April 01, 2002
MRR #227
Stories You Hate
We begin this month with a few vinyl stories you hate to read, submitted by a few of our scum brethren…
“Walked into a NYC store that mostly stocks new records looking for a just released NEW BOMB TURKS record, but found something much better in the "N" section: THE NOTHING “Uniformz” 45. For $4. And they had multiple copies since I later found out that someone else had gotten one earlier, also for $4. And none of them are left -- I've gone back a few times and asked. And this is a place that specializes in hardcore, and stocks most of the KBD-style comps...”
”There was a Cleveland mail order that I had previously bought a few less exciting things from, off excerpts of their catalog which were posted on their website. One night I discovered that they finally posted their complete catalog of 10,000 or so items on the web as a poorly formatted text list. It was so hard to read and full of crap that I almost gave up a few letters in. The dealer priced a 1980s PAGANS single at $50, but totally missed the only really valuable record on his list, a copy of HAMMER DAMAGE for $10.”
”I was on tour with my band in St Louis. Luckily the rest of the band slept in on Saturday morning. I had an hour to kill so I walked over to Vintage Vinyl having known their website (only a block away from the apt I was staying at, I doubt I would've managed to steal the van!). So I walk in and head for the singles. It's pretty meager offerings, with a small display containing mostly new singles, and a row of about 30 used singles. Start digging...jaw drops...MENTALLY ILL "Gacy's Place" 7"... $1 ... and what's this one, I don't recognize the sleeve, but it says MENTALLY ILL "Sex Cells"...$1. You get the idea. Other notables were WEIRDOS "Solitary Confinement" $8, VICTIM "Why are Fire Engines Red" $1, NNB "Slack" $0.50 ... My hands are shaking as I take the stack up to the counter, there must be a mistake. The clerk looks over my stack with a puzzled look. Oh no he's on to me! It turns out, during that entire month, all used product is 50% off...thank you!”
”Again, I'm at a gig with my band, this time in Homewood, IL at a club adjacent to the record store RECORD SWAP which has unfortunately gone under since. They have a huge bin of singles, probably 1,000 or so, and many appearing to have been sitting there for a good 15 years. I search through the recent arrivals and general used areas, but it's obviously well picked over. then i look below the bin into a cabinet and there more stacks of old stock. Keeping in mind that at this point I was still unfamiliar with many bands and what their sleeves looked like, I managed to do pretty well for $2.50-3 a pop. I remember the ICE 9 7", SHOCK 2nd 7", DOGS "Teen Slime" 7", ROSES ARE RED 7", and unknown to me at the time, a sticker announced "Chicago 70's SEX PISTOLS wannabes...does anyone remember?" THE EXIT "Who Asked You" 7". The sleeve was kind of off-putting, but with a SEX PISTOLS reference I had to buy it. A few months later I traded it for THE DICKS "hate the police" 7" + $100 which dwarfs my $3 investment…”
”My best find was several years ago in Zurich. There was a store doing a clearance on a bunch of old vinyl. There were several bins of 7"s which I went though which had some nice things like a SNUKY TATE EP and a some European things priced at a few dollars. I ended up chatting with the guy who was looking after the place and it turned out there were boxes of old 7"s down in the basement that had been there since about the mid 80s. Thousands of 7"s. They hadn't been priced out yet but he let me look through them. A few hours later I had a stack of stuff which included the DOGS "John Rock", multiple copies of just about every old Swiss punk 7", several copies of a bunch of things like FRONT PAGE, FILTH, TITS, etc. There was even some interesting hardcore like the first AGENT ORANGE (Holland) EP, the early TERVEET KADET 7"s, RATTUS, etc. I ended up with a few hundred 7"s and I must have exhausted all of my luck that day.”
Tasty Treats
Rob Noxious aka Rob Chambeau aka Roberto aka Guy Archembeault aka Guy aka Tony From Hawaii aka Surf Dude aka Mike and Ray E aka Mike and Ray Ern aka Mike and Ray Ernst aka Mike and Mary Lewdsnot aka Lewdsnot. The very name(s) send shivers down the spines of record collectors. He can smell vinyl from miles away. He will find you. He will hunt you down from his perch in Huntington Beach. He will trade want lists and pester you for every little scrap of vinyl you have.
His pathology runs far deeper than your average scum, however. His preoccupation with identity or escaping it defies logic. When I first met him in 1986, he went by the name Rob Chambeau. He has morphed through the years into numerous personas, which the internet has further enabled him to do. It almost seems farcical. One collector met him at a record show and Rob introduced himself as “Joe” or something, then proceeded to introduce himself to the guy’s friend as a different name. He once reasoned that he used a fake name because he’s French and no one could pronounce his name.
