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"Straying From the Point IS the Point"
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Unless you were down on the early punk/post-punk/Psych Pscenes in Dallas, the name Mark Ridlen might not strike a chord. He fronted the celebrated Heavy Psych group, Lithium Xmas, for 12 years (a minor miracle, given the attrition rate of Dallas area bands, particularly ones with no commercial potential). The band has gone on to become a favorite among collectors, and recognized as leaders in the 80s-90s Texas Psych movement. Ridlen and Greg Sinodis were the only constants in an ever-changing lineup that, for several years, included my brother, Tom Battles who had earlier played in the Denton-based Jetsons with founding-Lithium member Mark Griffin. In the band's formative days, Sinodis told me the idea behind the group was to be to Bubblegum music what The Cramps were to Rockabilly. Despite a stun gun treatment of "Green Tambourine," the band found their own thing pretty quickly. Though they had an affinity for twisted covers as diverse as "Abba Zabba" (Beefheart) "Hurricane Fighter Plane" (Red Krayola) "Trippin'" (Pretty Things), and a version of "My Sweet Lord" that has to be heard to be believed, the group wrote some fine acid-damaged songs of their own. In the wake of The Butthole Surfers, and, inexplicably, The Flaming Lips (their early shows, drenched in Classic Rock influences, were about as Psychedelic as The Cult) becoming favorites at Dallas venues like The Twilite Room and Theatre Gallery, Lithium Xmas were soon leading a mini-Psych resurgence in Big "D", joined by The Peyote Cowboys (whose biggest claim to fame is that their former guitarist, Murray Hammond, is now the bass player with The Old 97s) and The Mel Coolies (it used to be cool to name your band after Richard Deacon, now it's cooler to look like him!), The Burning Rain and Hash Palace.
Mark's roots in Psych go back to his first real group, Quad Pi, who were a fixture at the first two Dallas Punk venues D.J.'s and The Hot Klub. Their sound was trippier than the established Dallas/Ft. Worth Punk bands like Vomit Pigs, Superman's Girlfriend, Skuds, and The Nervebreakers (though the latter did back Roky Erickson twice). They seemed to have more in common with early Punk Reaction bands like Gang of Four and PIL and the New York No Wave bands, but, their one EP (on the legendary VVV label) bears an eerie "I can taste the walls melting" overtone that foresees the REAL Psychedelic Revival (not Echo and The Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Three O' Clock, etc, thank you). The embryonic version of Quad Pi started off with a bang, appearing in Cotton Candy, a TV movie, directed by Ron Howard, and co-starring Clint Howard (Ron's cooler brother) and Charles Martin Smith (who co-starred with Ron as "Toad" in the American Graffiti movies). When production got underway in Dallas (a rarity, even Dallas wasn't filmed in Dallas) an A.P.B. went out for a real band to play the part of the established, antagonistic band, "Rapid Fire," who make life hell for the good guy title band, even though their own music is (intentionally) horrendous (Rock Against Racism might have never happened if Rapid Fire's butchering of "I Shot The Sheriff" had been released the same week that Eric Clapton announced support for racist Politician, Enoch Powell). Ron Howard, then just beginning his celebrated career as a director, had conceived the Teen Comedy/Drama as a pilot for a TV series. This never happened, and the movie itself seldom, if ever, turns up. This is a shame, as Cotton Candy has a lot of naive charm. It's no Rock 'n' Roll High School, but, it would appear that Cotton Candy was Ron Howard's idea of a "nice" version of said film, with inoffensive music (except for Rapid Fire's performances. PEEE-YOOO!) and only vague, innocent allusions to sex and teenage rebellion. It's almost as much fun as the raucous Ramones' movie, as Cotton Candy feels like the story of Opie's teenage Garage band, recast in an era too soon for punk, and too late for, well, punk. Charles Martin Smith hardly looked too young to buy liquor in American Graffiti, and Cotton Candy finds him, and much of the supporting cast, falling prey to "Happy Days Syndrome," meaning they looked too old to be portraying teenagers, though Smith conveyed all those feelings of doubt, angst, despair, frustration, futility, and, yes, lust, that appeal to the inner teen in all of us. Some of the only actual youths in the film were Ridlen's band, who backed up a studly actor who played Rapid Fire's lead singer. The Dallas musicians (thankfully) were not responsible for the quality of their evil band's music (which basically was just the plodding "I Shot the Sheriff" played over and over). Charles Martin Smith composed most of the original music in the film, mimed by the Cotton Candy band, though much of it is laughably weak. Cotton Candy, if nothing else, is a fun '70s "Guilty Pleasure" film, one that, perhaps, the now-respected filmmaker doesn't wish to be reminded of. Or maybe he just doesn't own the rights. But whoever does, RELEASE IT SOON, OR BE A BABOON!!!
