Hard-Core: Life of My Own

by Harley Flanagan

  Hard-Core: Life of My Own © 2016 by Harley Flanagan

  Feral House

  1240 W. Sims Way

  Suite 124

  Port Townsend, WA 98368

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-1-6273-1039-0

  Cover design: Dana Collins

  Interior design: designSimple

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION: BY STEVEN BLUSH

  INTRODUCTION: LIFE OF MY OWN

  CHAPTER ONE: MY CHILDHOOD

  CHAPTER TWO

  PART 1: NYC — “HOWL” “LOW-LIFE” “HITMEN” AND “HELL” ON EAST 12TH

  PART 2: HARDCORE DE-EVOLUTION

  CHAPTER THREE

  PART 1: THE STIMULATORS — THE CLASH — THE BEASTIE BOYS

  PART 2: IRELAND ’80

  CHAPTER FOUR

  PART 1: THE LOWER EAST SIDE — A,B,C LAND

  PART 2: THE BEGINNING OF “NEW YORK HARDCORE”

  CHAPTER FIVE: GOING OUT TO CALI

  CHAPTER SIX: SKINHEADS — AND THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PART 1: CRO-MAG — SKINHEAD — BREAK OUT — NOW!

  PART 2: THE SCENE / NYHC / NY SKINS

  CHAPTER EIGHT: NEW YORK “KRISHNA” CORE

  CHAPTER NINE: ‘THE AGE OF QUARREL’

  CHAPTER TEN: ‘THE AGE OF QUARREL’ TOUR

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: ‘BEST WISHES’ TO YOU

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  PART 1: “ALPHA OMEGA” THE BEGINNING AND THE END — BLOODCLOT RETURNS

  PART 2: THE DARK SWAMI — PRTHU PUTRA SWAMI A.K.A. “DEVIL MAN”

  PART 3: NYHC NEW SCHOOL: “A STORY OF CREWS AND SHEEP”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: AFTER THE OMEGA AND BEFORE THE REVENGE

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  PART 1: DRUGS AND DEBAUCHERY TO GRACIE JIU-JITSU

  PART 2: CRO-MAG REINCARNATION/ REVENGE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: ‘THE FINALE’ — STABBING SLASHING BITING AT THE CBGB FEST

  EPILOGUE

  INTRODUCTION

  BY STEVEN BLUSH

  It’s a damn shame that Harley Flanagan even needs an introduction. The life story of this seminal musician is the total embodiment of the rock & roll lifestyle. He was a ’70s pre-teen rock scene celebrity, growing up amid the sex and drugs of Downtown New York subculture, hanging out with punk legends like Richard Hell and Joe Strummer.

  Allen Ginsberg wrote the introduction to a book of his illustrations and stories published when Harley was nine (1976’s The Shopkeeper and His Donkey). At age 11, Harley found himself drumming in his aunt Denise Mercedes’ New York punk band, the Stimulators, that ruled the fabled Warhol-connected scene at Max’s Kansas City. The Stimulators’ gigs inspired the rise of New York Hardcore, with young bands like the Bad Brains and Beastie Boys. Harley ran smack in the middle of that intense action, and was a primary motivator of the American Hardcore movement.

  This all may sound edgy and exciting, but Harley grew up way too fast, and endured a childhood that no kid should’ve ever had to withstand. His father that he never knew was a drug addict always in and out of prison. His cool hippie mother, with baby Harley and little more than the clothes on their backs, hitchhiked across America and Europe, and eventually re-settled back in New York’s perilous Lower East Side. They never had a pot to piss in. He never had a chance.

  The only white kid of his age in what was then a hostile Puerto Rican neighborhood, Harley dropped out of school at age 13. Left to fend for himself like a feral animal among a jungle of knife-wielding street gangs straight outta The Warriors, he grew up to be a menacing street thug, a one-man wrecking machine that took down anyone who stood in his way (as well as many who didn’t).

  Harley first got exposed to Skinheads on a Stimulators tour of Ireland, and returned to become the first American Skinhead. His lethal tattooed teen punk rock gang panhandled, robbed, hustled, and lived in dingy Downtown squats. Their victorious beat-downs on the hostile neighborhood thugs and street gangs made Harley the commander of the shock troops that unwittingly cleared the way for East Village gentrification.

