The METAL MIKE SAUNDERS Interview [1978]

Text by Gary Sperrazza! / Big Star fanzine, 1978

Introduction by Bernie Kugel / Big Star fanzine, 1978

Introduction © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2020

Images from the Internet

This interview was originally published in Big Star fanzine, issue #3, dated Spring 1978. It was written by Gary Sperrazza!, who passed away in 2016 (but his exclamation point lives on). Thanks to Bernie Kugel, the fanzine’s publisher, who kindly granted permission for this reprint.

Metal Mike Saunders is a name that was a much larger known West Coast punk personality than in the East, but he had quite an influence through his early punk rock journalism at both national and fanzine levels, and later with hardcore bands like VOM, and especially the Angry Samoans (who have been touring again in the last couple of years). However, his biggest claim to fame that no one seems to remember is that he is credited with coining the phrase “Heavy Metal.” – RBF, 2020

* * *

In the early ‘70s, Mike Saunders was one of the leading and best writers around, especially when he was writing about the topics most near and dear to him: heavy metal and punk rock of the ‘60s, in such diverse publications as Flash magazine, Phonograph Record Magazine and Buffalo’s own lamented Shakin’ Street Gazette. He also was partly responsible for the legendary Brain Damage mag, the great one-shot parody of the big fanzines a few years back. He was also one of the guys initially responsible for the quickly-becoming-legendary West Coast rock critic punk band, VOM, even though he seems to have stepped back from taking a major role in the band, preferring to just “churn out heavy metal riffs.” Some of the classics he’s written over the years includes such underground hits as “Got a Dagger for You Jagger,” “Just Killed My Dad,” “Getting High with Stephen Stills,” “Gary Gilmore is my Friend,” and many others which will hopefully find their way to vinyl in one form or another, eventually.

Lester Bangs [d. 1982 – RBF] recently told me that Metal Mike was truly “ahead of his time.” So to satisfy the needs of all the Metal Mike fans across the globe, we present this little interview recently done by Big Star West Coast Editor, Gary Sperrazza! – BK, 1978

* * *

Big Star: What have you been doing lately?

Metal Mike Saunders: Well, from 1973 through mid-’75, I worked a 9-to-5 office job here in LA that truly inspired me to go back to Arkansas and get a second college (degree) so I could become an accountant. I saved a lot of money those two years. A lot for what I was making, but… so now I’ve got the degree, got suits in the closet, my hair is cut short, (and) I’m hunting for that first accounting job. I guess my goal is to have $100,000 in the bank at the age of 35. That’s really sick, you know! But accounting is a vehicle through which to achieve that goal, and it’s (a) great profession, besides. Do you really think anyone cares about this trivia, outside of my mother?

Big Star: Not really.

Metal Mike: So let’s talk about something interesting. How about the Dodgers?

Big Star: What about ‘em?

Metal Mike: Well, what it amounts to is that in this town (Los Angeles), the Dodgers are bigger than rock’n’roll, TV, and movies all combined. They’ve run these surveys showing that 71.7% of all males (females, 54%) over 18 listen to the Dodgers games on the radio or TV. And the team is amazing anyway… manager Tommy Lasorda is a bona fide future legend in the making. What it amounts to is that in LA, the Dodgers kill any current rock’n’roll phenomena with the possible exception of KISS.

Big Star: KISS???

Metal Mike: Yeah, I think they’re the ‘70s Beach Boys. The best American rock group, hands down. I love their records.

Big Star: Care to elaborate on that assertion?

Metal Mike: No, not really. KISS are just the commercialization of heavy metal that I was really waiting years for. Plus, they got the most and best riffs of any band around. Like, “I Stole Your Love,” man – any of you MC5 fans who can’t get into that, I’m having your record collections repossessed tomorrow! Or “Love Gun,” to stay current – that’s as good a 45 as anything.

Big Star: Anything else you like in the current rock scene?

Metal Mike: ABBA are really, really great; they’re the only other group whose albums I’d pay four bucks for. Aerosmith are OK, Rush and Starz ditto, Ted Nugent, eh… I really liked all those rock’n’roll Top 40 singles from the past year: Boston, Foghat, KISS, Steve Miller, ELO, the Bay City Rollers’ rock’n’roll singles; paid 99 cents at K-Mart for all those groups’ 45s. Basically, I’m just a heavy metal purist. AM radio finally caught up with heavy metal guitar via Boston – so my taste now is really mainstream. Don’t ask me about New Wave, I hate that stuff. “God Save the Queen” was a great record, both sides, but otherwise… Limeys can’t do anything right, y’know. The Ramones albums literally make me ill. Their 45s are neat though – I bought “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.”