I spoke to my friend Mark about the early days of Dallas punk, his place in the scene, and (of course) his stint in Rapid Fire:
JOHN: What do you remember about the early days of Quad Pi?
MARK: Well, the strangest thing we did, when Quad Pi was starting, was, we played a thing at some High School called The Peppermint Ball, which was like a prom for (mentally) impaired kids. We did "Shrivel Up" by Devo as an encore!
JOHN: Did the kids like you?
MARK: Yeah, they did. But, the parents hated it! We were dressed like Bauhaus meets Devo or something, real freaky outfits and makeup and stuff. It just looked really…not right. So, they had a King and Queen and everything, and it was our last gig with David Townsend (of Fort Worth lo-fi punks The Dot Vaeth Group, and it's warped offspring, Superman's Girlfriend). He snuck in a bottle of Jack Daniel's, taking huge swigs behind his amp, and it was totally not cool to bring liquor on campus. We were going to wait, of course, til afterwards to have a party or whatever, and he was spilling booze everywhere, acting kinda loose and crazy, and we had to play this "runway" music while they had this VERY lengthy " King and Queen of The Prom " thing, and you'd had to have been there, it was very sick; all these punk rock friends of David's showed up at the end, and we thought, "O.K, what the Hell, it's our last song, what are they gonna do, pull the plug?" I don't think we even got paid for it, so, we did this long version of "Shrivel Up" by Devo, and they all started doing "The Worm," our friends would fall down on the ground and start twitching around, and all the kids started doing it, too! The parents were horrified! (Both laugh) They were in formal wear, they were almost ready to call the cops or something. One little kid comes up to me afterward, and looks at me like I'm Elton John, and says, "Wow! You were great! Can I have your autograph?" and I said, "SURE!" There was a picture of us in their yearbook, "Quad Pi Plays at The Peppermint Ball."
JOHN: That's great! Sounds like it was your "Cramps at NAPA State" concert!
MARK: Yeah! I was trying to make it work, but I knew it wouldn't work. The whole side of this gymnasium, whatever the Hell we were in, these parents were sitting there, literally, with their arms crossed, glaring at us, "Who hired these perverts, these cretins?" John always wore these real revealing pants (laughs). We needed some "walking music" for The King and Queen. All I could think of was this riff from the first Cheap Trick album, so we vamped on that for a while. I thought it was sort of funky, but also kind of menacing. I would love to have five minutes of that on tape!
JOHN: Everyone should play to at least one audience like that, one that's, like, totally innocent, and doesn't have any preconceived notions.
