Lunch for Seven


Participants

Bill Ashton	Cameron Cohick	Walter Czachowski	Jimmy Johnson

Charlie Pickett	Jeff Schwier	Richard Shelter	Leslie Wimmer

This whole gathering was Richard Shelter's idea, the king of networking. I spoke to him on the phone a couple times before the Witkin gig, I don't know if I helped convince him to come down. But once he had decided he was coming, I wanted to interview him for trashfever.com. But when I suggested an interview, he said, "I've got a better idea, why don't we do a round table-type thing, you know like that "Dinner For Five" IFC tv series. Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure--"THAT'S a good idea."

So ensued a series of phone calls and e-mails. I brought in Jim Johnson, who brought in Bill Ashton and Walter Cz. Charlie Pickett brought in Leslie Wimmer. And I think Charlie and I discussed bringing in Cameron Cohick. The shame is that we could have EASILY had one or two MORE of these, with different participants, and it would've ABSOLUTELY been just as essential. So apologies go out to Eddie and Mike O'Brien, Joe Harris, Debbie Deneese and her sister Ana, Bobby Tak, Johnny Salton, Jill Kahn, Bill Henry, Barry Seiver, Kenny Lindahl, and the folks who weren't able to make it down, like Robert Mascaro and Dave Froshnider.

Thanks much to all the participants, and to the Kings Head Pub in Dania. It was great fun, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity...

-Jeff

Richard: A meeting of the minds here; look at this. If you told me five years ago I’d be sitting at a table with this group…

Cameron: How did this happen? Whose idea was this benefit?

Bill: I tried to ask Debbie and Susan last night, about the whole thing of them getting back together again.

Charlie: I’ll tell ya, the filmmaker started it for me. She just called and said, "I’m making a film about the 1980s, the punk rock scene in South Florida. And there’s a Night at the Agora and also Sheila Witkin Memorial. Maybe some of the bands would want to play that … Would you like to play and do you know the Eat, do you know the Cichlids, do you know The Reactions?"

And I said, "I know all of them and yeah, I don’t mind playing."

Cameron: Who is this filmmaker?

Charlie: A woman named Diane Jacques. Her brother, Michael Jacques played in The Wrap for awhile. He was the VERY good looking guitar player that also did The Rag. He was a writer for The Rag and he wanted to fit in but he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a punk, (speaking rapidly) he wasn’t sure he wanted to be new wave, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do … and so naturally he was rejected by our crowd with our stiff standards. So that’s where she comes from.

Cameron: Has she made other documentaries?

Charlie: Yes, according to Leslie, who checked her out a little bit. I scooted through real quickly. She is a local filmmaker who is serious about her craft and has done things. What that means, I don’t know. Everything I’ve seen her do so far, has been good.

Cameron: Is she gonna do more than just film the show?

Charlie: Yeah, she’s gonna interview people … she wants to interview people tonight at 5:00 because she wants to do more people, and she says for the local people she can get. She’s also gonna try to interview people at the show. She’s told me, "Now if somebody comes in that you think I should interview, send them to me."

Richard: Is there a feeling it’s (the Sheila Witkin gig) going to be hijacked because now that Depp is going to show up, it feels a little … there was a feeling online that we all had that ok, well it’s their crowd and our crowd and Depp’s not gonna show up, so what the hell. It’ll be cool. We’ll have punks over here and we’ll have the Kids and the Slyder crowd over here, we’ll leave early, but now, I don’t know…I used to play Tight Squeeze, I used to have drinks with Johnny (Depp), I mean he’s not gonna remember me, but I wanna see what he looks like playing.

The Kids

Walter: Is it ok if I block him anyways?

Richard: Like anything is going to stop you Walter. (laughter around the table)

Bill: If she knows what she’s doing and she puts it together right, it could be really …

Charlie: Look, she’s doing a three-camera shoot of the show. I’m thinking to myself, you know what? At my age I got a three-camera shoot. If I play well, I’m gonna have something that I can sit back and go, ha, ha, ha, you know, and fine. And we all get to go in and say this is what a Hollywood posse thing looks like because I’ve never seen a Hollywood posse except through the filter of TV and now we can all go back and go, "Ahh, that’s what it looks like."

Walter: You’re the Jeremy Previn. Are you John Cusack...

Jimmy: …I’m being pigeon-holed, I have no idea what I’m being pigeon-holed about.

Charlie: The closest we got was the show with Sonic Youth (in 1986), that was a two-camera shoot, or maybe it’s a three-camera shoot and the sound is so bad that it’s hard to get past.

Cameron: What about the (Eggs) Overtown video? Where is that?

Richard: Yeah, see that’s like a rumor, that’s like a ghost…

Charlie: I’m trying to run that down. Jimmy knows.

Leslie: I’ve seen it.

Bill: I’ve seen it, part of it. I’ve seen part of it unedited. Part of it, like on somebody’s tv.

Walter: If it’s not on YouTube, it doesn’t exist.

Cameron: What about the Lifeguard Dan video? You’re in that right? (speaking to Charlie) Your legs are in that, right?

Charlie: I don’t have that.

Bill: I’ve seen that. I do have that on tape. I’ve got every local thing that was ever broadcast on any tv show.

Charlie: You’ve got the Live on Seventeen thing?

Bill: Yeah. I’ve got U2 on the Tomorrow Show. I was looking at my parents’ house the other day. Their first American tv appearance which was not on the box set they put out this year.

Charlie: You know what we have to get Leslie to talk about … riding in the Volkswagon with the guys of U2 - by herself. So there’s probably something left out. Me, the guys from U2 … I’m being discreet. True story, Volkswagen, Leslie Wimmer, U2.

Leslie: Well I have to straighten you out just a little bit because it was in my Toyota Wagon. I didn’t have the Volkswagon at that point.

Walter: I remember the Toyota Wagon.

Leslie: That’s right. There you go. The Toyota, the moon wagon. Well, it was WCEZ. This was when U2 opened for the J. Geils Band up at the West Palm Beach Auditorium. And afterwards Edge and Adam went over to WCEZ and they played disc jockey for an hour or so. They did tape it, so it does exist, all their choices and everything. And so at the end of the evening, which was probably about 2 in the morning or 3 or something like that and they had to get back to their hotel, so I said, oh, I’ll drive you. So I did and Edge sat right next to me there and Adam was in the back seat.

Richard: Look at her blushing. Oh, it’s Bono, it’s Bono.

Charlie: And what did you talk about?

Leslie: I knew you were going to ask me that. And we talked a little bit about the show, but basically I have to tell you this. It was a very quiet drive back because they were exhausted, as was I. in fact I was trying to stay awake enough to get my precious cargo back to their hotel, you know, but we did talk a little bit about the show that night and they enjoyed it, they loved it and they enjoyed being on the radio and everything, but it was just really a nice, quiet drive. We listened to the radio a little bit, and they would say, "Oh that’s a good song." or "That’s a bad song." or change the channel or whatever. They were real people, really tired people.

Bill: I just thought of the name of that club - The Beat Club.

Leslie: The Beat Club. Right.

Bill: I was waiting for you to finish your story.

