At that point Century Media asked me if there was any way to get John on it. They said the kids would love it and it would sell records. I was a little hesitant. But they were like, “Come on!” The idea was that they would offer me a better record deal if it were the two of us, or possibly more than the two of us, together.
So I got Doug, and then approached John. I took the songs I had written while I was working with Rob and Parris, since they had planned on recording them without me, I said, “Fuck it,” and recorded them with Dave on drums, Gabby on guitar, and Doug and John. That was the line-up that signed to Century Media. Since I owned the name and because I had written all the music, I got the majority of the money from the advance. But we all got part of it, and we all got put on salary from Century Media. And of course everybody knew the breakdown and agreed to it when they signed the record deal.
We recorded Alpha Omega at Normandy Sound in Rhode Island, where we had recorded Best Wishes.
Up to the point John came back in the band, I had been singing. So when he returned, we decided to sing the record together, kind of like a Hardcore version of what Glenn Hughes and David Coverdale did in Deep Purple, where Glenn did the high parts and Coverdale did the low parts—and it sounded amazing.
Unfortunately, there were parts of the record John couldn’t pull off. That wasn’t just my opinion; it was everyone’s opinion. He tried and it wasn’t cutting it. It was fucked up. The whole band and engineers were listening to John do these parts, and they’re like, “Oh my God. This is fuckin’ horrible. What are we gonna do?” He was doing all kinds of weird shit, almost like Cal from Discharge on the Grave New World album, but way worse—high-pitched ooohs and aaaahs and ohhhs trying to get all “vocal” instead of going for that The Age of Quarrel feel. It was just bad.
Now, this was before the days where everybody was digitally making singers sound like whatever they wanted to make them sound like. At least in Hardcore, people weren’t doing that shit yet. And John just wasn’t cutting it. Me and the engineers and the rest of the guys talked about it, and I wound up singing a lot more of the record than I had planned—and John really took that shit personally. He thought it was completely maliciously intended on my behalf, but it was the whole band and the engineers that felt that way. But since I was credited as producer, I got the blame. So I tried my best to sound like him and mimic all the new “ooohs” and screams and shit he was doing at that time, and just did my tracks.
PHOTO BY FRANK WHITE
The record came out, and John was pissed off that I was all over it. I did my best to sing like him; that’s why people can’t tell who sang what part. But in the studio, it was everybody’s call on that one, everyone but John.
You know how you can always tell when a heavy band is starting to lose their edge when they use a fucking keyboard? Yeah, we did that. We were working on the guitar sounds, and at one point we had just the guitar solo with the drums and we started bringing up the other tracks slowly. We all looked at each other and were like, “That sounds cool.” So one thing led to another and yeah, we got a bit carried away. But hey, it was fun. We all drank mushroom tea during that session, so it mighta sounded better to us at the time.
Alpha Omega didn’t feel like a real Cro-Mags album to me. Even though I love that freestyle jam at the end of the album, it didn’t feel right. Some of those songs were written after I stopped playing with Parris and Rob, and some of them were parts I’d written years earlier. But most of it was from what we’d written together, and looking back, I don’t think Rob’s metal influence was good on my and/or Parris’ style of playing. But I did what I had to do, ’cause in my mind, they were cutting my throat. They were gonna record the shit without me if I didn’t record it first—bail on me and leave me with a big-ass debt. And I was trying to stay alive. That was that.
We did Alpha Omega, and when it was time to tour, Dave couldn’t do it, so we got Amit Shamir, Gabby’s jazz drummer friend—a really nice guy, but so not a Hardcore dude. He was a good drummer, but he wasn’t used to hitting that hard, and there were parts he’d forget.
Doug only did one gig supporting that album. We flew out to L.A. for a record release party, and we played a great show at the Hollywood Palladium with Type O Negative, the Exploited, and Biohazard. We did songs from The Age of Quarrel, Best Wishes, and Alpha Omega. Parris was at that gig in the crowd, and I could see him while we were playing, which was really weird, I gotta say.