MARK: That's what was so fun about it. The parents were right in front of us, they were all on one side, and the kids were on the other side, all dressed up nice, having a good time. They had some Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders come in and do their thing, it was very surreal. We were, like, "What the Hell's going on?" So, anyway, we moved to Dallas and started the Quad Pi thing in earnest, played D.J.'s, Twilite Room, actually it was called Random Scam at the time (the short lived venue, also known as "Rancid Scum," reportedly hosted Fear in 1980. In '83, it briefly became Charlie's Liberty Hall, an all ages venue, morphing yet again into The Twilite Room very late in '83). D.J's was going full tilt at the same time, and they took over what was then Eclectricity (a retail vintage clothing store, then a new concept). After D.J.'s closed, Eclectricity expanded, it had been next door to D.J.'s, a very small, tiny, teeny store. That was the only place, really, at the time. Then, there was a place down the street called "Shady Lady." We lived in a house that no longer exists, over by The Arcadia (a Mexican movie house on Greenville, near Oram, that was converted into a concert venue in '84. Question Mark and The Mysterians recorded their live ROIR cassette there), then Metamorphosis Concert Hall (a short-lived extension of the fine Metamorphosis Record Store that did all ages shows) opened, that was a big boon for a while. This was in the summer or '81, but, going back to the fall of '79, we played at "D.J.'s New Wave Retreat," and the owner had stars in her eyes, and thought, "Wow! This scene is taking off, all these bands have big followings, let's do something like a Woodstock kind of thing!" That was a total disaster, it was great! Nobody showed up, it was $10 a head, it was held at Yellow Belly Speedway. There were 10 or 20 bands, at least, that were together then, that had some kind of followings, so, it was non-stop. People came the night before, did acid or speed or whatever. By the time we get there, like, eight in the morning, the sound guys, who weren't being paid, were on the verge of pulling the plug and walking off. It was just very surreal, the whole thing. The mikes were on the ground, and we were afraid of getting the shit shocked out of us! We were terrified to even go near the mikes!.
JOHN: Wasn't that also the weekend The Clash played in Dallas?
MARK: Yeah! That was part of it, everybody was at The Clash show. I didn't go to that, I don't know what the deal was, but, it kept people away, sure. (The Nervebreakers, who co-headlined the festival, also opened for The Clash. Other bands at the festival were Teenage Popeye from Tulsa, The Nervebreakers, The Skuds, Superman's Girlfriend, and The Infants) Later on we started playing with a band called Rote Biological, we were playing with them kind of exclusively at Metamorphosis. Frank Campagna, he was kind of a scenester, he's still around, he somehow got us on the bill with The Psychedelic Furs, we opened for them in the summer of '81. It was pretty much the only big show that we did. Early in '81, our little EP came out on VVV records. It got a real poor response, because it wasn't real "thrash," wasn't real "punk."
JOHN: It was pretty Psychedelic, the guitar sound was sort of sparse, not "Paisley Underground," but, I can see where you guys could have, or should have, gone over with The Psychedelic Furs' crowd.
MARK: Well, what it was a classic case of an incredible soundcheck, and then they just made us sound like shit. We didn't really connect, no one really hated us. That was the beginning of the end. We had two Brothers who didn't really like each other, John and Tad (Painter), and we had a real flaky drummer from The Doo (a popular Dallas band that cut a fine "Mod"-ish single called "Soho" on VVV) named Myron Blakely. We were kind of just tolerating each other at the time. We added Allison, this real artsy girl singer, which I thought was a good idea at the time. She could sing, she was fun, it was just a different deal, a different feel. That was the summer everyone tried to be fucking David Byrne, y'know? Tried to do that whole White Funk thing. I was down with all that as much as everyone else, Gang of Four and all, but, I thought, "You know, we're not that funky, we're not Black, we don't have our rhythm section together. Why fake The Funk?" I wanted to do more of the rock thing, more Psych, and they were trying to be as David Byrne as possible. John actually ended up joining Rote Biological, because they were real potheads, and he was sort of a "wake and bake" kind of guy! (John laughs) He used to watch Slam Bang Theater (an early morning kids' show that featured Three Stooges shorts and cartoons, with a protopunk host known as "Icky Twerp.") in the morning and get stoned.
JOHN: Yeah, you said that John just shook you out of bed one time, because it was that episode with the bat with Shemp Howard's face, and he said, "Mark! Mark! SHEMP-HEAD BAT!!!"
