Rip, Rig and Panic

Back in the Pleistocene era of punk rock (1977-1979) the top fanzines of the West Coast were Slash (Los Angeles) and Search & Destroy (San Francisco), which were both written and designed by people that worked in the field of graphic arts, cinema and publishing. This meant that both fanzines not only covered the new music that was emerging at the time, but also covered cutting edge artists, filmmakers and performance artists. Performance artists got an extraordinary amount of coverage in Slash/Search & Destroy, and a lot of these artists were every bit as exciting as any punk band.

In an era of Siouxise Sioux, The Slits, and Cindy Sherman, no other artist embodied femininity gone awry better than Johanna Went. Playing every feminine role with the manic ferocity of a mental patient, Went portrayed nuns bathed in blood carrying crucifixes, violent housekeepers throwing flour around the stage with baby dolls tied around her neck, speaking in tongues, babbling and shrieking into a microphone. A terrific jazz-noise combo would punctuate her whirling dervishes, creating an aural wallpaper as disturbing as her I Am Woman nightmarisms. She even released a great EP of jazz-noise bludgeon called “Hyena” (available on eMusic with bonus tracks, yes!).

 

If there was a British Music Hall act from Hell it would be The Kipper Kids. Two stocky men who favored a cross between British lorry drivers and The Blue Meanies from “Yellow Submarine”, a performance from them would include: a boxing match between them clad only in jock straps – who would you root for, Harry Kipper or Harry Kipper?, a version of The Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” on ukulele, or an argument between them in a language only they knew. And of course, a lot of blood, animal entrails, food product and fluids all over each other, which is the sort of “Johnny B. Goode” or “New York, New York” of the performance art world. No performance artist could complete their show without making a mess all over themselves.

But performance art was more than just a spectator sport. When I lived at The Masque (1978) I once woke up to the sounds of metal being banged around, kind of like a garbage can fighting its way out of an alley. When I got up to see what the racket was all about I saw Z’ev auditioning on stage, which meant him hurling a gauntlet of metal cans, pots and scrap metal all tied together and creating a cacophonous metallic soundscape. I thought he was great, but I wanted to jam, so I busted out my saxophone and walked into the hall blowing some wicked atonal tenor saxophone. Z’ev looked shocked and probably a little pissed that I was playing along, but Brendan Mullen and company were entertained by my contributions.

 

Word got around The Canterbury (where I lived after the Masque) that Hermann Nitsch was doing his“Orgien Mysterien Theater” (trans: Theatre of Orgies and Mysteries) at The Otis Institute of Art and if you had a horn you were invited to play. My neighbors Don Bolles of The Germs and Pat Delaney of The Deadbeats were going but I couldn’t make it, and I was bummed. The day after the performance Pat had dried blood all over him, and he said I missed a great show. Naked men and women were tied to crucifixes behind hacked animal carcasses as Nitsch poured blood and cow entrails all over them while the horn players blew a wall of noise. I kicked myself all week for missing that one!

Another phenomenon that was fairly big at the time was tons and tons of loft parties in the warehouse district in Downtown LA where all you had to do was show up with your horn and blow. Sometimes with a band, sometimes just by yourself along to prepared tapes, it was important for the maximum effect of the loft party. Nobody played crummy rap records, it was all about the originality of the environment and even if youdidn’t know the host of the party you were welcome to play. Shit done changed after all these years. People need to loosen up!

At the risk of writing yet another whiny piece about how cool the scene used to be I just want to testify that there was a time when punk rock was more than just a lot of bands and party merchandise. It was a living, breathing wall of sound and vision, and I’ll always fondly remember those days of watching, listening, and even participating in the sonic outrage of the Seventies.

Apartment 217

The big punk rock thing to do for the kids at the Masque was to move into a decrepit old apartment building in the center of Hollywood called the Canterbury (as in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales). I really needed a place to stay because my back ached from sleeping too many nights on the floor at the Masque. The most eventful things there never happened on weekends, they would happen on Tuesday mornings. Like this one Tuesday morning, there was a knock on my door.