Another collector sold a few things to Lewdsnot on eBay. Lewdsnot’s “real” name was the Ernst brothers from a Huntington Beach P.O. box. Correspondence from the Ernst brothers professed familiarity with Rob, and went so far as to pass on a “hello” from Rob.
The letter went on to talk about this little record trading cartel of a few people in Huntington (all his other alter egos?) who shared info and records, and even had meetings of some kind, even mentioning a girl was involved as one of the traders.
“So I'm packing up the records and thinking how it looks like Rob's writing, so I dig out a couple wants lists, and it's really similar, but what really got me was all the little things he does that no one else does. He puts the return address in a triangle in the left corner and puts the "TO:" with stars and underlines. One of his writing personas tries to be cool, with various trademarks like "dig" (I dig xyz 7"), "tasty treat", etc. “
Rob also has an alter writing ego which is decidedly uncool. One collector characterized it as a Latka-from-Taxi-style English? One email from the Ern brothers went like this: "Yes, we would very much like to buy this wonderful punk/powerpop gem from you indeed. It would be very good and we send you money and thank you very much for any other fantastic vinyls you sell us please." This letter emphatically underlined the “Ray and Mike”, like he's really trying to convince somebody.
Even his age is denied. For years after he turned 28, which was 12 years ago, he has told people that he is 28. Current estimate is that he was born in 1962. Rob’s want lists are legendary in both their depth and his ability to get them into anyone’s hands. More than one of us have been contacted by him out of the blue. My first contact with him was the night before the Gilman record swap in Berkeley back in 1986. He called me out of the blue and read off his want list over the phone. It was filled with advanced obscurities that I had never heard of such as Tazers, Underwearheads, Braineaters, etc. Apparently he was calling from the Maximum house because the next day he was banned from the swap for stealing records from the Maximum house.
While at least one collector claims to have gotten a handwritten want list from him painstakingly listing every superrare punk record known to man, another claimed to have been Rob’s photocopy guy. “He'd send me his shitty, barely readable, dot matrix list and I'd run off hundreds of copies for free at my Kinko’s and ship them using their account. I got a few records in exchange but definitely less than what I should have gotten in exchange for thousands of $'s in copies….”
But most of all, it is his relentless pursuit of vinyl and getting the best trade that has been his trademark and a source of grief for many a collector. Rumor has it Rob was once on the "Dating Game" and won an all expense paid trip to New Orleans. His plan of course was to ditch the chick and hit all the record stores.
One of his ploys is to turn up at peoples houses without letting them know he’s coming. He did that quite a bit in the UK a few years back. He told me the reason he did this was so people wouldn’t have a chance to hide their best records. He has traveled extensively around the world through the years, including Australia, Europe and Japan, plundering and pillaging wherever he goes.
Another collector said this about Rob’s relentlessness. “He wants to make deals that satisfy him totally ("you have cool records but mine are better") and he is very pushy about getting a record. I wish I had hidden away the RED SQUARES "Time Change" 45! And you have to insist on getting the records from him first and insisting on registered shipping of records…”
Deep down in the psyche of the record collecting epitome, a sort of nice if not troubled person lurks. Rob, like most of us, had the sort of unhappy childhood that led us to punk in the first place. And thanks to him, I’ve been the proud owner of the HOLLYWOOD SQUARES 45. Nuff said!
Class of ’77
In December 2001, old LA punks got together for the “Class of ‘77” punk reunion gig, wherein luminaries of yore strutted their sagging asses. This month’s correspondent, a distant relative of Thrashhead, gives us the following inarticulate lowdown.
HAL NEGRO AND THE SATIN TONES - featuring Brendan Mullen, ex-Masque honcho on drums, doing lounge versions of classic rock. Shite. Brendan’s new book “We Got The Neutron Bomb” is totally amazing tho and well worthy of your attention.
CONTROLLERS – Overweight and sloppy.
GEZA X - Solo acoustic. Histrionic. About as appealing as it sounds.
PHRANC – Cancelled. Thank God.
MIKE WATT AND GEORGE HURLEY - George was behind the drum kit, Mike stood to the far left on bass, pointed to the empty stage and shouted "dave boon". Guitarless versions of MINUTEMEN songs. Edgy and meaningful. Ended with a :15 second cover of the URINALS’ “ack ack ack” that was intense. Probably the most "punk rock" moment of the evening. As Watt left the stage, he shouted "Start your own band".
