KIRA.

These are the second round of posters masterminded by Jer Warren, artwork by me. Soon to come: Dinosaur Jr., Greg Ginn and Milo Aukerman.

I will explain what these are for in a few days.

COMING SOON...

limited D. BOON t-shirts. drawing by me, shirts by Charles.

and there will be a lot more paintings...

ROY WOOD.

Roy Wood is talented. Check it out..hope Brian Wilson isn't pissed..

COMING SOON...

D. Boon... work and photos by Jer Warren.

PRE ORDERS FOR MANCHILD 4 AVAILABLE NOW.

My fourth book MANCHILD 4 complete with yet another MELVINS cd is coming out very soon. There are only 3000 made and when they are gone they are gone. Charles from Bifocal Media has set it up so that you could pre order my book if you'd like.


So if you are interested, go to this link and place your order.


Thanks!

http://www. bifocalmedia. com/index. php

THE FALLOUT FROM REVOLUTION SUMMER.

A YOUNG SCOTT WILLIAMS HOLDING UP THAT ISSUE OF FLIPSIDE, 1986.

I remember living at Ashe Ave in the summer of 1986. It was a interesting time for us outraged young punk rockers. There was the feeling that the times were a changing and before you knew it, punk rock was getting pretty burnt. I took a picture of my then roomate Scott Williams while he is holding a copy of the magazine from L.A., FLIPSIDE. It came out that previous winter, but that issue sent ripples all over the punk rock community. A giant article about Washington D.C. and their newest wave of bands, all tied up in this funny nickname, REVOLUTION SUMMER.

Well, we all looked up to the D.C. bands. Looking back, it is obvious even then that people put a lot of those folks on some kind of pedestal. But that how it was, I guess. Maybe I should just say that I certainly put what they did on a pedestal, making people like Ian Mackaye mini Bob Dylans for our time period, eventually turning on them for the sake of comedy and certainly never ever getting an ad from Dischord Records for one of my books. But it was true that what a lot of those people did was dubbed very important by a lot of people. Not everyone, though. Right after that Flipside came out, I met up with COC in Los Angeles when they were recording the aborted first version of "Technocracy". We talked about some of the new D.C. bands that were coming out, and I remember both Reed and Mike Dean cracking on one of the new D.C. bands, EMBRACE. They both quoted some of the lyrics and seemed to not be very impressed. It was pretty funny, though.

I bought all of the bands records. Only a handful stand out to me now. I liked the first MARGINAL MAN record. I liked the RITES OF SPRING album. And even though I sort of ignored them at first, GRAY MATTER were really terrific. And yeah, I gotta throw in the DAG NASTY debut record. I really liked these records, and I bought all of the rest of the records, so I won't try and look back like I wasn't into it. The Washington D.C. scene was huge in my book. I think that the Washington D.C. scene was also huge to a handful of Raleigh friends of mine, who were in this band called DAYS OF..


DAYS OF.. were a fairly short lived band from Raleigh that were briefly the most exciting band going and everyone knew it. They had a lot of really great songs, meant everything that they were doing and really could have been something if they stuck it out. On the other hand, they were a interesting collection of five very young men who made every band decision into some sort of life or death matter, some kind of war. Some people thought that they were arrogant and big headed. Others thought that they were the shit. Their attitude for me was, quite frankly really entertaining. I loved it. It was a nice change of pace from the usual "golly gosh gee were all friends" kind of local music mindset. In the end it all came to haunt them and it all fell apart. Then ten years later, some kid puts out their album. I recently played it and it still sounds great to me. They were melodic brick heavy post hardcore type music. Does that even make sense?



THE NORSE GOD HIMSELF, THOMAS PHILLIPS.

Drummer Sam Mauney was a nice guy. What he lacked in drumming chops he made up for in total brute force. He beat the shit out of his drums and although it seemed like things would fall apart they rarely did. I was jealous of course. I wanted to be in this band! Then there was guitarist Thomas Phillips and bassist Mark Weddington. They were like the actual "musicians" of the band. They could really play, and stood on stage right for the shows. Thomas was this like Swedish looking blond longhaired affable really really nice guy who peeled off these delicate licks on his Gibson SG. Mark was another really nice guy who had this sarcastic side lurking beneath the surface. He usually called it like he saw it. Unlike most bass players, Mark stood WAY UP FRONT with all of the others while hammering out these intricate basslines. Mark and Thomas were the musical glue of the band.