  Harley started much of the sound and style of modern music. He’s the prototype for every shaved-headed tattooed nihilistic punker type to follow—he in New York, and his peer Henry Rollins in Los Angeles. When people today say “Hardcore,” they really mean everything that Harley instigated and inspired. Back in the day, there was crude graffiti on Avenue A that read “NYHC = New York Harley Clones,” which wasn’t far from the truth. Untold generations of thug-core aspirants still attempt to emulate him.

  Modern stars from Pantera and Hatebreed to Godsmack and Lamb of God have all paid homage to Harley. Too bad he never had the benefit of a publicist or a manager—or for that matter, responsible parental guidance—to help him reap the rewards. Harley’s legendary band the Cro-Mags was the first to merge the Hardcore punk and heavy metal scenes on a major level, pioneering thrash metal and the punk/metal crossover. Their ferocious delivery spoke to tens of thousands of alienated kids of all persuasions.

  The Cro-Mags’ 1986 album Age of Quarrel is considered a bible to many. Songs like “Survival on the Streets” and “Street Justice” were not just allegories, but true-life tales of living on the edge in an urban hell. Heavy music would never be the same. The band’s landmark tours with Motörhead literally changed the face of the music scene. Back then, Metallica played their rapid-fire music in tight pants and poufy hair. After Age of Quarrel, they never dared to again.

  Cro-Mags had strong ties to the Hare Krishna movement, whose teachings made their way into the band’s imposing imagery. Harley spent time in the temples. That uneasy juxtaposition of street brutality and Krishna consciousness made for a mutant strain of Vedic punk faith that still holds a place in the scene.

  The Cro-Mags’ breakup makes your typical rock-biz blood feud seem like Romper Room in comparison. They lived an unbelievably raw Lord of the Flies-like existence, and then got thrust into the limelight with no responsible supervision. It all devolved into a nightmare “quarrel” that 30 years later still offers no resolution.

  Harley remains a notorious character of legend. People still quake in fear at the mention of his name—cuz they know they could still get their asses kicked. He held a scary Charles Manson-like sway over his followers, and upped the ante for the next decades of intense music.

  Lots of people talk about being “real”—Harley Flanagan is the realest. He’s the only person I’ve ever met who’s never had to exaggerate a story because everything he’s been through from day one is so intense. He never had a picket-fenced home or a warm hug from daddy. Most autobiographies tend to embellish. Harley wishes he can tone it down, but he can’t.

  Harley’s precipitous late-’90s decline rates a book unto itself. As a 30-plus-year scene participant, I’ve personally never seen anyone take such mass quantities of hard drugs from such a young age over such a prolonged period of time—and then bottom out so badly—yet still now have their shit together. Like any classic rise-and-fall story, this one too ends with redemption. The Harley of today is mature, sensitive, erudite, and articulate, yet still sharp enough to bite your fucking head off.

  I covered Harley’s legal proceedings after his headline-grabbing “stabbing incident” at Webster Hall for Paper Magazine. The strange and sordid tale of the Cro-Mags founder going on a knifing spree against his bandmates for performing without him became one of the biggest rock stories of 2012. Only one problem: it looks like it wasn’t true. We all know that dropped charges don’t always mean innocence, but in the beginning there were dozens of eyewitnesses, yet as the DA’s case unfolded, there were nothing but divergent, even
bizarre, statements, rife with contradiction. The ADA admitted they were unable to produce one credible witness for a grand jury.

  Harley’s personal exploration through Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu mastery, under mixed martial arts legend Renzo Gracie, has seen him competing since the ’90s in Jiu-Jitsu tournaments and mixed martial arts events, and giving private lessons to wannabe ultimate fighters. One great irony of Harley’s barbaric schism with the New York Hardcore scene, and his messy split with the mother of his children who took his two boys, is that through all this, he met the love of his life in his new wife—who has introduced him to impressive social circles, and has given him the closure offered by a happy and comfortable life.

  If there’s any justice in this world, one day there will be a shrine to Harley Flanagan in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But we all know there isn’t any justice in this world. Regardless of what the “experts” may say, Harley’s cultural effects and musical legacies are still being felt over 30 years later.

