This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of the Misfits
Page 10
Less than a month after the release of their debut album, the Misfits had lost their third drummer in six years over a thirty-eight-cent cheeseburger.[49] Googy’s departure killed the momentum they needed to break Walk Among Us on any kind of larger scale (the Slash/Ruby release later remembered for dominating 1982 is Fear’s dark debut, simply titled The Record). This unexpected inactivity bred enough tension and resentment within the band to prove fatal. Not even the addition of a storied hardcore punk superstar would save the Misfits from slipping into the grave forever.
There were more pedestrian matters directly at hand, though—namely, Doyle’s graduation from high school in June. By all accounts, the ceremony went far smoother than the guitarist’s passage from Thomas Jefferson Middle School several years earlier. That graduation ceremony erupted into vague chaos when fourteen-year-old Doyle, hair freshly dyed pink with matching jacket and pants, was initially refused his diploma by Principal Gary Carabin for violating Thomas Jefferson’s dress code. Doyle sat on the stage long after Carabin purposely neglected to call his name; the audience began shouting in the youth’s defense, and Doyle made his feelings known with a one-fingered salute. After some give and take, Paul Doyle Caiafa was finally awarded his diploma once the ceremony concluded. The angry Doyle promptly crumpled his award up and discarded it—the school had accidentally put someone else’s name on the paper. “I just wanted to liven things up,” Doyle told a New Jersey Herald reporter later that day. “It was all so boring and they were such a bunch of duds.”[50]
Doyle, the third and most menacing Misfits guitarist, Goleta, CA, 1983. Kevin Salk.
Singer Glenn Danzig, on the blurred line between stage and crowd, Goleta, CA, 1983. Kevin Salk.
Danzig shows some of the musculature that would later define him, Goleta, CA, 1983. Kevin Salk.
Doyle and Glenn in classic pose; note the overwhelmed fan in the background, Goleta, CA, 1983. Kevin Salk.
Bassist Jerry Only in full regalia, Goleta, CA, 1983. Kevin Salk.
Jerry’s past as a high school football star shines through, Goleta, CA, 1983. Kevin Salk.
Fifth Misfits drummer Robo helped usher the band into hardcore, Goleta, CA, 1983. Kevin Salk.
1. Mark Prindle, “John Stabb—2008,” Mark’s Record Reviews, http://markprindle.com/stabb-i.htm.
2. End of the Century, directed by Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia (2003; Los Angeles: Magnolia Pictures, 2005), DVD.
3. The Clash: Westway to the World, directed by Don Letts (2000; London, 3DD Entertainment, 2002), DVD.
4. Thom Jurek, “Professionals: Review,” Allmusic, http://www.allmusic.com/album/professionals-mw0000454833.
5. “Public Image Ltd.—Poptones & Careering (American Bandstand 1980),” YouTube.com, uploaded by BonzoGoesToMexico, November 26, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZLhqTzjpUM.
6. “Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (NBC) 27th June, 1980” interview transcript, JohnLydon.com, http://www.johnlydon.com/tom80.html.
7. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, “Minor Threat: Biography,” AllMusic, http://www.allmusic.com/artist/minor-threat-mn0000422947.
8. Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground: 1981–1991 (New York: Back Bay, 2002), 40, 141.
9. Chris Desjardins, e-mail interview with the author, April 2011.
10. The Misfits, Walk Among Us, Slash/Ruby Records, 1982, vinyl record; Eerie Von, “Liner Notes,” The Misfits, Caroline Records, 1996, compact disc set.
11. The Misfits, Walk Among Us.
12. Jaime Sciarappa, telephone interview with the author, November 7, 2010.
13. “Misfits—‘Walk Among Us,’” Terror Times (March 1982).
14. Tim Sommer, “New York Noos,” Sounds (May 1, 1982): 14.
15. “Misfits—‘Walk Among Us,’” Forced Exposure, no. 2 (March 1982).
16. Ned Raggett, “Walk Among Us,” AllMusic, http://www.allmusic.com/album/walk-among-us-mw0000197473.
17. Joe Matera, “The Classic Albums: The Misfits’ ‘Walk Among Us,’” Ultimate-Guitar.com, June 24, 2009, http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/interviews/interviews/the_classic_albums_the_misfitss_walk_among_us.html.
