I became acquainted with Shari while she worked at Max’s Kansas City, in
the late 1970s. She is an amazing artist and cartoonist, and I published a few
of her humorous Max’s Funnies in the print version of my physical FFanzeen in
the early 1980s. This is a reprint of a Facebook blog on May 19, 2023 that she
wrote about the first time she was Joey Ramone perform in a pre-Ramones band
which shared a bill with SUICIDE, reprinted with her permission. – Robert Barry
Francos, 2023
Sniper
The First Time I Saw Joey Ramone: For His Birthday (May 19, 1951)
The very first time I saw
Joey Ramone perform live was as “Jeff Starship,” fronting the glam rock band
(we called it “glitter” back then) SNIPER, at Coventry, on Queens Blvd in
Sunnyside, Queens in 1973. I was 16 at the time and going to Art & Design High
School in the city. SNIPER was opening for a duo that my Art & Design
friends and I had heard much about, and we’d gone to check out: SUICIDE. We
knew the singer was a painter/sculptor/installation artist that was getting a
lot of attention, so we were intrigued.
When we got to the club,
we found a place to sit on the floor about twelve feet from the stage. The
crowd all found seats on the floor around us. The room filled up fast.
When the lights went down,
and SNIPER got on stage, I was immediately spellbound by the lanky front man
with bangs and sunglasses. First of all, he was taller than anybody I had ever
seen in my entire life – let alone someone fronting a rock and roll band. Even
without the 8-inch-high hot pink platform boots he was wearing, he would’ve
been taller than anyone I’d ever seen. Super long skinny legs in hot pink shiny
hip-hugger spandex pants, hot pink platform boots, and a dangling long black
scarf. Long dark wavy hair with short bangs, big cheekbones, and round shades.
And he had a stance that looked as if he was hardly moving, but even without
moving much, his delivery actually seemed quite aggressive. He had a unique
vocal style. Everything about him was unique.
I don’t recall the music
very well to tell you the truth. And I don’t recall the other members of the
band because I couldn’t keep my eyes off the singer. I just remember thinking “I
will never forget this front man for the rest of my life.”
After their set, we were
anxious to see the headliner. I’ll make this next part short because this story
is really about Joey, but I can’t leave out my first impression of SUICIDE.
Suicide
It got dark, and all of us
in the audience were sitting on the floor, waiting for what seemed like an
interminable amount of time, looking at the door behind us from which the duo
would be entering. Finally, a guy dressed all in black leather comes into the
room, dragging a large thick chain behind him. Slowly approaching the stage, he
wields the chain menacingly around the edge of audience, shouting
unintelligible stuff, and being incredibly menacing. I can’t remember if he was
on a mic yet, but he was loud. And I don’t remember if the keyboard player,
Marty Rev, was on stage yet at that point. I only remember my first glimpse of
the singer, Alan Vega, and he held us all in thrall. I was sitting there, and I
remember thinking, “Okay this is scary. If I get up now and try to leave, I’d
have to make my way out by stepping over all these people in the dark, and he’s
gonna see me, and he’s gonna come running after me with that goddamn chain...”
I had no choice but sit there and wait and see what happens next. So, I stayed.
When they were finally on stage, the music was deafeningly loud and strange,
and different from anything I’d ever heard before. And despite the terrifying
theatrics of Alan’s entrance, the music was actually mesmerizing, and I became
of a big fan of SUICIDE. Years later at Max’s, Alan and I would become great
friends. He was a real sweetheart. A true innovator.
Back to my Joey story…
For three years, after
seeing that show at Coventry, I would remember that strange looking singer I
saw fronting that opening band, wondering what ever happened to him, if he was
still performing.
By 1976, I was still
living at home in Queens, and going to SVA (School of Visual Arts) in the city.
One day I was at my boyfriend’s place. He had just bought a new album. It was
by this band THE RAMONES; he said that I just had to hear because they were
great. Totally different than anyone. Then he showed me the album cover. I
couldn’t believe it. I was like, “Oh my God, that’s the GUY!!! That’s
the GUY!!! That’s that front man I told you about! The lanky one with
the bangs and the glasses! It couldn’t be anyone else! That’s the singer of
SNIPER!” It was so weird that I was the only one in my crowd that ever saw him
play in any band before THE RAMONES. Needless to say, that was a great first
album, and the rest is history.
I saw them for the first
time at Hurrah’s in August 1978 with my friend Jane. She and I were up front
and center, standing right against the stage. And many years later I met his
beautiful mom, Charlotte, a very sweet lady. And it was obvious that he
inherited those big high cheekbones from her.
This was first published
in another form from my column in Jersey
Beat fanzine (digital version) in 2005, which is no longer available. I have
updated it and added new text.
Ramones (pic by Robert Barry Francos)
As a gross generalization,
there are two ways to look at music: forward and backward. In the modern punk’s
vision, bands and fans imagine themselves doing the former more than the
latter. They often deride the First Wave pre-1975 (or so) music as hippie
and too structured. Well, as someone pointed out to me, more time has
passed since the Sex Pistols broke up (1978) than from the beginning of
rock’n’roll (for argument’s sake, let us say 1955) until that point. We all use
what we grew up with as a point of reference for what we see in the future. It
is easy to look back and say anything pre-Ramones, or even pre-hardcore, is
worthless. Okay, but if you were there when the Ramones started in ’74, you had
rock’n’roll – not punk – to use as your starting point.
Eddie and the Hot Rods (photo by Robert Barry Francos)
The Ramones used surf and
pop as their foundation and gave that a twist, giving the British punks
something newer to build upon (Malcolm McLaren learned it here from the likes
of Richard Hell and disastrously managing the New York Dolls, and then returned
to England to help create the Sex Pistols), and then the hardcore scene
combined the First Wave New York and Second Wave London scenes to create the
Third Wave. One of the first US hardcore fanzines by the late Paul Decolator was
even named Third Wave. Each Wave brought something different into the
mix.