Walter: That’s the one in south Miami, Bird Road.

Bill: It wasn’t around a long time.

The Chant, First Show, Miami Beach, 1984

Walter: We came on stage to the Jetson’s theme there.

Bill: That’s absolutely right. The Chant came onstage, one-by-one to the Jetson’s theme, there’s George Jetson, daughter Judy (all laughing)

Walter: Actually I was daughter Judy.

Bill: Todd was his boy Elroy, as I recall.

Richard: Since Jeff’s not going to moderate a little bit…

Jeff: I’ll moderate. What do you want me to do? Where do you want to start? You guys have such great stories.

Richard: It’s up to you, I mean, what do you want to hear about first? Obviously, do you do chronological order, or not? Or….

Leslie: Actually, I think we should all introduce ourselves.

Jeff: Yeah, either that or you could introduce the person next to you.

Leslie: Oh, well that would be fun.

Charlie: Oh, no, no, that would just cause too much smoke blowing.

Jeff: 25 words or less about yourself.

Charlie Pickett
Photo: Jill Kahn

Richard: About myself, no, I wanna talk about the guy next to me. The guy next to you, ok. I trust Leslie to give me proper props. Hi, this is Charlie Pickett. This is a man who has been very, very influential on me. He is the king of gee-tar rock of South Florida. Him and Johnny Sticks were probably the two biggest influences of my life besides my dad. This is the man that taught me that you don’t have to be a punk to be a punk that you could actually listen to good old fashioned rock and roll. Reaffirmed my appreciation for the Stones. This is the man that I gave up promoting concerts to go on the road with because I believe in his music. This is the man, Charlie Pickett, all you bow down.

Charlie: Oh god. Stop. I’m just gonna introduce him then because that’s ridiculous.

Richard: No, no, go to Bill.

Charlie: Listen, I don’t know where Bill Ashton started from. I’d been down to his house. It was down in south Miami. The first time I knew of Bill was he was writing for the Miami Herald. When you’d go back to his house, you’d see he has records that go back way so far deep it’s ridiculous. Bill’s about 51, so you know he was into music so much more than when I first met him in 1981. He was a writer for the Miami Herald. He did his due diligence when he was writing. He wrote about the bands that were big in the nationwide bands, but he also came down in the same column while he was talking about Foreigner or whatever, he was also talking about local bands with no sense of condescension.

Then he moved to Atlanta and started on the business side of The Chant, started Safety Net records with Johnson and released one of our records, the last one we did in 1988, ummmm, you know, tried to make the business side move at the same time he was trying to do the art side of it, so you know …

Jimmy playing bass
with Charlie Pickett, 1981

Bill: Jim Johnson started out - he did great photos of a lot of the bands that were the scene. He’s a musician, he’s a businessman. He was my partner with Safety Net records and a great bass player and a booster of the scene I guess you would say. A guy that has been there at the right time.

Charlie: Nicest guy in rock and roll.

Jeff: And he kept everything. (laughter)

Walter: Did he play with any good bands?

Bill: He played with the Chant who made a couple of albums. And the Eggs. And the DT Martyrs.

Jeff: He was the temporary bassist for the Eggs.

Richard: And he did stand in work for Nick Nolte.

Jim: Thank you Bill. And to my left is Cameron Cohick, an esteemed lawyer now in Washington, DC. But he started off when we all met him here. He came in second to another fellow who started writing about the scene in Ft. Lauderdale. His name was Kenny Schleger.

Cameron: Schleger was my predecessor.

Jim: When Kenny left we thought, oh no, we’re going to get somebody new and he’s not going to write about it. He’s gonna go, "I really don’t care because you know Foreigner rules." (laughter) So all of a sudden we come to find out that it’s like 190,000 degrees that he’s even more into it than Kenny was. He just was awesome. He was an incredible booster. He wrote incredible things. His language, his writing style was next to nobody’s.

Cameron Cohick

Walter: It was a reason to buy the Sun Sentinel.

Jim: Right, the only reason. And we all became very, very close friends. Although we’ve all lost touch with each other, you know, I still all everybody here and around are still very close in my heart as this fellow is today. And he always used to ask me first for pictures before he went scouting for promotional stills so it had a local flair and he would always use them.

Cameron: Can’t beat Jim’s photos. To my left Walter Cz, Walter Czachowski. I might need a little help with this because I think most people here know Walter better than I do. I remember Walter from my time in 1980-82 here as a great part of the scene. The leader of a group called The Essentials. I’ve always been a big fan of their record Fast Music in a Slow Town. I also remember Walter as a great artist. He did at least the cover for The Land that Time Forgot album that Leslie put out on Open. I think you did God Punishes the Eat, too.

Walter: Yeah, I did.

Cameron: I’m sure there are lots of others that are slipping my mind right now, but Walter did an enormous number of things on the scene and continues today to be a big part of the scene.

Walter: Gosh, I’m blushing.

Walter Czachowski
Photo: Jill Kahn

Charlie: Jimmy, why don’t you pick up because after Cameron left, there’s the whole Chant thing, which was mach 2 because the Essentials … I’ll finish it. The Essentials were a decent, hard, fast punk band. Very good, nothing you know, just great, you went there, you had fun, you got it.

When he started The Chant he rethought his approach 100% and came up with this melodic, interweaving guitars, interweaving visual sense in the lyrics so instead of just (slapping hands together), here’s what I’m saying and you understand it, you had to listen, you had to think about what he was saying and you had to follow. You needed to listen to the record three or four times. It wasn’t like it was opaque. It was just you had to listen to it a bit. And the interweaving was brilliant. And frankly, the first and second Chant record are both not to be excelled. They’re fabulous, absolutely fabulous. It’s hard to top it.

Walter: Thank you. Please, that’s enough. Speaking of not to be excelled, without Leslie, without Ted Gottfried putting together Open Records, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now, because everybody that’s here saw these little ads in the magazine for this weird little record store in Deerfield Beach that had the records we were looking for. Oh my god, ya know, and sure enough by going up there, you were immediately in touch with all these other people and it just became the hub. It was the core. You had to drive a long way to get to the Deerfield store. It was worth every $0.59 gallon of gas we bought. I don’t know what more to say...

Bill: They put out records…

Walter: They put out records, they had shows at the store with The Velvet Underground day, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the great folk scare of 1985, yes.

Richard: They promoted so many shows, I mean without Open Records…it was my channel to get everybody to know...

Charlie: The daily updates of who was playing when and where - (all chiming in) Song and Dance.

Walter: I did the button for that too.

Leslie: Yes, you did. Walter was our great artist. And to my left is Richard Shelter. Richard Shelter came around in 1980...

Richard: I came down in 1978, but I started the shows in like '81.

The Preachers, Richard Shelter (left)

Leslie: 1981, ok, passionate promoter of the scene, passionate about music, all kinds of music. But it’s gotta have heart and that’s what Richard’s about. It’s gotta have heart, deep meaning, but a groovy, good time, ya know, and that’s what he promoted. He loved the bands, he got bands that we would never have seen. He got The Gun Club to come down to south Florida. We were all like out of our minds - couldn’t believe it. And once he found Flynn’s it was like the gates just flew open and we saw band after band after band. Richard would drive us crazy, but we loved him for it anyway because …

Walter: You have to remember how hard it was to get bands to come this extra like 500 miles south.

