FRISCOnotFRISCO: SF Mutant Funk

 

Here's another throwback to an old blog feature, San Francisco Punk.  My fascination with the City By The Bay resurfaces in this collection of Mutant Funk.

If you recognize any of the artists listed below, this set of late 70's to early 80's punk-funk and death disco might be just what you need to shake off the cobwebs between your ears.  If you don't know Crime from Chrome, it might not.

Not much to say about this set.  There's a collection of The Offs here on the blog. Sleepers guitarist Michael Belfer is the subject of another post, as is Klaus Flouride's bandmate East Bay Ray.

Best to let the music do the talking -- and let it ask the question: Why is "In God We Trust" on the funky dollar bill?

What's your country been doing to you?

After the US presidential election in 2016, someone offered as consolation the prospect that at least we would get four years of great punk rock. But did we? I don't keep up with new artists as much as I used to, so maybe people have been making protest music (punk, hip hop, country, reggae, whatever) that has escaped my notice. 

Bandcamp Friday is coming: your recommendations are appreciated. I plan to pick up the new album by Atlanta band Warm Red, Decades Of Breakfast. Not a political band, but one that supports social justice movements while making kickass noise rock.

While we await the electoral outcome, I'm going back to San Francisco... specifically the SF punk scene the late 70's. America was a mess back then too. Here are 30 covers of songs originally recorded by The Avengers, Crime, DK's, Flipper, Lewd, Mutants, Negative Trend, No Alternative, Nuns, Sleepers, Tools, UXA, VKTMS, and others. 

Couldn't find any Offs covers. You'd think some ska punk band with a weak pun for a name (like Skantifa, or Skaronavirus) would be all over "My World" or "Die Babylon".

SF's Pushups are on Bandcamp -- both singles, plus a wealth of previously unreleased songs. "Global Corporation" and "Victims Of Terrorism" sound as timely as ever.  (Image created by Gee Vaucher.)

SAN FRANCISCO PUNK: Subterranean Postmodern

Carol Detweiler and Judy Gittelsohn

Writing about the Subterranean Records label reignited my obsession with San Francisco punk and post-punk. Now it comes full circle with an imaginative exercise: records by Bay Area artists that could have found a home on Steve Tupper and Mike Fox's label.

This mix includes Pink Section, Noh Mercy, Factrix, Ki Di Me, Ixna, Psyclones, Arsenal,  and more. The download includes liner notes (forgive me) that attempt to connect the dots between the folks involved in these records: people like Dan Houser, Matt Heckert, Jed Speare, Tommy Tadlock, Cole Palme, Monte Cazazza, Jo Jo Planteen, Carol Detweiler and Judy Gittelsohn.

Thanks to my main man Nathan Nothin for Eazy Teeth and the Good Samaritans, and to Stadtführer AJ, who shared a well-worn copy of Earcom 3 on his blog. A kind reader send me the Dada-Pop EP by Dennis C. Lee And The Living Daylights. Thank you, JB! "White Heat" is a tasty jam.

If you grabbed last month's SF Hardcore mix, please replace it with this one. An eagle-eared reader named New York Shitty helpfully pointed out that it was missing two tracks.

SAN FRANCISCO PUNK: Hardcore '81-83

In San Francisco (as elsewhere) the first wave punk bands were subsumed in the early 80's by the rising tide of hardcore. The DK's survived by transforming themselves into a hardcore band, while Flipper pursued its own path, with little regard for trends. (As I write this, Flipper is on a 40th anniversary world tour.)

Penelope Houston started a solo career. Chip and Tony from the Dils formed the Rank And File with Alejandro from the Nuns. Members of the Sleepers and Negative Trend combined their talents in the Toiling Midgets. Mike Fox (Tools) and Johnithin Christ (Society Dog) started the hardcore band Code of Honor. Fox and Society Dog members also backed Nicki Sicki in the group Sick Pleasure.  

Bands were moving to San Francisco: the Lewd, MDC, DRI, the Dicks, Toxic Reasons, Verbal Abuse, and Red Rockers among them. A lot of punks moved into The Vats.  

Here are three dozen tracks by homegrown SF hardcore bands Crucifix, Social Unrest, Urban Assault, the Fuck-Ups and Bad Posture. Sothira, Creetin K-OS, Marc Dagar, Bob Noxious, and 4-Way were all memorable frontmen. 

These bands from 1981-83 were soon followed by Bay Area groups such as Whipping Boy, the Sluglords, Fang, Trial, Rebels & Infidels, Christ On Parade, Victims Family, Attitude Adjustment, Faith No More, Neurosis, and Tales Of Terror. Gilman Street opened at the end of 1986, home to a third generation of SF punk.

If you want more SF sounds, Dr. Drunk has (Impatient) Youth and the Code Of Honor album. AJ at Themen Aus Großen Städten recently reupped the Avengers' pink album. Old, Weak But Always A Wanker has Factrix, the Teenage PhD's, the Alive Rock City compilation LP and the Units. Lots of Voice Farm reposted at My Vinyl Dreams blog for you SF synth fans. Deathbürger has a smorgasbord of punk platters from NoCal, SoCal and elsewhere. Excellent blogs all of them, well worth you while!

SAN FRANCISCO PUNK: First Wave, Part Two (1979-80)

Frankie Fix and Johnny Strike of Crime

Some SF punk bands didn't record until late, and some broke up before their best-known records were released. The Avengers split shortly before their second EP came out in 1979. The Nuns broke up in 1980 (Jennifer Miro left before the '79 single), but they reunited to record their self-titled LP (a joint release by Posh Boy and Bomp! Records).  