Big Star: Any other hobbies or fandoms you like better than rock’n’roll?

Metal Mike: Oh, yeah, I’ve been back into wargaming since 1975. It’s a great hobby… a couple nights a month, anyway. Baseball is really the king, though.

Big Star: Tell us about R. Meltzer and VOM.

Metal Mike: Gregg Turner came by one day and mentioned that Meltzer wanted to do a group; he was really serious about forming a band. So I said, “Okay,” and the next time I plugged in the fuzzbox to write some metallic riffs, I did a song tailored to Meltzer’s voice, “Getting High with Stephen Stills.” Then a couple days later Turner came by with a lyric he had called “Too Animalistic,” and I wrote some Fred Smith/Wayne Kramer riffs for it, and it was obviously a VOM song! So it all took off, and the concept of VOM has been expanding ever since.

Big Star: Which is?

Metal Mike: Sort of a cross between heavy metal Fugs and the first Stooges album.

Big Star: Who’s gonna be in the band?

Metal Mike: Three friends of Meltzer’s on guitars and bass who’ve knocked around in bands, we’re auditioning drummer, myself on anything from guitar to drums to vocals, plus Meltzer and Turner handing a plurality of the vocals. So things as of this date (10/77) are in that embryonic stage of finding the right musicians, then rehearsing for a couple months.

Big Star: So what’s the musical genre?

Metal Mike: Various levels of heavy metal, because that’s all I write – Black Sabbath/Stooges, mutated ’66 metal, or whatever level of tightness is attained, but with Meltzeroid lyrics and stage presentation. Heavy metal Fugs is really a good description. Unless it’s both stupid… and funny... then we’re not gonna do it.

Big Star: You have a really big backlog of songs of your own, don’t you?

Metal Mike: Oh, yeah, around 300-350 from over the past eight years. I love making up riffs; it’s like working algebra problems. Quick and easy, (in) 10 minutes ya got it, another song. It’s like permutations – 10 different basic chord changes in 10 different sequences, 10 different tempos. 10 x 10 x 10… a thousand songs. You’ve just got to know the basic riffs really well, like very good punk rock or heavy metal record ever made. I think Paul Stanley of KISS is really one of the best riff-mongers ever; his output is just great.

Big Star: What’s your personal experience in rock bands?

Metal Mike: The mid- and late-‘60s, as a drummer and guitarist in a lot of garage bands back in Little Rock, Arkansas; some real megatonic heavyweights like the Rockin’ Blewz, the Living Endz, Society’s Outcasts, among others… A Standells member I wasn’t – by the end of high school I was a real basket case stage-wise… a walking time bomb capable of blowing a chord change at the worst possible moment. Like the chorus of “Talk Talk”… or the intro to “Louie Louie.” My position with VOM as musical director/dictator and utility infielder is really ideal… I only have to play on the songs I know I’m not gonna blow. All three of them…

Big Star: Back to rock writing –

Metal Mike: Rock what?

Big Star: Rock writing; magazines…

Metal Mike: Boy, ya got me. It was just something I did in lieu of working at McDonald’s during my college years, you know.

Big Star: Any writers you like?

Metal Mike: Oh, yeah. Nick Kent of NME was amazing during his hot period. Charles Shaar Murray is amazing. Max Bell also of NME has done real well at times. Over in this country you had or have Lester Bangs. All the rest of us turkeys were a good six notches below Bangs and those first two, I think you’ll agree. Like, I mean, Lenny Kaye for example had a couple great moments, but… Like Circus is really the best commercial American pro-zine at this point – don’t you think that kinda says it all?

Big Star: Compared to NME, yes. Any comments on Mark Shipper, Flash, or your Brain Damage fanzine from 1974?

Metal Mike: No, not really. At this late date it’s just all water under the cesspool… Let bygones be bygones. Who cares, y’know?? I’m still gonna let the air out of Shipper’s tires someday, though!

Angry Samoans: Metal Mike on far left

Big Star: Anything else about VOM?

