185 Miles South
A hardcore punk podcast.
185 Miles South
52. Big Bob (Agression)
This week we're blessed to have one of the real OG's join us: Big Bob from Agression. We go through everything from starting Agression to the move to Denver to the sad deaths that plagued the band in the early 2000's. Bob did a great job going through his long history in this music we all love. Buckle up.
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What's up, everyone? This week on the pod, we have the Oxnard legend, Big Bob from Aggression. Maybe the man who started it all. And yeah, super stoked to have Bob. He was awesome. He remembered so much. I hope you enjoy the interview. And yeah, and Bob, he's still screen printing. He's making posters and shit. So he's on Facebook. Reach out to him. Get in touch. Buy some of the stuff that he's producing. Support that old guard when they're still being creative and creating things. So look out. Buy a poster. Buy a shirt. Something. That'd be fucking rad. If you would like to support this podcast, please like, rate, and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, if you would like to go the extra mile, you can go to patreon.com slash 185 miles south and become a patron. Donate whatever you can per month, and that's really what keeps the show going. It helps me be able to travel out of town and do as many interviews I can in person, help the Talking Hardcore community, stuff that we do and uh and help with like the month the monthly fixed costs of the show those people are my personal heroes much respect let's get on to the mighty mighty big bob
SPEAKER_00:185 miles south a hardcore punk rock podcast
SPEAKER_01:all right this week we have uh The legend, Big Bob from Aggression. The man who maybe started it all, right? Yeah, yeah. So that's cool. You can take credit for it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it was a long time ago. I never thought it would go as far as it did.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What year was it that you got into punk rock? And were you heavily into any other type of music before punk?
SPEAKER_02:I wasn't into any music, really. I mean, I'd gone to a lot of shows. I'd seen Led Zeppelin at the Forum. I've seen... Just about all the metal bands. And I was working for a concert company in Denver for a long time. So I was working 200 shows a year. Everybody from B.B. King to Dokken, you know, stupid bands like that. Sure. But none of that hit you? No, no. I moved to California. When I came back, I was in California in 75. And I was like 17 years old. And... I was drunk all the time. That's all I did was drink and smoke. So my friends got on my case and they said, hey, look, there's a job. Go to Antarctica. Be all you can be for the Navy and shit.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So they said, you'll never go. So I went down, woke up the next morning, applied. Never heard from them again until about two days before the last plane was going to Antarctica. And then they called me up and said, hey, someone canceled. Do you want to go? So I went to Antarctica for six months as a civilian cook for the Navy. In 75? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome.
SPEAKER_02:I came back at the beginning of 76, and my friends were up in Humboldt, Mendocino area, and they were growing a lot of weed on a hippie commune. Sure. So I went up there to grow weed with those guys for a year. We did that. We made a lot of money. The next year...
SPEAKER_01:What was that like? Because that's real outlaw time. 76? Yeah, yeah. Duke
SPEAKER_02:Magian. We lost three patches to the government, you know, to Duke Magian and all his stormtroopers and all that. We lost a few thousands of dollars. Holy shit. Nobody ever got busted. We were really lucky. Cool. So... At the end of that year, I had seen an article in Time Magazine in 76. I saw an article in Time Magazine about punk rock. And I was like, wow, these guys are having fun. Look, they're right next to the band. They're touching the band. They're singing on the same mic with the band. Everybody looked all cool and strange, and they had all weird haircuts. So the next day, I... Went down to the main camp where everybody stayed, and I had them cut all my hair off. Yeah. And that weekend, I took one of the vehicles from there, and I went to San Francisco. And I got a hotel, and then I asked the cab driver if there was any punks. places and he had told me about a couple places then I saw some some people that I considered to be punk at that time and I went and asked them and they said oh go to Mabuhay tonight Dead Kennedys are playing cool so I never heard of Dead Kennedys
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_02:so I went I fell in it was I fell in love I mean so this is 1977 you're
SPEAKER_01:probably 76 76 and you're
SPEAKER_02:18 yeah
SPEAKER_01:cool
SPEAKER_02:so I started going every weekend while I was up there and then I came back down and uh I was skating with Mark and stuff. Well, how did you meet Mark? Me and Mark had known each other for five years before all of this. We moved in together at 13 on Silver Strand Beach. We had a house and we were both selling weed. In the early 70s? Yeah, yeah. Like 72. Okay. And when I came back the next year up to Humboldt to grow weed again with those guys, Henry... came up with us and Henry was already playing guitar. So I would sit in the, and we lived in a trailer and I would sit there and listen to him play. And I went and bought a bass one weekend in San Francisco and brought it back. And Henry taught me how to play along to like the, the first three aggression songs were written up there in that trailer. I think it was no mercy. Uh, Oh, stop the clock. And, uh, go to war. Okay. We're written up in that trailer. And that would be 78 or 79? 77. Okay. Wow. So I came back down, and Henry still hadn't been to a show at that point. Okay. So I took him to his first show. I think it was X, Fear, Germs, Suburban Lines, and a band from Canada called The Dills.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And he fell in love, too, and cut his hair off. Then we tried to get Mark to come to shows, and Mark... had that Farrah Fawcett look going at that time, you know, with the blonde, curly hair. The surfer. Yeah, he loved his hair. He loved his hair. Yeah. And someone got their head kicked in album. If you get the little booklet, there's a picture of me, Mark, and Henry leaning up against my Volkswagen, and we all have hair down to our shoulders.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that's
SPEAKER_02:from
SPEAKER_01:around that era?
SPEAKER_02:75, early 75. Cool. So we got Mark to go to a show, but he loved it, but he wouldn't cut his hair off. At first, it took him like five shows to get rid of the hair. He got a lot of shit at shows and stuff in the beginning in L.A. And then we started playing. Who's
SPEAKER_01:your drummer at this point?
SPEAKER_02:Rick Heller from Dr. No, the original drummer, I think.
SPEAKER_01:The original? Yeah. In like
SPEAKER_02:70? In the beginning, yeah. Cool. So we came down, we started playing parties. And then... It wasn't going... They kicked me out. Okay. Because they had Eugene from Decline of the Western Civilization. Okay. He played bass for Aggression for a while. For a little while. Yeah. He helped... If you look on the album, it says... gene the huge dannon or something that's how he wanted to be known as okay and he helped write uh money machine and locals only i think okay at that point okay and i went up and i started another band in san francisco called blistering agents and did you ever record with blistering agents never recorded but that's where i started meeting people like kevin from seven seconds keith from black flag at that point he was in black flag all the people that i still you know, know today and stuff, you know, from 35 years ago. It's amazing, you know, that Kevin and I still talk every day almost, you know, like that kind of stuff. It's really cool. So it's nice to know people that, you know, have been around for that long
SPEAKER_01:and can understand where I'm coming from. What year do you think Aggression was like a fully formed band where you're like playing shows? Well,
SPEAKER_02:we started playing parties in 78. Okay. when I came back down and they kicked Eugene out and I came back into the band and, uh, we started, I think that was about the time we changed it from one G to two G's or from two G's to one G. Yeah. Cause we liked it. We thought it looked better a little bit shorter. Yeah. And then that was about the time that I came up with the artwork, uh, with the cop and skeleton. And I asked Jaime to draw that up for us. And of course, I mean, that's by far our most, uh, Recognizable artwork, I would say.