  —Steven Blush, author/filmmaker, American Hardcore,

  New York City, 2016

  LIFE OF MY OWN

  HARLEY FLANAGAN

  EDITED BY LAURA LEE FLANAGAN

  So there I was, handcuffed to a hospital bed with a nice stab wound in my leg, when I overheard the arresting officer say, “I’m here with the perp—the victims are in another room…” That’s when it hit me—what the fuck is going on here, the perp? I’m the victim here: I got jumped!

  I was being charged with four felonies: stabbing two people, biting one person’s face and another person’s arm; the shit was insane. But looking back, maybe what’s insane is that nothing like this had ever happened before.

  It was July 6th, 2012, and I had just come from teaching a kids’ Jiu-Jitsu class; it was a beautiful day. I was going to see my old band, a band I started back in the early ’80s—the Cro-Mags, or at least what was left of it. They were playing at Webster Hall—at the “CBGB Festival,” for a club that no longer exists but has become a profitable trademark; a club I used to play at and went to my entire childhood in a city that no longer resembles that of my youth. Where there once was urban decay, gangs, crime, and lines of drug addicts at drug spots, there are now multimillion-dollar condos, John Varvatos, Whole Foods, and lines of yuppies at Starbucks.

  I’d been hoping to see the singer and drummer. There’d been bad blood for a few years and I wanted to talk to them and try to put an end to it. I was thinking that if I went, maybe they’d even invite me up to play a song or two, and that we could talk about reaching out to the guitarists as well. Maybe do a show, a few shows, even a small tour, or if nothing else, at the very least we could publicly bury the hatchet. I knew it would benefit everybody involved to have peace, and truthfully the beef between us didn’t mean anything to me after all the years that had passed compared to the significance of what we had done together and still could do. It’s so funny when I think back on that now.

  I went to Webster Hall that day in good faith—I was even gonna bring my kids! I went with VIP passes in hand and the belief, naïve as that may have been, that maybe we were all ready to squash the beef and the bullshit that had become as synonymous with “Cro-Mags” as the music itself.

  Well, let’s just say, things didn’t go as planned.

  HARLEY IN MOROCCO, PERSONAL COLLECTION

  Chapter One

  MY CHILDHOOD

  I remember a lot of things very clearly, and a lot of things are just kind of a blur. It’s almost like a dream. You know how when you wake up and you remember most of your dream—or bits and pieces—but you can’t make sense of all of it? Other things are as clear as if they just happened. That’s kind of how my memory works at this point. I wrote it all down as best I can. Some of it might be a little out of order but that’s about it. Now before I go any further, I’d like to say just for the record, if you work in any kind of law enforcement and you are reading this, everything in this book is entirely made up! If not, well then I don’t really care what you want to think or believe.

  I was pretty much raised by hippies and rock ‘n’ rollers from the start, besides the few years I spent living with my grandparents. So most of the people I looked up to early in life were fuck-ups and/or musicians and so on. I hit the streets pretty young, so it was kind of inevitable I would make a lot of mistakes in life. I don’t want people to think I am proud of this life I lived. I am not. I am just amazed I lived as long as I have or did. Whatever the case may be by the time you read this.

  Anyway, that having been said, I was born at San Francisco General Hospital on March 8, 1967 at the start of “The Summer of Love.” My mom’s name is Rose Marie Feliu and my dad’s name was Harley Wayne Walker “Flanagan.” I have lived all over the world, but I’m a New Yorker at heart—that’s where my mom was from, that’s where I spent most of my life, and that’s where I really grew up.

  My mom was a hippie; my dad was a drifter. And somehow their paths crossed.

  Before the hippie days, my mom was into all the early rock ‘n’ roll stuff—Motown, and pretty much all the music that was happening when she was young. Her father, Juan Feliu, came from the Dominican Republic. He came to America through Ellis Island by himself when he was in his early teens, and was one of the first Dominicans to join the United States Army. He served in World War II, where he played in the military band. That’s how he got his citizenship, by serving in the military.