Leslie: That’s right because as we said, as you notice our geography of Florida, we are at the very end and to make it worth the band’s while, they have to have at least two or three gigs in the state to even make it down that way, but somehow Richard convinced, them…

Richard: Later on I’ll tell you how I bribed them to get down here…

Leslie: But Richard was a man of his word, always constantly promoting, constantly straight arrow, integrity, love of music and not only that but once he saw all these bands that loved music, he wanted to get up on stage and sing, so he did. He was the lead singer of The Preachers.

Richard: To the chagrin of most of the scene.

Leslie: And you know it was great. So Richard is definitely an integral part and wonderful to still know you.

Richard: Thank you Leslie, (both laughing). Where do we begin? We should talk about the 1970s or something, you know? Start out with the very, very beginning of the struggles with Finders, the old places, before even my time because I was in a dumb cover band called, Sluggo and I used to play Tight Squeeze and I got pictures to show you and they’re kind of embarrassing, but the point is that even at Tight Squeeze, I remember rolling in, I used to hang out there, because I played there and I walked in one day and of course I saw The Cichlids, like all of us. We saw the Cichlids open for the Pretenders in '78 so that’s probably a good year to start, but I want to make a point that in '79 I did on an off night go to Tight Squeeze and saw at least one or maybe two of the early Eat gigs with Eddie and the braids and the collar and I remember, you gotta understand I was like a young punk rocker but I still looked like Roger Daltrey and I’m like, I see the Eat and I’m like (stares) I was at the bar and by the time they were on their third song I’m like, "Who are these guys, I want to be like these guys."

Cameron: What did they sound like back then? As I remember the Eat they sorta played faster and faster as they went on.

The Eat

Richard: Different than anyone else, number one. We gotta be very clear. You gotta put it in the context of the time. It’s easy for us to look back at the Eat and go, "Of course they shoulda been great, they shoulda been brilliant." But you gotta remember the context of the times. This is even before the underground of punk was embraced in the 1980s. We’re talking about late '70s, so we’re talking about, with all due respect to the headliners of tomorrow’s show like The Kids and Tight Squeeze, The Eat were nothing like those guys. They were nothing like any band that you would see in the neighborhood. And then Charlie came along and then…

Cameron: I’m just curious how the Eat were compared to the Eat that I knew of like 1980, '81, '82, when you saw them in '78, '79?

Richard: I wish I could give you a better, more clear memory. All I remember is just having like (makes face as in awe) because you gotta understand they would have a crappy opening band and some cover band and then The Eat would come on and then later would be like Slyder or The Kids and it’s like, "Who the hell are these guys?" It was like a pickle in the middle of oranges. It was weird.

Bill: It was fast and it was kind of rockabilly.

Cameron: Yeah, because Eddie played in country bands before.

Bill: Yeah, it was just fast. They were the first ones that were doing punk rock and writing their own songs.

Walter: The first time I ever saw Eddie O’Brien I walked up to him after the show and said, "Bill Kirchen, right?" Bill Kirchen was the guitarist for Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen.

He says, "You fucker. Don’t tell anybody that." I busted him.

Leslie: When I first saw them, the image I got from them was totally independent, they were the most humorous band. I mean they cracked you up left and right, they were funny.

Walter: Funny without being a joke.

Leslie: Yes. They were serious about it.

Richard: It was witty. Part of the humor was that you were getting the joke but most of the bar wasn’t.

Leslie: And you don’t know why because it was pretty straight forward. I mean, it was join in. It was sort of a band that really wanted everybody to join in together with them and also …

Walter: Or fuck ya.

Leslie: Yeah, doesn’t matter.

Bill: Sort of like didn’t care. If you didn’t like them, we don’t care.

Leslie: Which was the fun part of it, but also they owe such a debt to the Ramones as well because it was simple. Simple, simple, simple. You know, three chords, quick verses.

Charlie: More chord changes.

Leslie: Oh, of course more chord changes. Of course. And different chords.

Charlie: It wasn’t a pattern you were expecting.

Leslie: It wasn’t a pattern, but it was quick.

Cameron: It had that same sort of speed, in your face kinda thing.

Jimmy: My favorite thing about them later on was that they did have those 1 minute, 12 second songs and they were really quick and they didn’t have your normal thing but you got a blazing 14 second lead that would just rip your head off that nobody was doing. But people in some of the other, bigger, pretty boy cover bands would stand up there and swirl their hair around and do this stuff and would just be moronic. And then Eddie would come up and just go la,la,nehr,nehr,nehr (emulates playing guitar) and then I’d just fall to the ground.

Walter: There was a night where Ted Gottfried, and another friend Ted, and the three of us at the Premier AOR Club and there was like seven people in the club, you know, one of those Tuesday nights or something. And Eddie’s blazing through a set and the three of us plant ourselves deadstock in front of Eddie, this far in front of him (makes small measurement with hands) and the stage is like this high (makes small measurement with hands), so whatever and every time he’d take a solo, we’d all take our fingers and point at his hands (all laughing). Ohhh, look at that, look what he’s doing.

(break while food is served)

Cameron: I was really scared of Johnny Salton.

Charlie: Oh yeah, Salton was the scariest one.

Cameron: Salton’s such a nice guy, but back then he seemed like such a badass….

Charlie: He had a little rat tail first on.

Leslie: What was his first band, The Boys?

All: The Girls!

Leslie: The Girls (joyously-writing in her notebook)

The Reactions
Photo: Errol "Spike" Waltzer

Charlie: First time I saw him was in the Reactions. Kenny Lindahl and I looked to each other and both said that guy’d kill ya and not even think about it five minutes later.

Cameron: He looked remorseless.

Bill: Whoever introduced me to Salton in probably the very, very early days of the Reactions, whoever introduced me, I was assured that he was a pushover. And so I was never scared of him.

Cameron: Isaac probably told you that.

Bill: It probably was, and Isaac I was scared of. I thought Isaac was always gonna kick my ass.

Cameron: For good reason.

Leslie: Yeah.

Bill: He probably would have.

Cameron: I thought Suppa was kind of a tough guy too, but he wasn’t either really.

Walter: He went to jail later on.

Bill: Yeah, but it was for gambling or something. Or related to construction.

Screaming Sneakers
Photo: Richard Shelter

Richard: (stands up to distribute packs of photos) The first of three surprises that I brought for this group today. What a lot of you don’t remember is that I drove a cab here in Hollywood, here in Dania, here in Hollywood for years, from 1979 until I started 27 Birds and I always had a camera on me. So, we’re gonna talk more about the Eat, but we can’t forget it was … The Eat were up here and Z-Cars were on South and the Screaming Sneakers were in the North Miami Beach area, so I went to all the gigs and I took photos. Here’s the Front in Coconut Grove, here’s Critical Mass at FAU, here’s Screaming Sneakers. Guys, please feel free to go through them…and Z-Cars. Here’s Future Risk, you were talking about Future Risk, cause I was friends with those guys. Remember when the Vapors played the Button South.