As I discussed with a
former fanzine editor, some of us who are old enough to remember pre-Ramones
seem to find it somewhat easier to see other kinds of music as possibilities. Many
of those early ‘70s punks came from the harder sounds of glam and metal (e.g.,
John Lydon singing along to Alice Cooper’s “Eighteen” as his audition for the
Pistols), and I came from listening to folk, both traditional and modern. My
punk sensibilities are a bit different than most I know, for that reason.
Dead Boys (photo by Robert Barry Francos)
I have often posited that
folk music (e.g., Dylan, Ochs) of the ‘60s is the same in spirit of those of
the punk era: protest music that just became more electrified, simplified,
faster, and louder. But the themes are often the same (tell me “Positively 4th Street”
is not punk). That is why so many members of punk groups started doing solo
singer-songwriter styles as they aged and their bands dissipated.
Husker Du (photo by Robert Barry Francos)
The up-and-coming punks
have bands like the Ramones, the Pistols, Black Flag, and arguably Nirvana to
use as their history, but we did not. There was no punk. There were bands like
the Velvet Underground, the MC5, and the Stooges, but in a time when FM radio
was basically album rock (such as Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Yes and CSNY),
the odds of even finding out about VU and the like was slim. Unless you knew
someone who was hip enough to turn you on to that stuff (in my case, it was
Bernie Kugel, the first record collector I had met and a fine musician in his
own right).
Richard Hell (photo by Robert Barry Francos)
But mostly we who were
rebelling had very few alternatives. I mean, if you wanted to be really
radical, you could listen to Bowie (of whom I was never a fan), or the Count V
(who did “Psychotic Reaction” in the mid-‘60s, before just about anyone knew
about maniacal fuzz). Hell, even the Rolling Stones were looked on as scary. Once
the ‘70s started, I almost stopped listening to broadcast music because there
was such a dearth of anything out of the mainstream. I was fortunate enough to
see Slade during the early ‘70s though, who showed me what was possible, but
even they were arena rock, just as loud and hard as can be (the opening band, that
I found tedious, was Aerosmith).
Johnny Thunders/Heartbreakers (photo by Robert Barry Francos)
To sum up: from the
opening of CBGB as an alternative music venue in 1974 to now is nearly 50
years. If one was to flip that from the time before CBGB, which would be the Roaring
Twenties, when Jazz and Swing were considered radical. When punk started, there
was only a 20-year history of rock’n’roll to build on, as opposed to the 50-years
of the present punk sound. You can poo-poo early rock’n’roll as being too
standard (aka boring), but considering the shift of what the Ramones (and the
like) listened to with what they ended up bringing, was far more radical than
just about anything going on today. How much of what you are listening to now
is fundamentally different than the bands of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s? Or even
the Blink-182s of the ‘90s? You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a
stone…
This edition of the playlist are songs that really
should not be played in front of general co-workers, little ones, or most
relatives due to content and language. I am interested in listening to the
obscure music arena than prattling on about it, despite my brief comments These
will be of a multitude of genres, from punk to folk, to just out there.
The songs are listed alphabetical by first letter
of the artist or group (with a single exception here), and not listed in a
“ratings” order. Art is subjective, so I hope you like these as much as I enjoy
them.
Note: There is no advertising on this page, so I
will not be making anything off the work of others.
California Speedbag “Shitlist”
Smog Veil Records For some
reason, I just fell in love with this I kilt my wife song, rough as it
is. It came off an anthology album from Cleveland called Pie & Ears, Vol
1. I know nothing about the band. While many of the songs on this list are
funny, this one is dead serious, and that’s part of what I like about it.
The Clap “Disco
Jesus” Kleen Kut
Records
As both an atheist and a person who abhors disco, I love this single. It is
both joyous and mocking at the same time. How can you not love lyrics like, “You
oughta see him do The Hustle / Upon that funky cross.” This won’t make me a
believer in either disco or Jesus, but I’ll sing along: “Dance, dance, disco
Jesus!”
Eddy Gorodetsky and Tom Couch “Wop Muzik” 415
Records
“Pop Muzik” by M is a gawdawful song, but was a massive hit at the time, This punkish
spoof actually comes quite close to the original, but is hilarious. Maybe it’s
because I grew up in a deeply Italian neighborhood? The flip side, “Reasons to
be Hungry,” a parody of Ian Dury’s “Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3,” is also
worth a listen.
Garfunkel and Oats “The
Loophole”
Garfunkel and Oats This duo
is made up of actors/musicians/comedians Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome. Their
songs can be political or social criticisms, or about their own personal
experiences with sex. What is noticeable right off the bat is that their tunes
are wordy, and often sung fast by both of them at the same time. This particular song is both funny and poignant, especially in this
current religiously-charged social and political moment in history.
Jimi LaLumia and the Psychotic Frogs “Eleanor Rigby” Death Records
Yes, this was a real group who would occasionally play at Max’s Kansas City.
The punk take-off of the Beatles ditty takes a dark song and makes it even
darker. A thing of beauty, Jimi’s deep and raspy voice fits the new lyrics, as
did John Lennon’s overproduced vocals on the original. The flip side of this
single is a great cover of Wayne/Jayne County’s “Fucked by the Devil.”
Rachel Bloom “Fuck Me
Ray Bradbury”
Rachel Does Stuff Rachel Bloom,
who has a perfect voice for this kind of material, rose to fame and won an Emmy
for the television series, ”My Crazy Ex Girlfriend.” But this was the one that
set off her career, full of bold ideas and no gatekeeping. She sort of carried
on where Sarah Silverman left off.