SPEAKER_01:And where are the shows of this time? Ventura Houses. Mostly parties.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, mostly houses.
SPEAKER_01:And do you run into the Rotters at all? Because that's the only other band that would have been around in the late
SPEAKER_02:70s. I had their 45, but I had never seen them. And I only knew at that point they were from like... Newberry Park or Thousand Oaks or somewhere up in that area. But I had, you know, sit on my face, Stevie Nicks, the amputee,
SPEAKER_01:the original
SPEAKER_02:coffee.
SPEAKER_01:I like the second one more, the Sink the Whales by Japanese Goons.
SPEAKER_02:And I had that one,
SPEAKER_01:too, at some point. Because they got the two.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think they're Camarillo. I need to get one of the guys that's still around. Yeah, Fester. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to get him on. Okay. But you don't play with them at all, that you remember. No.
SPEAKER_02:Not that, not real, no.
SPEAKER_01:They were kind of like one of those obscure bands that just came out, put out a couple records and went away.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think so. And then also at that time, when you had a live punk band at your party, Kansas are only one band's going to get to play. Yeah, because the
SPEAKER_01:cops are
SPEAKER_02:going to show them, right? Yeah, because the neighbors aren't going to be digging it.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So we would get lucky. If we could finish a whole set, we felt lucky.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So,
SPEAKER_02:but by 81, you're going... Well, 79 is when we started playing shows and we'd get a show and we got a... pretty good little following. Quick, we met the Stern Brothers from BYO Records.
SPEAKER_01:Right, because they're running Godzillas in 81.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I worked every show at Godzillas.
SPEAKER_01:So let's talk about meeting the Stern Brothers. What was that like?
SPEAKER_02:Well, there's good things and bad. I made a mistake and I did something when I was out there and I wasn't the best person. I went in and got a bunch of stuff printed to me and thousands of dollars and I wasn't supposed to have gotten it, let's put it that way.
SPEAKER_01:That's around the time of the
SPEAKER_02:LP, though. Yeah, yeah. That was after the album was out for a while. The first thing that we did was we recorded those three songs for... For Someone Got Their Head Kicked In. Yeah, Someone Got Their Head Kicked In, which, in my opinion, is one of the best comps ever. One of the best comps ever, for sure. I mean, look at that. You've got Social Distortion and Aggression. Bad Religion. Bad Religion, Youth Brigade. Battalion of Saints. Battalion of Saints. That was our first tour was with Battalion of Saints.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so let's talk about... That's the first... Did Aggression do any demos or anything before that recording session, or was that the first time you were in the studio? That was
SPEAKER_02:the first time we'd ever recorded.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and what was that like? Because it came out stellar.
SPEAKER_02:It was killer. It was fun. BYO picked out a good studio. I think it was Perspective Sound. Okay. And great place. The guys were really good there. They knew what they were doing. And you guys were completely competent at that
SPEAKER_01:time. You guys were raging.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. We were... We were doing pretty well at that time. I mean, bands like The Offspring and Suicidal would open for us. And we were selling out tenders and places like that on our own.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so rad. It was really cool. Okay. And then you go in, and if you want to jump to 83, then that's the first LP.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, don't be mistaken.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And do you remember where you recorded that?
SPEAKER_02:Perspective Sound.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, same. So you go back. It's the same guys. Yeah. And... The process of writing an LP, was that gnarly?
SPEAKER_02:No, we had pretty much already had the songs. So Mark and Henry were putting them out at that time really quick. So when we first started, I think we had the four original songs and we were playing Police Truck. I don't care about you. I love living in the city. We were playing a lot of other bands' songs in the beginning, and then we started to add as we got more. Dear John Letter, Locals Only, they all started coming in. We actually, I think, left a couple songs off the Don't Be Mistaken album at that time, because we figured that was enough.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of songs on there, but that album's a banger.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's our best. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And do you see the popularity grow even more after like the first LP comes out?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. Um, We started doing better on tours. The first tour, we came back. It was three months. We went out on the road. We came back owing$5,000. When
SPEAKER_01:was the first time that Aggression ever played out of town, do you think? 81. Okay, and where would you have gone?
SPEAKER_02:Well, we did a whole United States tour with Battalion of Saints.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay. So this is kind of similar to the Another State of Mind tour. You went in a bus.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, that was the other half of our tour. It was... Youth Brigade and Social Distortion went one way, and we went the other way, and we were going to meet in New York and then play each other. We were going to do full circles and everything. And our tour was pretty much like their tour, except they filmed their tour, but they didn't film ours at all. We broke down in Okmogi, Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And is that on the way out or on the way back you broke down? On the way there to the heading towards the East
SPEAKER_01:Coast. Do you remember any of the shows on the way out, like playing Arizona or anything like
SPEAKER_02:that? Yeah, we played... We played the Mason Jar in Phoenix. We went up to San Francisco and then went to Reno and did a show with Seven Seconds and then back down into Arizona. Las Vegas, Nevada, and that area.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and what are shows like in that time period? Pretty small. 1981 playing with 7 Seconds in Reno.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, even in Reno it had maybe 50 people
SPEAKER_01:at that time. It's before they hit their
SPEAKER_02:class. Yeah, it's before their BYO album, too. It just... It was catching on, I think, at that time.
SPEAKER_01:So just because there's 50 people in the room doesn't mean it's a bad show. Oh, no. Because were the 50 people into it? Oh, yeah. These are diehards. It
SPEAKER_02:doesn't matter. If you play a show, you come to a town, you play a show, there's 10 people there, you give it your all.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_02:You want to do what you want to. Because next time you go, you've got those 10 people. I hooked those 10 people up with stickers. They tell their friends. Yeah, you give them a bunch of stickers, T-shirts. They give them to their friends. Their friends are putting them on. Next time, you've got 100 people. The next time after that, you've got 200.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, Phoenix and Tucson was like that for us. The first few times we went, we'd get like 100, 200 people. Then the last times we went, we were getting like 600 people in Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson. Yeah. And I think the last tour we did there was... Kyle, Henry was in jail and Kyle from Dr. No played guitar for us. For a tour. Yeah, for like three shows, a little short tour. Yeah. And I think that's probably the most powerful that aggression has ever sounded.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Okay, so you get out to Oklahoma and you break down. There was a story that you were telling me before about like living off the per diems. Oh,
SPEAKER_02:everybody, yeah, we... We had no money, basically. We would put together 10 bucks and try to go out and buy that red seal bologna, you know, with the red thing over it. Yeah. Everybody would have a piece of bread, you know, get some bologna. And we felt, you know, then you were full for the day because that's all you were getting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And Larry White was our drummer at that time. And we were, he would disappear every day after we'd eat. on his skateboard and go for a ride and we got kind of weird like where's Larry going every day so I followed him one day and down by the gas station there was a sizzler I'm walking by the sizzler and I look inside and there's Larry sitting at a table eating steak I walked up to the window and knocked and he didn't see me yet and he saw me and he was like oh shit oh shit so I walk in and I sit down and I go Larry what's up man and he goes tell everybody I'm buying them a lunch so I walk back down. I go, hey, Larry's got a credit card. And they're all, what, what, what? I said, he's eating steak at Sizzler right now. And everybody's, oh, let's go get him. I go, no, he's going to buy us all dinner right now, so let's go. So Battalion of Saints hopped up. We all trucked back over to the Sizzler and get a big table and sit down. And everybody eats at Larry's expense.