It was one of many shows over the years that I found myself up on top of PA stacks while playing my bass, going, “How the fuck did I get up here?” Sometimes when you’re playing, you don’t realize what you’re doing, you’re just caught up in the moment, and I guess I climbed the PA! People in the crowd were yelling, “Jump! Jump!” What was I gonna do, crawl back down on my hands and knees? I dove off the stack, between the PA and the stage. I was 15–20 feet up in the air. I have a clip of Wattie from the Exploited talking about it, going, “I saw this crazy cunt jump off a 20-foot PA stack, with his fucking bass on!” He was standing next to Glenn Danzig when I did it. A few people caught me, but most of the people tried to jump out of my way! One guy in particular, God bless him, jumped underneath me and took most of the impact.
After that, we went on tour to Europe. Doug decided that he wouldn’t join us, for whatever reason. We wound up going: Gabby, John, and Amit, and me. It did start off fun. Marc and Ute were tour-managing us and traveling on the bus along with a bunch of other Germans; it was a lot of laughs. We played some sick shows at these huge squats across Europe, and we did a big-ass circus tent-like place in Berlin. We even played at the ETA’s headquarters in the middle of the fuckin’ woods in Basque country.
We pulled up to this fucking abandoned factory with all kinds of political graffiti spray-painted all over it, and dogs running around barking. We pulled up in our tour bus, and all of a sudden, all these punks and metalheads came out of the woods; it was funny as shit! What a bizarre gig that was. We had no idea we were playing at the fuckin’ ETA’s headquarters!
By that time, there was a clash in musical direction. I wanted to bring the music back to The Age of Quarrel meets Best Wishes, while John was trying to get the band to change direction, which was crazy, ’cause he’d never written a song in his life. One night one of our roadies, Bleu, came into my hotel room and he was like, “Dude, you better get in there quick. They’re having a band meeting without you, and it’s fucked up what’s going on in there.” I walk in, and I hear John saying, “We gotta start writing some shit that sounds like Living Colour.” And I just looked at them, like, “What?!” They all stopped talking, and John was looking “busted.” Living Colour? Are you for real?
John’s a real flavor-of-the-week type of guy. Whatever’s popular at that moment, he’s into. When U2 blew up, he was all into U2, and was trying to sound like Bono. When Living Colour blew up, it was all about them. When rap got big, he wanted to be a rapper. I listened to that Both Worlds record he did in the late ’90s; that says it all. If left on his own, John will jump on whatever’s current. But sadly the only music he can pull off is Hardcore.
So, after that European tour, shit started getting weird. Me and Gabby still laugh about it today.
When I look back at all of this shit now, it’s so fucking Spinal Tap. But at the time it was just drama. If I was smarter back then, I woulda just laughed off all of the stupidity. But I was a knucklehead-ass motherfucker my damn self, too.
John tries to say that I ripped off the band on that tour. But I never had the money, nor did I have access to it. Marc from M.A.D. and Ute had it. I didn’t go through their pockets to steal my own money. I was making money; why the fuck would I rip the band off and fuck it up for myself? I had a girlfriend with me for a little while on that tour, and they even tried to say she stole it.
I asked Gabby if he had any stories he wanted to share about that time period:
“Around April 1992, when the whole break-up of the band happened,
John called me up, talking about doing the band without you, and writing new tunes. He said something like, ‘Yo, there’s a new music out called grunge! They just had a grunge fashion show on Spring Street.’ And then he followed it with the usual stuff about how we have to write music that is popular now, metal and Hardcore are dead, etc., etc. What about when he wanted us to sound like De La Soul or P.M. Dawn; remember him singing ‘Paper Doll’ on the tour bus? Amit’s ‘big-time producer’ older brother had done some big rap and dance radio hits. When Amit introduced him to the band, John jumped out of the car, did a break dance move, and said ‘I’m a devastatin’ white rapper!’ Or my shock when we began playing live, and he kept looking over to me to cue him in for his parts to songs that I had only learned a few months ago, and he had been playing since 1985? And we didn’t even get into the fart and doo-doo stories. Don’t you remember the time early on during the tour in Germany when he picked up his raw shit with his bare hands to write ‘Fuck Off Nazis’ in the bathroom of a truck stop? And when he came back on the tour bus, he gloated about how he dotted the letter ‘i’ in Nazis with a swazi?”
