WE NEVER LEARN Eric Davidson & the Gunk Punk Undergut (Pt. 2)
Jun 18, 2010
If you were on the garage-rock scene circa 1988 - 2001, these bands might have been your life.
BY FRED MILLS
More of my interview with Eric Davidson, frontman for New Bomb Turks (pictured above) and author of We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988-2001. To read Part 1, go here, and also check out our gallery of photos and gig posters plus Davidson's own WeNeverLearnBook.com blog.
BLURT: You contend that most of this had run its course by the time we got to the Stripes/Strokes/Hives neo-garage phase of the early ‘00s. Do you see any signs of regeneration? For example, Pat Todd, from the Lazy Cowgirls, has the Rank Outsiders and Dead Moon's Fred and Toody Cole have the Pierced Arrows that are doing well, both groups clearly carrying the torches of the earlier bands. The Gories and Oblivians reunion tour last year went so well that the Gories just announced they are going for it again.
DAVIDSON: Yeah, I think maybe I alluded to that earlier. In fact, one of these reasons we decided on doing this book now was that it was obvious that by mid-2000s, trashy sounds were slithering back into the indie world via Hives, Black Lips, Clone Defects, Goner Records, Florida's Dying, etcetera. So many uber-trashy punk labels are out there now; and everyone wants to jump on the vinyl bandwagon that all these bands effortlessly rode like a Big Wheel for years. And I think I did mention in the book that many if not most of these musicians are still active in music, like the ones you mentioned, and Cheater Slicks, Dirtbombs, Reigning Sound, Jon Spencer, and on and on. Tim Warren still runs Crypt Records; Larry Hardy has In the Red.
Oh, New Bomb Turks reunion gig at Bell House in Brooklyn on June 26, by the way - and our drummer is RJD2's drummer. Take that, smug Pitchfork stereotypers.
You approached Jack White for an interview but only received a bizarrely obtuse "statement" from him concerning Edgar Allen Poe. Why do you think he wasn't interested in cooperating? Do you think he got wind that you were also talking to some of his detractors?
"Got wind"?! I made the fatal mistake of trying to be open and honest, and sent him ten basic email questions; I said, answer however many you want, or not. And I addressed right off in the intro note that I had talked to Billy Childish, Jim Diamond [the Detroit producer who had a lawsuit against White thrown out of court] and Long Gone John [of Sympathy Records, who released the White Stripes' early records but subsequently had a falling out with White and lost the right to continue repressing them]. He could imagine what they had to say. So if he'd like to address any of that, I would like to get both sides. I tried to be fair and open. He decided to compare himself to Edgar Allen Poe, via a book excerpt I think was swiped offa Wikipedia. Oh well. Apparently money, fame, and a hot model don't fix everything.
Dave Crider, Estrus Records head honcho, didn't want to do an interview, but he simply sent me a nice note saying good luck, but explaining that he wasn't into rehashing the past. And that's cool, and classy.
How about telling our readers a little about the New Bomb Turks and your ups and downs along the way? You've got a classic story in the book about dealing with Jim Guernot, from Time Bomb Recordings, who you characterize as "the model of the alt-rock era ‘cool A&R guy'" - I'm sure that will strike a chord among other musicians.
Ah, Guernot was alright. He was what he was, as they say. He was pretty straight-forward with saying he wants his bands to tour until they drop - a sure way to get the band you just gave a big advance to increase their drug use and break up.
Anyway, New Bomb Turks guitarist Jim Weber and I met in a dorm at Ohio State, friends right away, big music fans, Jim started playing guitar, we had a college radio show, etcetera. We went to club shows like three, four times a week; Columbus' scene was the most active in Ohio in the ‘90s. And early on, 1987-90, we noticed that our fave local bands - Gibson Bros., Great Plains, Scrawl - were either sort of slowing down or touring. And new local bands were just "eh." Some good ones, for what they did, which was mostly in the Buttholes/Sonic Youth/grunge-y vein.
But we just wondered why the only bands in town that would say they liked "punk" were the baggy-shorts skater straight-edge types who only played with other like-panted bands. So Jim and I literally would say stuff like, "Why don't we start a, uh, fun band? Is that so weird an idea?"