18. Desjardins, e-mail interview.
19. Matera, “The Classic Albums: The Misfits’ ‘Walk Among Us.’”
20. Desjardins, e-mail interview.
21. Brian Baker, telephone interview with the author, January 3, 2011.
22. Jay Yuenger, telephone interview with the author, January 4, 2011.
23. Dave Brockie, telephone interview with the author, March 14, 2011.
24. The Lemonheads, Favorite Spanish Dishes, Atlantic Records, 1990, compact disc.
25. Hot Rod, directed by Akiva Schaffer (2007; Paramount Pictures, 2007), DVD.
26. Ian MacKaye, telephone interview with the author, January 28, 2011.
27. Mark Prindle, “Jerry Only—2003,” Mark’s Record Reviews, http://www.markprindle.com/only-i.htm.
28. Glenn Danzig, “Movies,” Flipside, no. 36 (December 1982): 51.
29. Desjardins, e-mail interview.
30. Tim Bunch, telephone interview with the author, April 5, 2011.
31. “Misfits Interview,” Flipside, no. 36 (December 1982): 21.
32. Desjardins, e-mail interview.
33. Spit Stix, “FEAR, SNL, Halloween 1981,” A Punk Chronicle, http://www.sol-i.tv/Spit/docs/5a.html.
34. “Misfits Interview,” Flipside, no. 36 (December 1982): 21.
35. Desjardins, e-mail interview.
36. Nardwuar, “Nardwuar the Human Serviette versus Glenn Danzig,” Nardwuar.com, December 1999, http://nardwuar.com/vs/glenn_danzig/index.html.
37. Craig Lee, “Horror-Movie Rock from The Misfits,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1982.
38. David Chute, “Misfits Make a Joke of Hard-Core Punk,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, April 15, 1982.
39. Mike Stax, “All Hell Breaks Loose: The Jerry Only Interview,” Ugly Things, no. 12 (Summer 1993): 22.
40. Glenn Danzig, “Who Killed Marilyn?” Plan 9 Records, 1981, seven-inch vinyl record.
41. Pushead, “Danzig,” Thrasher (June 1986): 65.
42. “Misfits Interview,” Touch & Go, no. 18 (Fall 1981).
43. Glenn Danzig, personal letter to Tesco Vee, Lansing, date unknown.
44. “Misfits Interview,” Flipside, no. 31 (1981).
45. Glenn Danzig, personal letter to Tesco Vee, Lansing, date unknown.
46. Sal Bee, e-mail to the author, August 2012.
47. Stax, “All Hell Breaks Loose,” 22.
48. “Bobby Steele Interview,” Punk Floyd (1993).
49. Lynne Olver, “McDonald’s Hamburger Prices,” FoodTimeline.org, http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq5.html.
50. Stax, “All Hell Breaks Loose,” 16.
Die, Die My Darling
5
“Whom the gods love die young,” was said of yore. ―Lord Byron
The Misfits were not generally known during their so-called glory years for spending time with fellow punk rock bands. Granted, the group took a handful of younger like-minds under their wing: Manhattan sleaze rockers the Victims were the only outside band allowed to release anything (in this case, a self-titled 1979 EP) on the Misfits’ Plan 9 label; fellow Lodi punks Rosemary’s Babies were also chums to the degree that Babies singer JR still considers Glenn Danzig “a really supportive big brother” type and fondly recalls him helping to load the band’s gear into clubs for gigs;[1] and the Necros were another somewhat macabre outfit from the Midwest who began regularly touring with the Misfits after a pleasant experience opening the latter band’s first Detroit show. For the most part, however, the Misfits locked horns with their contemporaries, making enemies of some of the punk scene’s bigger names over seemingly ridiculous matters.
