One of the most intense periods in MPLS rawk music history occurred during late summer/early fall 1979:

Magazine/NNB @ the Longhorn, Aug? 79. Really really good show, as far as I was concerned. Stood at front of stage right in front of McGeogh’s guitar amp. He just stood there, hunched over, playing those riffs of his much louder than on the records. Fantastic. After gig party at Jody’s house. Magazine showed up. Met Howard Devoto. He asked me (I was about 15 at the time) ‘What do American kids listen to these days?” I replied “Oh, y’know, Skynnurd and REO.” He looked really puzzled. Later, We all danced for a long time to the Dave Clark Five, Joey Dee and the Starlighters Live at the Peppermint Lounge, then some James Brown, then a Buzzcocks bootleg LP, and then PiL’s latest 45’s three or four times in a row (right before the much-anticipated Metal Box came out) then after that I don’t remember. It was dawn when we left. One of the best nights of my life, I think.

A few weeks later, Gang of Four w/ Buzzcocks @ the Longhorn. Sept? 79. I got too stoned and kind of hung out towards the back, but I still remember Pete Shelly cheerfully arguing w/audience about which numbers to play: “Play ‘Boredom!’ ‘No…We’re gonna do our latest – called…Everybody’s Happy Nowadays onetwothreefour..’ After the show, I asked him about the bootleg LP mentioned above, but he didn’t know about it. He gave me one of his guitar picks – a grey Dunlop. I kept it and played guitar w/it for years, then lost it somewhere. Pete S is the nicest semi-famous-rock-band-guy I ever met. Maybe this was the best night of my life. Go4 were great, too. “Legendary” tour.

BTW, back then it was easy for an underage boy like me to get into clubs because the drinking age was only 19. The authorities weren’t nearly as strict as they are now, fuckers. Reagan really fucked this country up. Maybe that’s why the young music scenes around the country just don’t seem to have the same kind of energy and sense of fun that we had back then. Not enough drunk teenagers. Maybe it’s just cause I’m older now, but when I go to gigs with young bands, it’s usually alot more sedate and ‘nice’ than when I was young…er.

Another memorable event was the M-80 “fest”, which took place around the same time, i.e. Sept 79. My cousin Geoff was connected with the Walker video crew for some reason, so we got in free. Unfortunately, the sound in this huge aluminum barn was abysmal, and it smelled like cowshit. I basically wandered around, not really paying a whole lot of attention to most of the bands, many of which were just typical, skinny-tie new-wave groups that I hated. One thing that was really great was a screening of the hardly-ever-seen TAMI show from 1965 with Bo Diddley, James Brown, the Stones, and the Supremes. Of the flesh-and-blood musicians who played, I liked Teenage Jesus (they were a bit too much, though). Also good were Contortions, Judy Nylon/Snatch, and Tuxedomoon. A funny group was The Girls – three guys in horn-rimmed glasses and nerd-outfits who basically spazzed out on stage and played goofy no-wave. The UK was not well represented – Monochrome Set’s Byrds/Velvets thing was kinda boring. The MPLS bands were really good, though – Curtiss A standing out. Best of all was Devo’s one-time only performance (as Dove) playing a cover of Dylan’s recently-released born-again Xtian song “You Gotta Serve Somebody”. They wore matching lime-green polyester bell-bottom leisure suits w/golf visors. Incredible. I don’t think they ever played this “show” again. Other highlights included hanging out backstage, drinking free beer and digging all the crazy outfits everyone from the different bands were wearing. Back then, everyone was a fashion victim. Lydia Lunch in some kinda weird black and red dominatrix/baby doll outfit, Jerry Casale in a sharp suit and tie, etc. You could tell if someone was from MPLS at that time, because they all wore pointy cowboy boots. Fabulous.

Other recollections from that era: The band Fine Art. Anyone remember them? As I recall, they were pretty good. They had a record out, but I never got a copy. Kinda No-Wavey, but alot more tuneful than, say, Teenage Jesus.

MPLS Incest: I was hoping some issues of this short-lived newspaper/zine might be avilable online.

The previously mentioned after-gig parties at Jody’s house: I only went to about 4-5 of these, but they were always a blast for a 15 yr old like me. They were my first chance to stay up all night drinking and doing drugs with the cool, older rocknroll crowd. Jody was a 20-something student (I guess) who had a big house and this great record collection with all these bands and artistes I’d never heard before. She always got the latest punk/new wave 45s from the UK/NYC but she also had all these cool hard-to-get RnB/RnR/Soul/Rockabilly/Surf LPs from the 50s-60s. This was waaay before the days of CD re-issues and compilations of obscure classics, like we have today. Back then, you had to have special knowledge to know about the really good old records, and they were always hard to find and out-of-print. I heard a Link Wray record for the first time at one of her parties and was gobsmacked. She had all the classics. Fucking great. Everybody danced alot at her parties, too, and I had a schoolboy crush on all the different girls I met there and at the Longhorn. The punk chicks were always much hotter and friendlier than the boring girls at school…

Shopping at Oar Folk Joypyskiixckz. I used to go there with my 10 dollars allowance money dollars and spend hours agonizing over which records to get. I’d read every single music mag (NY Rocker, Search & Destroy and the UK weeklies) there to find out which records I might like. I bet the staff hated me. I’d spend hours there. The records I did get are worth a fair chunk of change today, if I had kept them in good shape which I didn’t. I played the hell out of them. Besides I gave/sold them all to friends of mine when I left for NYC in 82.

As for Lauer, yeah actually good old ‘Earth’ does have some cyberspace tied up with that story about being dumped. But he in his own right did have one hell of a voice, and was quite talented being able to pick up an instrument he never had experience with and play it rather well in hardly any time at all. What a pity that he is now only known as a guy that was jilted.

Makes me wonder of all the other such talents that will go to the grave unknown.

THe ‘Burbs used to get booed off the stage there on a regular basis- kinda funny. It was real treat seeing Talking Heads there, though. A year later they were far too big and hot to ever “touch” like that again.

People used to dance!! Hard to imagine, but true. Something definitely changed, maybe it was the the drinking age?

Man Sized Action, Whole lotta Loves, Charlie Don’t Surf, Baby Astronauts

Here’s a similar link (more like a list): http://www.tcpunk.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000005.html

Link to Reflex Records Discography.
http://www.geocities.com/soho/museum/7147/refdisc.html

Speaking of the Urban Guerillas, Brad Ptacek, bassist, can be found in the Brass Kings and is chef/co-owner of The Band Box.

Just about everyone I knew was in a garage/bar band at one time or another- only a tiny select few ever made it big. Those being Prince, Stevie Greenberg, Andre Cimone and a one or two others. Lamont Cranston played my 15th birthday party as a favor for my older sister.

You have to remember that bands like your Dad’s and most of those listed above played for beer and that’s about it. The bars were doing them a favor giving them stage time- the idea being that exposure was good for the band and might lead to better things.

As a general rule of thumb, the louder a band plays, the crappier they are. When you’re good, you don’t have to cover up by playing so loud you hurt people’s ears. GGG’s, listed above is an example of a band that played excessively loud. The bass alone was stupefying. Which is why they never made it past being a warm up band for warm up bands.

Also, as an aside, I always thought Lauer’s only claim to fame was as having been the guy Carleen dumped when she met Bob Stinson.

I would really appreciate it.

EPR-

I would really appreciate it.

EPR-