Leslie: Yes, yes.

Richard: I took pictures of the Vapors at Button South. Somewhere I think there’s a picture of Isaac whipping his dick out onstage.

Charlie: Nooooooo!

Bill: Well, there’d almost have to be…

Leslie: How unusual.

Richard: It might be in my album at home though. It may not be here.

Walter: I was at that Vapors show.

Richard: The lead singer got mad at the bouncer.

Walter: And almost clubbed him with the mic stand. The big, heavy end.

Richard: The lead singer was about as wide as a microphone stand. He was this little, weasely guy. There’s a picture in there and it’s amazing. He was gonna take on this bouncer, the south Florida gorilla bouncer. He was gonna take this guy on. It was hilarious. That was the first time I really saw that whole English, "I don’t care how big you are, I’m gonna fuck you up." The first time I had seen that and I was like amazed because here in South Florida if we saw a big gorilla … remember we were all used to it, you know because they didn’t understand us and the security would always be fucking with us. It was a mixed gig that was straight band and punk alternative. We always had to deal with security one way or the other. Somebody was not gonna allow us to do this or that.

Walter: The Agora guys roughed me up one night. Iggy Pop, no it was a Reactions show. I’m jumping up and down like an idiot like you’re supposed to and of course the frat boys come there and they see us bouncing and they think, oh well, this is a reason to fight. So elbows and …

Richard: How many times at a gig did they think, "Oh they’re fighting." It’s the illusion of violence. It’s not real violence, it’s the illusion. These guys all know each other. It’s a celebration of teenage angst. Pick your metaphor. Whatever.

But guys, let’s not just talk about The Eat. I know you guys are all prejudice because you guys are all from Broward county, and you’re like, "Really we’re too cool because we’re very punk," but I loved The Front. I was in Coconut Grove during that time. That’s why I started 27 Birds. The Front rocked, dude.

The Front

Charlie: But let me address The Front. You’re right. Part of the prejudice, not prejudice, let’s put it this way: The reason the Front didn’t catch on in Broward was because they came in here with, they wouldn’t talk to you backstage, basically. They were not the kind of guys you’d share gear with. And then they’d go walking out there and they’d do that machine gun staccato, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, you know, and so you’re sitting there going, "Why would I wanna like you. You’re not a stunning band, you’re a good band." Definitely with five-six pretty damn good songs, five or six that you could ignore in an instant, but they didn’t try … let’s put it this way, is it the kiss of death not to try to be liked? No, it’s not. The Eat didn’t try to be liked. The Cichlids tried to be disliked at points. But for some reason, The Front did not make it in Broward and they still, to this day, resent it. Because on Limestone Lounge (message board) they’re still resenting that.

The Front

Richard: Charlie, let me respond to that and I’ll tell you why the reason was, because what you guys didn’t see, what I saw because I lived in Coconut Grove … remember the old I Ching building? I’m sure it’s torn down, I haven’t been down to Coconut Grove in 20 years … I lived above the I Ching building and I stopped driving a cab, I started managing 27 Birds but I still needed a little day job. Remember the old-fashioned video arcades? We had a video arcade in the bottom of the I Ching building and I worked there so I was managing 27 Birds at night, I was living in the I Ching building and I was managing the video arcade underneath and The Front, before I started 27 Birds, The Front, there was this open plaza bar in Coconut Grove and The Front would play like once a month on a Friday-Saturday night. Once a month they would come in and take over for Friday-Saturday night. Guys, they would pack it. I mean, we’re talking about Coconut Grove hippies getting into their local Devo band and I have pictures here, dude those gigs were amazing. People that, I’ll be quite honest, never came to see the rest of the … these were people that would not leave Coconut Grove to go up to see The Eat, they would not go up to see Charlie, they would not go up to see anybody. They weren’t part of the scene that came later, but for that little shining moment, oh my god, The Front owned Coconut Grove. They could walk around Coconut Grove and go, "Dude, when you playin’ again?" One of the guitar players lived down the hall from me in the I Ching building and I forget, I feel so bad because I forgot his name, but, we were like pretty good friends, and you gotta understand, they were local celebrities and they did not treat the Coconut Grove crowd badly, I mean maybe it was a little like that’s 'cause you love us, so we’re gonna be nice to ya and maybe a lot of what you say is true, but I guess maybe they assumed that you guys would like them like the Coconut Grove crowd liked them.

Bill: I think that’s part of it. They always had a good crowd. They had a very rabid following that would go to see them all the time, but in my opinion, they were not so genius that they could be excused for being a little stand-offish and be a little too obviously ambitious. They were always trying to get the opening gig. It was like so and so are coming to town, oh The Front already got the opening gig. And that’s a perception, but that’s my perception.

Richard: I think a lot of the radio people or record company people that were in South Florida lived around Coconut Grove so if they knew of a local band that they were going to stick on the bill, we’ll get The Front, because they already had …

Bill: And they knew they were consistent. They knew they could work a crowd.

Richard: Yes, they were very, very professional. That’s part of that maniacal devo-esque side of them.

Charlie: Let me drop back one year at least in the Broward side. The name Bobby Mascaro is the only reason that all of us are together, the only reason we all met. Mascaro is a lot of things: he’s mean, he’s nice, he’s generous, he’s cheap.

Bill: He’s full of himself…

Robert
Mascaro

Charlie: He’s full of himself, and yet doesn’t have a lot of self-confidence in many ways.

Bill: He was visionary in many ways.

Charlie: Oh, absolutely visionary. Bobby Mascaro decided at some point, for some reason that he thought Broward and local music could start and he thought he could start something. He saw a girl at a club off Sterling Road and State Road 7 … this girl Debbie, who became Debbie Mascaro, Debbie Cichlid. He saw her in about late 1978. I’ll leave it to someone else to try to figure out exactly the thing, but they worked a couple of incarnations with sometimes all guys, sometimes all girls and Mascaro had been associated with if not managing the Z-Cars, so he had some idea of what to do, but he would put Z-Cars into a club some nights there would be nobody there but us. Some nights there would be quite a few people at Rollo’s say, in South Miami. But Mascaro said, "I think we can make original rock go."

Mascaro considered himself a Svengali, he played the role of Svengali, mean Svengali and Rasputin in there too. But he took an 18-year-old girl and another 18-year-old girl and two 19-year-old boys and said, "You’re gonna do what I say, the way I say to do it, and we’re gonna make this fly." And he took them and he browbeat the living hell out of ‘em, "You’ll do it my way, the way I say to do it, exactly the way I say to do it."

Now that’s the set-up. In 1979 he takes them into Tight Squeeze club, he takes them into Rollo’s opening for the Z-Cars and people like that and he said to them, "When you walk into a club, you do not look at anyone else, you walk straight to the back room if there’s a backstage. If there’s not a backstage, I’m gonna cordon off with tables and chairs a space for you. Look at no one, talk to no one."

