Church of Hannah Barbera, Santa Monica, CA 1983-5

Morgan Neville sent in this beauty. A Californian threesome giddily jumping for joy in a graveyard to promote this band's big anthem, “Some of My Best Friends are Dead.” If we are not mistaken, the gent on the right showing big air is wearing a Union Jack jacket.

Til Two, Berkeley, CA 1987

We could not think of a name to save ourselves. For a while, I was liking The Courtney's Ready, which was a reference to a tabloid column about Courtney Cox and her "readiness" to play sluttier roles after Family Ties. But I think it was brought up meekly and quickly self-shotdown. There was a bar called Til Two in Berkeley back then, right next to the original Flints Ribs and right across the street from the Starry Plow club. On Tuesday nights, it was pick-up night...anyone could play. We decided that Til Two sounded like a good enough name for the band (we drank there all the time) and we could hit the joint on that Tuesday as the house band (a joke, in the ironic college way).

When we played, I wore the most psychedelic shirt in my possession. Paisley = supercool. I was trying to follow in the historical precedent set by Hendrix on the Are You Experienced cover. No one else seemed to care about what they were wearing at all. We got to the bar and waited for the right time to pounce on the stage and claim the instruments that were being played by the other master musicians who had shown up (biding our time by doing shots, eating the ribs we had brought in from Flints, and trying to convince our lead singer that he would be able to keep both down.) Finally our moment came. We hit the stage and started playing, in a very blurry deer-in-the-headlights fashion. To this day, I could not tell you what song we ended up playing... although my money would be down with Bo Diddley's I'm a Man. Our singer was so nervous that he remained behind myself and the guitarist the whole time (in the picture, you can see his shoes). I kept it steady, feeling the shots that had been taken earlier...and had a blast inside the rock and roll moment....one of the only two stage moments of my teens. And then it was over.

The shock of actually playing live was too much for our band could bear. It is with great sadness that i report, Til Two never played again. The facts were faced: we were Literature majors, reading between the lines of James Joyce and Beowolf...not reinterpreting Robert Johnson or Pere Ubu. The bands that played at Til Two...even on the pick-up nights...had more right to be there, in our opinion, than we ever would--no matter how much we practiced or how much we talked about our practically fictitious band. While I loved music I was in no way an artist, and since being a failed musician, I did what anyone else would do: I entered the BUSINESS side of the Music Business.

Urbicide, New York City 1983

Courtney Holt of New York City writes: "This gig was at a club was called Snafu, located on 21st and 6th ave right by Danceteria. It was a tough venue as you were always competing with the television (top right). We were all between the ages of 15-17 at the time and really into hardcore. After spending weekend after weekend at CBGB’s hardcore matinees and going to record shops like Rat Cage, 99, Freebeing, Venus, and when we had to... Bleecker Bobs, we were ready to give it a go. We took the best of everything we had seen at CBGB’s – Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law, Minor Threat, Meatmen, Die Kreuzen, SSD – and threw it in the blender.

Each member of the band had a different cultural reference. Our drummer, Jeff, was into songs that were socially relevant and political. Seth who played bass, wanted to fit in and make sure our sounds would play with the NYHC crowd, making us change stuff to avoid sounding like poseurs. Dave our guitar player was the most talented musician and he wanted to shine, which meant he wanted solos – something that didn’t figure too much on the hardcore punk scene, but we figured it out somehow. We were a total mixed bag, I had to filter thru. We had political songs, funny songs, “reggae” songs, and covers ranging from the arty (Wire) to bands we wish we were as good as (Negative Approach).

I don’t remember who came up with our name but our drummer was an artist and he did the crafty artwork on the banner behind us. We were originally called American Waste for about a minute until we realized that it was the name of a Black Flag song, and at that time liking Black Flag had fallen out of favor. Seth brought this to our attention and we promptly changed the name but it lived on the hazardous waste symbol that was on everything we did.

Our biggest show was playing with Sonic Youth at CBGBs which was some sort of benefit with like 20 bands. Someone recently sold a flyer for the show on ebay, but the price sky rocketed and we didn’t win it."

To listen to Urbicide and their fearsome track, Barney Miller, click here. Stonking stuff.

Soft Option

Adam Hall, Colin Evans and Dave Tonner, Liverpool, 1983
“Flock of Seagulls owned Liverpool when we came together but we were really Depeche Mode fans. Trouble was, we only had one Synth – the Roland pictured above – so on the more complicated songs we covered like Everything Counts (see cassette below) I had to play parts on a Melodica – the small keyboard you blow into. It was my Mother's idea. We went to an all boys school, so the gigs were boys only, which meant we did not get laid but the nights we played were some of the greatest of my adolescence. Our school and our normal lives were so strict, the sense of release was total.” Below is the cover of their 1983 eponymous cassette release which combines self penned classics like They're Killing Me with some of Depeche Mode's finest.

Vegas Era Elvis

Marco Cegile, Maplewood, New Jersey

The Elvis thing was in my life for years. It started when I was quite young, perhaps 5 or 6 and went on until I was about 11. That's a dog's age in terms of a kids' attention span. My Elvis was

"Vegas Elvis." I didn't have a jumpsuit, just a regular suit and some gold chains I'd borrow from my dad. It all began at family gatherings like Christmas, thanksgiving, etc. but quickly became a fixture whenever a large crowd of any kind gathered at our house. My brother Tony would be on drums and my cousin Paola would be singing back up while my oldest brother worked "sound" aka playing 8-Tracks of the songs as backing. I even started writing my own songs which the crowd were patient enough to sit through while waiting for more familiar numbers.

The show stopped when I got older. When I hit 12 or so the bit suddenly felt long dusty. It was definitely over when I discovered heavy metal in my teens and I realized that despite truly being a captive audience, my family had no interest in watching me put on my motorcycle jacket and combat boots and belting out a rendition of Metallica's "Sanitarium" while they digested their Thanksgiving turkey.