DOGS – Tight blaze of guitar, with Loren pogoing around. Insisted on playing their new 45 "Class of '70" which sucks balls and includes a lot of corny revolutionary lyrics, but they redeemed themselves by ending with a brutal “Slash Yr Face”.
CHERI CURRIE AND SANDY WEST OF THE RUNAWAYS. I said, "Are you all right ?" "I wanna hear you sing, 'It's all right'". "C'mon, louder". This is the kinda rock star ramalama bullshit that drove me to punk in the first place. Ended with the stuttering "Cherry Bomb", which is d-u-m-b, but undeniably ridiculously catchy.
SKULLS - Manic and entertaining. Building models, victims, on target, kill kill kill!
THE REST OF THE SCREAMERS – Paul Roessler on keyboards and KK Barrett on drums. Distorted, arty and great.
ADOLESCENTS - A fucking riot. All the original members. Rikk Agnew has ballooned into a mountain of lard with a bushy black beard. Looked like Pig Champion. They looked like shit but sounded hot. "No Way" and the place just erupted.
FEAR – “I Love Living in the City” and “I Don't Care About You” were good, but they played way too fast. And Lee Ving in his jean jacket and long stringy hair is looking too much like Willie Nelson…
SOME OF THE CIRCLE JERKS – Keith Morris and Greg Hetson with a supporting cast. A couple of CJ tunes (“Wild in the Streets”, “Century City”), a pretty decent cover of "Nervous Breakdown". Woulda preferred "Wasted" "Fix me" and "I've had it". Then they dragged Cliff Roman up there on guitar for "We Got The Neutron Bomb" and "Solitary Confinement". Again, this veered into gross out rock star spectacle territory a la "rock’n roll hall of fame all star jam" bullshit.
BAD RELIGION, AGENT ORANGE, TSOL – Missed ‘em. Fuck’em.
Stories You Hate
We begin this month with a few vinyl stories you hate to read, submitted by a few of our scum brethren…
“Walked into a NYC store that mostly stocks new records looking for a just released NEW BOMB TURKS record, but found something much better in the "N" section: THE NOTHING “Uniformz” 45. For $4. And they had multiple copies since I later found out that someone else had gotten one earlier, also for $4. And none of them are left -- I've gone back a few times and asked. And this is a place that specializes in hardcore, and stocks most of the KBD-style comps...”
”There was a Cleveland mail order that I had previously bought a few less exciting things from, off excerpts of their catalog which were posted on their website. One night I discovered that they finally posted their complete catalog of 10,000 or so items on the web as a poorly formatted text list. It was so hard to read and full of crap that I almost gave up a few letters in. The dealer priced a 1980s PAGANS single at $50, but totally missed the only really valuable record on his list, a copy of HAMMER DAMAGE for $10.”
”I was on tour with my band in St Louis. Luckily the rest of the band slept in on Saturday morning. I had an hour to kill so I walked over to Vintage Vinyl having known their website (only a block away from the apt I was staying at, I doubt I would've managed to steal the van!). So I walk in and head for the singles. It's pretty meager offerings, with a small display containing mostly new singles, and a row of about 30 used singles. Start digging...jaw drops...MENTALLY ILL "Gacy's Place" 7"... $1 ... and what's this one, I don't recognize the sleeve, but it says MENTALLY ILL "Sex Cells"...$1. You get the idea. Other notables were WEIRDOS "Solitary Confinement" $8, VICTIM "Why are Fire Engines Red" $1, NNB "Slack" $0.50 ... My hands are shaking as I take the stack up to the counter, there must be a mistake. The clerk looks over my stack with a puzzled look. Oh no he's on to me! It turns out, during that entire month, all used product is 50% off...thank you!”