The Cichlids

They followed that formula and after a half a dozen shows, people went, "What in the hell is that?" Debbie Mascaro had a secret and that was, ya know, everybody’s heard it a million times from me, is that she went out and she tried 100% on every show, break a string, I’m trying 100%, everything’s outta tune, I’m trying 100%, everything’s going great, I’m trying 100%, everything, every time was 100% show.

She never let it down, never said, "Gee guys you know I’m really sorry about tonight’s show, I’m outta tune, blah, blah, blah," she always cranked it, always. You gotta another maniacal figure in Bobby Tak which you know you got like goodness and, you know what is it, light and darkness, goodness and badness, ying and yang, whatever silly business you wanna put on it. Tak was the heavyweight, she was the, "I’m your friend and I’m a girl you’d like to meet and I’m also probably pretty exciting." And Tak was "I’m heavy, I’m hard." They started from nothing - from an audience of zero and built in a year an audience of one hundred and a half. By the time January 1980 came around, they were pulling a hundred and a half people to a local show all by themselves.

Walter: You didn’t miss a Cichlids show.

Charlie: Oh absolutely not. You did not miss a Cichlids show. People would dress up like mad. The temperature in the club would go from 74 to 84 to 94. They pounded it. Debbie was … I’ve never seen somebody burn up so many calories ever. I mean, you think Sammy Hagar runs around? She ran around with purpose, she danced to her own music with purpose, she poured it on, constantly.

Walter: I watched her with blood all over the front of her guitar a number of times.

Charlie: Blood all over the front of the guitar many times and I’m just saying, that’s the set-up chronologically for at least the Broward crowd is that in 1979 The Cichlids went out there and they had cranked it up and that’s where I’ll kind of leave it because by January of '80 at least into the consciousness of the people of Broward, the Broward crowd, January of '80 is where Eat, Reactions and the rest of it poured on, The Essentials, because the Premier Club, Cameron came on to the news, and that’s the way I see at least sort of the beginning at least the way I slid into it.

Richard: I gotta ask Cameron, because at least by now at this point, the local media is starting to become aware of what’s going on. You got any feedback at this point? What was the local print, because I know there’s got to be something different, "Like, there’s a local band actually making it? There was a sense of like, "Oh, this can’t be for real. Let’s just send one of the boys to see what this is all about."

Cameron: I came down here in the spring of 1979. At the time, the Fort Lauderdale News had no pop critic at all that I knew of. The Sentinel, which was the morning alternative, had Greg Otis, who I thought was pretty good. Greg was kind of eccentric. I remember he said the B-52s first album was the best album of the '70s and their second album was the best album of the '80s. They came out in '79 and '80 so that was it for him. When Greg couldn’t get an interview with somebody, he’d interview himself about what it was like to try to get an interview. So I thought Greg was pretty good. But the first critic for The News was Schleger. He started in like the fall of '79, so I think he was writing when The Cichlids did their Halloween show that year. Kenny started paying attention to the local groups and we were pretty good friends, he told me about it. At the time, I was working for The Herald, actually I was in sports at The Herald. But I know Kenny from fall of '79 to spring of '80 approached things kind of the way Charlie described – writing about national groups but also paying attention to the local groups and treating them as worthy of respect. I think he’s the first person that told me about Charlie, the first person that told me about The Cichlids. I remember meeting all the Cichlids before I ever saw them play at some party, someplace, I actually have no recollection of where that was, but obviously I talked to Debbie for a long time and wanted to go see them. As you say, she’s a very appealing figure, and Tak was a little bit more the heavy. "Why do they call you Tak?"

"I got a big head and I’m sharp." (laughter around the table).

Richard: I never heard that before - that’s a good one.

Barry, Charlie
Barry Seiver, Charlie Pickett

Cameron: Yep, yep (nodding head). I mean it seemed like a reasonable question. I came back and took over in May of 1980 and I think, as I remember the state of play at that time, The Eat had played The Agora and spit on the stage or made that joke about we’re the only south Florida punk band with no jews and no queers, or whatever it was. They were banned from The Agora for that reason. I think the first of any of these people I saw was Charlie playing at the Agora. I think he was doing The Other Side of This Life, the Fred Neil song, and I just remember thinking, well, if this is the punk scene, this looks great to me. Because this is the kind of stuff I’m into. It sounded like the Velvet Underground playing Fred Neil, basically. That band was Charlie, Barry Elliot, Kenny was the bass player, and I think the drummer was Leigh Stoner. Anyway, I thought that was a great band. And then The Cichlids, I guess, at the time were in a bit of a state of flux because I think Allan Portman had just left or been eased out, but I don’t think Barry Seiver had joined yet, because he was still playing with you.

Walter: Yeah, the whole Cichlids thing played out within a year. Didn’t it, basically?

Charlie: Yeah, 14 months.

Walter: Incredible bolt of lightning. And then it was gone.

Charlie: I’m stopping with Portman at 14 months.

Richard: Ok. Left turn. I want to talk to Bill. He’s (pointing at Cameron) up in Fort Lauderdale, you’re in Dade county, are you covering The Front, are you covering Z-Cars.

Walter: Not getting the same kind a support from The Herald that Cameron got from The Sentinel.

Richard: I used to go into The Herald all the time. I used to see you…I wanna talk about before I came on the scene, it was like …

Bill: Steve Redcliff was doing the pop music stuff.

Cameron: He was a TV writer though, mostly.

Bill: That’s what he wanted to do. He got tired of doing the pop music stuff. In fact when he ended up moving to Dallas after doing the TV writing, he gave me a big box of records. He goes, here, you can have these records and there was like some Funkadelic and some Rush, that’s all I remember. That’s how I got my Rush records.

Cameron: Did Redcliff ever do any pop stuff?

Bill: He had done it earlier. He liked doing it, but he always wanted to be a movie critic, which he became. He was my editor of the TV book. When he was doing the TV book, right after he was getting tired of the pop beat, and I was getting to do a few pop stories, and when Redcliff left I got the job. But the guy that was the editor of the entertainment section didn’t really care for any of that stuff so it was hard to get the space in the paper. And so you had to fight for almost everything and I remember when I got a feature on the Cichlids with a picture, it was a big deal because (under his breath), "Ahh, they’re a local band, punk rock."

Richard: "Why is that in there?" (imitating editor)

Bill: Exactly. I was not covering the Z-Cars aside from an occasional paragraph or they’re playing here because, as I said the news hole was so small for anything like that and aside from getting a local band or a big concert in which a local band was involved you were also trying to get a story about The Romantics coming to be the first new wave band to play the Agora, which was a big deal. Or something like that on a more national level. And there just was not a lot of space for it. At the time The Herald was doing dance coverage, plays, movies, everything else and their perception was music was pretty far down the scale.

Richard: A little sidebar here - you guys remember that late 1970s, early '80s before we organized our punk scene per se, such as it was, whoever was booking the Agora was clocked in. Because that’s where I saw Iggy with Clem Burke, that’s where I saw the Vapors, that’s where I saw B-52s, that’s where I saw The Busboys, The Members. All these shows and you’d look at the schedule in the local Rag and there’d be like this cover band, this cover band, The Busboys, this cover, this cover, Iggy Pop.

