Note: the below articles are excerpted from Spectrum, the Leon County Co-Op Newsletter #39, May Eve 1983 music issue. Big thanks to Donny Crenshaw for providing this artifact to the 1980s Tallahassee Punk Archive.
Introduction
It has been just about two years since Frank Brown mentioned the idea of a music issue of Spectrum to me. Well, this is it.
There is more music in this town than anybody knows. The music schools, the counter-culture, the government…so many scenes, nooks and crannies, different styles of music, different lifestyle. I thought such a document could be a useful tool for spreading culture.
Tallahassee is a place where a cat can work out his stuff. The crowd is somewhat fickle. It is unlikely that one will make a living playing in the clubs, but not unheard of. Of course, having two full-time music faculties in town raises the percentage of employed musicians.
The scene has grown up a lot since I came in 1976. Things are much more “strictly business.” The nice laid-back scene that I remember stumbling into is not the same, but not gone. It may be time, at last, to unionize Tallahassee music. Please let me know if you have an opinion about that.
Two scenes that are notably absent from this issue are: country and funk. If I ever write a book about the subject, I’ll be sure to get it all.
–Jim
Crozier
New
bands
By
Steve Dollar
This could be one for Ripley’s Believe It or Not, but docile, suburban Tallahassee, a city better known for pigskin chaps and government chumps, canopy roads and rapacious development, is fast becoming a Punk Rock capital.
That’s really odd, too, if you stop to think about it, because with the exception of Smitty’s – 12 miles out of town on Bannerman Road – there’s been virtually no public club for the handful of new, mostly teenage bands to play. Discounting “oldtimers” like the Slut Boys (in limbo), Persian Gulf and the Know-It-Alls who have wide enough appeal to play at Bullwinkles or Tommy’s – Tallahassee’s biggest dancehalls – bands like Hated Youth, Sector 4, Generix, The Shakes, Grandma’s House, Beloved Children, Daughter Damage and others take what they can get. Until these combos started gigging regularly at Smitty’s, this meant Emanuel’s (now in limbo), or an occasional opening slot for a more established band at FSU’s Downunder, Union Green, Tommy’s, or somebody’s house party. Now that Smitty’s has been visited by state beverage agents, that venue may be off-limits to groups with underage performers – which plops an entire vital subculture back at square zero.
Figure this, then, as a consumer guide to Tallahassee’s so-called new music bands, all of them happy to gig for a few beers and room enough for their friends to slamdance. One thing for sure, none of them are boring.
Hated Youth: Formerly known as Little Johnny’s, North Florida’s only hardcore punk band has earned considerable respect (if that’s the word) in Florida speedrock circles, gigging frequently at Gainesville and Tampa “slamfests” – marathon sonic endurance contests where the stage is often destroyed by the end of the third set. Not for the faint of heart, Hated Youth whip up a loudfast cyclone of agitated noise – burly bruising rhythms and tachycardiac riffing. Luckily the average song lasts about two minutes. Even if you can’t tolerate the decibel level, you have to admire Hated Youth’s energy, which is awesome. Politically, Hated Youth are confused, denouncing Reagan and “Nazi punks” while adopting a stage stance that is nothing if not fascist – but blame that on Hated Eric (who speaks elsewhere in this ish.)
Best cover: “Beach Blanket Bong Party” by Jodie Foster’s Army.
Sector 4: With the recent collapse of Daughter Damage, Sector 4 wins the vote for the best new band in town. As fast as Hated Youth but much more subtle and flexible, this trio can shift from frenzied slash-riffing to a twangy rockabilly shuffle in a couple of heartbeats and back again. Frontmen Greg and Neal sing about subjects as varied as housechores (make the bed!...do the dishes!...take out the garbage!...BOOMGNASHBOOM) and outer space while drummer Paul Suhor nails down a relentlessly busy beat. Lately the band has been real popular at FSU art exhibits, so maybe they’ve found a following.
Best cover: “Heartbreak Hotel,” Elvis Presley.
Generix: Another promising band that needs a gig every week, but can’t get one. Garage rock lost in the cosmos between oldtime heavy metal and oldtime punk rock, the Generix sound is laden with buzz and feedback, ominous dark chords and lusty volume. Singer Bill Chasteen looks like he’s just risen from the grave; Roy Rogers (guitar) and Arthur Lawrence (bass) give him a reason for sticking around, churning up dense, danceable rhythms that are hard to resist.
Best cover: “People Who Died,” Jim Carroll Band.
The Shakes: Formerly the Speed Queens, the New Improved Shakes have reorganized with a more cohesive dance-stance, sporting R&B and punk covers as well as countless originals on topics as diverse as napalm, unemployment, legal trivia and the joys of suburban living. Paced by drummer Danni Vogt and sparked by Frank Brown’s funky saxophone, the Shakes are still shaping their sound. Plugged into a good audio system, guitarist Jim Mahorner and singer Sharla Benedict come across loud and clear; otherwise the band’s inherent rowdiness gets subdued in muffled sound-mixes and all you hear is a sax skating over rumbling sonic murk. But that’s a small roadblock. With practice they can only get better. And they’re already a lot of fun.
Best cover: “Ride Your Pony,” Lee Dorsey.
Lost
in space: Daughter Damage, Grandma’s House, Toxic Shock, Ben Wentworth
(ex-Generix), Purple Heads – all retired from the scene but rumored to be
making comebacks. Keep your eyes peeled for garish street posters.
