It's So Easy and Other Lies

The f***!

Just kill me.

"The punk scene in Seattle

"was all about creating

something out of nothing.

"There was only one bar

that booked punk bands.

"The Gorilla Room.

"Aside from that,

"bands had no choice

"but to do it themselves.

"And people didn't take themselves

too seriously in this scene either.

"There was a weird sense of humour.

"And being musically different

was rewarded."

This was our punk rock haven.

The record store there. There's a record

store there. There's a record store there.

There's Coffee Corral there.

And we just...

Hung...

Out.

"In the summer of 1979,

"I played my first real concert

"with the Vains.

"Because we were all under-age,

"together with two other bands,

we rented a community centre

"attached to a public park.

"Now, the week before the show,

"Andy and I stole about

"20 plastic milk crates

from the back of a grocery store

"and somehow nailed plywood onto them.

"But now we had a stage.

"That alone was pretty damn exciting

for a 15-year-old f***ing kid.

"Our own stage.

"Now we can play anywhere."

This punker dude in our neighbourhood,

who had like a pink mohawk,

heard that I played bass.

And he asked me if

I wanted to start a band

with him and my buddy, Andy.

Because Andy played drums.

Criss Crass.

That's the guy with the pink mohawk.

He doesn't have a pink mohawk any more.

That's Andy, the best friend I grew up

with. He was the drummer. Then there's me.

That was called The Thankless Dogs.

I don't know if we ever played a gig.

But that morphed into...

What people generally think

is my first band, which is The Vains.

Yeah, we put out an album. Um...

It was a 45, with three songs on it.

It's actually in the EMP Museum here.

It was the first viable commercial

punk rock recording in the Northwest.

But I know that today, that the

originals are real collector items.

I enjoyed going to the shows.

When he was playing with, um...

Fastbacks, 10 Minute Warning...

I always wanted to go

to where they were playing.

You can see like...

We were going from punk rock,

into like a whole

different thing. We had long hair.

That band was killer.

This band was awesome.

Ten Minute Warning, The Fags...

Last show.

Hands down, one of the best bands ever.

D.O.A.

Vancouver.

That's the Fastbacks opening up.

I made this.

I made that flyer. Here's

some lyrics I wrote,

when I was probably about 17.

This is all, of course, before Guns.

There was this really thriving music scene

that I was involved with.

Five bands. Five bucks.

That's The Fastbacks.

Kim Warnick, Lulu, Kurt Bloch,

myself, with a turtleneck.

You know, back in 1980, 1981...

You weren't really supposed to like...

You know, it was kind of wrong

to like punk rock.

If you're a punk rocker,

you're a punk rocker.

If you're an alternative rocker,

then you're into that.

I mean, you had to pick your...

You had to pick your team.

And you know, we didn't really know.

It's like we loved...

All of Van Halen and AC/DC

and Cheap Trick, you know,

just as much as The Ramones and Black Flag.

I'd been reading The Rocket,

and hearing about you guys...

10 Minute Warning, The Fartz and...

All these other bands, and, uh...

I was just like, I gotta go here.

Every city's got their local scene. But...

Seattle, to me,

we're talking before,

took punk rock and Sabbath

and put it together in all these bands.

For, uh, 20 years,

my mom and dad had eight children.

Myself as the oldest, Jon,

and then, Carol, unfortunately,

who has departed us.

And then we have Mark.

Bruce.

Claudia.

Joan.

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