Bill: (Punk rock pioneers) 999

Leslie: Yeah, 999

Richard: Really?

Leslie: Who played Homicide first and last song, I remember. U2 played The Agora. And the Ramones for awhile seemed to come down about every six months or so. Seemed like they were coming down quite a bit.

Richard: What was the club where the Police played? The one on 441.

Bill: Fatcats.

Richard: Somebody was plugged in at the Agora. The Police at Fatcats, this and that.

Cameron: Did you know Bob Zinser? He might have been the guy that was doing it?

Richard: Rings a bell, but I don’t remember.

Cameron: Some of that was because the Agora was a chain.

Leslie: Yeah, it was. Because it was up in Ohio and down here.

Richard: It had to be. It’s kind of like nowadays on the west coast where I’m from now, you’ll see like someone cool but smaller, like from a George Thorogood, to a hip-hop artist, will come and play House of Blues Vegas, House of Blues San Diego, House of Blues Hollywood. We benefited from the fact that all of the sudden here’s Iggy Pop in our back yard with Clem Burke.

Bill: People were very excited when the Agora opened because we knew about the Cleveland one and the Atlanta one and so if they played the Cleveland Agora and the Atlanta Agora, they almost always played the one in Hallandale. Seven times out of eight.

Richard: All those amazing gigs at that place.

Cameron: NRBQ.

Richard: All right I gotta stand up - since I’m the only Dade county guy here, well, Leslie…

Bill: I’m from Dade.

Johnny, Charlie Sticks
Johnny, Charlie, Sticks
Photo: Jim Johnson

Jeff: (interrupting) I’ve got a question, since Charlie’s not here now (Charlie took a brief break) … if Charlie wasn’t so self-critical, and if he was willing to be a little bit more pushy, and really go and make the effort other than to just rock the crowd, how big could he have been?

Jimmy: Bigger than George Thorogood.

Walter: Much, much more.

Richard: Let’s put it this way: he would have been at least as big as George Thorogood and I traveled with him around the country and, I don’t wanna say this with Charlie around.

Jeff: He’s not around…

Richard: Yeah, he’ll see this later. All right (looking into the camera) Charlie, here’s the thing and I always used to bug you about it when I was on the road, and he got better at it when he was on the road all that time, but what separates Charlie from a George Thorogood and a Jason and the Scorchers and a Georgia Satellites is what endears Charlie to us here at this table, the scrappiness, the Velvet Underground, the Johnny Salton, "What the fuck is he gonna do?" ok - we find that appealing because we’re punks, but the mass audience...

Walter: The spontaneity.

Richard: The spontaneity - the mass audience - you go talk to the Georgia Satellites today and I betcha they don’t wanna play Battleship Chains ever again in their life. But that’s what the mass media crowd…

Leslie: They want safety, they want …

Cameron: Predictability.

Leslie: Thank you. Predictability.

Richard: I heard my local WSHE radio station play it and you’re gonna see them in concert and they’re gonna play it exactly like it sounds on the record with a little variation.

(Charlie walks back in)

Bill: To bring up George Thorogood again, he did a tour and he played the Agora.

Richard: (to Charlie) We’re comparing you to the peers of your time.

Bill: Thorogood did a tour where he played every state in America. He played 50 dates. And I’ll bet that all 50 of those...

Richard: Not during baseball season… (laughing)

Bill: Not during baseball season. I bet that all 50 of those were good gigs. I bet at that point the band was really tight, people knew that there were seven or eight songs they were going to get - Move it on Over, you know, and that is sorta what it takes to reach that level. Obviously Thorogood had Bad to the Bone, those songs that got on the radio ..

Richard: And every movie since.

Bill: Which is also what it takes, but then there’s say, Alex Chilton. Great songwriter, really talented - doesn’t care. He’ll do covers. I’ve seen him fantastic, I’ve seen him bad.

Walter: Let me jump in here. Talk about spontaneity - there was a show you did (pointing at Charlie) at the Sync, Sync Studios, where they had that big room that they put together.

Richard: With the big pole in the middle of the floor.

Charlie
Charlie Pickett
Photo: Jim Johnson

Walter: Whatever it was, it was all black and you were doing Smokestack Lightnin’ that night and you told them to turn the lights out and you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face and these guys are blowing the doors off the place, just, my hair’s standing on end, not that I could see it, but it was just amazing. I’ve wanted so many times to recreate that moment in some other situation, some other context and you just don’t have it. There’s no place you can get that dark. But hearing that, just being washed over in that sound and it was great in total darkness and being surrounded by, again because it was a small place, you knew everybody around you so you knew your wallet was going to be there when they turned the lights back on. But it was great.

Richard: You couldn't pull that off at the House of Blues in New Orleans or the House of Blues in Hollywood.

Walter: It was absolutely magic.

Charlie: Thank you, Walter.

Richard: Basically we were all talking about how, you know, Jeff asked the question, why didn’t you make it big? (Charlie laughs) And basically, I’m gonna tell you now to your face so you don’t hear it later on tape and I have to get shit from you later is just that the thing that endeared you to us, the spontaneity, the raggedness, the Salton-esque of it. Some nights you’d be in a good mood, some nights - we toured so much together, Charlie - so you remember how some nights there’d be a crowd that was there and we’re not even talking about sophisticated crowds, we’re talking about, sometimes we played joints in the south and they didn’t know who the fuck Charlie Pickett is, but he kicks into American Travelust and he kicks into Please Don’t Touch and he kicks into Overtown and the rednecks drinkin’ Budweiser in the back are going (in southern accent) "Yee-haw, who is that band, god damn, they’re good." So it’s not a matter of sophistication. It was a matter of just rah-rah-rah and then we’d go to other cities and the hip crowd of that city is showing up because it’s Charlie Pickett.

Why Charlie didn’t break into the big leagues? There’s a million reasons for that, but I think that it’s the thing that endeared you to us in your style of play also in a sense hampered you because the bigger boys of your ilk and your era and of your forte - we’re comparing you to Jason and the Scorchers and Thorogood and Jeff Healey and all the guys of that era, who were at the same time you were, but they had clean lines, they were, like Bill was saying, Thorogood, you know…

Walter: Well-defined…

Richard: Well-defined, very clean, you knew you were gonna show up, you were gonna hear the song that’s on the record and that’s the way it’s gonna sound …

Walter: Everybody would be in tune …(laughter around the table)

Z-Cars

Richard: Can we talk for one minute about Z-Cars? I have a great Z-Cars story. All right because we really have got to give them props because they’re playing tomorrow night. And guys, I’m from New York and let me just say this one thing. Summer of Sam (NYC serial killer) the summer of 1977, I was sub-leasing an apartment on Bleeker Street from this gay friend of mine. He’s a porn actor, go find The Opening of Misty Beethoven, he’s the waiter in the middle. Pete Fishbeck, I remember his name. What do gay men do in the ‘70s, but they go to Greece. He had this beautiful apartment on Bleeker Street, ahh sorry, 24 Cornelius Street, just off Bleeker. So I lived in the West Village and I used to go to the Rocky Horror Picture show all the time. Before you guys met me I was in the New York scene in '77, I was in this stupid, terrible, ugly, androgynous cover band called Cute. I used to wear a fur coat...