Sic F*cks “Chop Up
Your Mother” Sozyamuda
Records
This is fun punk rock, with Russell Wolinsky fronting, and the F*ckettes behind
him, who are none other than scene darlings and sisters Tish and Snooky
Bellomo, who run the Manic Panic hair products empire. I have seen the band a
number of times, and you can too in digital form by watching the slasher flick Alone
in the Dark, from 1982, where the group performs this song and “Rock or Die.”
The Swinging Erudites “Walk With
an Erection” Dimensional
Records
At the lead of this group that spoofs the Bangles “Walk Like an Egyptian” is Johnny
Angel Wendell, a Boston rocker who also headed the bands Thrills and the Blackjacks.
I saw Thrills play CBGB (and drove him and late lead singer Barb Kitson to
where they were staying afterwards), and Wendell performing a solo “punk
Sinatra” shtick that was hilarious at The Rat in Boston. A man of many talents.
Also check out the Erudites’ “Living on My Hair,” an excellent take-off of Bon
Jovi.
Wayne County and the Electric Chairs “Fuck Off” Safari
Records
Infamously now Jayne County, this was a relatively big hit for her. Most of her
music is blues rock based with a total punk attitude, with other songs including
“Man Enough to Be a Woman” and “You Make Me Cream in My Jeans.” Her
contribution to the first wave of punk down at Max’s Kansas City has yet to be reckoned
with by many. Perhaps a street sign on Park Avenue similar to the Ramones
outside CBGB?
Mike Brown and the Sneakies “Fuck You”
M Records This is going to have to
remain as an Honorable Mention because I could not find a video for it. It is a
break-up song that is both full of angst and the release from it. If you can
find it on another non-video platform, it’s worth the search.
The New York trio,
The Rattlers (1979-88), were known more for family connections than the band,
which was a shame. I saw them play a number of times, and between the high
kicks were some kick-ass tunes. They rose from the ashes of Birdland, which
included Lester Bangs on vocals. I saw Birdland open for the Ramones once at My
Father’s Place, in Roslyn, New York. When they clipped their Bangs, they became
The Rattlers.
This interview
was published in FFanzeen, No 7, dated 1981.
The Rattlers Strike!
Why is the New York press
ignoring The Rattlers, one of the outstanding bands on the East Coast today?
Nearly all their press clippings
are due to their appearing with famous relatives or from out-of-town papers.
Matty Quick, the band’s drummer and driving force of this power trio, explains
it this way: “We’re so far underground. We don’t have any records except that
one disc [“On the Beach” b/w “Livin’
Alone, released in 1980 on Ratso Records – RBF, 1981]. We don’t have any singles out there for them to buy, so it’s really
hard. It’s hard to fill a club. When kids don’t have an opportunity to hear
your records over the radio, they’re not going to come out. You go to a club
and there’s two-three hundred kids instead of a thousand, you know, it’s sort
of like a vicious circle. You gotta have vinyl to get to them. It’s not that we
do so bad with our audiences, it’s just that they don’t know who we are yet.”
“And that’s because we don’t
get much press,” guitarist Mitch Leigh picks up, “which brings us back to the
original problem – why don’t we get press? We stayed in Chicago and we got press. We got press in Boston.
And we got minor press in New York City, like The Villager. Where can be get press in New York other than The Village Voice and New York Rocker? The New York press hasn’t written about us in a year.” Matty claims
that “The Voice wrote about us when we broke up Birdland [two years
earlier – RBF, 1981]. We were the “band that
broke up.” And it was only to kiss Lester’s ass.”
The lack of a record is
what seems to be hurting The Rattlers the most right now, but “the press is
really discouraging any form of building here in New York,” states the
ever-moving Mitch, with his graceful spread-eagled jumps in the air on stage,
and high kicks that bring his feel level with his head. “God, you gotta ask yourself,
‘What the fuck is going on?’ These papers aren’t writing about us. Then people
won’t come to see you. I wouldn’t expect a paper like The New York Post to write on us. I’d expect an underground paper to, because we’re an
underground band.”
Mitch/Mickey Leigh (ffoto by Robert Barry Francos)
But what press they’ve
gotten has been favorable. They’ve had their picture in People, and been briefly
mentioned in The New York Post, The
New York Daily News, and Billboard, but that was due to
relatives rather than themselves. They were almost completely ignored, sort of
a “Here’s so-and-so. Oh, and those guys are The Rattlers. Now more on
so-and-so.” Not the sort of thunderous types they could use to push their
career.
The lesser-known papers
have written about The Rattlers, as Chicago’s Prairie Sun (by excellent rock’n’roll writer Moira McCormick) and Boston’s What’s New, but they have focused on their performances or their records, and
have written nothing on the personal side of the group. Matty said, “Boston is
really incredible the way they support the bands up there. And in Chicago, all
the major press, like The Village Voice (equivalent) of Chicago, liked this band we played with. They were one
of the ‘good bands in Chicago.’ They sucked. They were like the Knack.” Mitch
pitched in, “But still, they got support. Local support. We go to Boston, and
they play our tapes on the radio. They play our record on FM stations.”
“WBCN [Boston] was the first major radio
station to play our record,” chimed in Dave Merrill, who leaps in the air come
close to rivaling Mitch’s, but whose bass playing is hardly rivaled by anyone.
Matty finished the point by commenting that, “The reason they don’t give us
more airplay is because we’re not a Boston band, and they like to help their
bands. Like, when they can slip us in, they do, but they always try to slip in
a hometown band. The attitude is, like, ‘Let’s promote our own’.”