San Francisco agitators the Dead Kennedys, for instance, were labeled “assholes” because they released a song called “Halloween” in the wake of the earlier Misfits composition.[2] The Mi
sfits also began hating the Flesh Eaters—despite singer Chris Desjardins’s role in the creation and distribution of Walk Among Us—as they believed the band to be “homos.”[3] The Cramps and the Ramones faced Danzig’s ire because neither band would allow the Misfits to share concert billings when the groups were all still in their infancy in the late 1970s (even though both these trendsetting New York bands helped paved the way for the Misfits in many regards). Such venom was typical and often returned in favor; during a 1982 gig with the Misfits in Michigan, unhinged Crucifucks shrieker Doc Dart jabbed the image-heavy headliners by asking the audience, “What’s the difference between the Misfits and Ronald McDonald?” After a brief pause punctuated a few stray shouts, Dart spat, “Oh, you can’t tell the difference either!”[4]
One outfit the Misfits didn’t pick fights with was Black Flag, the California hardcore founders whose explosive anger at authority figures was expertly outlined on their 1981 debut album Damaged, right down to the cover depicting the meaty fist of singer Henry Rollins smashing into a mirror. Black Flag’s lethal guitar-heavy approach resonated with the equally agitated Lodi assembly who were more or less at the same level of underground popularity. The two groups forged a mutual respect playing together a handful of times beginning in 1981; on June 11, 1983, the Misfits made clear how much they valued Black Flag by traveling across the country for a one-off performance at that group’s auspicious “Everything Went Black” reunion concert.
“Everything Went Black” was a reference to the 1982 compilation album that Black Flag was forced to release without their name due to ongoing legal entanglements with MCA imprint Unicorn Records.[5] The concert found three former Flag vocalists—Keith Morris, Ron Reyes, and Dez Cadena—coming back to the fold for one blow-out night of throat-ripping memories at the Santa Monica Civic Center alongside Flag’s fourth and final singer, the aforementioned Henry Rollins. Rollins was such a Misfits devotee he had two Crimson Ghost tattoos—one for each arm, and one more than Misfits singer Glenn Danzig had himself at the time (for the record, Doyle was the Misfit with the most drawings of the Crimson Ghost permanently inked on his body, brandishing four inside a fiery design near his right shoulder).[6]
Second on the bill that night at the Civic Center after SoCal skate punks the Vandals, the Misfits set their towering amps emblazoned with the Crimson Ghost atop a blood red stage carpet and plowed through their material at lightning speed. Video of this gig shows the band as the consummate showmen they were. Glenn Danzig stalked the stage like a man possessed in his full body skeleton costume while the Caiafa brothers lumbered shirtless just outside the spotlight. A Misfits logo on the bass drum glowed in a certain light; pounding away behind that drum was the newest Misfit, a Black Flag graduate of stout proportions and Colombian heritage named Julio Roberto Valverde Valencia. Friends knew him better by his nickname, Robo.[7]
Valverde was a South American national who entered the United States on a student visa in 1975. By 1978 the hobby drummer had joined Black Flag and was providing the perfect rigid backbone for guitarist Greg Ginn’s overwhelming steamroller guitar work.[8] Robo’s drumming was, as Ian MacKaye puts it, “square geometrically, and metered out in real blocks”[9] (hence the mechanical nickname). Yet Robo could also play with a unexpected amount of finesse, as heard on Damaged’s intricately arranged social commentary-cum-sing-along “T.V. Party”; copping moves from Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward, Robo made it through that piece on rolls and accents, hardly playing a straight drum beat once. Humble by nature and generally soft-spoken, Robo nonetheless lent great character to Black Flag, a powerful, handsome Hispanic with piercing eyes, a monosyllabic name, and an indeterminate background some say was steeped in misdeeds at the hands of the Colombian government. Perhaps inevitably, Robo became a legend in his own right.