Metal Mike: Yeah. At the first VOM business meeting, Meltzer was really drunk, knocking over things. We got into an argument on how you write songs, me being used to patching lyrics onto riffs I make up, and then he called me a folkie. I really wanted to deck him. But I calmed down… so Turner and I went into his brother’s bedroom, locked the door, and plugged in the guitar and took a couple of Meltzer’s finished lyrics, “Electrocute Your Cock” and “I’m in Love with Your Mom,” and I made up riffs for them. Good ones, right on the spot. So when we came back out in half an hour with finished songs, Richard saw we weren’t kidding about being just what he needed musically…. He’s going, “Hey, Blue Oyster Cult takes six months to write a riff… this is all right!” And it’s been easy working with him ever since; we write together when we can in the same genre, lyric-wise, so it’s a real songwriting mill. All that Meltzer needs is someone to crank out the music; he’s got the best lyrics around. “I Live with the Roaches” is hilarious – I can’t believe BOC [Blue Oyster Cult – RBF, 2020] wimped out on recording that! All that has to happen is for the group to attain a reasonable level of competence and keep up with the quality of material that’s gonna be coming out.

Big Star: How about records?

Metal Mike: Aw, that’s the best part… for records, we’re gonna bring in Ross Friedman [Ross the Boss, at the time in the Dictators,– RBF, 2020], that kind of thing. They’ll be real heavy metal 45s. I’m the musical Dictator of Vinyl – so they have to be, or they won’t happen. Back Door Man Records will have their first big chance to break the 1,000 sales mark… maybe even 2,000!

Big Star: Sounds Interesting.

Metal Mike: Well, y’know… heavy metal Fugs… I guess it beats watching the San Diego Padres on TV… unless they happen to be playing the Dodgers, that is.

X O X: We Had a Date [1980]

Text by Doris Kiely © FFanzeen, 1980
Introductory text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2015

I have never seen X play live, I’m sorry to say. Yeah, I saw them a number of times performing on TV on shows like Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and a couple of those late-night in concert kinds of shows, but never when I was in the same room.

Early on, I gravitated towards Excene Cervenka’s voice, as the female tones have always appealed to me, but over time I came to appreciate just how amazing John Doe actually was at the time. The guitar work of Billy Zoom has always been a stand-out, but I’m hardly the first one to notice that; same with drummer DJ Bonebrake. The whole band body politic of their personal and sexual relationships seem odd to me, but it’s nice that they’ve pretty much stayed together as X. Also, Excene and Doe have their equally worth hearing Americana side-project, the Knitters (sort of a mix of X and the Blasters members).  Doe and Excene have also released a duet collection.

While Doe has had a pretty decent on-and-off acting career over the years, sadly Excene has slipped into a right-wing conspiracy nut (check out her YouTube channel), and I have seen her referred to as “the Victoria Jackson of punk.” Sigh.

To be honest, quite embarrassingly, I don’t remember Doris Kiely, who wrote this piece, which was originally published in FFanzeen, issue #6, dated Year-End 1980. It’s an interesting, poetical stream of consciousness piece. Doris, feel free to contact me!  – RBF, 2015

You don’t like anything to be called New Wave. You didn’t mind so much when it was called punk. Greill Marcus wrote, “X is the band that has defined LA’s punk scene.” In NY, their hard-edge is an anomaly in the lapping curls of the New Wave night clubs. Sid’s dead, fashion changes, this apartment is too small for me and the cat and the laundry. You say apartments are cheaper in LA. You say you’ll go uptown to 80s [Club] with me.

The shop is closing, metal gate half across the door. The guy was nice, showing me old jewelry, each piece a talisman with a mysterious history. Walking, there was something I wanted to write. Ringing your doorbell I forgot what it was. No weekly papers, no coffee or booze. Before going out we watch TV.

X spray-painted on a wall about to collapse. Prisoners pushing against it trying to get free. Suffocating, they have fortitude left to make rough sounds, dreary, vertical songs. What am I thinking? Nothing. This is music about loathing and death. People are dancing to it.

Excene wears chains, charms, medallions. Holds her head like she’s drunk, trying not to vomit. Her voice is bratty, a net John Does get caught in, writhing. He’s pensive, a charismatic bassist-singer. Billy Zoom, guitarist, grins sadistically, unrelentingly. I’m on a chair that’s an oasis. X is fast and constant.

You say, “Jane was in a good mood today, she said she was OK.”
I say, “Did you ask her how many pills she took?”
She told you she thinks I’m jaded.

Critics on both coasts invoked X with hyperbolic claims. In NY, R. Meltzer was “gratuitously grandiose” in his critique of them, and R. Palmer referred to their “sheer musical excellence.” Robert Hilburn of the LA Times called X the American answer to “the rock challenge raised by the Sex Pistols and Clash.” The expectation which accompanied X to New York was so great that much of the audience was unduly disappointed. No surf-punks here diving off the stage.