Charlie: The name does it alone…

Richard: Yeah, the name does it alone. We played some showcases at Max’s Kansas City. It was horrible.

Jeff: Is there any audio of that?

Peter Patrick

Richard: No, fortunately no record whatsoever of that. But, we were part of the original Rocky Horror Picture Show crew. Fast-forward, I move to Miami, it’s 1978 and I’m living on South Beach with this nice little Jewish girl, Kara, and we used to go to the Coconut Grove Cinema all the time. Halloween, I think if you look on the calendar of ’78, it was a Friday or Saturday night, and it was gonna be, for Halloween the Coconut Grove Cinema was going to run the Rocky Horror Picture Show and me and Kara walked to the door and I hear a band playing and I asked the ticket taker, "There’s a band playing?"

"Oh yeah, we got a band playing." Oh great and this and that. And I hear this very English accent. Now you gotta understand (rolling up shirt sleeve to show tattoo) I’m a very, very big Who fan, this is from Quadrophenia.

I hear this very English voice over a microphone, over a sound system going, (in English accent) "Alright, we’re gonna do a song by The Who called My Wife."

And it was like (breathes in gasping manner) and Kara was like "Go, go, go." And I ran down and by the time they got to the very first (singing) "My Life’s"…I’m standing in front like a puppy dog and that was the first time I saw Z-Cars was exactly Halloween ’78 Coconut Grove Theatre. Why did Z-Cars not make it big?

Cameron: Was that around the time they started playing?

Charlie: That’s the time I’m thinking, yeah.

Bill: 1978 would be, yes.

Charlie: Z-Cars - did you see them early on?

Jimmy: I saw them with the Cichlids at the Tight Squeeze Club probably the summer of 1979.

Bill: That might be the first time I saw them, but they’d been around for a year and I knew people that liked them before that.

Richard: See - Dade County - I used to go see them at Rollo’s all the time.

Charlie: Z-Cars was a transition band like Cheap Trick. In-between old time rock and punk rock, new wave rock …

Bill: As was Critical Mass.

Charlie: Absolutely.

Richard: Kinks and Who meet the Jam. So they’re in-between.

Charlie: They had a fabulous front man. Absolutely a great front man who was a natural or at least appeared to be and then they had a great windmilling guitar player, they had Marshalls, they had handsome people, but they all wore their rooster cuts, the Rod Stewart rooster cut so even though people would like ‘em they didn’t translate into, what, punk rock or the newer wave rock and so…

Richard: And actually their following down in South Beach was not a punk, alternative following at all. They found a big following down at Rollo’s in Coconut Grove among straight rock and roll people. That crowd did not translate into what you guys were doing in Broward.

Charlie: They were a transition band.

Walter: They did a lot of covers.

Bill: You’re right. People that liked them - they would not have gone to see The Eat.

Cameron: Their record’s not that punk, that 45…

Richard: No, it’s not.

Charlie: They were very, very, very entertaining.

Leslie: And they fit in, they fit into that whole scene. It was not a large translation to go from seeing Z-Cars to seeing The Eat. There was definitely a link between them because why, it was again, do-it-yourself, an independent spirit, make it happen, play the music you like and enjoy it.

Charlie: That’s a good point. They did not play covers of the day. They did not play Photograph by J. Geils.

Bill: But I think like a lot of bands it’s sort of geographic. Maybe if they’d been in New York or LA doing the same thing with that kind of an act.

Richard: They would have been at least as big as The Godfathers. At least.

Bill: They would have gotten a record deal like the Sinceros or a lot of other bands that were not as good. (laughter around the table) How many records came out where you went "There’s the big new band on Epic or Polydor." and you’d go like why was this…

Leslie: Or Sire, or whatever.

Walter: The Fabulous Poodles. They were better than the Sinceros.

Charlie: Now I like them.

Bill: They did a great Everly Brothers cover too.

Charlie: Chicago Boxcar (Boston Back)

Cameron: Work Shy

Charlie: Work Shy

Cameron: These bands were getting signed right and left.

Bill: Work Shy sounded like Once Bitten Twice Shy.

Richard: So you feel like there’s a clean distinction between the Dade County sound when we talk about The Front, Z-Cars, Cats on Holiday and the Coins.

Leslie/Charlie: No.

Richard: The bands I first had at 27 Birds because Charlie was really the first of the Broward County bands that I brought down to 27 Birds and your scene which was more punk, more alternative. Ours was like this weird hodge-podge scene in Dade County.

Bill: It was a weird hodge-podge scene, but because there were more venues there and because there was this sort of community, in other words Walter needed an amp and he might call Charlie, or Charlie, somebody can’t show up so he might call…

Charlie: Oh Jesus, if somebody broke a string a band member would run back, get his stuff, tune it, bring it back, take the old guitar, take it back, restring it and bring it back and give it back to him. (editor's note---which is pretty fucking amazing, when you think about it....)

Bill: I was living in Dade County for most of that period. I was living in Dade County up until late 1981 and then I was living in Broward, but my impression was that, and there’s nothing wrong with Z-Cars, I liked them, they were fine, but the impression was they were not part of the scene and sort of like the scene, where you’d go to Open Records and there’d be flyers for this band and you’d hang out and I’d meet Walter and you’d talk about this record that came out that week and where Z-Cars was just a band that played at a club and they were good, but that’s all they were.

Charlie: Really…

Bill: That was my impression.

Cameron: My impression when I started was that Critical Mass and Z-Cars both were a little more senior to like, you (pointing to Charlie), The Cichlids, The Eat.

Richard: It was the Rollo’s scene…

Cameron: And it sort of felt like they had a little bit of a head start yet they weren’t really making records as swiftly as you guys were and ultimately Critical Mass had an album.

Richard: They were content playing two sets a night at Rollo’s and getting good pay for that. You guys were struggling. Z-Cars and Critical Mass were getting paid to pack out Rollo’s.

Charlie: But both of them, at least Z-Cars I’m sure, has played many an empty club.

Leslie: And also, see that time too, that was that whole … the New York scene, the London scene coming back to us as punk, even though it started in New York. Being the American that I am, and they went over there and they’d translate it and made it into something and shipped it back over to us and the world went, "Oh, punk!" It just hit the whole country and our scene was part of that and it was connected by fanzines that came through because where could you get the news? MTV came along later.

Richard: Two words: Debbie Rage.

Leslie: Yeah, she brought a lot too, but...

Charlie: I hope she’s there tomorrow.

Leslie: No she won't be, she’s in Ireland. But there are key individuals. We haven’t even mentioned Dave Parsons. You know when Ted and I started the store up in Deerfield, we had a mutual friend named Jerry Moody and Jerry Moody said to us one day, "I want you to go with me and meet this couple."

And it was by the tone of his voice, I said, "Jerry just tell me it’s not an Amway meeting." (laughter around the table). Because Amway was very big at that time and my parents, my mother was an Amway rep, I knew the rap and just the words he used, it was like all the key words. But we went over there and on the way over to Dave’s house I said, "Just tell me he’s not in Amway."

