Wild in the Streets!

As I mentioned before, I became involved with a punk/skating scene in glorious SOMD. We had ramps at various friends houses, but skated anywhere we could until it was too dark, too cold, or we were run off. And sometimes that didn't even stop us! We had fun finding new places to try out the new tricks we saw on videos or in Thrasher Magazine. Little did I know it, but our group of friends were so close knit we would become the envy of others later on. More on that later.

Along with the skating came the music. There were many different bands to listen to from all around the world. Punk / Hardcore was relatively young at this time, but it was a way for the generation at that time to have their voices heard about what was going on in their countries and governments. Some were just fun bands in it to have a good time. Some did both. In the 60's the music was the same way, but in the late 70's and early 80's, the songs were louder and more violent. They weren't writing about a war that was going on, but about how screwed up they thought the government was and how they saw the country around them after the war. For me to try and list them all would be crazy, but a few bands that seemed to always be on the boom box were The Descendents, Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies, Token Entry, Dead Kennedy's, Angry Samoans, MDC, Social Distortion, Minor Threat, Youth of Today, Youth Brigade, Circle Jerks, the list goes on. These and many others were heard blaring as loud as possible from radios next to or on the deck of our ramps. But more importantly, in my eyes, were the bands that were created locally.

Unless I am mistaken, the first of these bands was The Roadside Petz. The band consisted of Todd Morse and Rusty Pistachio on vocals, Johnny Brian on guitar, Tina Downey on bass and Wayne Williams on drums. These guys gave us someone local to follow and were a voice for our area. Going to see them play was my first introduction to slam dancing, or moshing, as it is called today. At first look, it seems as if slamming (as we affectionately called it) was a violent mixture of throwing elbows, knees and kicks. Actually, it was usually just a circle pit of kids bumping into one another, helping each other up when we fell. We did bump into one another, and occassionally someone did get an elbow or a kick, but that wasn't what it was about. It was about getting out the angst that was built up inside of us. The Petz paved the way for other bands like The Burndoggers, The Plastic Toys and Unworthy Cause (a band I played guitar in).

Playing guitar was something I got involved with in 8th grade. The school offered it as an elective for half a year. We were taught to read music, learned notes and chords, etc. My parents bought me a Harmony guitar from Sears that came with a small amp, chord to connect the two and that was about it. I fiddled with it for a while but never really touched it again until my friend Toby asked if I wanted to try and play guitar in his Rap/Thrash conglomeration called The Thrappin Crew. It was him and Mike Alderson and they rapped about skating mostly, but it was fun. the Beastie Boys had just come out with Licensed to Ill, and we also listened to LL Cool J, Rob Bass, Rund DMC and a few others. So, I decided to give it a shot. I showed up at Toby's house one night with my guitar and amplifier. His older brother Todd was gonna teach me some stuff. He introduced me to power chords, and that was it. I was trying to play everything I could just using two fingers. And even though I only did one show with Thrappin Crew at the local college, without any practices (it was horrible!), the bug had bitten me. I wanted to be in a band.

I grabbed some of my skate friends, Joe and Mark Wiehl, and we all started from scratch. Mark had never played drums before, but he bought a kit and it came naturally. Joe was to be our singer. All we needed was a bass player. We asked our friend Shawna if she wanted to play, and Joe gave her his Dead Kennedy's record Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables so she could learn the song Forward to Death. Well, Shawn Batts came over and we decided Shawn would play with us. The fucked up part was we never told Shawna, and when she found out, Joe found his record thrown in his front yard from a drive by! To this day I feel horrible about not telling her. We had been friends for a while and still are to this day, luckily! As time went on though, we almost wished we had stuck with Shawna. Shawn's parents were pretty strict about his schooling, and he wasn't allowed to do anything on weeknights that didn't involve school or school related sports. And we rarely got to see him on weekends either. This took its toll on practices. We would practice as a three piece, and when Shawn could make practice, we would show him what he needed to play. We would practice in the downstairs of the Wiehl residence, but his folks quickly grew tired of it and said we had to share the wealth elsewhere with our music. So, we moved to my house some nights.

Practice at my place was interesting, to say the least. We had nowhere inside to set up, so we asked my dad if we could use his shed outside. He said sure, just don't mess with anything he had set up. My dad, at the time, was making boats. Not huge boats, but small sailboats and dinghy's for people to drag behind their big boats. So, that limited our practice space to a spot right next to the door of the shed. The shed was not wired for power, and all we had was an extension chord run from the house. In order to plug in my amp and Joe's microphone, we had to unplug the lights in the shed. there was a small window on the door that offered some light, but we were essentially practicing in the dark! We would set up, talk for a bit, figure out which song we were gonna play, unplug the lights, plug in the amps and go for it. Completely crazy.....but such a great memory.

Joe took up guitar right after we broke up. he has played in numerous bands in Las Vegas. He de-friended me for some reason on Facebook so I don't know what he is up to now. His brother Mark still dabbles in drums from what I hear, and they actually played together in a few bands between living in Florida and California. Mark doesn't keep in touch with many folks, including me, but I get updates about him occasionally from his girl, Amy. Shawn is on my list of FB friends, but we don't talk much. Life moves on, and sometimes things, and people, get dropped along the way.