With all this lack of local
publicity, you would think that the audience would not be there. Wrong. The
audience is there and vocal in their own way. “Dancing is the best reaction you
can get,” Matty claims. “In New York, you get the least amount of dancing. We
go to some towns, and all of a sudden the whole floor is full of people
dancing. That, to me, is the biggest turn-on, when they’re out there having
that kind of fun, rather than just watching. In New York, everybody just stands
there. Whatever the reason, they’re afraid to react. They don’t react, whatever
the situation is. Dancing really gets me off. I think we do best when people
dance.” Here, that tends to be a problem because, as Mitch puts it, “In New York,
they’re the coolest. Everybody is too cool to dance or show any kind of
emotion, bad or good.”
“We do like the guys in the
front who bounce on the tables when we finish (at Max’s Kansas City),” Matty
defends. “We like them.”
Dave Merrill (ffoto by Robert Barry Francos)
And so, the tale continues.
And what of their management, FBI [Frontier Booking International,
run by Ian Copeland, brother of The Police’s Stuart – RBF, 1981]? Mitch explains, “We’re not very high on their priority list right
now.”
So, it’s back to the problem
of press, or lack of it. But what of the papers here in town, such as the one’s
they mentioned? “You wouldn’t think that papers like that would have so much
sway in the biggest city in the fuckin’ world. They dismiss us. Is it something
to be ashamed of that we want to make records for people? They put us down
because of that,” complains Matty.
Mitch goes on to say, “They
don’t like us at all. They said that we can’t sing, and we have no good songs.
They didn’t say that in their paper, but that’s what they said to somebody who
called up and said, ‘How come you don’t write about The Rattlers?’ That’s what
they tell people over the phone.” Dave concludes, “They have shit taste,
anyway.”
But the gigs go on, and The
Rattlers build in popularity. Having such little press, however, means they get
“stuck” at a lot of gigs, such as when they opened for David Johansen at the
Fast Lane in New Jersey. Their total take for the night was $50. But they look
at it almost humorously, as Mitch explains that, “We got to see a bunch of
slugs outside the dressing room. There was an alley right by the dressing room.”
Matty added, “It was the highlight of the night. We peed on them to see if the
salt content of our urine would dissolve them, but all they did was steam and
crawl away.” But Dave retorted, “You would be steamin’ too, if somebody pissed
on you.”
With their word-of-mouth popularity
spreading, it’s only a matter of time now before the band breaks the New York
press. They have toured with a few big groups and have a possible upcoming tour
with 999. Only time will tell when the headlines read, “The Rattlers.”
After some
changes in the line-up, the band members would move on. Mitch [aka Mickey] would
be in bands like STOP, Sibling Rivalry and Harry Slash, but it would be his
autobiography, I Slept With Joey Ramone that would put him into the press. Dave would move on
to more experimental, electronic music for a while, including being in a band
that played on one of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethons in the
1980s. Recently, he has been with a straight-ahead rock’n’roll band called
HEAP. As for what happened to Matty, I’m not sure.
I have told
this story before: before I even knew who punk/metal vocalist and songwriter Helen
Wheels was, she made a deep impression on me. Though unidentified, she turns up
at the CBGB bar in the 1978 film, Punking Out, where she mentions that she is never bored, as she
fidgets around; the full 25-minute film is linked HERE; Helen’s comment is at about 22 minutes. Her strong
personality and sharpness shook me up for some reason, and made me look at my
own life.
Born Helen
Robbins, it was the Dictators’ Handsome Dick Manitoba who gave her the “Wheels”
to her name. But her larger claim to fame was as a songwriter who penned some
songs for Blue Oyster Cult, including the B-side of “Don’t Fear the Reaper," “Tattoo
Vampire.”
The petite and
muscular Helen formed the Helen Wheels Band, and I knew I had to interview her.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Helen Wheels being not bored in Punking Out
Helen Wheels: The Interview (1983)
Helen Wheels’ stage persona
may appear to be a frightening one. She licks knives and sticks them into the
stage reasonably close to the audience, and shoots a pistol – point blank –
into the crowd. With blanks, of course.
Her prior two bands, made
up of biker types, added to this mounting paranoia. In these two previous
forms, Helen’s music was not overly appealing to me. True, she wrote some cuts
for Blue Oyster Cult’s infamous Agents of Fortune album (the only one I like, actually), the music she performed was
heavy metalish, which was not the kind I wanted to hear.
So, with some reluctance, I
went to see a Helen Wheels Band show (honestly, she was playing with a band I
wanted to see) and I liked what I saw. Then her six-song EP, Post Modern Living (on Real American Records) came out and I was a bit more impressed,
but the funk strumming was a bit tough for me to take at times. Despite all
this, I found myself going to more of her shows at varied locations, from CBGB
to the School of Visual Arts (SVA). Before I realized it, I was entrapped by
the powerhouse. Her music is more down-to-earth rock’n’roll than previous
incarnations, and I’ve come to love the record. What’s more, but don’t tell
anyone, Helen Wheels is a pussycat. Her values are vastly different than my own
liberal ones, and there are beliefs she holds true that never entered my ken.
She’s open and has an infectious personality that’ll knock you on your ass.
There are a lot of things I
could have asked Helen about, from her connection to BOC to her stance on UFO
culture and her own abductions, to her tattoos, but I decided against that for being
too obvious. So, when I interviewed her at the Brooklyn Zoo (March 26, opening
for Iggy Pop), I walked in with only one question on my mind.
FFanzeen:In the movie Punking Out, there’s a shot of
you at the bar of CBGB, saying that you’ve never been bored in your whole life.
Helen Wheels: Yep, it’s true. I’m still never bored. I’m so busy all the time
doing stuff, and if I don’t have something else to do. I just go over and pump
some iron.
