts too much either.

The Ramones thing is immediately apparent on “Born on Saturday Night.” At points the song even seems to borrow some of its simple chord changes from the Ramones catalog. But since that song book might include four notes, it’s a moot point.

Of course the Ramones thing is going to be pretty pervasive in any write up of the band. There’s not too much else to say. The group trucks in simple rock stuff. Of course, some tempo changes make the band sound like a jittery Weezer during the middle portion of “Steve Don't Party No More.” All involved can probably just chalk that moment up to pop song structures. The remainder of the track, though, gets back to familiar territory.

What’s interesting about all of this is the fact that band carries around no pretense of its sound being too much more than an update. So why would people even want to hear Mean Jeans at this point?

I don’t really know.

If you get tired of hearing the save five good Ramones album’s, though, there’s a viable alternative here. Again since there’s such a back log of other groups doing the same thing, Mean Jeans might be thought of as nothing more than a latter day entry. Maybe so. But it’s when the band is working towards the Ramones appropriations that it comes off best.

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