I turned 30 last May and I realized something. In my life I have worked in the music industry in nearly every imaginable way except one.  I stared a record label when I was 15. I ran a zine about punk for 3 years. I have written and blogged about music. I have booked shows and dance parties. I have booked tours for bands. I have managed bands including one for 5 years. I have photographed bands and DJs both live shots and portraits.  I have been in a half dozen music videos. I haven’t actually recorded any bands but I have been in recording studios with bands helping out in whatever ways I could for countless hours. I have made flyers, stickers and album covers. I have promoted, built websites for and done everything you could imagine for a number of bands.  Music was my life for so long but one thing I have never done was play in a band.

I have no musical talent, but that hasn’t stopped me from fucking around with bands.  I was in a band in high school that I played random things like washboards and kazoos in but we never played a show. I have even made some really awful music more or less as a joke. I once sang background gang vocals on a Camper Van Beethoven track.  I even once filled in for a band that was missing a bassist at a show.  I stood there holding a bass that was plugged into a cardboard box that had the word AMP written on it. One of the dudes from PCP Roadblock stood in the back of the room and yelled “TURN UP THE BASS” as the guitarist and drummer played three songs while I stood there banging on strings.  Other than that the closest I have ever come to playing a show was singing Elvis at my friends post elopement wedding party.

Now, one thing I have to say is that I cannot sing for shit. I have no voice and no timing.  All that being said, I am a fucking lunatic and I have a pretty good feeling can thrash around on stage with the best of them. So when I turned 30 I decided to try to start a punk band. After months of talking about it we are finally going to have our first practice on Tuesday.  This band is pretty much going to be a joke.  The guys in the band are all in other bands and they are going to practice with me once a week until we get our shit together to play a few shows for fun.  If I could play three real shows I would cross a huge item off my bucket list.  So we are going to probably just be a cover band.  At least to start with. I sent everyone three of my favorite punk songs to learn and hopefully we can get them down on Tuesday. I guess the ultimate goal would be maybe 5 covers and 5 originals which seems like a pretty good 20 minute set. I’ll let you guys know how it goes although I probably won’t be promoting the shows too much if they ever do happen because 95% don’t give a fuck about punk and wouldn’t enjoy the show even if I could sing.

Now the meat of this post is going to be the 3 covers we are going to end up practicing on Tuesday:

The first is Girl Problems by State Of Alert.  S.O.A. was Henry Rollins first band and he is really dismissive of them.  But their only record, the No Policy EP, is my favorite punk album of all time. Girl Problems is my favorite song on it even though when I was 15 and listning to it the only girl problems I had were that they wouldn’t talk to me.

SOA – Girl Problems

The second song is Drink, Fight & Fuck by G.G. Allin.  I plan on naming my first photo book Drink Fight Fuck and this song is sort of what violent punk is all about.  The irony here is of course that I don’t drink, but I think I might make an exception if we ever play a show. I got in a lot of fights growing up but having a $3000 camera in your hand makes it a lot harder to decide to throw a punch so I have been pretty fortunate not to have done extremely stupid in a few years. And as far as the Fuck part goes… no comment.

GG Allin – Drink Fight Fuck

The last song is Depression by Black Flag.  The Keith Morris version of this song is great but it’s really the live version from Decline of Western Civilization version that I hope to be channeling when I sing it. Black Flag is the band that got me into punk and really changed my life. The DIY mentality of punk is probably the only reason I have been able to run my own business. If it weren’t for Black Flag I would probably be working at a bank or something.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wizKUrUgFOw&feature=related[/youtube]

Comments (4)