FFanzeen: How
long have you been doing that?
Helen: Kinda in a less serious way, for a couple of years, but quite seriously
for three months. At least four days a week. I find it’s something that’s
making me extremely happy, as well as strong. I mean, I can bench press 130
pounds now, which is quite a bit more than I weigh. I guess it stimulates the blood,
but just being strong, you have a new kind of confidence. I mean, I was always
strong and I always carry a big knife, but now, sometimes I don’t even carry my
knife. It makes you feel pretty cocky and good. It’s my latest favorite thing
to do – when I get sick of making phone calls and booking the band, and making
posters and all that other stuff, and I still work on the wardrobe, making new
costumes. Plus, the way I keep from being bored is that I haven’t had a
television in 12 years, so that really helps. I think television is a negative
kind of thing – video games – kind of programming things. And I think it gets
people kind of depressed and down, so I read a lot, and pumping iron is the
best thing for me lately. It makes me feel really cheerful. It must stimulate
certain hormones or something, because I get really high off it. The same kind you
get off singing, from the oxygen. I really enjoy it.
FFanzeen: Before
you were doing it seriously, you were always in good shape; muscular.
Helen: Yeah, for years I’ve always had a set of dumbbells around and I would
lift, here and there. I always enjoyed doing any kinds of test of strength: arm
wrestling (for example). But I find it’s also amazing because it’s the only way
I’ve ever heard of to actually get a perfect body.
FFanzeen: So
you do more exercise than just lifting weights.
Helen: I do chinning, I have a trapeze. I hang upside down, do sit-ups hanging upside
down, and I have a bench. I also have, like, leg presses, and extensions.
FFanzeen: You
have all this where you live?
Helen: Yeah, I’ve got a home gym. I even got a little trampoline to run on.
FFanzeen: Isn’t
it better to work out with a coach present?
Helen: Yeah, my boyfriend’s my coach. He’s great. He did a lot of weight
lifting when he was younger, and now we work out together. The main thing is to
keep good form, whatever you do, because you can hurt yourself pretty badly.
FFanzeen: Are
you going to start competing?
Helen: I was fantasizing about competing in this contest in Queens, but I might
wait until there’s one in Manhattan, ‘cause I really don’t want to take the
subway out in my little posing suit. Actually, I have to get a posing suit. I
don’t have anything quite small enough.
(ffoto by Robert Barry Francos)
FFanzeen: You
could always use your leather bikini (that she uses on stage).
Helen: [laughs] Some of those girls really don’t have too much on. I’ve recently become
friends with the middleweight Miss America, Leslie Barber, who is absolutely incredible. She’s my height and she has, like,
fourteen-inch biceps. She’s great.
FFanzeen: Have
you ever been interviewed by any bodybuilding magazines?
Helen: Yes. As a matter of fact, a magazine called Lady Athlete photographed me at the Ritz on Monday. They’re doing a big piece on
me. They did “before” pictures, where I’d only been working out for a couple of
weeks. They may be here tonight also, with the editor of Body and Power, which is the biggest bodybuilding magazine. The writers have taken a
lot of interest in me, because they feel I might be good for the sport, in a
sense. Women’s bodybuilding is a very young, fledgling sport, and people have a
lot of misconceptions about it. Like at the competitions, there might be 300
men and eight women.
FFanzeen: What
kind of misconceptions?
Helen: Oh, you know, that the women are gonna end up being, like 230-pound
bull-dykes after six weeks. It doesn’t happen, because women don’t have
testosterone. They have different hormones, so the main thing that most women
will get first is that they’ll lose their body fat, which will make them happy.
And then they’ll get definition. And they’ll get strength.. If you have a bad back,
it helps your posture a lot, as long as you watch your form.
FFanzeen:
Maybe I should try it.
Helen: A lot of people I know are, just because they see what it’s doing for
me. I think it’s real positive in the same way that I feel, like, with our
rock’n’roll: we’re really trying to show a strong, healthy, American image.
Strong is the right word, rather than the kind of degenerate, debilitated
Communist-junkie thing that is really what the media is putting out. You know,
I won’t name names, but they really love the bands where there’s drug addicts,
and stuff, because those people are so easy to manipulate. Put them in the
big-time, tell them what to do, how to act, what to wear; you can’t put this
song on the record, you put this one on. I firmly believe there’s a major conspiracy going on in
this country, and the way it affects rock’n’roll is that they choose the
patsies, rather than strong artist who want to control their own image and
their own music. They can’t control us. To me, the bodybuilding fits in
perfectly with what I’m trying to say with my music, which is, “look to yourself.
Be strong yourself, because we’re the only ones who can turn this country
around.” I firmly believe we’re the only country – unless there are some other free
countries that have a Constitution (and) a Bill of Rights – that encourages
creativity and invention, instead of squashing it. I mean, there is no
rock’n’roll in Russia, there’s no rock’n’roll in Poland. They only give you
disco, because disco is for mechanized minds that don’t think. I mean, those
beats-per-minute puts part of your brain to sleep. It’s a serious thing. People
don’t realize the seriousness of media control. And, of course, punks, and all
the people, they get their images from the media, so the media even twists
around the strong and good ones. I really try to speak in no uncertain terms
about what I want and what I feel; what I want to bring to people from my
music, aside that it’s fun, kick-ass energy. That’s the top thing. That’s what
rock’n’roll is, is freedom. I want it back the way it was – 1776.
FFanzeen: Do
you feel Reagan is trying to ruin that with his cutting the budget in the arts
areas?
Helen: I think Reagan is a pawn. He’s not in the Council of Foreign Relations,
which is unusual for a president, but everyone who advises him, is. He’s not
that evil, but he’s not in control, either.
FFanzeen: What
is the fascination you have for motorcycles?