And now this brings us to the legend of the Doo-Doo Man.
Like Peter Parker is Spiderman, John Bloodclot is the Doo-Doo Man. Some people are gonna think I’m talking shit, but this is true and it’s just hilarious. I couldn’t make it up if I tried.
Back in the old days, Mackie used to call John “the Doo-Doo Man.” He came up with that one. It started because John always would ride shotgun in the van, with his feet up on the dashboard, and you’d always know “it” was coming before you got hit, because he’d start giggling. He’d be sitting there farting his ass off, but he’d be farting at the vents up in the front, so the shit would be coming out of the A/C in the back. He loved doing it—he loved tormenting us with his ass. Over the years it turned into a monster. John started doing things that were pretty fuckin’ disturbing.
Here’s this guy who tries to carry himself as spiritual and all into cleanliness, as he does come off very clean and neat. But then he started doing things like taking a shit and not flushing it—walking out of the bathroom giggling and leaving it there. So whoever walked in next would be like, “Oh nooo!” And then he began to shit on the toilet seats – he’d come walking out giggling, and whoever would walk in after had to deal with shit all over the seat. And it just got worse from there.
In Canada, in like ’84, I remember the freak climbed up on the sink in the bathroom, and used the revolving cloth towel over the sink to wipe his ass.
One time we were out west at Venice Beach and John comes waddling through the water—he’s all grinning and laughing, saying “Yo, don’t come over here… I just took a shit!” The motherfucker goes and shits, right there in the middle of every-fuckin’-body, and a fuckin’ wave comes and his turd starts riding the wave toward a group of playing kids in the water, at which point John starts trying to paddle away from it! He’s all laughing his ass off. And this was after we had been at a Hare Krishna temple, hung out there the night before and ate breakfast there. And then this dude is going and doing shit like that.
Another time, me and John were down in Florida, back in The Age of Quarrel days. Crazy Dave, this girl and me are all sitting on the bed in this hotel, and all of a sudden, blam! The bathroom door flies open, and John comes bursting out, giggling hysterically with a plastic plate—with a pile of shit on it! I’m screamin’ “Yo, get that out of here! What the fuck is wrong with you?” He walked over to the hotel room door and wings it out into the parking lot. All of us were just in disbelief.
The first time he went really fuckin’ crazy with it, we were on tour, and this guy at a gas station in East Germany was giving us a hard time. He wouldn’t answer us in English, and his response was, “Learn how to say it in German.” Our tour manager Marc and Ute from the booking agency M.A.D. were on tour with us. They are both German, and Marc was like, “They don’t speak German, quit being an asshole!” And the guy said, “Well, they should learn.” So I got back on the bus, and said, “Yo, John, do me a favor—go ‘use’ this dude’s bathroom, all right?” And John’s like, “Well, I don’t know. I just took a shit not that long ago.” He started giggling and rubbing his stomach real hard. He was like, “Let me see what I can do.”
The motherfucker goes in there while we were out there fueling up our bus, then gets back on giggling hysterically. This motherfucker took a shit in the middle of the bathroom floor, then took the shit and wrote in big letters on the wall: “NAZI,” and drew a big swastika over it… in shit! Then he took all the toilet paper he had wiped his ass with and stuck it to the walls. And he was telling us this while laughing hysterically, tears running down his face. I started yelling at the bus driver, “Fuck filling up the tank, we got to go!” So we got going. But that was just one of many.
We’d be on tour in Europe, where you’d go to a club and the toilet would be just a hole in the floor and two spots for your feet. And you’d kind of stand there, hover, and aim for the hole. Well, this nigga would always shit in front of the hole. So you’d have no choice but to walk in and see it. And he’d leave dirty toilet paper everywhere. It was uncool for a grown man to do; it’s not funny, and I don’t get it. Shit is something to deposit and leave. You don’t play with it, fuck with it, or decorate with it. And it got worse over the years.