So we opened the door and David Parsons and his wife Sam, Sarah is her real name, were there and the first words out of Dave’s mouth were, "Oh welcome, I’m so glad you could come to hear our Amway presentation". I just was like, I knew it.

But that lasted two seconds because Ted and I just looked at him and said, "I don’t think so."

Dave at his shop, Ratcage Records
on East 9th St. NYC, 1982 or 1983.
Photo: Nancy Breslow copyright 2003

And he went, "Ok." Because sprawled out in this apartment was every latest punk rock record that we had read about in NME when we could find it, New Musical Express, because Ted and I would shop down at the record stores in Dade which were Magic Minstrel, Twin Sounds and they were getting all the imports which is what we were so hungry for. And also for independent records as well, which we couldn’t find anywhere.

Walter: And your records didn’t smell like patchouli.

Leslie: Yeah, unfortunately.

Walter: That’s good.

Leslie: But we met Dave Parsons and Dave lived up in Boca Raton, thank you, way far north and that started it because Dave was …

Walter: Mouth of the Rat (magazine)…

Leslie: Well, he loved all the New York scene and the London scene and had the records and he started this fanzine called Mouth of the Rat, Boca Raton, Mouth of the Mouse actually, but Mouth of the Rat. He hand-wrote every word of that in script, in his printing.

Bill: Block letters.

Leslie: Block letters, the whole fanzine. He brought in the world news, the national news and the local news.

Walter: All on a Xerox.

Leslie: Yeah, newspaper.

Richard: Colored paper.

Leslie: Yeah, that’s true. Those were the first ones and he graduated to newspaper. But the whole thing also about Mouth of the Rat was the print and has also been talked about The Sun Sentinel and The Herald and then there was also radio. Radio at that time was both struggling but there were public stations. There was WLRN, WDNA, Eric Moss’s radio, BUS was still hanging around. Dave Parsons actually named the radio program that Ted and Eric Moss, the manager of The Eat and I started, that was called Radio Free Living Room. So that was Monday, from midnight to 2:00. That became Off The Beaten Path with Bob Slade, who was also a big mover and shaker back at that time. So you had the record store, you had the print, you had the radio and you had the bands. The bands would come play in the store and everything and it was just a whole community. That’s what I’m trying to bring out is that everybody talks about the bands helping each other, well the whole community was helping each other.

Richard: You guys ready to get into the 80s? Here’s what happened. I moved to Hollywood, I was trying to put a band together. I was doing your typical X thing you know, we’re desperate, moved from place to place, apartment to apartment. Finally I said, "Listen, I gotta get all my Miami stuff and put it all together in one box." Now the occasional nostalgic purveyance for a few minutes, I packed this box in about 1988 and I haven’t opened it. I have no idea what’s in here. We might find nude pictures of ex-girlfriends. Let’s put it in the middle, gentlemen, why don’t you all just grab a folder, knock yourself out, move all this crap out of the way, let’s have some fun.

All look thru tickets, flyers, etc. for awhile

Cameron: Should we try to sort of wrap this up?

Walter: What’s the conclusion?

Charlie: But we haven’t covered the mid-80s. You got The Eat which was absolutely stunning in ’80 and ’81. Eddie used to come out in his Catholic neck thing, what’s it’s called?

Walter: Cassock I think.

Eddie O'Brien

Charlie: Yeah, and he would come out and he’d play in that thing and believe it or not some nights he wouldn’t have underwear underneath it and the girls would know and they would yank it and tear it and it’d be there for everyone to see. Another night, talk about the madness at the Premiere Club. One night he’s up there playing and there’s oral sex going on right there, two rows in at the Premiere Club. And everyone’s around going, "Wow!"

Walter: And it led to a song.

Charlie: And it did lead to a song, but Eddie said, "I could barely play." The Eat were the absolute, without a doubt the wittiest band I’ve ever seen before or since. The Reactions shoulda been Green Day. They were better than Green Day

Bill: They were great.

Charlie: They preceded Green Day. They were better than Green Day.

Cameron: They cranked out song after song after song.

Charlie: Hummable! You could hum them all day, The Eat the same way, you could hum them all day long.

Bill: The Reactions were our Buzzcocks.

Charlie: Yeah, there you go. But they were different. They were also not trying to do the same thing.

Bill: No, they weren’t. But the hummability, the cleverness of the song.

Charlie: There was, for my money, a sort of suspension in 1983ish or 82ish. The Eat had more or less slowed way, way down. They’d gone into sort of a second tier which started with a song called Nixon’s Binoculars. It was the only Eat song, I don’t really like that one that much, ya know, I’ll be honest.

Cameron: Cotti’s drumming I thought was great on that one.

Charlie: Just for me, I went (throws up his hands), "Wow, that’s the only one I’ve never not instantly went, oh my god!"

Bill: It became one of my favorites. It was so different that when you first heard it you went, well…it’s clever, but yeah.

Leslie: It was their disco song.

Charlie: The Eat played in Fidel Castro costumes - all of them came out as Fidel one night, with cigars. The Eat did so many marvelous things. The Reactions always took themselves very, very seriously, always came out and did the same thing. The Cichlids went into phase two and then phase three, then they phased into Nouveau Reach. It never really caught fire. The Cichlids went up, they blew up in Gainesville. We went rolling out on the road and when we came back, the little lethargicness of 1983 had stopped and that’s when we came back and Walter’s Chant, we go walkin’ in there and there are women, not dozens, dozens of dozens of women in the club, having big time fun and Walter’s weaving stuff … when we left Walter was (singing) da,nah,nah,nah,nah, and I hate it. And then we come back and he’s Mr. I’m gonna take you on a journey...

Leslie: Paisley Underground.

Charlie: ...And we may come back and we may not. And we’re all going, "What in the world? How did all of the sudden this guy get it big?" You know, we’re going…

Walter: From watching you, man.

Charlie: Oh, no, I doubt it.

Walter: It’s true. It’s true.

The Chant, Electric Kool-Aid, Miami, 1985

Charlie: So, ummm, he had this genius guitar player who could also weave with Walter and this guy named Mike Patterson and god bless him, I don’t know where he is. And then they took off for Atlanta after Patterson quit the band. There’s a whole lot more story there than I know about. I had it all second hand. That’s the best I can do. I can tell you that Churchill’s came into existence probably about 1983 or ’84. Dave Daniels is a great figure, booked bands in there time and time again that didn’t ever do anything, but it was a great venue to play. He never told you what to play, never told you to turn down. On the other hand, the sound there is all drums and nothing else.

Walter: Is it still?

Charlie: Just about. It’s a great place though. Great attitude. That’s, in a nutshell, the best I can do to take it. The scene had stopped here. If I’m gonna …

Walter: We took off for Atlanta in ’86.

Charlie: That was the end of the local…

Walter: Everything had gone to hell. Churchill’s wasn’t open yet. Churchill’s opened like six months after we left.

Charlie: You left and Shelter left at about the same time. Leslie was the only thing still going on...

THE END