SPEAKER_01:That was a good night.
SPEAKER_02:It was, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was so cool. Any other thing you remember from that tour? Because that's still the 81 tour, correct?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's still without the battalion. Well, we got the bus fixed after a week in Okmogi, Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_01:So you spent a week in Okmogi? Okmogi, yeah. And what was that like?
SPEAKER_02:Well, we went to a lake. There was a lake down the road from the little town, and we kind of just hung out there. Partied a little bit? Yeah. That's the worst places to be than by the lake, huh? Yeah, and they were having like... Drag races for boats one weekend we were there, so there was all kinds of people going crazy. Yeah, some free entertainment. Yeah, yeah. We got to watch. Henry was sleeping outside the bus one night, and we were looking, and this skunk came walking up and was outside the thing. And I said, Henry, Henry, there's a skunk right by your sleeping bag. And he was like, no, there's not. And then the thing jumped on the sleeping bag because it saw his toes move. So Henry looked, and he jumped up, and he was trying to run around. From the skunk was chasing him. And he's jumping around, hopping in his sleeping bag because he can't get out of it. And there's a little wall. And he's hopping on one side of the wall. And the skunk runs around to the other side. So he hops back on. And the skunk runs around that side. We laughed so hard. I never laughed so hard in my life watching Henry get chased by that skunk.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's so funny. So there was also a night that you helped out the BYO guys by going and getting their masters back from Mystic. is a story that Sean told. So basically, I think Doug Moody took all the rights to himself. Oh, yeah. And then you guys were at a show right around the corner.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we were playing the Cafe de Grand.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:Went over there and went in and got all that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Got all the stuff for BYO.
SPEAKER_01:That was a nice thing for you to do. Did you meet Doug before then? Or was that your first introduction to
SPEAKER_02:him? The first time, no. Because we did Someone Got Their Head Kicked In It. Actually, we did Someone Got Their Head Kicked In It, Mystic.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. So they got recorded in
SPEAKER_02:Mystic. Yeah. So that was when I met Doug and Phil Raves and the people that were associated with that. And I always seen Mystic because we played... That was like Cafe de Grand was right across. Right there. We used to play there like every week.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_02:I would look in the LA Weekly, you know, up here on Friday night and I'd be going, oh, who's playing at the cafe tonight? And I was like, oh shit, Aggression's playing, huh? Yeah. It's like, hey Mark, you know we're booked tonight at the cafe? He'd call, he'd go and I'd call up Henry and we'd run down there, throw everything together last minute and go play the show. Yeah. I think they just used to put us on there when they couldn't get a hold of us hoping we'd see it and show up.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_02:Or else, that they'd get our crowd coming there and we wouldn't have to pay us. Yeah, just put you on the flyer. Oh, they didn't show up.
SPEAKER_01:All right, so before we get to Mystic, actually, we should finish up that tour. So you break down, you get the bus fixed, and then...
SPEAKER_02:And there was another part on that tour. We stopped in a... Right before Okmogi, Oklahoma, we stopped in a gas station to get gas. And, you know, we're all pretty motley-looking crew between us and then... battalion with their spikes, you know, their Liberty spikes and everything. We pull into a gas station and some guys start giving us a hard time in there. We just laughed at them, you know, and got back on the freeway. So pretty soon we're on the freeway and they're right next to us and they're throwing bottles at the bus, you know, and Henry went and opened the front door of the bus and he threw a bottle at the guy and he went right in, in the window and hit the seat. He didn't hit him. So the guy, Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And they did about 12 rollovers.
SPEAKER_01:Jesus. They just
SPEAKER_02:started rolling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so we stopped. We seen them get out of the car and we left.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. They're okay.
SPEAKER_02:We didn't go over there and talk to them or anything. So we're down the road. maybe 50 miles, and all of a sudden, six cop cars pull up on us, and they've got us down. They take us to jail. We're in there for maybe two and a half hours, and they're asking us all these questions. What are you doing? What's the equipment? Trying to find out what's going on. And about 10 minutes later, the guy comes in. He goes, okay, guys, you're gone. You can get out of here. And I'm like, what? He goes, Doug Moody from Mystic Records just paid your bail. And I go, well, how much was it? Ten grand. Jesus. So, you know, a lot of people complain about Mystic not paying him or doing this, but I really don't have the same... that same experience with Mystic. Sure, we, you know, they're hard to deal with and everything. We never got paid money from them, but anytime I needed tapes or records or anything to sell, Doug was always there. He did pay the$10,000 to get us out of jail. We never had to pay that back. He gave us a credit card to take on the next tour. We ran up like six grand on that. Never paid that back, you know? Yeah. So we would look for hotels that had gas stations attached to them so you could use it, the credit card for gas and a hotel. Yeah. So... We probably ended up doing better than most of the Mystic bands. Yeah. Because I hear a lot of stories.
SPEAKER_01:Well, they're all paying your debt.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I mean, Doug called me. One of his clone, some girl now, I'm not sure. I think it's probably this Candace girl, but she's got some weird name, Boadacious Star or something like that, telling me that two weeks ago, Doug wants to send you some stuff. I'll put it in the mail tomorrow. Four days later, I call. No, Doug fell down and broke his... and he's going to put it in the mail when he gets well. Yeah. Well, that's like the same thing that happened to the last two years in a row every time they were going to send me something. Sure. Doug falls down and hurts himself. Yeah. So I don't know if this girl is the same or not.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know. He's old though now. I mean, Doug is, he's at least in his late 80s.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I love Doug. He used to come to my boat when I lived in... la harbor you come down and fish with me and my dad and him and his girlfriend would come over hang out we'd barbecue and stuff so yeah i actually have a pretty good relationship with doug
SPEAKER_01:yeah years i mean there's been hard times but sure do you do you just come home then after the oklahoma like you get the bus fixed and come back
SPEAKER_02:yeah well the bus we left there
SPEAKER_01:okay we left it in
SPEAKER_02:santa rosa new mexico okay and everybody kind of How do you get home? We made Larry pay for Greyhound tickets. Okay, so you take the Greyhound home? Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:we all went home in the Greyhound. Cool. And so when is the next time you go out in regards to the chronology of your...