X’s malevolent lyrics are two horrified consciousnesses streaming. Excene bends beneath the microphone, screamed, “Get Out.” It’s not just about a girl who has to leave Los Angeles. “Get Out,” I would curse silently at my girlfriend’s brother, repeating it till he left us alone. “The days change at night/change in an instant,” sounds perfect. I can read their minds. They’re on stage letting me. X is so in pain, they’re lovable. They look rather like misshapen freaks. The drummer, DJ Bonebrake, is hidden.

“I’d slap that bitch,” you say. The women in the ladies room at 3 just got there. They missed the sacerdotal offering, X’s melancholy pastiche of corpses. You say they’re monotonous. You don’t have the record Los Angeles, on Slash [Records]. Its coarse texture is soothing, emotional facets, serious music; a miasma of dust and opiates which is a city. The music sounds like traffic, litter on a hot beach, and rock’n’roll at a high school dance.

X remains a tradition the Sex Pistols initiated. Even so, they exert a powerful originality, and alter our preconception of the laid-back California mentality. The audacity of their non-innovation is entertaining. You say you hung the poster from the Beatles’ white album over your bed for two weeks. Instead of fleshing New Wave romance, X presents skeletons and boney sounds. The songs are narrative, literal, immediate; they make us privy to the band’s disgust. This incites a certain opposition and alarm, which makes them repugnant to some listeners.

X’s tidings of grief are ginormous. They signify intelligence in the face of emptiness. “Thanks a lot,” repeats Billy. “They’ll make a movie called Rock’n’Roll College. It’s hot tonight, isn’t it?” you say. I remember Help carved in crooked letters on a school desk.

 

 

 

 

 

RANK & FILE: Not a Common Band

Text by Gary Pig Gold, 1983 

Brief intro by Robert Barry Francos, 2011 © FFanzeen 

 Images from the Internet 

 The closest I ever came to seeing Rank and File live was on a punk-related Rock Palace television program, sharing the bill with the likes of the Circle Jerks. They did two amazing songs, “Amanda Ruth” and “Hot Wind” (which I still have on VHS somewhere, and I that have attached below). My pal, Steve Adams, who colleged in Austin, used to go see the band during its heyday, and remains a fan.  

According to Wikipedia, after the break-up of R&F, Chip and Tony Kinman started the drum-machine-based synthpop band Blackbird, and Alejandro Escovedo joined with his brother Javier to form True Believers, before going solo. But recently Rank and File have reformed and toured, so who knows what’s next. PS, I love Gary’s Canadiana take on this, including calling mac’’n’ cheese “Kraft Dinner,” and uncertainty about the Mason-Dixon line: north of it was mostly Slave free, south of it had slavery, starting on the north Virginia state line, and running east to west; it was “dismantled” after the Civil War, though I’m guessing Gary must know that all these years later. 

 Note that despite my teasing, Gary is truly among my favorite rock writers, and has been since the days of his own fanzine, The Pig Paper (all issues of which can be found online here: https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Writer/gary-pig-gold )… – RBF, 2011 .