In the winter of 1982, Black Flag embarked on a tour of England to support the release of Damaged. Unfortunately, just hours before the band were due to fly home, UK officials detained Robo at Heathrow Airport because of nagging passport issues. With dates in the US already scheduled and never ones to simply cancel a leg of tour, Black Flag bit the bullet, recruited a new percussionist, and closed the book on their time with Robo.[10] The stranded Robo was eventually allowed to reenter the United States in July of 1982. Upon his return, he quickly learned of the drum vacancy in the Misfits, one that remained open despite offers to both Rosemary’s Babies drummer Eric Stellmann and Kenny Caiafa (Stellmann, already regularly working with the Misfits as their semi-official photographer, turned it down to focus on his own group; Kenny Caiafa wasn’t confident enough with his skill set to officially level up). Being a long-time fan of the Misfits, Robo telephoned Danzig and, thanks to mutual admiration, was immediately brought aboard.[11]
Acquiring this storied Black Flag powerhouse was quite a “get” for the band considering their previous technically unimpressive drum roster, but it wasn’t entirely clear where in Lodi the their newest member could live. Jerry and Doyle’s parents balked at the idea of a homeless and prematurely balding Colombian shacking up in their house. “My mom said, ‘I don’t mind taking in two Midwestern bands that are passin’ through town, but Robo looks older than me,’” Only remembered in a 1994 FEH interview. “I told Glenn my mom wasn’t psyched about Robo livin’ with us, so I says, ‘Why don’t he bunk with you?’ and Glenn says okay. In the meantime, Robo came to work [with us at the machine shop].”[12]
As pedestrian as their lives in Lodi seemed, on the road the line between reality and ghoulish cartooning was increasingly blurred for the Misfits. No incident better exemplifies this than the band’s arrest for criminal trespassing in a New Orleans cemetery in the middle of their Evilive Tour—undertaken to support the forthcoming raucous concert EP of the same name—on October 17, 1982. Following a lively gig at Tupelo’s marked by the backstage antics of two strippers from Atlanta named Poison and Venom who repeatedly placed Robo’s drum sticks in their vaginas, the Misfits journeyed with approximately thirty hangers-on—including the strippers and support band the Necros—to one of the city’s historical cemeteries, as many first-time visitors to New Orleans are wont to do. The band members joked as they entered St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 some time after midnight that they were on the search for stray bones and the tomb of nineteenth-century voodoo figurehead Marie Laveau (a hairdresser of mixed ethnicity, Laveau was believed to retain incredible psychic powers and inspired an early 1970s Marvel Comics character of the same name; she is actually buried in neighboring St. Louis Cemetery No. 1).
Residents of a housing project near the graveyard were alarmed by the racket the punk rockers were making and immediately called authorities. Tagalong Mike IX Williams, just fifteen at the time, remembers the melée that ensued. “We were there for what felt like half an hour but was probably closer to ten or fifteen minutes before the cops surrounded the place,” says Williams. “We saw the [patrol cruiser] lights and the searchlights . . . and people scattered everywhere, trying to get to their cars. I just happened to end up at the edge of cemetery where the cop cars were. That’s when they nabbed me, and then I saw them walking the Misfits over, one by one—Glenn, then Jerry, and so on—in handcuffs.”[13]
Eighteen people total were arrested (discounting the Necros, who managed to convince the earliest arriving police unit they weren’t with the trespassing party[14] ), but only fifteen were of age and could be legally charged. Williams recalls the arresting officers as “complete assholes” who made a spectacle out of hauling to the station this cadre of menacing-looking punks, harassing them every step of the way. (“They took stuff I had outta my pockets and just balled it up and threw it away. They were taking everyone’s wallets and dumping them out.”) At one point, a mohawked teenage female in the party was smashed in the face with a cop’s mag light after she refused to answer the question, “Are you a girl or a boy?” While Williams and the other two underage arrestees were eventually bailed out by one of their parents, the Misfits themselves spent the night in
jail.
The next morning the Misfits were released on bail, courtesy of Ken Caiafa, but they didn’t stick around for their scheduled arraignment. The band soldiered to Florida for their next scheduled tour date.[15] Meanwhile, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported the incident under the headline “PUNK-ROCK MUSICIANS ARRESTED IN CEMETERY.” The story made sure to note that the Misfits wore “dramatic facial painting” and their “album . . . features an offer to buy a Misfits T-shirt that shows President Kennedy at the moment of his assassination.”[16] A month later, Glenn, Jerry, Doyle, and Robo returned to New Orleans for their rescheduled court appearance. Scolded by the judge, the Misfits were basically told to stay out of the Big Easy and paid a fine of a few hundred dollars.
While the New Orleans incident was the kind of PR other horror rockers would kill for and bolstered the band’s intense legend, there was one casualty of the whole affair: The set of free weights the Misfits brought with them on tour to help maintain their impressive musculature were missing from the tour van when the New Orleans PD returned the vehicle to them the morning of their bailout. The cops had left the bright red vehicle, doors ajar, in the cemetery after the arrests. Further drawing attention to this abandoned van was the large unmistakable painting of Spider-Man’s face on the side door. Despite the selection of expensive musical equipment held within, the weights were the only item local thieves—or perhaps the cops themselves—pilfered.[17]