Whether you call it hard rock, heavy metal, cock rock, hair metal, melodic rock, pop-metal, AOR, glam or sleaze, this is the place to find out what became of your favorite 80's rock bands.
|
|
Whether you call it hard rock, heavy metal, cock rock, hair metal, melodic rock, pop-metal, AOR, glam or sleaze, this is the place to find out what became of your favorite 80's rock bands. |
|
JUNKYARD: GETTING UGLY WITH JUNKYARD: RIP Magazine, August 1990 By Mike Gitter "I remember when I used to see a band with a tour bus, and I'd say something like, 'F?!k them! What dicks!'" chortles former punk-rock superstar Brian Baker. "Now we're the dicks." Punk died. Rather than engage in some morbid musical necrophilia, the dudes in Junkyard harnessed the fire and shrapnel of their respective hardcore heydays and took the next logical step. Main man Chris Gates, a big dude with a big sound and a founding member of Austin, Texas' grossly unrecognized funk-punks, the Big Boys, wrapped his huge fingers 'round the hometown Southern sounds and moved to L.A. to start a band with an upraised middle finger directed at Hollyweird's style-over-substance glam set. With him came vocalist David Roach, a fellow Austin native and frontman for countless obscure punk acts. And they knew drummer Pat Muzingo from his days with a band called Decry. Pat brought in bassist Clay Anthony. "And one day I was in the corner 7-Eleven, buying a Coca-Cola and a RIP magazine," remembers Brian Baker, survivor of the first and last great hardcore bands, Minor Threat and Dag Nasty. "Chris needed a guitarist, Dag Nasty was a mess, and all of a sudden I had a new job. "I've been trying to play like Angus Young all throughout punk rock, the whole time, and now I'm finally in a band where somebody might listen to us and say, 'He sounds like a bad version of Angus Young!' rather than, 'Guitar solos! Yeeuuch!'" Junkyard have finally hit the road. It seems like old times, except better! Truth is, I've known most of these guys for years. Back in the days when we were all taking a stab at some sort of "youth movement," convinced that our little hardcore scene would smash the system and create Utopia to slam dance in, they would tour the U.S. in broken-down vans, crash on my floor, raid my refrigerator, call me to exchange stolen telephone credit card numbers. . . .Ah, yes, the scene. They've more than paid their dues. So what a gas it was when the folks at Geffen offered this faithful RIP scribe a chance to travel out to Cleveland (Y'know, like in Spinal Tap: "Hello, Cleveland!") to check out their hot new property. This was gonna get ugly. It was more like old home week for ex-punks. Manning the T-shirt booth was noted wiseass Andy Andersen, vocalist for San Franciscan speed metallers Attitude. Ex-Necros drummer Todd Swalla was on hand as Brian's right-hand "dude" for Junkyard's swing through the Midwest, and roadie Don "Geronimo," a veteran of Dag Nasty van tours, could be spotted still working his butt off. "Isn't it great," smirks Chris. "We've hired a bunch of wiseasses and jerks to work for us." Fact is, there ain't a lot to do in downtown Cleveland. Fact is, we were all brain-numbingly bored. Time to get. . .abusive. Fact is, tonight's opener was, ironically enough, a high-gloss, lipstick-and-mascara-smeared bunch all too appropriately tagged Pretty Boy Floyd. Open season. "They call themselves 'the Pretties,'" mocks Brian. "I'm just gonna call 'em 'BOY!'" bellows Gates. "C'mere, BOY! Move yer shit off stage, BOY!" "Uh, sorry, girls, this is the men's dressing room," adds Baker. "Easy targets are so much fun," finishes Chris. It's off to the only local sign of civilization, the nearby shopping mall. Strange how both myself and the Junkyarders are the only humanoid types we can even relate to. We're talking the purest slice of Wonder Bread America you can imagine. No panhandlers, no rock 'n' rollers, no punk rockers (lucky for them--Junkyard deal with that sort with sheer verbal brutality). Nobody in sight that wasn't WASPish, white and yuppified. We move from store to store, getting long, strange looks from shop owners aplenty. In sharp contrast to the evening's "Pretty Boy Billmates," the Yard ain't exactly a bunch you're likely to see on the cover of GO or Glam Hunks Daily. Image? Sorry, no poster boys here. Style? Wrong again. Ripped jeans and faded concert T-shirts. "This is the way I've dressed since I was 15!" laughs Gates. "And let me point out, ah got me not trouble gettin' dun bitches!" boasts Brian in the best Scatman Crothers impression imaginable. "This man is an operator!" "None of us is butt-ugly," affirms Chris, the grizzly bear of the band. "You could wash us up, put us in monkey suits, and we'd still be the scary guys at the wedding. Cousin Vito!" "Besides," adds David, "the Rolling Stones are ugly, the Who are butt-ugly, Led Zeppelin ain't exactly a bunch of beauty queens, and AC/DC are a bunch of