The other two members were guitarist Scott Williams and singer Kevin Collins. Scott was the de facto "leader" of the band. It seemed like he could barely play guitar at the time but he made up for that with stage presence..the guitar seemed to always be flying out of his hands. He always paced the stage before they played like he was going to burst. I think he might have just been nervous. Kevin was previously in Winston Salem's SUBCULTURE but he quit and moved up to Raleigh. He already knew the rest of the guys. They were previously in SECOND COMING, who were kind of a generic hardcore band trying to branch out. Eventually they fired their singer and lo and behold Kevin stepped in. They took quite a bit of time off and wrote a whole new set of music and eventually a new band was born.

I have to once again remind everyone of the time. IT was 1986, going into 1987. Hardcore at the time was played out. There were a lot of idiots at shows doing their furious little battles and dramas with the music as the background. It just wasn't fun anymore. And so some folks looked five hours north in Washington D.C., cause their whole "Revolution Summer" thing was going on. I think that was a big inspiration to the members of DAYS OF.., as it was to me and several others. We all dug RITES OF SPRING and also this short lived band they did afterwards, ONE LAST WISH. We all thought that their circulated demo was really great.

And at the same time there were also these interesting new local bands that were all diverse and filled with cool people. CONFESSOR, ANGLES OF EPISTEMOLOGY and THE SLUSH PUPPIES were around during the time. I have always said this but everyone more or less thought (although it was never discussed) that there was just too much good music coming out to be discredited because it wasn't fast hardcore. It was just the spirit of the times, really. It was time for a change.

I was out of town when they did their first show,which went down really well. Their second show was at the Fallout Shelter. I remembered Kevin sort of saying stuff into the mike before they started, like "all of my friends are here, all of your friends are here..it's a really good crowd". When they counted off, they blew the doors off o the Fallout Shelter. They were really good. The songs were really good, and it was just all around good. There was a new sheriff in town.

As time went by, their rep spread. They did some really great shows, maybe a few bad ones. They had some label interest from a few people but it seemed like the "tude was getting the best of them. They rejected all of the offers and passed up all of the opportunities because they couldn't reach some kind of agreement as a whole.
But there were plenty of golden moments....Kevin holding up a bag of pot onstage at the Brewery opening for the Bad Brains and quoting the Meat Puppets. The band opening for Redd Kross with Kevin ripping a shirt off to reveal another shirt that said something like, "It's 1987, not 1967 motherfuckers" only to have Jeff MacDonald compliment the band afterwards on a good set. Scott smashing his crappy guitar in a very Pete Townsend inspired fashion before crumbling against the wall of the Fallout Shelter, in mock drama. I remember that they played in Richmond once and seeing some of the hardcore kids (who were still not really with the whole "grow your hair out and play slower" program) who really looked up to Days Of.. trying very hard to get a "slam pit" going during a cover of the FAITH's "Untitled". Pretty funny what sticks with you I guess.
They played a final show in Washington D.C. that I did not attend. Apparently some of the D.C. locals were taunting them because of their long hair, singing "dude looks like a lady" at them when they walked by. Turned out one of them was that kid who ended up being in that band the Make Up and did that other band..what were they called again? I must say, that is pretty funny. I am not sure why they just stopped, they just did. They all have gone on to other bands and done plenty of other things too numerous to mention.

As far as me and the Washington D.C. scene, musically I lost interest in what those bands were doing after awhile. The last band that came out of that record label that I really loved was SHUDDER TO THINK. Then they left the label and put out their very best record on major label right afterwards. Go figure. I still think that MINOR THREAT were a great band, but I really haven't listened to a lot of that stuff in awhile. I still think it is all really good music, though.