"Ups and downs along the way" could take another book. And you can read some of them in We Never Learn, of course. But...
Ups: First few gigs, feeling like we're coming together. First gig at CBGB.
Crypt calling us and wanting to sign us! And just meeting and hanging with the whole Crypt brood; especially hanging in Hamburg with Tim and Micha Warren... Recording the albums.
Meeting fans all over, and remaining close with our two boon Frenchie pals, Jean-luc and Gilles! The first Euro tour, and the second with the Devil Dogs. Touring with many of our favorite bands - Teengenerate, Supersuckers, Gaunt... Shit, all the Euro tours; and Japan and Australia! I was never even on a commercial jet until our first tour of Europe in 1993. The 1996 three-week Euro tour with Red Aunts - our A&R guy at Epitaph Europe was excited, as there were finally bands on the label he liked, so they promoted it well; and hanging with the Red Aunts is too funny to go into. Like rolling singer Terri down a hostel hallway at 4am in a shopping cart funny.
On tour, flirting at after-parties with girls I'd probably never see again, and reveling in the beautiful pathos of that...
Any show in Green Bay, Austin, Cleveland, and even NYC, because the crowds aren't as disinterested as people say; and even if so, we could bum around NYC for a day and blow money at all the great record stores and slice joints - many of which are gone, of course.
Mainly making great records and sharing good times with my four best friends. Hanging onto girlfriends along the way, well...
Downs: Honestly, not too many. I mean when you decide you want to pursue an artist's life in America, you know you're in for an economically bumpy ride. So maybe I could've stashed away a bit of our "huge" Epitaph advance, and today I could buy a used Ford Escort. With some sweet flame stripes on the side!
Having to boot original drummer Bill Randt after our 1999 Australian tour really sucked. I won't go into details, but we were justified in doing so. It just sucked for all the usual reasons. But then getting Sam Brown to join was an uber-UP, as he's such an amazing guy, amazing drummer, nice, hilarious, and a fine holder of secrets. The last Epitaph album, and first with Sam - Nightmare Scenario (2000) - is probably my favorite Turks record. Then, I thought that even up to our last official breaking up tour in late 2002, I honestly felt that we were as good live as we'd ever been, so it felt good to go out on a high gear!
The Turks do occasional reunions shows. What are the chances of a new record or full tour?
We officially broke up at the 2002-2003 New Year's Eve show in Cleveland with the Dirtbombs and Bassholes. Since then, we've decided that as long as we feel able to, we'll get together a couple times a year to play some kinda special show, like an invite to a Euro fest or a friend's wedding or something. We're all still friends and somewhat musically active, so it's not hard to whip up a couple practices and get out there and yalp. But it's kinda doubtful we'd have the time or inclination to come up with and record some new tunes. Maybe a covers single or something, who knows...
Name three events that you feel stand out as clear milestones of the era you document in the book.
This is WAY too tough, and three ain't enough, but... (1) The Bad Musick Seminar in NYC, 1988 - Tim Warren's piss-take on the ol' New Music Seminar festival. But with Thee Mighty Caesars, Raunch Hands, A-Bones, Rat Bastards, and an uber-drunk Tim bouncing around an abandoned midtown warehouse, it kind of kick-started whatever I think I'm covering in this book.
(2) Me seeing a Replacements poster on Jim Weber's dorm room wall, and striking up a chat. How's that for self-importance! But if that's too groan-inducing, how about the Gories first trip to play NYC in 1989. Or Billy Childish inspiring/digging/writing back the Mummies and recording the Devil Dogs all around the same time, circa 1989. Or the Dwarves' "HeWhoCannotBeNamed is dead" controversy that either showed the simmering trash-punk world had some growing steam to piss off a big label; or that self-styled cynical trash-punk fans could have the wool pulled over their eyes too; or simply that the Dwarves put out one of the best albums of this thing (Blood, Guts & Pussy, 1990, Sub Pop), and made it even better with piss-taking Sub Pop's fame, making grunge - at least in one strata of the alt-music world - not the only game in town.