Helen: Speed; throbbing energy – I only like American motorcycles.
FFanzeen:
Harleys, of course.
Helen: Harleys. I like Indians. They’re hard to come by. I’ve been riding
motorcycles since I was fifteen, and that’s more than half my life. Motorcycles
(are) the same thing as rock’n’roll. They’re about freedom. The people that are
riding – some of them are outlaws and some of them wanna just get there and
ride, ride, ride. They just wanna be out and be free. It’s just “headin’ down
the highway / Looking for adventure.” It is ultimate. I mean, I like the real
hardcore, outlaw bikers. I think those people are kinda like, you know, the
last cowboys. And by outlaw, that doesn’t mean killing people, that means
making your own laws. Living your own life, having your own values. I don’t
give a shit what the world thinks of me anymore. I’ve been suppressed. I’ve
been put down, and I’ve been really maligned in some press. I’ve been censored
off of national TV and radio for speaking out against drugs, and of being
basically clean-cut, and a kick-ass, biker-rock’n’roller. And I fuckin’ resent
it, because look who they put up there. Anybody who shoots dope gets first
crack at it, and so many fans have died since I started rock’n’rolling, and so
many of them are like the people who come here in the audience. You have a
responsibility, as a person on stage, to put out a positive message, to say
something uplifting, something that’s good for people. Not just that it’s all
immaterial, that you have no future. That’s something that the Brits did when
they said that punk started in England. We all know that they copied the Ramones.
Punk started in 1976 on the Bowery at CBGB’s, which is where the punks adopted
the motorcycle jackets as their symbol of freedom, ‘cause it was a biker bar.
FFanzeen:
Actually, it was ’75.
Helen: ’75 was the beginning, ‘cause ’76, it was kind of like the christening.
And you had the real American bands, like the Dictators.
FFanzeen: Great
band!
Helen: Fantastic band. And they got shut down. I resent it, ‘cause they were
one of the greatest bands. The Ramones, bands like that, that were very
patriotic. I mean, if you look at a Ramones logo, it’s a presidential seal:
Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and whoever they have now.
FFanzeen:
Ritchie.
Helen: Then they bring over the British disco shit and all that, and mixing it
up with the rock’n’roll. And then they’re calling that New Wave.
FFanzeen:
Don’t you feel that it is also from American groups, like Devo?
Helen: Yeah, but to me, that was more like “thin-tie, wimp rock.” Yeah, that
was the same kind of thing that the press did. They picked up those bands, and
called those bands the New Wave, and they left out the Dictators; the Ramones,
who should have had a No. 1 hit a long time ago. They’re doing all right, but they’re not having the success
they should have. Look at some of the big Brit bands. They aren’t very
talented, and any kids who were hanging out in the early days, I mean, those
were not the bands they went to see. They were the thin-tie ones with the least
energy and the most, like, disco mixing, which is what they went to for big
money; and to me, that was a real sick perversion of the whole thing … it has
no place in what I want to say. It goes back to what I was saying about having
responsibility. I see junkies up on stage, and the audience thinks they’re the
greatest fuckin’ thing they’ve come across since the Sex Pistols, or whatever
shit they got last from the media, and then they think, “Oh, man, it’s so hip.
Let’s try shooting dope. Let’s check it out. That’s what our rock’n’roll heroes
are doing.” Right from Keith Richards on down. And the media loves it. Then I
go to the shows and the kids that were alive and wonderful – full of energy –
they’re, like, nodded out on the tables. And then, one by one, like Jessie Blue
[not to be confused with the bland “Oranje Guice”
singer, Jessi Blue – RBF, 2022], they die. By accident,
you know? “We didn’t shoot junk all the time, just now and then.” Jessie Blue
was a friend of mine and she was a real talented girl. She had a lot of heart
and soul. She was in the Slander Band. She was just “foolin’ around,” you know.
She was in Punking Out with me. And she died from it. So many of them died from it. If they
don’t die, they’re like the living dead. And that’s worse, ‘cause then they’re
just a patsy of the powers-that-be, that don’t want people like me around to
say, “Take your vitamins, lift weights, and be strong, and you can control your
own life, and bring the country back to health with you.”
FFanzeen: Was
there ever a time when you were into drugs?
Helen: I’ve taken drugs, sure, but I really cleaned up my act. The older I got,
the smarter I got. I found out that I wanted to live. I still go 100 miles an
hour on a motorcycle once in a while; 110.
FFanzeen:
[Faking shock:] But isn’t that illegal?
Helen: Well, the laws – you know, you do it late at night when there’s no one else
on the road so it’s not a danger to them. I think everybody has the potential
to be their own person. Everyone has the potential for the kind of health and
happiness and freedom that I’m talking about, in this country, anyway. It’s
only because of the twisted media image that so many people are down on
themselves; sad, can’t find a place in life. That’s what [the media] want. They’re
trying to beat down the strongest ones. I always come back. I always come back
stronger, too. And that’s what I hope to encourage other people to do, to fight
for whatever the fuck you wanna do. If you want to be an accountant, man, fight
to be that accountant. Be the best one that there is. But if you want to be
something that’s impossible to get at, like the president, or a total outlaw,
or a rock’n’roll star, just follow your heart. That’s what “Break the Chains”
is about, it’s about personal freedom. Following your intuition and your heart.
To be whatever you want to be. I was just a kid who dreamed. There’s not too
many people up there giving you a positive word. There’s all this negativity
coming down. They have to fantasize because the reality is made so miserable
for them. I see a lot of people now; they just want to escape. But I figure the
real thing to do is just make it better so you can be in reality and feel good.
FFanzeen: How
do you propose to do that?