Once in awhile, the "legacy" of DAYS OF..has popped up here and there. I play in a band with two of these guys, and they have ran into people here and there in our travels that totally love DAYS OF..and really respected what they briefly had done. I think that it strikes them as being kind of funny. I guess that shows you how music can be passed down over the years and that even if it existed outside of someones own life span (remember, it was all a long time ago.) it could still resonate with someone. And all because hardcore (or at least the first wave of it)was dead in the water by 1986.

BOYLAN AVE.

HORRIBLE DRAWING OF BOYLAN AVE FOLKS UNEARTHED BY MY OWN ROOMATE, STEPHANIE RIPPLE.


The second house that I found myself living at after I moved to Raleigh was on Boylan Ave. I moved in at the end of 1986 after the Ashe Ave. house imploded. Rob Demko also joined me and together we moved into this modest little house and joined Mike Dean and Tom "Art Deco" Mekus. I seem to remember that we were essentially replacing the infamous Lee Johnson, who had left all of her crap in the attic. More on that later.
The house was nicknamed "the Hippie House" by Scott Williams I think. You couldn't really dispute it since both Art and Mike Dean were entering the grooviest time period of their lives, a logical progression from the punk rock mindset that was commonly embraced at the time. It was winter when we arrived, and they were both too anti-establishment to have turned on the gas heat, so they rigged up a wood stove and with some careful blanket arranging over certain doorways, they successfully heated the entire house. We were lucky. I remember that was the time that I saw and lived through my first real snowfall. It didn't really snow in Southern California, you see. And it snowed for a long time it seemed. Rent was laughably cheap back then and looking back it is really hard to believe. I think I paid seventy five bucks for my own room, my share of the rent. Pretty amazing, but it was a real long time ago.

We had a lot of fun there. Art used to walk around naked seemingly a half hour before and after he took a shower. One time Mike Dean was sleeping in a sleeping blanket where he was snug as a bug in a rug, only his massive red dreadlocks peeking through. He looked like a rasta burrito. I kept teasing him and eventually he jumped up with one sweeping movement, yelled ARRGGHHH at me and chased me through the house naked. That was something. The house was a block down the street from where Reed Mullin lived, a gigantic two story house that was nicknamed "the mansion". There was a lot of spillover from that house, a lot of people came through there and eventually wandered down the street to our place. I remember that a lot of bands stayed with us. In the middle of winter, SNFU stayed with us and we cooked them a huge spaghetti dinner. Firehose stayed with us once. Mike Watt had apparently almost blown his face off in some car mechanic mishap. It was all bandaged up and shit. I remember he sort of talked every ones ear off late into the night and when everyone was asleep, he just sort of talked to himself while looking at the various pictures and things that we had hanging around the house. I remember Government Issue staying with us and how they sort of made me listen to their newest unreleased record in my room complete with a song by sing description of what each song meant according to their singer, John Stabb. I remember getting stoned with Rob and George Hurley. Another time there was a "bong out" session with the drummer from Saint Vitus. Other people that stayed with us included DC3, Beyond Possession and the Flaming Lips, amongst many more. It was pretty neat.

A lot of bands passed through, but that was nothing compared to the amount of roommates that passed through. When Mike Dean quit COC he also quit Raleigh and he was gone. Before all of that, he had cut his dreads and we left them on the fireplace mantle. They were disgusting. Some out of towners came through and we jokingly offered them Mike's dreads and them being big fans, they took em! I seem to remember Andy Freeburn moving in, and then later on Stephanie Ripple, our one female mainstay, also moved in. I seem to remember that Art eventually got sick of living with all of us and moved across the street to another groovy house that was ten times groovier but also ten times neater. I remember Michelle Estebon and Brian Gentry were around but I can't remember if either of them actually lived there. There was a Indian girl named Natasha that lived there briefly and I seem to remember some of us really wanted to have sex with her and before you knew it she had moved out as well. Then there was a girl named Sidney who also lived with us for a very short time until she announced that she was suddenly pregnant and left. It turned out that she was the daughter of John McCain of all people. There was another girl whose name I can't remember and she moved in and couldn't stand it and started to leave mean little notes and she too was gone.