The Mutants didn't release a record until 1980. UXA's debut album (also on Posh Boy) came out in 1981. The Offs' album was released in 1984, a year after Don Vinil's death. Crime broke up in 1982 with only three singles to their name. VKTMS also split up in 1982, but reunited in the 90's. VKTMS singer Nyna Crawford died in 2000.

Subterranean Records didn't exist yet when The Tools made their first single, but the No Alternative EP was one of the label's earliest releases. This set also includes the second and third Breakouts singles. (Check the comments for No More, the Breakouts' 12" EP from 1983. Thanks, Nathan!)

Avengers (Jimmy Wilsey on the right)

Johnny Strike (last surviving member of Crime, and a successful novelist) died in 2018, as did Avengers bassist Jimmy Wilsey (who was better known as lead guitarist for Chris Isaak).

In happier news, Penelope Houston will lead the Avengers as opening band on this year's US tour by Stiff Little Fingers.

SAN FRANCISCO PUNK: Cover Songs

This set of SF bands playing cover songs starts with Novak's version of "the first synth punk song" ("Hello I Love You"), followed by Psycotic Pineapple's cover of "You're Gonna Miss Me".  We miss you, Roky.  

Elvis, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones are represented, as well as the Sonics, the Stooges, and the Sparkletones. 
  
Some of these songs are live at Mabuhay Gardens (Sleepers and The Lewd), the Deaf Club (the Offs, DK's and Tuxedomoon), and elsewhere (Junior Executives, Toiling Midgets, and Pearl Harbour). 

Roky prepares to levitate the Fab Mab in this Ruby Ray photo

Snakefinger covered "Jinx" (originally by his labelmates Tuxedomoon) while performing in Australia. Plain Jane & The Jokes take on local legends The Dils with an irreverent version of "Class War".

The time frame ranges from 1976 (when the Residents skewered "Satisfaction") to 1984 (when Joe Pop-O-Pie and members of Faith No More took "Truckin" down a Flippery slope).

Thanks to Draftervoi for the Wasp Women's synth punk version of "Vicious"!

SAN FRANCISCO PUNK: Killed By SF

Friend of the blog Draftervoi pointed out that SF punk bands have not received the attention paid to LA bands in retrospective compilations such as the Rhino DIY series or the Soul Jazz Punk 45 comps. 

However, SF bands are well-represented on the Killed By Death and Bloodstains compilations (as well as Back To Front, Drop The Bomb, and others that followed). 

KBD and Bloodstains collect the rarest and the rawest, and there's nothing politically correct about songs like "Bummer Bitch", "Tammy Wynette" or the music of the Teenage PhD's.

Here are three dozen Bay Area rarities released between 1977 and 1982.  The Last Laugh label has reissued some SF collectibles, and HoZac reissued the Mary Monday single. The Destry Hampton EP was reissued by Superior Viaduct (buy here). 

Recommended for further listening is this chapter in the Mythkoz punk history series "Once Upon A Time", which now numbers almost a hundred volumes!

SAN FRANCISCO SYNTH PUNK

 Here's an interesting proposition: that synth punk began with "Hello, I Love You", a "transmutation of The Seeds’ greasy garage-rock stomp into factory-manufactured sex beat for teenage cyborgs replete with buzz-saw effects."  The article goes on to praise Chrome and the German Shepherds, two SF duos. Some might point back a little further than the Doors, to SF's own Fifty Foot Hose, for the genesis of synth punk. ("Red The Sign Post" is brilliant, shining and nasty.)

Eno, Krautrock, Suicide, Devo, and the Screamers influenced SF synth punk, as did avant garde composers, Giorgio Moroder, and Patrick Cowley. Another major factor was access to synthesizers for those who couldn't afford them.

In an interview with Simon Reynolds, Steven Brown of Tuxedomoon recalls that he and bandmate Blaine Reininger "took a class with Jerry Mueller in electronic music primarily to get our hands on the giant Buchla-built synthesizer and the tape recorders they had there."  This and other classes at City College were free to San Francisco residents. Patrick Cowley studied electronic music there.

Brown also noted that Tuxedomoon member Tommy Tadlock was "a protégé of Nam June Paik" with a talent for invention.  "Tommy designed ‘Treatment Mountain’ -- a plywood pyramid displaying junction boxes or compressors or effects he had designed and built, as well as an Echoplex." 

In James Stark's book Punk 77, V. Vale points to the influence of the Tape Center at Mills College, where John Cage and Pauline Oliveros once taught, and where William Novak produced records by SF bands Crime, Bob, the Readymades, and his own group, Novak.

Here are SF synth punks Tuxedomoon, The Units, Red Asphalt, Chrome, Voice Farm, Los Microwaves, Nervous Gender and others, from the period 1978 through 1981.  (Top photo: Patrick Miller and Hitoshi Sasaki of Minimal Man. Collage by Damon Edge of Chrome.)

SAN FRANCISCO PUNK: The First Wave

San Francisco artists are often featured here, though I've never been there. I often wonder: why was the first wave of LA punk more popular than the SF bands? We're talking about groups that preceded Flipper and the DK's: Crime, the Nuns, the Avengers, the Offs, the Sleepers, Negative Trend and others.

I noted in my posts on Subterranean Records that SF didn't have an early equivalent of a label like Dangerhouse or Slash. (415 Records did release the first Nuns EP and the second Offs single in 1978, before the label turned its focus to local new wave groups.) 

Jay Hinman pointed out to me the significance of radio: "KROQ played Black Flag, Agent Orange and so on during prime time. We had nothing like that in the SF Bay Area... For whatever reason, punk and weird music really infiltrated the suburbs and high schools down there." 

Here's a first wave SF punk primer to counter the prevailing LA>SF opinion. Further volumes to follow (SF 79-80, SF synth punk, and more).

(Photos of Penelope Houston, Don Vinil and Jennifer Miro at the Fab Mab.)