  He was one of the funniest people I ever knew. He worked all kinds of different jobs, everything from a building super to a longshoreman. He was a charming guy; he had a thick Spanish accent. He spoke several languages, all with a Spanish accent, and he knew a lot about history. He was always reading; everyone called him “The Professor,” and he loved to gamble. He’d bet on anything: cards, dogs, horses, even cockfights. One time he met Marilyn Monroe, and unbelievably, he brought her back to the house and she met the family—which just shows what kind of person he was.

  Marilyn and then-husband Arthur Miller were at the Bohemian National Annex, or “Bohemian Annex,” on 74th Street between 1st and 2nd across from where my family lived in Manhattan. It was a tiny local theater; my grandfather was working there as a janitor. He used to get all the kids in the neighborhood in to see the movies; my mom saw The Thing and Bambi there.

  Anyway, at some point during the evening, my grandfather met Marilyn. He asked her if she would go across the street with him and meet his family, that he would be so proud if she met his kids and his wife. And, incredibly, she went. The buildings in the neighborhood were all poor and run-down, a lot of immigrants, tenement houses like you see on the Lower East Side. But she came over to the slum building across the street from the theater and went upstairs by herself. My grandmother, who was shocked and completely caught off guard, was in her nightgown and curlers, and my mom and aunt Denise, who were just little girls, were asleep in their beds.

  As it turns out, they didn’t have proper refrigeration in the theater for all the extra champagne that had been brought in for the event (after all, it was the ’50s), so grandpa came to the rescue. They brought in buckets and buckets of ice and filled up the bathtub in their apartment, which was in the kitchen, with the ice, and had all the extra bottles of champagne from the event in the tub.

  The neighbors had never seen anything like it. All the commotion from the theater running back and forth to the apartment to get champagne; again, it was just the kind of guy he was. It also goes to show how cool Ms. Monroe was—really down-to-earth despite all the fame.

  He got her to kiss a napkin, and we had her lipstick print for years…’til my grandmother threw it out. I think she got sick of him showing it off to people. Yeah, he was a real character. I loved him a lot.

  HARLEY AND HIS MOTHER, ROSE, IN ÅRHUS, DENMARK

  My grandmother, Bea, she was my heart. She took care of me, and all the neighborhood kids. I miss her dearly. I really can’t give them enough love in these few words.

  I’ve got
a lot of World War II vets in my family. My great-aunt Sophie was one of the first women to serve in the military in World War II. She was in the Women’s Air Corps—she met Mother Teresa, and served with Captain Doolittle and remained good friends with him and his wife ’til way after the war. She told me some crazy shit—she said that sheher and Ms. Doolittle used to go out to restaurants from time to time after the war ended, and some of the restaurants in their neighborhood wouldn’t serve Ms. Doolittle, ’cause she was an officer’s wife and it was a German neighborhood. Believe it or not, there were a lot of Nazi sympathizers in New York City back then. You had shit like the German American Bund or German American Federation/Amerikadeutscher Bund, which was an American Nazi Organization established in the ’30s. Have you ever seen the footage of the Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939, with Fritz Julius Kuhn? There were like 20,000 people there! But yeah, she was the rock of the family, the one who kept us all together after my grandmother died. She passed away on Christmas 2010, two days before her 98th birthday.

  On my dad’s side I have my great-uncles Jack and Gaylend, who both served in World War II and Korea. The people in my family have got a lot cooler stories than mine. But people have always told me I should write a book and I do feel like I got a story to tell.

  My mom was friends with a lot of famous writers, poets and musicians, and freaks from the hippie era and the Beat scene like Allen Ginsberg, Harry Smith, legendary comedian Lenny Bruce, who she referred to as Uncle Lenny. And she was involved with the whole Andy Warhol-Factory-Velvet Underground scene. She was in one of the Factory films with Warhol when she was in her early teens, called Dirt, which was never released. Stills from the film have only just recently surfaced all these years later, with pictures of my mom with Warhol and others in the film. She was around a lot of crazy shit back in the day in New York and out West in San Francisco—hippies or flower children as they were called. She did a lot of hitchhiking and traveling back then, and at one point she told me she even met some of the Manson girls out West—they tried to get her to come with them out to the Spahn Ranch to meet this guy called Charlie. But my mom thought they were a little too weird, so she didn’t join them.