MARK: Right, and I'm like, "Yeah, Shemp-Head Bat, great!" So, I get two hours of sleep and a lot of pot smoke in my face, and I go, "Fuckin' I don't care!!!" I told John, after that, "Don't fuck with me in the morning!" Quad Pi, we had two girls break into the house and have sex with us! They crawled in through a window, I don't think they actually broke it. One of them started fucking John, and the other one was after me. Yeah, those were the days! (both laugh). Bobby Soxx lived with us twice, I don't know why we ever let him live with us (Bobby was the singer with Stickmen with Rayguns). Our second house was on Hondo, closer to The Hot Klub. K.Y. Boyce (later with Lithium Xmas) lived there, too. These people were older and more seasoned about drugs and alcohol. It was this sort of utopia where everybody lived together in this duplex. I'd known Greg Sinodis for years, we never really played together until I let him crash on my couch so he could save some money, because he was thinking about moving to Mexico. At that time, we were recording four-tracks, and I was also getting closer to Mark Griffin, so it was turning into early Lithium. But it was about two years until we started playing out. I was trying to be a drummer, I was sick of the bass. Greg played guitar, and Mark Griffin was playing the trumpet. Dave Hynds would drum, and we'd get drunk and just moan and yell, kind of free form. There was a song called "Totaled" that Greg wrote, which ended up on "Helldorado" (an early 90s release, made up of remakes of earlier material, covers from their original set list, and some new songs). I was trying to form a new band, I had some interesting jams with me on drums. This guy named Steve Giovanni was actually the first Lithium drummer. We had a female bass player who used to play with Mike and Barbara (Rainey, owners of Metamorphosis Records) in Point Of Departure. I've got this tape of me and Greg and Neal Fadlen (Neal later led the very theatrical Avant-Popsters, Spazbot, whose drummer played in the early performing version of Lithium Xmas). Spazbot took off, Lithium got going, that's when I was Deejaying at The Stark Club (a trendy disco, reportedly owned, in part, by Grace Jones and Stevie Nicks). It was me and Tom and Regan (Eskridge, who'd played drums for Quad Pi). We played at Voulez-Vous, which was Eclectricity redux. It was a lot of fun. I just wanted to get some friends together, play at a party, not a club, do some covers, break up and reform. That's what Lithium was gonna be. Gittim was the first drummer (originally from Nigeria, Gittim Chakamoi played in The Howling Dervishes with my Brother Tom, and eventually joined Lithium Xmas. She was, in my humble opinion, Dallas' finest drummer at the time).
JOHN: I saw an early gig, an in-store at The Record Gallery. You might not have been called Lithium yet. You had a tape or a sample from an old Mad Magazine record, "She Got a Nose Job" or something, for a backbeat.
MARK: Yeah, We played that gig with the Mad Magazine tape, that was fun, then, a few months later, I was hanging out with Mark Griffin at VVV Records (a great record store. The label of the same name was home to such bands as Quad Pi, Telefones, Frenetics, and NCM-label and store owner Neal Caldwell's band) and the 12" of "Never Understand" (Jesus and Mary Chain) had just come out. Mark was playing it, and we were both blown away. He goes, "Man, I just wanna have a feedback band that ROCKS!" I said, " I do, too, why don't you join Lithium?" Seems like Mark was never up to practicing, he'd say, "I'm burned, man, I'm burned." Well, all right. Whenever you aren't burned, man, call us, and we'll try to work up some stuff. Then, lo and behold, he turns into MC 900 Ft. Jesus. Now, he's back to the egg, he's just working in a bookstore.
JOHN: He's not a commercial pilot anymore?
MARK: I don't think he's flying very much anymore. He did have an album, in the can that never came out. In fact, he's got a track on "Texotica 2," which is still unreleased. (Texotica is a series of comps Ridlen is now doing, with wildly varying takes on Lounge/Exotica musical themes).
JOHN: Tell me the story about the film, "A Thousand Shirts."
MARK: That was actually Dave Hynds. We were doing sort of a humorous punk parody with Quad Pi. Jerry Dirkx and The Telefones were making quite a name for themselves. I thought they were O.K. They seemed to like what we were doing, but I was never a big fan. It was a little too by the numbers, kinda new wavey, "Cars"-Rock, whatever. And, we were doing a cover of a cover of a cover, The Cramps' version of "Surfin' Bird," but, I changed the words "Surfin' Bird" to "Jerry Dirkx," you know, "Uh-well, everybody's heard about The Dirkx. Dirkx! Dirkx! Dirkx!." (The Telefones were a "Brother act"-Jerry, Steve and Chris Dirkx). Now, Dave Hynds, he was thinking that I was saying "A Thousand Shirts!" instead of "About The Dirkx!" "Everyone's got on A Thousand shirts, shirts, shirts, shirts!" He thought it was, like, "AHHH! I've got too many shirts on! It's too weird!!" (Mark soon produced a short film based on this. It basically shows a man putting on one shirt after another, eventually getting caught in an eddy of shirts).