Maybe Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's sheer, undeniably amazing live show ultimately getting them opening slots for Beastie Boys and playing Lollapalooza and such, as that helped spread the word on the Crypt/In the Red/Sympathy world to rote "modern primitives," trendy Euros, and mall alt-rockers. People sometimes forget how great they became live while sticking with labels like In the Red for some of their releases and bringing bands like Cheater Slicks and such onto their own gigs. Not too many bands in my book got into the pages of GQ, and on Spanish TV shows, and stuff like that. Not that things like that are always THE goal, of course. But bigger mags and opening slots for huge bands were solid ways (in the pre-internet world) to get younger kids to hear these kind of violent sounds.
In a weird way, the Andre Williams record, Silky (1998, In the Red) is important because, as backed up by the two-thirds of the Gories, it was a kind of trash super group (not necessarily good or bad, but a sign that there is a kind of scene capable of creating such a monster); and it really, totally kicked in the now standard preference for greasy roots R&B in the previously often honky-heavy garage-punk world.
(3) Either the release of the first Killed By Death compilation in 1989, or... The Hives and White Stripes success/fame and subsequent contractual flaps: bad for the principals involved on a personal level; but proof that the garage-punk rumblings that had been going on in the ‘90s had found a way to bubble up via actually good bands; then proof that getting to "the top" can mean lots of bullshit like contractual flaps; and then instigated a kind of sonic backlash via the Memphis-Detroit-Chicago axis that is still producing nasty garage-punk today. Both the Hives and White Stripes surviving it all to make more good records, which was not always the case with hit "trend" bands of the past.
Who, to you, were the three most important Gunk Punk bands?
Eegads! Well, if I must, but I'm making it longer, in relative chronological order...
Various Billy Childish groups - consistent, unrelentingly trashy recording and honesty.
Lazy Cowgirls - Whipping up all raw American roots music fast-like before most did, before hardcore even.
Pussy Galore - Template-setting garbage noise leap forward for garage punk.
Dwarves - They made the perfect rock 'n' roll record, Blood, Guts & Pussy, and had probably the best overall live evocation of the We Never Learn icky ethos.
Gories - Mick Collins says it best in the book - essentially, when he heard all those lame post-Nuggets comps' ads say "Wild, primitive garage rock!" then he bought them and they were jangly folk, he said they decided to make records as wild and primitive as those comps claimed. And did!
Supersuckers - No one really sounded like the Ramones, the Saints, and Motorhead in 1990. Burped out a great sense of humor while living and playing within the often self-serious grunge central, Seattle.
Mummies - Along with the Gories, truly reiterating the "anyone can do it" stance. The disgusting stained mummy outfits as a retort to the dress-up surf revival going on around them was a nice touch.
Devil Dogs - Being one of the best rock 'n' roll bands ever, playing every show with sweaty urgency, and having Andy G hilariously spout off at all the jerks in the audience, yet winning them over, all make up the general savoir faire of gunk punk.
New Bomb Turks, natch - Mike Lavella said to me, "I don't know how you're going to write this book without saying what a big deal your band and that first album was on the scene." So there, I said it here. Ha!
Oblivians - Their informed roots and extremely well-written songs - blasted sloppy through a revived sense of trash after early side-projects - made them a kind of garage punk 7" tidal wave era cresting point, that washes down on bands to this day, where their reunion gigs are selling out in a few days.
Teengenerate - Ditto, only WAY trashier even; maybe the most explosive live act of this whole thing.
Hives - Veni, Vidi, Vicious was a truly great, catchy-approachable album that yanked a lot of this book's aesthetic chutzpah into the charts, which has never been easy. The Ramones couldn't even do it!
Clone Defects - The Defects - whom I used to help sneak into Detroit area shows and watch piss people off around town before they formed - knew their garage-punk shit, and then ate it again, shitting it out as a cosmic mind-bending meal for another generation, I suppose.
Black Lips - Similar job as the Clone Defects, only more Replacements drunk-winkers than Crime acid-eaters.
One final question then - bonus question! With my advance copy of We Never Learn came a 20-song promotional CD of bands featured in the book, whereas regular consumers will have to be satisfied with a download code for the tracks. Potential eBay gold for collector scum like me?
I'd assume the vinyl bootleg that will hopefully be spawned soon will go for 10 bucks; the CD the same in 5 years when we're all clamoring for "vintage" CD players... Har.
I do want to say that there are unreleased tracks on that comp - and the previously released tracks are pretty damn rare too.
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