What would inspire a grown man to be so involved with his doo-doo? There’d be a perfectly usable, functioning, clean bathroom in a club or in a dressing room, and he’d go shit on the roof of the club, in the stairwell of the club, or outside. And this ain’t something that happened for a short period of time. Even during the 2000 reunion, John went in the dressing room and locked the door. The motherfucker came out of the dressing room, giggling, with a paper bag. He walked all the way through the club and up to the band standing in front of the van—me, Garry Sullivan, Doug Holland, and Rocky George. He walked up giggling and holding the bag out toward us. And I knew that look on his face. I was like, “No motherfucker, you fuckin’ did not!” The smell started to hit us, everybody turned to leave, and John was just standing there giggling.
And the stories go on and on, all the way ’til the 2001 tour, and I’m certain must still go on today. I’m sure to this day the Doo-Doo Man still leaves his mark. Gabby used to call him “Swami Fudge Clot.” Everybody knows about it, it’s just that nobody wants to say anything, ’cause it’s fuckin’ embarrassing. Yeah man, Hare Krishna.
After all that ‘let’s write songs like Living Colour’ shit in the hotel, it started going downhill. He got bitter about the record deal as time went on, and the fact that I got more money. That’s part of the reason he started saying “Harley ripped me off.” He knew I was getting paid more: I wrote the songs, I owned the name, and I got us the deal through my lawyer.
By then I had become increasingly disillusioned with the Krishna movement, Hardcore, and pretty much everything and everyone, including—and especially—John. I’d sit and watch John at the shows, and he’d have all these kids sitting around him in awe, like, “Oh wow, John Joseph!” And he’d be trying to impress them, talking all Hare Krishna this, that, and the other, and trying to be all philosophical. And then we’d go back on the bus, and he’d go right back to his normal/jive-ass self.
I started dressing completely not Hardcore or Skinhead. And it was on purpose. I was making a point, to go against the grain of what was cool on the scene. It was a definite choice I made. I was like, “I’m not going to go out and be what people expect, ’cause I am not what people expect.” And I’m not going to be their fake-ass “spiritual advisor” like John ’cause my spirit is just as contaminated as everybody else’s, whereas John really thrived off of that “guru” crap. He really loved the admiration. I found it to be more of a burden.
Part of my turn-off on the Hare Krishna thing in general came from watching John: from knowing him, seeing him preach, and seeing how he actually was when he wasn’t playing that role. And really
, the more I got involved with that movement, the more hypocritical I realized a lot of things about it and him were. I was almost embarrassed that I had been “had”—but at that point it was all a joke to me. I was still digging some of the philosophy, but I was done with people in general: skinheads, Hardcore, religion. All of it was sheep-like bullshit to me.
PART 2: THE DARK SWAMI — PRTHU PUTRA SWAMI A.K.A. “DEVIL MAN”
Speaking of the Krishnas, in the late ’80s, I became friends with Patrick Geoffrois. Before I knew him, I used to jokingly refer to him as “Devil Man.” He would sit on St. Marks Place, reading palms and doing tarot cards; he lived in the neighborhood, so I used to see him around all the time. He wore all black, lots of pentagrams, all kinds of snake bone necklaces and shit. One day, I found out he was a Prabhupada disciple from back in the day. So from that point on, whenever I’d see him, I’d whisper “Prabhupada” under my breath as I’d walk by him, to see if I’d get a reaction. The first few times, you could see his ears perk up, but he didn’t say anything. Then one time I did it, he spun around with a big smile, and said, “All glories to Srila Prabhupada.”
I laughed and asked him, “Yo man, I been dying to ask you how you got from being a Prabhupada disciple to where you are now.” He explained that Prabhupada was the greatest magician he ever saw, and that he had seen him in France, when he was young and deeply involved with the magical arts. It turned out not only was he one of the real Prabhupada disciples, but he was a very close and personal servant to the man. Prabhupada gave Patrick the name “Prthu Putra Swami.” Over the years of knowing him, I learned more about Prabhupada than I’d ever known.
I didn’t realize at the time that I had met Patrick years ago when he had been in the band the Contortions, back in the ’70s with James Chance. Although that wasn’t my scene, I knew of all those people back in the Stimulators days. Well, me and Patrick became very close. He told me a lot about Prabhupada and about magic. Patrick freaked John the fuck out, and Patrick loved that John was such a simpleton.
Hard-Core: Life of My Own Page 27