SPEAKER_02:Right at the beginning of... Right after we did... The LP? Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:don't be mistaken. So right after that you go out again. And that was on our own. Okay, so you go out by yourselves and this time in a van? Yeah. Okay. And do you remember where you went?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, every, like, six shows in Texas. So
SPEAKER_01:you started going through Texas. Yeah, and
SPEAKER_02:Arizona, and then in Louisiana, Florida, and then up the coast, and then in, you know, like, New Jersey. We did a live album at CBGB's. We didn't even know about it until the day it was happening. Doug goes, you're not at the club, Doug. I called Doug, and he's like, how come you aren't at the club yet? And I go, what do you mean? He goes, you guys are doing a live album there. I'm like, what? I go, nice to tell me, you know, and tell me on the day that we're supposed to be there. So we got there, and, you know, it was like just one big clusterfuck, everybody running around like chickens
SPEAKER_01:with their heads cut off and stuff. So how are shows in 83, like going through Texas? Is it big yet?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's starting to get bigger, you know, 100 people, 125, 30, 40 people. Yeah. You know, lots of characters, lots of cool
SPEAKER_01:people. Sure. I mean, well, they have memorable bands from Texas. Oh, yeah. You
SPEAKER_02:know, there was a girl, the Texas Cowgirls, there was like this little group of girls, six or seven little girls, you know, that they would follow us from every show we played in Texas. They would show up at our first show and then hang out with us the whole way. If we had like six shows, they'd go to all six shows with us. Like the Grateful Dead. Kind of like that, yeah. So cool. Kind of like that. Every year when we came back, they would always be there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So then out of Texas, you go into the South, and that would have been your first time playing the South. What was that like? Different.
SPEAKER_02:Different.
SPEAKER_01:It's so different than coming out of California where we have every single type of person, right? And we're used to being around everyone.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you go into gas stations, you know, and there's Confederate flags everywhere, and you can see the signs. You know, still at that point, there was still no colored people allowed in this area. Restrooms, you know, stuff like that. We came back the next year, and we had a black drummer, John Mitchell. And we played in this place, I think it was called DW Don's, and it was in Mississippi. And the guy who owned the club, he got up and, hey, can I introduce you guys? And we're like, sure. And I thought he was going to be like, cool, you know. And he got up and he said, I just want to say that this is the very first time a black man has ever played on this stage. And I was like, holy shit. But there was 100 people in the crowd and they all just started going, yay! Oh, nice. John's standing up, you know, taking bows and everybody's just going wild. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:so it backfired on
SPEAKER_02:them. Yeah, he just stood there shaking his head and he had to walk off stage and discuss. That's great. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, it was like we felt so, you know, we felt vindified right there.
SPEAKER_01:Pretty groundbreaking then. Yeah, yeah. I mean, for the South, like, eat it, dude. Yeah, exactly. And that's cool that the punks are, like, progressive. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. There wasn't any negativity. None of the racist bullshit. No negativity at all whatsoever.
SPEAKER_01:So cool.
SPEAKER_02:Even when we would go out, when we had him, we would go out and we did like five shows with Agnostic Front and stuff like that. And everybody loved John. Yeah. He's just a great guy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Where would those shows have been? The five AF
SPEAKER_02:shows? All in New York.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, so you went out and you got to play New York
SPEAKER_02:with AF. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:yeah. So would that have been 84-ish? Yeah, somewhere around there. Did they have their LP out, do you remember? Yeah, yeah. Okay, they had the first LP out, Victim in Pain.
SPEAKER_02:Yep, and then I remember getting copies of the first Cro-Mag album, 84, at that time. Yeah, which would have been 86. Yeah, and that was really, they gave me a, Harley gave me a, a test-pressing cassette or whatever. It's way better than the album. I like the cassette. It's
SPEAKER_01:more powerful. They demoed in almost all the same songs. And so some people really do like the demo more than the LP. It sounds way
SPEAKER_02:more
SPEAKER_01:powerful.
SPEAKER_02:The EP is just kind of... To me, it's lackluster compared to
SPEAKER_01:them. It's just very, very different because one is more aggressive and then one is apex production for the time. So it just kind of depends on what side you fall on. But what was it like meeting the AF guys in 84?
SPEAKER_02:Roger and Vinny are awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Was that the first time you met them? Like, show up at the show, hey, I'm Bob. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:pretty much. I think we had maybe seen them for a few minutes when they were in California the year before and then we met them in... I think that's how we met and hooked up the shows.
SPEAKER_01:They came out on the United Blood 7-inch before they did the LP. Cool. And then do you remember anything of those shows, playing with them? Because they're one of my favorite bands of all time.
SPEAKER_02:Well, there was... I was trying to tell you, I was on stage at one of the shows and some... I said something about a joke or something and some girl got in the audience and said, yeah, you. And so, you know, like everybody was laughing at it and stuff. And I was like, yeah, okay, you know. So... I go, well, we'll talk after the show. And she goes, yeah, I'll take my dog on you. So I go outside, and she's sitting there. She tells her dog to go get me. The dog comes running at me at Pitbull. He comes running at me. He jumps, and I grabbed it by the neck, and I flung it into a dumpster. Jesus. And then I slammed the door on the dumpster. Well, all of a sudden, she liked me. Yeah. She wanted to hang out with me. Every year, she'd come back and hang out with me when I was there after that. She couldn't believe I took that dog like that and put it in the dumpster.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Are you guys sleeping in the van? Yeah, pretty much, most of the time. So you didn't stay in a squat when you were there at the time?
SPEAKER_02:No, I slept in the van because they didn't have any air conditioners. It was fucking miserable. Yeah. It was fucking miserable. Yeah. I'm not used to that 100% humidity and shit. It is wild if you're... California born and raised, and you leave California. I would take my... At that point, we were getting a little more per diem money. I would take my money and put gas in the car and sleep in the fucking car, in the van, turning on the air conditioner four or five times a night.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, how much is a gallon of gas at that point? Back then, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, still, you ain't making shit on tour. You're making maybe... If you're lucky, you get$100 a show. Sure. And then you're going to double or triple that in t-shirts. Yeah. You know, you always make more from the... Back then, we were making more from merch than
SPEAKER_01:we were for actual... And you were actually an early screen printer. So you're actually cutting out the middleman on a lot of your
SPEAKER_02:merch. Yeah, well, that's what we did. We took... We took all the stuff with us on the road, and I would print T-shirts in the hotel room or backstage at the shows, depending on what we needed
SPEAKER_01:to do. Yeah. Talk about getting into screen printing a little bit. That's something you did pre-punk as well, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I met some friends of mine. They owned a T-shirt shop downtown in Oxnard called T-Shirts Plus. I used to work there for a few years. Their son, the people that own it, their son was a really good friend of mine and he's the one who kind of got me up into Humboldt, into that whole marijuana scene up there. But I worked there for five years and they would send me down to classes in LA to learn the newest techniques and stuff for screen printing. And that's where all the first Aggression shirts were made, the patches, the posters. I even went up and down the coast for a few years going from town to town, and I had a catalog with, like, 70 different T-shirts, and I had, like, you know, 100 different stickers and buttons and bootleg cassettes I was making, you know, in the hotel rooms at night. I would go to one town.