JOHN: Did you work again with the Quad Pi guys?
MARK: Tad Painter from Quad Pi and I got back together in the mid-to-late 90s to do what should be the final Lithium Xmas CD, with Chris Merlick (from Fireworks) and Greg. I wanted to get a sort of New Wavey, Quad Pi kind of a sound. It still hasn't been released. I don't know why. He was also with us on the "Only Bowie" tribute CD. That was a lot of fun. There's an Eno tribute in the works that I'm trying to salvage for a friend who kind of lost funding years ago. The last thing I want to put out is your stuff (I used to do an act, ca. 84-86, called Neutron Prom) Rote Biological, Quad Pi, and Spazbot. There's also a recording of our first gig that I've remixed, sounds like it was done in a cave, I'd like to put that out, as well as jams and odds 'n' sods that I've got. I could beat the Lithium Xmas dead horse for several years, but, all you need is cash, and, like you said, the longer you wait, the more desirable it'll be, like, That's the way it is with anything that's been under rocks for years, they get more "cult." This High School kid who used to work at VVV, Scott Shapiro, got all these VVV bands back together in the summer of '95, and we all played at the Major Theatre, it was great! (Shapiro) O.D.-ed on heroin a few years ago. His Dad used to be in Johnny Green and The Green Men (Fort Worth band that all wore Wayne Cochran-styled pompadours, dyed green!). Do you remember this old Porno theatre called The Major Theatre?. These two kinda hippie gay guys were running it were trying to put on punk rock shows and showing movies. It was hosted there, and it was very well attended. It was great, it was the kind of thing that will never happen again. Quad Pi finally got our just desserts. The Ralphs, NCM, Telefones, and Bobby Soxx, fresh out of prison (the Telefones backed Bobby Soxx on his first single, on VVV, and briefly played out with him as "The Nazis From Hell." It's now a huge collectible, and the closest thing to a good record Soxx ever made) they headlined. We played right before them. Quad Pi went on right around 12:30. We had a prime spot, everyone was still there, pretty much. We sounded great, we played great, and I had Dave Hynds showing all these crazy visuals on the screen. I thought, well, it's a movie theatre, let's take advantage of it. So, we really made up for all our shitty gigs from 20 years before, when we were dodgy at best. Most people (from the original scene) have died or moved away since then. Regan Eskridge, who was the drummer on the VVV EP, died, like in '95 or '96. He had some infection that turned into pneumonia, and he just died. This kid that arranged the VVV show, he was just trying real hard to be Bobby Soxx. He thought Bobby Soxx was just great, and we all thought he was a huge asshole that probably still belonged in jail (Bobby did time for the attempted murder of his then-girlfriend. He died from Hepatitis C a few years after his release). Bobby maintained pretty well for four or five months, then he stated getting into his old tricks, doing Heroin, doing coke, drinking, causing brawls, and here's this little kid following him around, like a White Trash Batman and Robin. So, this kid, who barely smoked Pot, back turned into a slow-mo junkie, and then ended up O.D.'ing a few years before Bobby kicked the bucket. End of an era.
JOHN:Was Quad Pi formed yet when you did the Cotton Candy thing, or, was it just the embryonic band?