Helen: I think I’m already doing it through the best methods I can. If people
will get our record and check out some of the political inserts and some of the
information there, pass the information along, and just become more
well-informed about the fact that there is a media conspiracy in this country.
Bankers own Marshall Amps, own ABC’s studios, own Hollywood, own all the
newspaper chains, own just about everything except fanzines. Which are pure.
Just the way, like, a lot of the new bands are real and pure, and that’s why I
love them. I’ve had interviews for big papers where they said, “This part is
too hot. Take it out. Leave in this nice part here. Leave in this stupid part
here, this joke here.” Then fuck the whole thing, ‘cause if I can’t say
something that means something to me, then why say anything at all? … Along
with the real punk bands, and the real New Wave bands in the late ‘70s, was
this immense network of fanzines crossing the country. There’s still quite a
few of them. We got a list of 3000 of them with our record. Maybe 50 went out
of business within that time, but a couple of new ones started. And to me,
that’s where I find out about the censored bands, the local bands, the real
stuff going on. They don’t wanna give me big money for stuff yet, but they’re
gonna have to pretty soon, ‘cause I won’t shut up and I won’t disappear. Not
unless they actually try to assassinate me or something, which they won’t do
because I’m too strong. I won’t stand for it. [Laughs] It’s not just me. There are a lot of people coming up now that just
aren’t going to disappear, that are positive. And I think it’s really going to
start turning the tide, because people, even if their minds say, “Yeah, let’s
shoot junk because so-and-so there is so cool, and this-and-that. Let’s snort
speed and do all this stuff,” their inside animal, their intuition does not
want that, even if their minds want to do it. If someone starts speaking to
their inside animal – this is like, magic stuff, and it’s saying, “Be strong,
be healthy. Be who you want to be. Really realize your fuckin’ dreams.” The
animal says, “Do that, do that. Try it.” ‘Cause I find the more I follow my intuition,
the happier I feel. Our record is being played in 40 states now, just by our independent
efforts. Features all across the country. It’s being played in Buenos Aries,
London – I think it’s tremendously exciting that this can be done
independently. Independent records are really the healthiest thing in the whole
industry. It’s the same as the fanzines; it’s made of the people.
FFanzeen: So,
you would say your record was a success.
Helen: Absolutely. I think it was an artistic success because we put out the
image, and the music, and the songs that we chose. We did it at an ultra-budget
price with real good technology. We had wonderful people working on it. It’s
getting played on some 150,000-watt stations, which compares with the Pat
Benatar sound, or whatever shlock they get paid to play. I think the fact that
it’s getting played in 40 states, is a tremendous success for us. And now, a
year after its release, it’s still being picked up as a new add by maybe 5-10
stations a week that we know of. We haven’t made a fortune out of it, but we
sold out the first pressing, and we’re pretty well into the second pressing
now. I hope I’m not naive and that it hasn’t peaked yet. The way I look at it,
it’s going to bring us a lot of success. As an independent, it’s gotten good
out there. We got fantastic reviews cross-country. In fact, we’ve got response
from radio stations that said they weren’t even going to listen to the record
because they thought the reviews were all hype, ‘cause nobody had an EP with
six great songs on it. Then they write us these letters: “Fuckin’-A. I didn’t
believe the reviews ‘cause they seemed like a hype, but the record is great and
we’re playing all six cuts.” We did a taped interview by [scene photographer
and writer] Mariah Aguiar (d. 2005) that has been on 30 radio stations across
the country, and we have a request for that quite regularly. In fact, I’m going
to do a syndication radio show that’ll be on about 15 radio stations on the
East Coast in April. It’s a new show, coming out of New Brunswick, New Jersey.
And the college stations, where they are not programmed to play only this and
only that, we’ve had tremendous success because … they like it. And that’s the young
people. That’s fine with me. I hope we hit all the people. I think we got a
real good start. I think we’re doing real well. I’m hoping to win the lottery
so I can make another record. [Laughs] I’m ready. Joe Bouchard (bassist for Blue Oyster Cult) wants to produce
it again. The same engineer (Corky Stasiak) wants to do it. They’re really
tremendously excited that what could have been a dinky project has won them a
tremendous amount of acclaim, too. It was Joe’s first outing as a producer, and
he’s getting all kinds of kudos, so he’s ready for the next one.
FFanzeen: How
is this band different from your previous two?
Helen: Well, I always like to think that as I progressed as a singer and a
writer, my musicians have just gotten better and better. I think that this band
[Jack Rigg, guitar, who currently works with Bouchard as writer and composer;
Orville Davis, bass, has gone country; Paul Garisto, drums, is a
session/touring musician including with the Psychedelic Furs and Iggy Pop –
RBF, 1983/2022] has the most variety, musically. It’s not all, like 4/4, heavy
metal or something. I think everybody feels a real freedom with their
creativity. We’ll write a lot of songs and boot out most of them and just keep
what seems kind of golden and special to us. Songs that we all like. I really
don’t think we have any boring songs. And I certainly never get bored on stage.
I think it’s the best band by far that I’ve ever had. I love the rhythms. There
are so much more unusual rhythms, and it’s challenged me to write in many new
ways. Like, now I’m writing a lot more as we’re writing the music, rather than
writing a poem and setting it to music. It’s more of a give and take product. I
think I’m doing my best writing now than I ever did in my life.
FFanzeen: Do
you think that you’re playing with guns and knives on stage promotes violence?