SPEAKER_01:So you'd show someone a catalog, and they'd order it, and then you could print
SPEAKER_02:it up for them? Yeah, like, I'd say I drove, like, to San Francisco, and I'd go to a store there, and they ordered 50 shirts, and I would go and buy from Kmart or a t-shirt place, whatever, I could find 50 white t-shirts. Then at night in a hotel room, I would get the screens out, print them, dry them. The next day, I would deliver the shirts.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and then I'd go to another record store, another record store, just up and down the coast
SPEAKER_01:for probably a year and a half. So in 83-ish, there start to be more bands in the Oxnard area.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Do you remember them popping up? Well, Earpiece starts in 82. Do you remember meeting them the first time?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think their first show was at the Wainimi Civic Center down at Bubbling Springs Park. Okay, and you were there? Yeah, yeah. I went to that. I think it was Circle One, the Beer Guts. That's right. I saw The Flyer. Yeah, a couple other bands. I was there for that. It was a great show. At one point in the show, Tony came up and he said, Hey, I got this guitar. At the end of our show, he goes, Why don't you come up and grab it from me? Push me around. Take the guitar and smash it on the ground. Break it. Act like you hate us. Act like you're pissed.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:At the end of the show, I went on stage. I fucking grabbed and pushed him around, took the guitar from him, pushed him down on the ground again. I took the guitar and broke it into a bunch of little pieces. And people were just like, oh my god, Bob's pissed. What's going on? And I looked at him and walked away. And so everybody is positive that I just destroyed Tony's guitar. Yeah. It's funny because Carl didn't know anything about it. And he's watching it and he had bought the guitar for Tony from a thrift store. So he was bummed. He didn't know that Tony asked me to do it. So he was like, Bob, why did you break Tony's guitar? I said, you told me to. I had to tell him. I like that guitar, damn it. But when I was doing it, I happened to look over at him and his face was just like... Horrified.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because what's he going to do? Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:nobody's going to stop me at that point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and 83 big balls is a pretty unstoppable force.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's probably at my biggest point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I used to go down to L.A. every time, and me and Henry and Mark and the guys from Circle One, Blake... We would say, after a show, we'd go send Blake into a 7-Eleven and there'd be a bunch of jocks in there, you know, or something. And they'd start giving Blake a hard time and he'd start giving them a hard time right back. And then he'd walk out and they'd all walk out and then we'd hop out of the car and kick the shit out of them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Just for something to do, you know. Yeah. Saturday night. Or else, you know, I mean, many times I've seen Henry at the Goleta, in Goleta up there. we were playing the show and somebody drove by Henry and threw a burrito and it hit him right in the face. And the beans, you know, like wrapped around him, like perfectly. It was so funny. He just had like a total bean face. He had to go like this to get it out of his eyes so he could see, but it was totally funny. But then other times people have tried to, I seen some guys tried to grab Henry and pull him in the Jeep and take him away and they wanted to beat him up. But you know, back then it wasn't easy being a punk.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, like, like, People today have it a lot easier.
SPEAKER_01:Of course. So you guys were kind of in forces protecting a lot of the punk kids. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:that was my big thing was going around and kind of protecting the smaller punks on many occasions. I still get people that send me messages to this day saying how I saved their life. Yeah, thanks for saving my life in 82. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so cool. I used to love it. I mean, I get three, four, five fights a night sometimes, you know. Yeah. I didn't care.
SPEAKER_01:But you guys were able to navigate and stay out of a lot of the gang stuff that started happening in L.A., right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we were the family, Circle One.
SPEAKER_01:They were your bros. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:we all kind of suicidal, loved us. L.A. Death Squad, we were members of that.
SPEAKER_01:So how were you able to navigate and be friends with everyone?
SPEAKER_02:Everybody because of the band.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because of the band.
SPEAKER_01:So,
SPEAKER_02:I mean, if those bands would come together, those groups would come together at our shows, and we would never have problems. Oh, yeah. But at other shows, those guys had problems with each other.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But with us, we always just fit in with them, I guess. You know, I mean, I can remember when we were in Denver at one point, Denver Skins used to come over to our house all the time, and I heard this big ruckus outside. We lived in a big apartment building, and I hear a big ruckus outside, and I look, and And there's about 10 Denver Skins down on the ground, and Henry's looking out his window up here, and they're going, Heil Henry! Heil Henry! Heil Henry! You know, and they climb up the wall and go in and hang out with Henry and drink all day. Talk
SPEAKER_01:about confused, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, plus, at one point, the Denver Skins had, two of the guys had murdered somebody.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And... Because we should say for the people that don't know, Henry is half Filipino and...
SPEAKER_02:Half Japanese.
SPEAKER_01:Half Japanese. Half Japanese and... And halfway. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So we were, you know, yeah, just for that point. When those guys murdered that guy, the police had thought that I was the head of the Denver Skins. And Aggression was the name of the gang.
SPEAKER_01:Well, your logo's not
SPEAKER_02:helping. Yeah, right. Well, I mean, yeah. There's other bands that have the S like that, too. But, you know, I mean, it doesn't, like, Kiss and ACDC have the lightning bolt. Sure, sure. Nobody ever says, you know, well, there are that. Just because ours is two of them and that happened to be... We look at it as surfing and skateboarding. Other people want to look at it as that other way. We've had to change the style of the S's and the name over the years a couple of times to appease different promoters or whatever. Anybody who knows us knows that we're not...
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we're not anywhere near that kind of band.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So... So that was the first Ill repute show. You see them pop up, and they're good out the gate. Oh,
SPEAKER_02:yeah,
SPEAKER_01:right. And is this something you're stoked on? There's actually an Oxnard scene building.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we used to go. There was more in Ventura in the beginning.
SPEAKER_01:We
SPEAKER_02:used to hang out in Ventura with a bunch of people up there in the beginning and stuff. And a lot of people from Oxnard, Jaime and Ismael. Let's see who else was out there. You know, like Kyle and his Spanish friends. And then it was just the AFU started. All these little bands started coming up and forming in Oxnard. Then all of a sudden it's got a name, Nardcore. People are starting to say Nardcore this, Nardcore that. And then it's got a symbol. Okay, so it's starting to become... We're all known. I mean, people across the world still send me messages.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, in 84, the NARCOR comp comes out. Yeah. And you guys are on it along with everyone else. Right. Now, is there anyone at the time that you think got left off the comp? Or do you think that's a really just good representation? I think that's
SPEAKER_02:a pretty good representation of what's going on at that time in Oxnard.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Do you remember the first time you saw Arkell?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I saw him at their... the barn okay it was called the barn up in galita
SPEAKER_01:okay and were they just insane yeah yeah awesome yeah
SPEAKER_02:insane definitely yeah all great musicians and then you know they had their problems with losing people too like you know like we did and if you if you're in a band you know that started back then you have all original members you need to keep count yourself being fucking lucky. Yeah. You didn't lose anybody. Yeah. I mean, well, it repeats, right? Yeah, I miss Mark and Henry every day, I think, about those guys. Oh, I bet. You know, whenever I hear a song, an aggression song, or I talk to somebody about the old days, you know, it's...