MARK: Well, there was a younger guy I knew in High School named Morgan Ferguson. We kinda hit it off. He was in a little Garage band called Severed Universe and that's where I met John and Tad Painter, and the drummer's name was Wally Contreras. Morgan, later, played in Four Reasons Unknown, they were like The Fixx or something, kind of corporate New Wave, they won "MTV's Basement Tapes" and got a crappy little deal with Epic, and put out a little 12" EP. John and Tad Painter were into Styx and Kansas like everybody else, and I was already into The Stooges, Glam Rock, and whatnot. I kind of turned the tide with them. I joined their group in '76 or '77, and, by then, I was a senior. They were playing church gigs, Presbyterian churches where they were members. I joined Severed Universe as their vocalist. I did the high parts on their bad Yes covers. We did Al Stewart (laughs), whatever was on the radio, it was really pretty embarrassing! They wrote a lot of original songs. They'd been playing together since they were little kids, like a Redd Kross sort of thing, but, it was more covers, everything from Alice Cooper to Aerosmith to Pink Floyd. I had a high voice, but I still hit a lot of flat notes, and, of course, I had the Roger Daltrey hair and I was very much the frontman. We'd practice at John and Tad's house, and their Mom was very active in the Presbyterian church, and the choir. She'd sing to them (sings in operatic tone) "I'm eighteeeen, and I don't know what I want, and teach them how to sing "correctly" those songs they wanted to cover! (laughs). She was a really good seamstress, and she made them all these matching outfits. Actually, we're all wearing those clothes in Cotton Candy, red and black Rock star, Aerosmith/Queen spandex looking things. One guy had a cape. Then, one time, she made these "Queen" kimonos for everyone! Anyway, they had a neighbor girl across the street named Kim Dawson, who was doing some teenage modeling. Kim Dawson was finding talent for Cotton Candy, which was going to be filmed at Lake Highlands High, Gibby Hayne's Alma Mater. That was in Central Dallas. Actually, his Dad still lives pretty close by. When I went to record his track for "Texotica" he was living pretty close to the grounds (Jerry Haynes, Gibby's Dad, used to be a singing Kiddie show host, "Mr. Peppermint." Mark recorded him doing a kooky version of "Yellow Bird" for "Texotica Vol.1."). I had the kickoff party for the CD, and I had Jerry, The Singing Psychic, and some local weird bands. For the encore, I had Jerry sing "Pepper." He didn't know it, but a hot Asian stripper girl danced behind him while he sang it! It was pretty surreal. I'd like to get Jerry and Gibby to do "The Wreck of the Evan Fitzgerald."
JOHN: But getting back to Cotton Candy, what was the mood on the set, and did you have much interaction with Ron and Clint Howard?
MARK: Oh, yeah! We were teenage potheads at the time. I wasn't as much, but, I went along with everyone else. So, we'd show up on the set at seven in the morning, we'd have red eyes, they didn't care, we were in the background. We did have some prominent scenes, though. I was the most camera-savvy, so, wherever the camera was, I was always in the foreground. In all the scenes we did, I was pretty much closest to the camera, discounting Mark Wheeler, who was the actor who played the lead singer in Rapid Fire. He was 30 years old, and he was our leader! All those guys were, like, 30, I think. Clint wasn't. He was about my age. He might have been a year or so older than me.I was 18 or 19. It was a blast to work on, a typical "Hurry up and wait" kind of thing, show up and get into makeup. It was a lot of fun. None of us had any dialogue, except Tad, the youngest member, had one random bit of dialogue, so, none of us got actual credits or SAG cards. We'd drive to Dallas, doobie out, and then do our thing. It took about three weeks.
JOHN: Which mall was that "Battle of The Bands" scene shot at?
MARK: Town East Mall.
JOHN: That's what I thought, but, I wasn't sure.
MARK: Yeah, it was basically the same production crew as Happy Days. Ron Howard had a lot of the same lighting and camera guys. It was a pretty harmonious group of people to work with. It got pretty good reviews. They wanted to shoot more of them. It was originally a pilot for a TV show, it was really different and unique at the time. There was no laugh track. It was a precursor to all the teen dramas you have today. I don't know where they would have taken it, as far as the whole tangled good band and the bad band, good vs. evil, Pop vs. hacks, whatever the Hell we were supposed to be.
JOHN: Or just this sort of hopeful band that you want to root for, and this other band, and no disrespect to you, because I'm sure you didn't play on any of it, with a good looking frontman, but, they sound like shit!