short, weird-looking guys from Australia." We pause at the sunglasses counter, soaking up more than our share of suspicious glances. "Did I tell you 'bout the time I stole Kip Winger's sunglasses," offers Chris. "He had a photo-shoot right before us and left them, so I took them. They were really nice and lasted me longer than any pair I had before--three months!" When asked to describe themselves in a single word or less, the Junkyarders stammer, quite nonplussed, and drummer Muzingo suddenly blurts out, "Smart-asses." "I'd daresay that Brian and I get most of our fun at the expense of others," mentions Chris. "Did you know that he [Brian] won an 'Asshole of the Year' award in Flipside magazine for 1988?" "And when there's no one left to make fun of, and we're drunk enough, we'll make fun of each other," adds punkdom's asshole numero uno. "You played in a disco band!" "You were a fag and wore makeup!" "You played pointy guitars!" "You were straight edge. Get me another beer!" "Ask that band Tattoo about us," confides Baker. "They got in a fight with our T-shirt guy, Andy, because he was hassling them about not having tattoos. They told him that they called the band Tattoo because tattoos are for life, or something stupid like that, but they didn't think they were cool to actually have. You figure it out." Finally, off to the gig. The ever-reliable Junkyard bus broke down a few days back in Oklahoma, and has since been replaced with a leaner from none other than Willie Nelson. For the past few days the band and crew have been snaking up through the Midwest in a vehicle boasting the legend "Willie's Boys," kindly informing gas-station attendants and truck-stop curiosity seekers that Willie was indeed aboard, but resting up from last night's whiskey-fest. The Enormo-Dome, home to Cleveland's legendary Spinal Tap gig, it wasn't. Nope, Peabody's Down Under was just the sort of raunchy barroom that lends itself perfectly to Junkyard's over the top "Motorhead meets ZZ Top" live raunch. The "Pretties" had already arrived and were lounging about. They were far less "done up" than they were when I had last seen them--getting booed offstage at New York's famed Cat Club. Y'know, lots of cool audience banter. Stuff like, "What'samatter, don't you like lipstick?" Apparently not. Soundcheck. Food. A couple of enthusiastic fans attack David on the street. He chuckles and finds something vaguely hilarious about the whole autograph deal--something really silly, actually. "This is still like punk rock, except our guitars are in tune and our amps work," says Roach. "No rock stars here, maaan!" "It's funny," adds Baker. "A few of these shows feel just like it did in 1981 when I was in Minor Threat, with the whole place going totally ape-shit. I had no idea this sort of band would be like that. Anaheim pit. Texas pit. ..." "Being back in Texas was like an old Big Boys show," says Chris. "Just like the old days, with all of our friends drunk, disorderly and getting arrested. And just think what it will be like when we start drawing two or three thousand people! Imagine ten thousand! The more people, the bigger the energy level, the more we literally kill ourselves onstage. Yeeaargh! Think about what it must be like for a band like Metallica that inspires kids to rip up bolted seats and trash their living rooms just by putting the record on. That must be great! I can't wait." We get back to club and find the Pretty Ones already onstage, looking and sounding too much like Poison's club days minus any weak slab at originality. The beer's aflowin' and the insults are flying. It's getting ugly. "Girls!" "Pussies!" "What'samatter, don't you like lipstick?" Finally, folks, it's show time. Mind you, records can oftentimes be quite deceiving, a fact that holds especially true in Junkyard's case. Live, they grind a thousand-fold harder and more completely in your face than their too-cleanly produced Tom Werman LP even hints at. "Blooze," "Long Way Home," "Simple Man," a pumped-up rendition of ZZ Top's "Tush"--it's true grit all the way. Baker and Gates volley Kentucky-incinerated riffs back and forth. Anthony and Muzingo keep the rhythms tight, thick and Motorhead fierce. David, steel-eyed and taut-muscled, spits pure poison. Junkyard dogs, indeed. The crowd is hypnotized, enthralled. They roll with each tensile-strength, high-octane punch. Y'see, from those ever-present hardcore roots, the clear "aggro" and gut-honest 1-2 punch remain. It's pure adrenaline till the very last chord. Band and crowd alike are left standing in a heavy mist of beer and sweat. "There's no artificial ingredients here," finishes Baker. "With people now into yogurt, tofu and health clubs, they should also be into Junkyard. It's all natural." Buy Junkyard CDs: |
|
Home | News - Archive | Biographies | Videos | Interviews | Reviews | R.I.P. | Photos | Exxtras
Censored | Books | Search | Links | Message Board | Collection | Contact |