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I never got to meet Mark. It was very... His memorial, though, it's a theater. Right. Joe let me... I got to sing SATC with, I don't know if you were playing, but Henry was definitely playing. Yeah, I was there. And the Burning Dog guys were playing. Yeah. That was really nice. And I knew Henry, and what a sweetheart. Yeah, Henry was a great guy. He'd
SPEAKER_02:bend over backwards to help you out if he could. If he had some way to help you, he would do it if you
SPEAKER_01:needed something. Yeah, yeah. And just very nice to you and younger kids that He didn't know, right? Yeah. So that goes a long way because you never know who the kid is you're talking to. Right. You know? I mean, our singer
SPEAKER_02:now, Jess, he was one of the little grommets that used to dance in my dad's front yard on Fillmore Street, on Silver Street, and we'd be practicing. Uh-huh. Him and three, four, five other kids would be out there in the front yard just slamming away while we're practicing. Yeah. And now he's singing for us. Yeah. He's insane, you know? He's like in that kind of... There he is, Mark. He's a really good performer. Yeah, he's a great performer.
SPEAKER_01:Well, he's musically talented across the board, right? Yeah, he's got
SPEAKER_02:so many other bands that he's working with.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Now, do you do more than the two full US tours? Yeah, I think we did three or
SPEAKER_02:four. Every year we would go
SPEAKER_01:out. Every year you'd go. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you do the BYO record in 83. Yeah. And then you do a self-title on Mystic in 85. Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:we call that one the Ugly Picture album.
SPEAKER_01:I like that. I like the cover, you know? I don't know. It's pretty rad.
SPEAKER_02:Well, we were supposed to put that album together. We were on a tour, and the plan was to put that album together after we got back from the tour.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:We had like five shows left on the tour. We're in Texas. Yeah. We went to a record store to try to sell some T-shirts and whatever we had to try to make a little extra money that day. And I walk in there, and there's that album put together for sale, which we had no clue.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_02:So they put all that together without
SPEAKER_01:us. It was a Mystic special.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Mystic special. Glue it and put it out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because half the songs are like you'd already put them out. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:We didn't want to do that. Well, that's... Mystic trying to get it out there quicker so they can make more money or whatever. But I was surprised to see it. We didn't like the cover. We thought they could make a cover. I don't like the way the aggression is on it. I love the picture on the back of Mark's arm with the safety pin through the zigzag man. Yeah. Because I did that.
SPEAKER_01:I think the layout's cool. Yeah. It's not mine. So obviously things that are your own.
SPEAKER_02:I love the picture of Mark with his head all cut open and stuff. And there's actually a better picture of that from 4U's. They used to go around and a couple of people used to go take pictures of all the shows and put them out for free for everybody to see them. And that's where that picture originally came from, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And so I asked that question before I read my own notes. But in 86, there's a... I believe it's a 7-inch, the Mystic 7-inch, the live at the Underground Railroad. This is actually a live recording in West Virginia. Now, is that at a club, or is it like a...
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's a club called the Underground Railroad. Okay. I think that night we were playing with Butthole Surfers. Okay. And the guy made a tape from the board and gave it to us at the end of the night. We probably never intended for that to be put out. Again, somehow it just found its way into Doug's hands. It found its way into Doug's hands, and then... Still worked with it for a while and
SPEAKER_01:all of a sudden it's a 7-inch. Now, did you know that one was coming out or did you see it in the stores the first time?
SPEAKER_02:I'd say it in the stores. They told us a week before they released it or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. But that's cool. A live recording from West Virginia. You wouldn't expect that. No. The CBGB is one you expect, right? Well, I don't
SPEAKER_02:know too many bands that have a live album from CBGB.
SPEAKER_01:No. Ignostic Front? So that's the most famous one.
SPEAKER_02:That's what you would expect them
SPEAKER_01:to. You know, that's actually my biggest punk and hardcore regret ever is In Control played CBGBs, but we were on a tight budget like you were too. And I think they charged, I can't remember. We played in 03 and it was either 50 bucks or 75 bucks to have them record for the soundboard. And we're like, just can't do it. And then ever since then, I was like, I wish I had that recorded so much. Because you know, if you do a four-week tour, that was probably about the two-week mark. We were so dialed in. Oh, yeah. The two-week mark on a tour is the greatest your band is ever going to sound. You're so tight, but you're not burnt out yet. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's like, it might have been the best we ever sounded. And it was at CB's. And it's like, why didn't I spend the$50 fucking dollars? God damn it.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, when we did ours, Doug had paid for a 16-track mobile recording studio to show up in there. and everything and I think it probably would have been just as well yeah possibly yeah yeah yeah
SPEAKER_01:who knows cause John Lyons you know he used to spoil us from the living room up in Goleta cause he would just record through the soundboard for us for free and so whatever when you're young you're young
SPEAKER_02:yeah I always love those soundboard tapes though you know you have a lot of heart usually you know you can hear a lot of stuff
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think you guys come across really well. What year is it that you moved to Colorado, then? I think that was like 88, maybe. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And then I think the only reason we really moved to... Did
SPEAKER_01:everyone move? Who's the band at that point?
SPEAKER_02:Me, Mark Henry, and Mike Minnick.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And... We went there, we played with a couple of shows, and our tour bus broke down again. Okay. And we ended up staying another week at Denver with the promoter, you know. And he said, you're doing the adolescents next week. Stay and play with them. I'll give you enough to fix your RV. So we did that, and we had a great time there that week. Mm-hmm. At the end of the night, we played the show, you know, got our money. Everybody was in the RV to go, and I looked at the promoter. I had just broken up with my girlfriend at that time in Denver, in Oxnard. So I felt like I didn't have a reason to come back to Oxnard. And I was like, I asked the promoter, Jeff Rutledge, I said, hey, can I move in with you? And he's like, yeah. So I looked at Mark and Henry, and I said, hey, give me my amp and my guitar and all my stuff up there. And they're like, what, you're staying here? And I go, yeah, I'm going to stay. And they're like, what about the band? I said, well... There's plenty of people that would want to play bass for aggression. So Mark looked at me and he goes, you're staying? And I said, yeah. And he goes, me too. So Mark goes, I was like, what? He goes, yeah, I'm going to stay too. So I was like, okay. So Mark grabbed his stuff and Henry and Fluffy went home back to Oxnard, Camarillo, respectively. And we didn't hear anything about it. No one talked about it. About two weeks, three weeks later, we got a call saying, And Henry said, hey, if you guys come out and play these three shows, we'll fly you out. You play these three shows, I'll move back. And Mike said he'll move back to Denver. So me and Mark came out and played the show. What
SPEAKER_01:were those three shows?