MARK: Definitely, we were all flash and no substance, and the other band was kind of Elvis Costello/Emo. But, I found out that this house where Lithium Xmas used to practice in was one of the houses where they shot part of the movie! Chris Merlick, our drummer, used to live there. Some guy at Bar of Soap (a laundromat/bar/music venue, owned by Charlie Gilder of The Twilite Room, that's been around for over 20 years) said, about 10 years ago, "Oh, my Brother knew Kurt Cobain, and that movie made him want to be in a band!" (both laugh). He was serious, I said, "Well, Okay!" If there's any truth at all to that, it would be interesting.
JOHN: I have this theory that Kurt Cobain was influenced by Lithium Xmas.
MARK: Yeah, there's a lot of similarities in things like (record) titles.
JOHN: Lithium Xmas did "Love Buzz" by The Shocking Blue before Nirvana did, and they had that EP called "Lithium," and so forth. Even that guitar sound that Greg had was like a precursor to the Grunge rock guitar sound, but, he was able to actually harness the feedback and do something with it, instead of just going, "BRRRRRRR." Cobain was also really big on collecting stuff by little-known current bands.
MARK: Plus, we had a cassette called "Aneurysm," and Nirvana had a song called "Aneurysm." It was very similar. Mark Griffin was, pretty much, neck and neck with Greg. Mark had a really good sound, that Jesus and Mary Chain kind of feedback thing. Greg did, too, he was more of the architect of leads and more melodic stuff. Yeah, I always wondered about that. I didn't go to that infamous show in '91, when this guy, Turner Van Blarcum, and Cobain fought to the finish. Nirvana played here in '91, and Brad Featherstone (Peyote Cowboys bassist) was taking pictures at the side. Kurt goes nuts, and jumps into the crowd and smashes Turner in the face. You never saw that footage or heard about that?
JOHN:NO!
MARK: Oh, John! It's been used on T.V, a portion of it. Brad was shooting anyone who came through back then, and, he was at the sidelines for the whole thing. Oh, it's amazing. It was totally packed, in the summer, back when Trees (a music venue in the Deep Ellum area. They were known to book bands with a bigger draw than they could handle) would oversell ALL their fucking shows. Kurt was freaking out, and did a stagedive move with his guitar. This big, burly guy named Turner Van Blarcum, he used to be in a band called Sedition, he's kind of a local legend. I think he dates back to the Quad Pi days - he used to be one of the neighbor kids who used to come and watch us practice! I don't remember him at all, back then. He said, "Yeah, man, I used to come and see you guys practice!" He was a total badass wrestler-stoner dude, and he was one of the security guys at Trees, and, by his account, Kurt had his guitar flailing about, freaking out for God knows what reason, just a tantrum, stage dive thing, he was just a little guy, and Turner was trying to push him back from to the stage, just get him out of harm's way, as it were, because people were grabbing him and wrapping the chords around him. In a frenzy, Kurt mistook him for someone trying to fuck with him, and he took his guitar and BASHED him right in the face! It was all on Brads' tape. Kurt's like, "Fuck you, Man!," and Turner's just livid, he was, like, "Why are you hitting me? I'm trying to protect you!" Then, he leaves the stage, a fight breaks out, total drama. This guy, you do not do that to. He was livid. He waited for them afterwards, and they were terrified, and so, they head out, in gridlock traffic, and Turner found 'em and reached through the window and pummeled him, just started beating the shit out of him! It was quite a big deal. Turner was pretty bloody, you can see it, plain as day, on Brad's tape. I don't know if he broke his nose, but you can see him butting him in the face or the head with his guitar. It's amazing footage, and, then, Kurt threw his guitar down, like a little pussy, and walked off forever. There was a fucking riot, almost. They said, "You've got to go out and finish the set, cause this is NOT cool". I didn't go, but, I've got a full copy of the whole thing. I think it was used in their box set, a sort of ragtag of different clips. I enjoyed The Peyote Cowboys to a degree. They were kind of dodgy, like a lot of bands back then, really great one night, and, well they never sucked or anything but.
JOHN: You never knew what to expect.