Eventually the rest of my time at Boylan Ave consisted of the core of me, Rob Demko, Andy Freeburn and Stacy Ripple. Together we rode it out to the bitter end. We sweated our asses off in the summer and we woke up at six in the morning in a laughable attempt to do some gardening before it got too hot. It was a dismal failure. In the next winter we froze our asses off while it snowed, Art and Mike Dean were long gone and none of us could start that damn wood stove so we just froze and froze and built character I guess. We learned how to sleep in full winter garb while being covered with ten blankets. That was fun. Some of us had those nasty little kerosene heaters, some did not.

The attic actually had a nice little cozy room. Stephanie lived there. The rest of the attic had all of this discarded crap left in the rafters. It was a endless supply of goodies. I think most of it was Lee Johnson's. One day I went throgh some of it and found some rare punk singles (that I gave out to various people) and other punk rock artifacts that were of some use to me..old live tapes of local bands and tons of pictures too. I also found some pornography that was wrapped really tightly in cellophane and some endless glamour shots of Lee Johnson. She was posing and pouting and looking really sexy. It was a trip that she left this stuff there for anyone to rummage through. She never set foot in that house again from what I remember.

The attic also was the cause of the sudden and swift vacancy of the house by all of us. One day Todd Ritchie was rummaging in the attic amongst the rafters for more of Lee Johnson's endless supply of goodies. I was downstairs. Suddenly I heard the sound of crumbling crashing plaster. Then I heard Todd call out from the attic "Sorry!"

I ran into my room where Rob was sitting on my bed reading something. He is looking up at the ceiling and there is dust and plaster everywhere. Todd had fallen partially through the attic into my room.

So we just all moved out at the end of the month, and never even mentioned this to our seventy-five year old landlord. We just left. That marked the end of Boylan Ave.

DOING SOME PAINTING AGAIN..

MANCHILD 5: LIKE GOLD DOWN A SEWER

JON MCCLAIN AND MYSELF IN FRONT OF HARDEES, 1987.

Hey Kids!

Since I am great at announcing vague plans before they come to fruition, here is another one:

MANCHILD 4 will be out soon. It will have another MELVINS CD, this one called PICK YOUR BATTLES. It will be another cool book.

But what am I going to do next? you might wonder to yourself? Well, here is the answer:

MANCHILD 5: LIKE GOLD DOWN A SEWER.

LIKE GOLD DOWN A SEWER is the aborted oral history of mainly "Raleigh North Carolina underground punk rock during the eighties" project that I have been chipping away out for the last six years. I had printed all of it on my blog last year. (at:http://introvertedloudmouth.blogspot.com. You have to go back pretty far but it is all there.) Some of you might remember that. The time might come to finish the damn thing, get updated interviews and contributions from other people that I used to see all of the time when I first moved here in the middle of the eighties. I have a lot of stuff and I would say that the thing is at least three quarters done. but that last fourth is crucial and I need more input.

So if you are someone reading this that I used to see, and even if you thought I was a jerk back then or if I maybe barely remember you, no matter. I could use some help. any contributions would be appreciated. I will be hunting some of you down anyways so you might as well beat me to the punch. I will be asking you some questions, stuff like that.

I also want to include another cd in there, and there is one band above all others, a band that isn't even local that deserves this.

Richmond, Virginia's HONOR ROLE. A live release. To be included in the next MANCHILD. I will get to work on that as well. If I can't pull that off, I will think of something else. But I hope I can do it.

If you were there,any help would be great. I want to get the ball rolling, so contact me at: reluctantking@hotmail.com

thanks!

PICK YOUR BATTLES CD COVER ARTWORK.

Coming soon!

PROOF THAT I PARTIED IN THE EIGHTIES!

I remember this night! It was back in the eighties and it might have been the single best party I ever went to. Other folks in these pictures are Brian Gentry, Michelle Smith, Karen Mason and Jeff Jung..man, we were so young. Looks like I borrowed my clothes from John Stabb!

See? I had a good time!

GREAT EIGHT.

FUN STUFF.

Double Negative from Circle Limit on Vimeo.