SPEAKER_02:I just remember one was at the Palomino. They had
SPEAKER_01:to be big if they could afford your airline
SPEAKER_02:tickets, right? Yeah. The Palomino one, someone got stabbed at and I think it was supposed to be me or something that got stabbed, but the guy stabbed somebody else. It was like, I don't know, somebody sent me something a week ago from this guy in prison writing these things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you want to back up and tell that whole story? It's a pretty interesting story.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I guess... I was going out with this girl, Shannon, at this time, and she had a leather jacket, and I... And someone, we went for, we had seen the leather jacket, we went somewhere to Kmart, and we came back, and the leather jacket was gone. So there were these guys staying in L.A., from L.A. staying at her apartment, and we went through it, and I said, okay, you know, I started to get a little pushy, say we've got the fucking thing, don't make kids come up with it. So... A week goes by and we found out someone said that they bought the leather jacket from that guy that was staying at their house. Well, that guy is at the house again up there staying. So I go there and I bring my baseball bat. Well, I walk through the door and the guy jumps off the couch and flies over the balcony window out second floor and fucking gone. And he's telling people how he was going to kill me. So I went downstairs again and I'm walking up and he's standing on the grass out front going, Yeah, come at me. Yeah. He was waiting. He said, once we took the stage, he was going to rush the door and run up and stab me a bunch of times. Well, they tried to rush the door. Well, they weren't big enough to get through the door. They couldn't get past the bouncers. So the guy stabbed the bouncer through his arm right
SPEAKER_01:here. It was for him.
SPEAKER_02:And everything, the cops came and everything was gone. So then he's right there. I had no clue until maybe two months ago that I was that close to getting stabbed. And I'd like to think that what would have happened was I'd seen the guy coming and I'd have bashed him with my bass and killed him or
SPEAKER_01:whatever. I'd put my money on you, Bob.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, at this point I felt pretty invincible back then. So I didn't care. I put myself in many bad positions with guns and other stuff in the streets and Any more stories like that
SPEAKER_01:you want to
SPEAKER_02:tell? I don't know. A lot of people don't know my friend Casey. If you were real early, he was our roadie, and he got murdered by his best friend. But we were at Godzilla's one night, and these guys were out front pointing a gun, and they were pointing it at Casey, and I went up and kicked the gun out of the guy's hand. I don't know how I got lucky, but it flew up on the ground, and then Casey was so drunk, he grabbed the gun and picked it up. I felt more afraid for my life when Casey had the gun than when the guy that was pointing the gun at him had it, because he was so fucking wasted. So I took the gun from him, and then these guys had the nerve to come up. They wanted to try to get the gun back. I go, yeah, yeah, let me give you the gun back. We don't have any more bullets. You can take the bullets out. I just need the gun. It's
SPEAKER_01:like, you were just pointing the gun at me. Ten
SPEAKER_02:minutes ago you were going to shoot my buddy, and then you were telling me you were going to kill me, and I kicked the gun out of your hand, and now you want it back. And I go, you need to leave. And they just wouldn't get the message. So after about ten minutes of them crying and bullshit, everybody just got tired of it and kicked the shit out of them. Just sent them on their way, you know. Yeah. they were starting to get like mad and said, we'll come back and do this or whatever. We'll go ahead here. We're going to give you something to come back for. Boom.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Those were the days.
SPEAKER_01:Well, those are the classic stories that people love to hear. So as many as you got, that's great.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. Well, this is, this is kind of funny. We were in Denver and we were all working for the same concert company and everything. And we put on this, this big show and, And me and Mark and Henry and about six other people were in this Volkswagen, regular Volkswagen. We had all these people smashed in there. So this guy Rick was driving. He gets off the freeway while he makes a turn onto a one-way street going the wrong way. So the cop is going the other way, pulls around, puts the lights on. So he goes up to the next street like, okay, I'm going to go turn and get on the right way facing. So he goes up to the next street and turns another one-way street the wrong way. So the cop's going, go up to the next street and pull over. So the guy goes up to the next street, takes a turn and pulls up on the curb. Wrong way. Three wrong ways in front of the cop in less than a minute and a half. So we're sitting there and the cop's going, you guys, what are you all doing? Get out of the car. I see you guys shoving beers under the seats and everything else. So we're all sitting there getting our IDs and everything. And I look across the street. and I see this guy walking down the street. Well, it's an Indian guy. Your typical stereotype Indian, you know, big, tall guy, long hair, leather, I mean, not leather jacket, army jacket, like the guy in... Native American dude. Yeah, yeah. That, like, big... Sarge or Chief or whatever you call them. And this guy's walking down the street and he's singing kind of, he starts singing to himself and he stops and he looks over at the cop car and he looks at all of us and he looks at the cop car and he starts walking straight for the cop car. And I'm like, what the hell is this guy doing? He walks up to the cop car, he opens up the back door and he looks at the cop and he goes, take me to 5th and Broadway and he hops in the car and closes the door.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:He thought it was a fucking taxi. Oh, shit. And the cop looks at us and he's like, you guys are so fucking lucky right now. He goes, get in your car. I don't care what way you go when you leave, but get on a one-way street and get home.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:He goes, looks like I have something to deal with. And so we get in. We're all piling back in the car, laughing our asses off. And you can hear the guy going, this and Broadway. This and Broadway.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What the hell, man? That's great. He saved us. Yeah. Because we would have probably all been going to jail.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So when you're in Denver, you still work on music. Yeah. You're still doing Aggression.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we were doing that.
SPEAKER_01:And it gets a little bluesy?
SPEAKER_02:Well, me and Mark started a band called Mark Hickey Blues Project.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so it's a separate thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And then we had another band separate from that, which was called Nightbreed.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And what would that have been like? That was more... Nine Inch Nails, kind of weird-ish. Did you record? We had stuff recorded, just that we recorded at home, but it doesn't exist anymore. Lost. Yeah. I have one flyer from one of the shows with that band. Kevin from Seven Seconds sent me a flyer that we played. My other band, Blistering Agents, we opened for Seven Seconds at Mabuhay back in the early 80s. Yeah, so cool. Yeah. There's four, I've been in four bands. There was one of those and then another band called Havoc.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Which we played, they only played like two shows.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. At Bayside of where? At Oxnard. Okay. Cool. So what else do you do when you're out in Denver?
SPEAKER_02:We all worked for a big concert company called Fay Concerts. Okay. They did shows at Mile High Stadium. Just everyone. Yeah, the biggest shows. Yeah. Metallica. Okay. Wet Monsters of Rock tours and stuff. You know, all kinds of stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:Is Aggression active then into the 90s?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we were playing still in there. We were playing the Rainbow and the Lion's Lair and other bars and stuff up in there.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And when do you move back to California? When does everyone come back?
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I think I came back in like 83 or 94 or something like that maybe. And then I ended up on Catalina Island. Not doing anything musical or anything like that for a while. And then Mark and Henry both had passed away. That's
SPEAKER_01:when I started playing. But they came back, because Henry was back in... Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:after Mark
SPEAKER_01:passed. So Mark was in Colorado when he passed?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then Henry moved back after Mark passed.