MARK: Yeah. So, anyway, Cotton Candy turned out well. Months later, it was aired. Fred Silverman was just taking over NBC then, and it got lost in the shuffle, and nothing really became of it. It got decent ratings, and they were definitely on call, they said they might want to use us for some more episodes of the show. It was filmed in Dallas, it was cheap, they liked the whole vibe, and, that was gonna be real cool. Neiman-Marcus called us. Kim Dawson wanted John and I to be teenage models for Neiman-Marcus, but, they wanted us to cut our hair, and, we said, "No way, man! We're not changing our hair!" So, we could have been teenage models in a commercial for Neiman-Marcus, pretending to be a band or something.
JOHN: That's pretty funny, because, you had long hair, but, so did everybody else. It was before short hair had come in.
MARK: I know! We refused to change our look, but, a month later, we went "punk" or something, so, it wouldn't have made any difference. I still had my "Leif Garret" hair, but, I had my Basset Hound choke collar on, it was like the obedience-training collar. I had my Patty Hearst iron-on T-shirt that I bought. That was my punk look for when we did the prom scene in Cotton Candy. We had to wear tuxes, and the singer, of course, had the Rip Away shirt, with the glitter star on his chest. Mark Wheeler and Clint Howard were staying at The Hilton, which is actually where Trader Vic's was, they're remodeling that whole thing, now, real close to Campezzi's on Mockingbird. So, they took us out to dinner there. Actually, it was Ron, too, it was the whole group, and, they wined and dined us for an evening, and then, we went back to Clint Howard's hotel room, and, of course, he sparked up a doobie, man, and we all shared a doobie with him. We were, like, "Clint Howard, where to begin? We got him all to ourselves, what do we say?" All I remember was, he had something to do, we only got to hang out for about 30 minutes or so. A Cheap Trick song was on or something, "Surrender" was breaking out, and we're, like, "Oh, yeah! We love those guys," and he was, like, "Bun E. Carlos is so cool, man!" We said, "You know Bun E. Carlos?" "Oh, yeah! We got high with him just the other day!" And we said, "Wow, man! We know someone who knows the drummer from Cheap Trick!" We were so easily impressed. I was at Irving Mall about a month later, I said, "Wow, there's a paperback book of Cotton Candy, which was the thing then, "You've seen the crappy TV show, now, read the fabricated 100-page book!" There's pictures of us in it. There's a killer still of Rapid Fire, I don't remember posing for it. We're all standing there, looking tough, in the hallway of Lake Highland. I guess it's the scene where we're facing off with Cotton Candy, we're walking one way, they're walking past us. There's a picture of us playing live, "Wow! I've hit the big time. I'm in a little, teeny paperback book." So, that was it. I was a teen star for fifteen seconds. Then, after that, we parted ways with Morgan Ferguson, because Pere Ubu came out, and "No New York," and, of course, PIL. I was finding all the crazy, great stuff to listen to, and Morgan wanted no part of that. He was excited if the new "Styx Live" came out, or Reo Speedwagon. We totally parted amicably, and started what turned into Quad Pi. We were still playing in John's church-parent's living room. In early '79, the best resource to find musicians was Buddy magazine.We were looking for another guitar player, and little David Townsend from Dot Vaeth, I think they had just broken up, I'm not sure.
JOHN: They'd kind of morphed into Superman's Girlfriend?
MARK: Yeah, through him, he brought in Linda Shawn, Jim Nabors, Ace LeRoux and this girl named Theresa McGee. They came out, and they were real intrigued by us. They were a few years older than us, and they were already well on their way to being punk rock delinquents, with George, from Irving, who still had long hair and everything. So, we played some shows with him. God! I wish I had a video, or even a photo. That's when Reagan was playing. That's when we latched on to Reagan Eskridge. Kindred spirits, definitely. D.J.'s started. We had Jeff Mihlm, who we also met thru Buddy, and we played our first gig at D.J.'s in the fall of '79, and a handful of gigs after that, and that guy left, and, Reagan took over. David Townsend was on guitar then. Reagan got us a gig at his High School, and that was The Peppermint Ball. It was one of our best things ever!
Thanks to Pope Coleman. Happy 20th, Lithium Xmas. You too, Reverend Horton Heat.
Please check out www.nervebreakers.com for more info, especially the "Texas Punk Junk" link!