“They sound like a cross between Buck Owens and the Ramones!” ”Watching Chip Kinman on stage is just like watching Gary Busey in The Buddy Holly Story.” “I have a funny feeling I’m witnessing the birth of something amazing.” Oh, my God!” On Saturday, April 2, 1983, Rank and File brought heir unique interpretation of The American Sound to the ratty Radio City club, deep within the bowels of the bed-washbasin-and-surfboard suburb of L.A. known as Anaheim, California (right down the road from Disneyland!). Quoted verbatim above are but four of the many observations I solicited from the preppies, punkies, and poseurs of all persuasions who stood spellbound as Rank and File recreated – in fact, incarnated – their groundbreaking Sundown LP atop the creaky Radio City stage. By the end of their 45-minute set, as the audience’s bewilderment had graduated form half-hearted slam-dancing to sub-Hee Haw-style hoots ‘n’ hollers, I couldn’t help but imagine that this must’ve been just like it would have been to see Elvis, Scotty and Bill playing around the Memphis trucker bars and parking lots 30 years ago! Hell – maybe we are witnessing The Birth of Something Amazing. ”We had to do a lot of growing up in order to get where we are today…” – Chip Kinman: guitar, vocals, harmonica and Buddy Busey imitations. ”…and play what we are today.” – Tony Kinman: vocals and authentic Bonanza headwear. ”…and I’m just the drummer.” – Slim Evans: just drums. ”I agree.” – Alejandro Escovedo: guitar, vocals, and grinning Spanish teen appeal. To make a sob story short, the Kinman brothers woke up one day near San Francisco during the Summer of Hate to find themselves, as one half of the infamous Dils, bonafide yet reluctant stars of the local blank generation. Much soul-searching ensued, which quickly lead to (as is vividly recounted on Sundown’s strongest cut, “I Went Walking”) the break-up of the Dils, a sabbatical to NYC’s St. Mark’s Place, a damnation of the their NeWave era in general, and ultimately, a pilgrimage to the Deep South to bask in the comparatively calming sounds and smells of the Great American Heartland. To this day, they call Austin, Texas “home.” Suddenly, Chip and Tony had traded in their trendy Sears Silvertones for authentic Fender gear, unearthed in Slim Evans one of the finest skinmen this side of D.J. Fontana, sent for their old Bay Area sidekick Alejandro to round out the quartet, and faster than you can say Get Rhythm!, this renegade combo were tearing up every truckstop, lounge, and even punk palace south of the Mason-Dixon line. (Which reminds me: where in hell is the Mason-Dixon line anyways?) Like the good ol’ boys they now were, they lived on Lone Star Beer and Kraft Dinner ‘til they had enough saved up to buy a station wagon with which to return west to the Promised Land where, during the fall of ’82, they blew a much-needed breath of fresh prairie air into the spandex’d El Lay music scene. Soon, our heroes found themselves back in ‘Frisco, laying down tracks for their first Slash Records album – an LP, which no less than Robert Hillburn, the West Coast’s very own Robert Christgau, proclaimed as “one of the strongest American debut records in a decade.” In fact, Mr. Hillburn found himself so totally enamored with Sundown that he had 10 copies send air express! to the Man in Black hisself, Johnny Cash, and then urged his VIP pals at Warner Bros. that they’d better pick up this platter, fast, if they knew what was good for ‘em. As a result, you can now find Rank and File proudly displayed in your local discery, right alongside the new Duran Duran… or George Jones… or Journey… And herein we arrive at the primary dilemma which could very well prevent Rank and File from claiming their rightful place atop several of Billboard’s Hot Hit charts: just what is Rank and File? Country? Pop? New Wave? Mockabilly? Well, I for one chose (e) All of the Above, coz in Sundown, I can hear at any given moment the twang of a Link Wray, the hooks of a Goffin-King, the lyrical wit of a Nick Lowe, and the harmonies of the brothers Louvin and Everly. Yet the blend is far from nostalgic or regurgitent: the Kinman’s compositions sound somehow Fresh, New, Current, and Vital. Just like that other great American rock phenomenon, Creedence Clearwater Revival sounded a dozen years ago, remember? But unlike the Hey!days of CCR, U.S. radio today just isn’t as ignorantly open to the fresh, new, current or vital – sure, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” went Top Ten, but only by initial packaging it in a blank sleeve, if y’know what I mean. Consequently, I often find myself awakening at 3 a.m. in a cold sweat, fearful that Rank and File’s potential as Divine Saviors of U.S. Music (sorry folks – I’m on my soapbox again) might be irreversibly nixed in the bud. Jesus Christ! These guys could fuckin’ revolutionize what we now blindly accept as C&W; they could be the Sex Pistols to the Kenny Rogers and Barbara Mandrells who now effortlessly and offensively rule the majority of this nation’s jukeboxes, airwaves, and music award ballots. Given half a chance, Sundown could shake things up one helluva lot more than an entire army of Dils ever could! Okay – I worry about such things. Maybe you do too. But does Tony Kinman? “Nah,” he informed me between rounds at the Radio City bar. “Every band me ‘n Chip have been in has, uh, Made It to some extent. But, you know – so what? The success part of things is really outta our hands for the most part. It’s managers and record companies who have to worry about that stuff. And the people out there really decide in the long run how big a band can be, and for how long.” But Holy Cow, Tony! Doesn’t it bug you guys that if it wasn’t for the Casey Kasems and the Kal Rudmans of the world, Rank and File could very well be that exclusive Next Big Thing we’ve all be waiting breathlessly for?!!, I scream out. Tony’s long, low, all-knowing laugh is my only reply. But it’s his alter-ego, Chip, who leaves me with this final, all-encompassing, concluding profundity before leaping back on stage for the second set: “Success? All I care about is what key we’re gonna do ‘White Lightening’ in tonight!” And There You Have It: the saga of a relatively new band busy brewing right under your very noses. Looking for musical kicks in the ‘Eighties? No need to shop overseas amongst the latest mascara’d synthepoppers: Buy American. Support Rank and File. And who know? We may never have to listen to the Gatlin Brothers Ever Again!