Helen: No. Certainly no more than television does. I think a lot less. What it
does is promote an image that people are little bit afraid of, which is the
armed and dangerous woman. I think it’s an important cultural image to put out,
and that’s one reason to do it, because of the “weaker sex” bullshit. … When
people are hassling everyone else on the street, as I pass by, they say, “DT
ticket,” which means, “Don’t Touch.” That means you don’t fuck around with this
person because this person knows themselves, and looks a little weird. See, I
don’t believe in gun control, because the way that things have gotten, all the
bad guys have guns. They buy a Saturday night special for $25. Why shouldn’t I
have a gun to protect my house? I don’t think it invites trouble. The same as
bodybuilding. I think it gives a different image of womanhood for the ‘80s,
that a woman is not passive. People don’t think of women as fighting back. If
they did, they wouldn’t fuck around with them so much. Nobody fuckin’ touches
me.
(ffoto by Robert Barry Francos)
FFanzeen: Are you
trained in any of the martial arts?
Helen: No, but I wouldn’t mind being. It’s not something I would put out of my
mind. Bodybuilding is one way of making myself strong and I might be interested
in doing that. … Although the ultimate defense is a .45. It’s the same as
pressing 125-plus pounds. When I can press 180 pounds, then if a 180-pound man
starts to attack me, I’d be able to pick him up and throw him against the wall,
and break his head. That’s what I see is a great use for that. When you can do
pushups on your fingertips, you can put your finger right through somebody’s
throat, or you pump out their eyeball, they won’t bother you. If you’re strong
enough to rip their nose off their face, that’s great. To me, it’s holy. It’s
kind of an art, to make yourself strong and whole. I am very spiritual. To me,
I’m one with nature. That’s my goddess. And nature demands me to be the strongest, most intelligent,
most creative being that I could possibly be. To do the most with my life. To
me, that’s living an entirely spiritual life. Just to be the fullest human
being that I could be. If I’m not writing songs, I’m managing the band, or
working and doing something for bucks, or sewing my costume. I believe in doing
everything related to my life. I’m a great cook, you know? I enjoy every aspect
of living. I really try to. Even if you feel shitty, there’s something good you
can get out of it. Read a book or something. It’s just a matter of keeping your
mind alive. And not being discouraged by all the shit that’s in the world. I
can’t stress the media conspiracy enough, because they want to put us down.
They really want powerless people. The same thing with gun control. That’s the
second amendment. There must be an armed militia of the people to keep the
Constitution in line for when all these scumbags in Washington are changing the
immigration laws and doing all this stuff that is destroying our country. We
must have an armed populace that has the brains – and they don’t get the brains
from eating Wonder Bread – that can take care of themselves. What they’re doing
with all this shitty food to these kids now is terrifying, because we’re
getting a new generation of nutrition. That’s something people should be
immensely aware of, just taking care of their bodies and their minds. Plus,
it’s like a suicide country, if you just let it tumble down the way it’s going.
FFanzeen: How
do you think we can change that?
Helen: By becoming more well-informed, by watching our own personal health and
strength, by finding out what we are guaranteed in our freedoms and making sure
we get those guarantees. That’s what this country is built on, is the
Constitution/Bill of Rights. And that’s what gives us the right to rock’n’roll.
The right to express ourselves and to speak out about what we really believe
in. From the selfish standpoint of an artist, I would do anything to protect
the freedoms of this country, because they would have killed me in Russia. They
would have put me in jail 15 years ago, just for being an outlaw, let alone
singing rock’n’roll. Because I won’t be told what to do. I really believe in
that for everyone: self-determination. And I think that people are hungry for a
positive, American message. I’m fuckin’ sick of the British Invasion, which
never ended since the Beatles, and then try to pummulgate it into everyone’s
minds here that the Brit bands are the good bands, because they’re the ones in
the media. They’re the ones getting $3,000 when we get $300 or something.
People say, “Why don’t you go over to England and make it big over there, and
then come back?” That’s the last resort, because I’m American and I’d really
like to make it in my own country first. I wouldn’t mind doing well over there,
too, because fans are fans. They have to clear the songs with the BBC, you know.
I mean, it’s not a Communist country, but there’s a lot of political repression
there. And to me, most of them are neo-disco (and) it’s all this synthesizer
hype bands – and it’s all phony. And I really resent it that our media and our
people are slobbering over all the English stuff. There’s thousands of great
American bands here that are not getting a chance.
FFanzeen: You
can hardly get a gig at a major club in New York on a weekend unless you open
for a British band.
Helen: I’ve got everything going against me: I’m a chick, I’m white, I’m real
American. I’m not a commie, I’m not gay, I play rock’n’roll – they don’t want
me, but I’m not going away. … But I try to keep a positive thing going. Most of
the people that are rockin’, they just wanna rock, and bless them. May nature
bless them and let them rock. It’s the healthiest thing they can do.
When it came
time to publish the article in its original form, I told Helen I was going to
make it into the two-page center. She hand-created a beautiful piece of illustration
as a border, after I gave her the dimensions, which I used, of course. It was
not boring.
Looking back
in hindsight from 2022, I wonder what Helen would make of the modern, Internet-informed,
COVID-infested, anti-vaccination, White Nationalist groups, “fake news,” post-Trump,
and post-1/6 insurrection America. Unfortunately, we will never know.
In 1996, Helen
moved to Ithaca, New York, and after a stint as a trainer and opening up her
own small press imprint, she became a member of the band Skeleton Crew and was
recording a new album (Helen Wheels and the
Skeleton Crew).
Helen went into Ithaca
Hospital for some corrective back surgery, having hurt it over a decade before,
caught an infection, and passed away on January 27, 2000, at the age of 50.
Maybe her goddess was lovingly trying to protect her from learning about 9/11,
nearly two years later..
Currently living in Saskatoon (email at RBF55@msn.com for address). From 1977-88, I used to publish a print version of a music magazine in New York called FFanzeen, which dealt with the wide-ranging independent music scene. I also photographed many bands from the period (and since). Now I write this blog. And the beat goes on.
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