“Andy, I need your help”, Rick said desperately with a fix in one hand and a tourniquet in the other. Rick was a quiet punk who hardly ever talked to me, well! He hardly ever spoke to anyone. When I saw the loaded fix I practically jumped.
The door was ajar while he held the packed works.
“Close the door!” I hissed. “Jesus, get in already!”
He slammed the door. “Look, this is the plan. I’ll tie up while you plunge the fix in, okay?”
My apartment window overlooked a parking lot for Love’s Barbecue, heavily frequented by police cars, of which SEVERAL were parked by my window.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah”, I freaked, “cool, baby, let’s take this in the bathroom where the COPS, like outside the window, CAN’T SEE us”.
He doddered into the bathroom with me, careful not to upset the works. “Okay! When you see my veins swell and throb, plunge it right in. Here!”
He handed me the needled plunger and pulled on the polka-dot scarf around his arm with his teeth as tightly as humanly possible. The veins bulged out of his arm like purple snakes. I felt sick just looking at this.
“NNNNGGGG! C”mon!” He roared with the material in his maw.
I hesitated at sticking the needle in. I never did this crap in my life. How deep should I go? What if I waste the expensive junk by not getting it in completely?
“Okay, okay”, I paced a little in place. “Give me a second, I gotta think about this”.
“NNNGGGG!!!” he pulled harder on the scarf and breathed heavily.
“HEY!” I barked. “Time out! Let’s switch, yeah let’s switch, Rick. You plunge and I’ll tie, I’m a good tie guy”.
We switched. I pulled hard on the scarf as he plunged the needle in, and I saw the switch from junk to blood enter the dropper. Blood never makes me faint but I almost did this time. It creeped my ass out.
“Bitchen, Andy”, Rick grinned, “I knew I could count on you. Thanks, man, Next time I’ll save some for you, I’m a little short today”. He edged towards the door.
“Thanks”, I gagged, “I’ll remember that”.
As soon as he left I double-locked the door like an old lady biddy grandma.
***
The rent was due and a single apartment back then went for $150 a month. Since I was out of work and assisting fuckface junkies on weekdays for free $150 may as well have been $500, 000. I had two gigantic PA speakers in storage (4 feet tall each) I remembered that weren’t being used so I decided to put them up for sale. The looks I got when I wheeled them through the lobby and up to my place were priceless.
“Andy, playin’ a show at your place tonight?”
“Yeah”, I joked, “didn’t you get the flyer?”
Until I sold the speakers I may as well put them to work, so I hooked my PA speakers up to my stereo. It was like hearing intermission records at the Hollywood Bowl or the Greek Theatre, and the neighbors never complained, because they were illegals who played their cha-cha-cha ranchero shit at ear splitting volume, too.

One day I was walking by the Masque and Holly was hanging out.
“Andy!” Holly yelled. We hugged and then I said the inevitable.
“Hey, Holly”, I said quietly, “what are you doing right now?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Hang out with me for awhile. I’ve got some records I want you to hear”, I smiled and then she smiled.
We got to my place. “Cool speakers!” she laughed. The speakers were so large they went all the way up to my Murphy bed with little room to get to the kitchen and bathroom.
“Get on the bed and I’ll put something on”, I ran over to the stereo and put on Kraftwerk, not too sexy, but powerful out of those big speakers. I got back on the bed and we both lay there on our stomachs.
The music began, rhythm machines and synthesizers booming out of the 4 foot speakers in our faces, our hair bouncing on our heads from the vibrations of sound. DUT-DUT-DOOT-DUNN! BOW-BOP-A-DOOP!
“WE-ARE-THE ROBOTS! DOOT-BOP-A-DOOT! WE-ARE-THE ROBOTS! DOOT-BOP-A-DOOT!”
“Well, Andrew”, Holly purred, “That’s a quite a punchy bass frequency”.
The walls trembled from the music bouncing off the walls. We both started laughing from the vibrations tickling us from the PA. I got real quiet, tapping my foot to the music, and glanced at her. She looked at me with that “What are you waiting for, sailor?” look.
I turned closer and kissed her, she kissed me sweetly and we continued handling each other to the strains of thunderously loud Teutonic techno.
***
I was watching TV on a Sunday night and people were yelling loudly in the hall, nothing new for this place, but this time doors were getting banged on. My door got banged on quickly.
“WHAT?” I yelled. The hallway smelled badly and was bathed in smoky red light.
“FIRE!” a fat black woman yelled at me.
To the left of the hallway the sofa that had been sitting there for 3 months was on fire, and the flames spread. People were running around, screaming, the alarm bell was deafening, and I ran back in.
QUICK>QUICK>QUICK, what will I take with me? I immediately grabbed my saxophone and a painting I did of a boy pulling a spitting cobra out of his zipper. I raced out the safe side of the hallway thinking, gee, I hope my neighbor Pat’s okay. Pat played saxophone, too and lived next door and like to dress like The Invisible Man, bandages and all, when he performed. The flaming sofa was right by his front door! I ran out to the parking lot and looked up at my apartment window to see if my place caught on fire. Much to my horror Pat was hanging out his window looking down.
“Andy!” Pat yelled. “I’m fucked!”
“Shit!” I yelled back. “You might have to jump!”
“Fuck yeah!”
“Well, look, there’s two cars that’ll break your fall, you can do it, god damn it!”
“God damn it!”
There were a few cars under the window from the rather high Second Floor that would break his fall, but his ankles would take the painful shock, no shit.
The fire trucks raced right up to the building and they charged up to my floor.
“Hey, maybe you’ll have to jump into one of those trampoline things!”
“I hate those fucking things! I’m scared of heights!”
Before I could get another stupid helpful suggestion I could see firemen smashing in Pat’s door down behind him, throwing a blanket over his ass and pulling him back into his room and racing him out of the building.
Two hours later I got to go back to sleep in my smelly burned toast apartment, everything intact, paintings, saxophone, and even sexy PA speakers intact. And I sold the speakers and made the rent.