Teen
Beat – An Interview With Hated Eric
By
Jay Murphy
Hated Youth is Tallahassee’s only hard core punk band and undoubtedly the most unpopular on the new music scene. Composed of Eric Rogers on guitar and lead vocals, Gary Strickland on vocals, Jon Hodges on bass and vocals, and Dave McKee on drums, Hated Youth’s intensity, meth freak speed, and usual indifference to their audience has found more public acceptance elsewhere, at Gainesville’s Slam Fest, for example.
Despite near ostracism locally, Hated Youth wins respect from other like-minded bands in Florida and are included in a new hard core compilation album of Florida bands on the Roach Motel’s label, Destroy Records. The LP is appropriately entitled We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida and is due to be released this summer.
The following interview with Eric Rogers was recorded March 17.
Jay: Hated Youth has gotten so much better the past year I’ve heard you play.
Eric: Definitely, this Minor Threat gig I feel pretty confident about. We’re going in there, Gainesville, our guitarist has a broken thumb in a cast but he’s still going to play. We might even take the show. When I first moved to Tallahassee I wanted to start a band when I saw the Slutboys. I thought somebody has to realize what is going on here, everybody’s idea of God was Iggy Pop. When I wanted to get a band together, I wanted to put out a message. I didn’t have a message in the beginning, for a long time I didn’t realize what Hated Youth was going to do. Basically what Hated Youth is doing, is showing to Tallahassee, to Tallahassee especially because Tallahaseee is so Bible Belt, is that kids nowadays, in schools, are working for this future that isn’t even there. There’s this huge end in the back of their minds, and people will sit back and say, “I don’t want to think about it, you think about it, you worry about it.” But whether you worry about it or not, it’s there. Basically the propaganda put out by the American government is so strong that it makes them not want to think about it, not care about it.
Jay: The good old days are gone forever.
Eric: It’s such a joke. “Ban the Bible, Ban the Bomb” is such an extremity of what we think. The Bible programs people, and the people behind it program everyone else in America to think that man has this limit, this height of technology and that there is this limit and that God is going to decide. They think that when the time comes to obliterate the globe and start everything again that God is going to decide. Some guy, whoever has any control up there will decide, it’s time, it’s time, let’s do it. They’ll send some bombs over to Russia, and they’ll send some over here. Everyone thinks that impossibleman won’t blow up the earth. Everyone thinks that there will be these survivors who will start everything over again, but I don’t think so. People in Tallahassee are so –
Jay: Remote?
Eric: Remote, right, it’s terrible. Tallahassee is definitely anti-hard core.
Jay: Or just not interested.
Eric: Right, because our music is basically non-melodic. We’re not listenable, because our idea is, society is not listenable. I don’t want to put out music that’s happy, that’s nice, because it’s not what’s going on. I don’t want to write About love. Who needs to hear it? If there are no complaints there is no progress.
We are going t play a lot more out of town. We can’t afford to play in town anymore. We play out at Smitty’s, which is hard enough to get people to go out to, and when Hated Youth is the mainline band, people just don’t want to go, they’re not interested n hearing us because it doesn’t make them wawnt to dance. At our last gig with Roach Motel, some girls got hurt, and they were saying that it really wasn’t fun, and they were saying that we were just jerks.
Jay: The people who do come to see you are all men.
Eric: It’s machoist, I agree
with you. That’s one think I don’t like about Hated Youth, it’s become a macho
band. These guys come out and start slamming big time, that’s how our guitarist
broke his thumb. Fuck, you get pretty hurt. I ‘ve been told that Smitty’s has
the most violent scene anywhere in Florida, but then I heard that when Crucial
States and The Abusers were down in Miami they had a real heavy crowd. We’re
into having kids come out and hear our stuff. I’d rather play for twelve-year
olds rather than anyone else. I like kids more because they can go there and
get hurt and laugh it off, but when some jerk thiry-years old comes in and
starts getting pushed around he starts talking like all hell’s broke loose. I’m
a total hard core fan, I like music fast and hard, and I think that anyone
under sixteen can just get off. We’re just doing something to keep ourselves
from being totally bored.
Remember
the Slutboys?
By
Danni Vogt
Bill McCluskey was lead guitarist for the Slutboys during their heyday as Tallahassee’s greatest-ever garage band. In the following interview McCluskey reflects on life as a Slutboy.
Danni: Where’d the name Slutboys come from?
Bill: It came from this girl Donny Crenshaw (drums) used to work with. She was married and had a couple of kids. She probably took that from the way Donny was, he was screwing a lot, just being a slut. Donny made a list. Some of his other names were the Leg-is-laters, the Dogs, a bunch of nonsense.
D: What distinguished you from all the other bands in town?
B: We were one of the first bands here to play punk, or new wave. That was in 1980 (it’s getting pretty old by now). We had shitty equipment, but we always had our sets down pretty good. We just played some different kinds of music. We cussed a lot and tried to be like the Sex Pistols. We didn’t try, we just happened to be sort of like them. Got drunk on stage and stuff.
D: You seemed to have a higher energy level than most bands.
B: Yeah, we’d sweat our butts off. Have callouses, be hoarse the next morning.
D: How could you tell when you had a good night?
B: Talking to Ben (Wilcox, guitar) or Dickie, who was out there listening. Dickie’s a real good judge. You’d feel like you had a pretty good night, and even if there was 450 people there that all went crazy, Dickie would be honest and if he didn’t think we sounded worth a shit he’d say, “You sucked!”