SPEAKER_02:Right. I was on tour with Battalion of Saints... I was on tour with the Dead Kennedys as Klaus' bass tech when Brandon Cruz was singing for them. And they played... In Santa Clara or somewhere like that. And Gresham was, Henry had got a Gresham on two shows with them. So, of course, I'm coming, I'm playing, you know, I'm there, I'm going to play a couple of songs with Gresham. So I started out playing a couple of songs at those two shows, you know, and then I slowly kind of came
SPEAKER_01:back into it. Well, that lineup that Henry had going at that time was really good with the Little Rob guy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I don't know who else, but... It
SPEAKER_02:was Little Rob and then...
SPEAKER_01:And who was singing? It wasn't Jess, it was...
SPEAKER_02:It was...
SPEAKER_01:Was it the AFU guy?
SPEAKER_02:No, it's...
SPEAKER_01:I can't remember, but that lineup was good, because I saw them play in Thousand Oaks, and same thing, you were there. You played a few songs, and they were out of this fucking world.
SPEAKER_02:Was that with Kevin? Jelly Roll?
SPEAKER_01:Can't remember. I just remember Henry, like, raging. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And the unit was, like, so good because, you know, a lot of times when bands get older and, you know, you start losing more and more members, they can suffer.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:But that, like, unit that Henry had put together, it just seemed like they must have practiced all the time and they were just having fun and it was so pure. Well, Henry
SPEAKER_02:and Rob lived together up
SPEAKER_01:north. Yeah, were they based out of Santa Cruz, maybe? Yeah. Somewhere like that? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah, it was just, it was very, a very pure... It seemed they were just doing it for the love. It was very nice. And then, yeah, so Henry passes, and then you're back.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I started going. We started doing more shows, and then Henry got sick. And we went through all of that, and then eventually we lost Henry. And I didn't want to do anything after that. I was pretty much devastated by the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because the two, it was very close to each other.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like a couple years. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And those are my, you know, those are my best friends.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for your whole life. If you knew Mark since 12, 13. Yeah. And same with Henry? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was very sad. Yeah, those were the, that was a bad year. Yeah. So, I don't know how to pull out of that question. I'm not that good at this. Yeah. I
SPEAKER_02:was going to say, what we did, That one started into the Cleopatra fiascos, doing anything with Cleopatra.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, how did you hook up with that, and what is that? Is it just like a re-release of the Mystic type stuff?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was some Mystic stuff. It
SPEAKER_01:was that album, right? It's just
SPEAKER_02:almost redone?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:but it's all live and remastered. They spent a lot of money remastering it. It caused a lot of problems between Mystic and Cleopatra and... Then Cleopatra, you know, we signed to do one, just that one, that thing with them, the CD, Full Circle. And all of a sudden I look and there's an album out, The Best of Aggression, that Cleopatra has put out. So they're the people that just put out what they want, I guess. And so I called up and I said, hey, listen, you know, I called them up and they were like, oh yeah, we didn't know how to get a hold of you guys. And I said, well, you need to send me some albums. They sent me two. Jesus. Yeah, two albums. Jesus. I was expecting 50, maybe 100 or something. Well, yeah. They sent me two
SPEAKER_01:albums. Wow. Crazy. The new Mystic.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But at least Mystic bailed you out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely. Who knows? We'd still be sitting in jail, maybe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to get Doug on because I got to get him on. Because even outside of the punk rock stuff, his... Discography and everything is so interesting. It's a lifetime of music, because his dad was an engineer as
SPEAKER_02:well. Well, he was a talent scout. He turned down Kenny Rogers.
SPEAKER_01:He'll never live that one down.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was one of his big regrets, he'd said. And then, I mean, in Mystic, there was always gold albums by Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin on the wall in Mystic and stuff like that. He had a lot of influence in the music
SPEAKER_01:industry. Yeah, he did a...
SPEAKER_02:And he's done over 500 bands.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. He'll tell you.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, it's the first thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I've got to get him on because for the people that haven't had the pleasure of talking to him, he's an old-school guy with a gift of gab.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Anyway, Bob, I really, really appreciate your time. This has been great. I do want to leave the floor open to you because definitely one of the legends of Nardcore and definitely punk rock legend. So just anything you want to say and anything you want to get out there to really anyone, the floor is yours. You can speak on anything.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, for me, it's just, you know, to think back that this all started in 1977, 78 for me, it was quick. You know, I mean, I never played an instrument before, so I mean... whether you're an accomplished musician or someone who's never played an instrument before, punk is kind of an open genre. You can go in and learn to play as you're writing songs. There's such a wide variety of sounds and people that love different sounds out there. You're going to find your own niche no matter what you're playing, what kind of music, what variety of punk, whether it be street punk or jazz. Straight Edge or Popcore or whatever, you know. I mean, just keep going and keep it trying, you know. I mean, I never thought that I would be in a band in my whole life. That was the last thing I ever thought I probably would do. And now I've got seven albums, you know. And last year we were inducted into the Ventura CUNY Music Hall of Fame, which was really cool. So for lifetime achievement. And we didn't give a shit about that when we started. We didn't care about fucking people wanting to, you know, we didn't care if we were known or not. We just wanted to play music, go out and have a good time. We didn't care about winning awards or anything like that. I mean, it was just, it was a hoot and it was a holler and we had fun. We got, we got laid a lot. You know, we went out, we, drank a shitload of beer and alcohol, went across the country many times. So, you know, have a good time. Started a band now. Keep it going, you know. I mean, now I hear there's this new Narncore album coming out. So get on that album and make this scene come alive and just keep flourishing, you know. I mean, it started with two or three bands and it just needs a spark to keep things going. And I went to a show not too long ago at the place where they did the brewery where they released the Nard Court beer.
SPEAKER_01:The Casa Agria?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And there was three or four local bands playing that I hadn't really seen before. And I have to tell you that I was blown away by all these bands. And I was really blown away by the fact that there was 150 kids in there under 18 years. You know, it was an all ages show and I haven't seen it back like that. It reminds me of the early day when we were all be there and we would be, these kids were out there from the first band to the last band, every song slamming, going in the pit, having a great time. Just reminded me of the way all of the older, all we used to be back in the beginning. I mean, now I look at these kids and they're going crazy, having the best time. And then I look at the bar and And there's all the people sitting there. They're having a good time, but they're drinking, and they're not doing any dancing or going up and seeing the bands. They're just kind of hanging out. Yeah. So it's good to see all these kids kind of beef up the scene some more.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But it's nice that the old dudes show up just to listen, too.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. There's still a lot of people showing up at the shows. If we play or any of the older hardcore bands play, I feel like it's respect people show up. Yeah. Because we started it. We got this whole scene going.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's about all I can say. Just do it and have a good time.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we appreciate you starting everything. Thank you. Appreciate that much. Much respect, Bob. All right. Thank you so much for doing this.
SPEAKER_02:Have a great time.
UNKNOWN:Okay.