”Again, I'm at a gig with my band, this time in Homewood, IL at a club adjacent to the record store RECORD SWAP which has unfortunately gone under since. They have a huge bin of singles, probably 1,000 or so, and many appearing to have been sitting there for a good 15 years. I search through the recent arrivals and general used areas, but it's obviously well picked over. then i look below the bin into a cabinet and there more stacks of old stock. Keeping in mind that at this point I was still unfamiliar with many bands and what their sleeves looked like, I managed to do pretty well for $2.50-3 a pop. I remember the ICE 9 7", SHOCK 2nd 7", DOGS "Teen Slime" 7", ROSES ARE RED 7", and unknown to me at the time, a sticker announced "Chicago 70's SEX PISTOLS wannabes...does anyone remember?" THE EXIT "Who Asked You" 7". The sleeve was kind of off-putting, but with a SEX PISTOLS reference I had to buy it. A few months later I traded it for THE DICKS "hate the police" 7" + $100 which dwarfs my $3 investment…”
”My best find was several years ago in Zurich. There was a store doing a clearance on a bunch of old vinyl. There were several bins of 7"s which I went though which had some nice things like a SNUKY TATE EP and a some European things priced at a few dollars. I ended up chatting with the guy who was looking after the place and it turned out there were boxes of old 7"s down in the basement that had been there since about the mid 80s. Thousands of 7"s. They hadn't been priced out yet but he let me look through them. A few hours later I had a stack of stuff which included the DOGS "John Rock", multiple copies of just about every old Swiss punk 7", several copies of a bunch of things like FRONT PAGE, FILTH, TITS, etc. There was even some interesting hardcore like the first AGENT ORANGE (Holland) EP, the early TERVEET KADET 7"s, RATTUS, etc. I ended up with a few hundred 7"s and I must have exhausted all of my luck that day.”
Tasty Treats
Rob Noxious aka Rob Chambeau aka Roberto aka Guy Archembeault aka Guy aka Tony From Hawaii aka Surf Dude aka Mike and Ray E aka Mike and Ray Ern aka Mike and Ray Ernst aka Mike and Mary Lewdsnot aka Lewdsnot. The very name(s) send shivers down the spines of record collectors. He can smell vinyl from miles away. He will find you. He will hunt you down from his perch in Huntington Beach. He will trade want lists and pester you for every little scrap of vinyl you have.
His pathology runs far deeper than your average scum, however. His preoccupation with identity or escaping it defies logic. When I first met him in 1986, he went by the name Rob Chambeau. He has morphed through the years into numerous personas, which the internet has further enabled him to do. It almost seems farcical. One collector met him at a record show and Rob introduced himself as “Joe” or something, then proceeded to introduce himself to the guy’s friend as a different name. He once reasoned that he used a fake name because he’s French and no one could pronounce his name.
Another collector sold a few things to Lewdsnot on eBay. Lewdsnot’s “real” name was the Ernst brothers from a Huntington Beach P.O. box. Correspondence from the Ernst brothers professed familiarity with Rob, and went so far as to pass on a “hello” from Rob.
The letter went on to talk about this little record trading cartel of a few people in Huntington (all his other alter egos?) who shared info and records, and even had meetings of some kind, even mentioning a girl was involved as one of the traders.
“So I'm packing up the records and thinking how it looks like Rob's writing, so I dig out a couple wants lists, and it's really similar, but what really got me was all the little things he does that no one else does. He puts the return address in a triangle in the left corner and puts the "TO:" with stars and underlines. One of his writing personas tries to be cool, with various trademarks like "dig" (I dig xyz 7"), "tasty treat", etc. “
Rob also has an alter writing ego which is decidedly uncool. One collector characterized it as a Latka-from-Taxi-style English? One email from the Ern brothers went like this: "Yes, we would very much like to buy this wonderful punk/powerpop gem from you indeed. It would be very good and we send you money and thank you very much for any other fantastic vinyls you sell us please." This letter emphatically underlined the “Ray and Mike”, like he's really trying to convince somebody.
Even his age is denied. For years after he turned 28, which was 12 years ago, he has told people that he is 28. Current estimate is that he was born in 1962. Rob’s want lists are legendary in both their depth and his ability to get them into anyone’s hands. More than one of us have been contacted by him out of the blue. My first contact with him was the night before the Gilman record swap in Berkeley back in 1986. He called me out of the blue and read off his want list over the phone. It was filled with advanced obscurities that I had never heard of such as Tazers, Underwearheads, Braineaters, etc. Apparently he was calling from the Maximum house because the next day he was banned from the swap for stealing records from the Maximum house.
While at least one collector claims to have gotten a handwritten want list from him painstakingly listing every superrare punk record known to man, another claimed to have been Rob’s photocopy guy. “He'd send me his shitty, barely readable, dot matrix list and I'd run off hundreds of copies for free at my Kinko’s and ship them using their account. I got a few records in exchange but definitely less than what I should have gotten in exchange for thousands of $'s in copies….”
But most of all, it is his relentless pursuit of vinyl and getting the best trade that has been his trademark and a source of grief for many a collector. Rumor has it Rob was once on the "Dating Game" and won an all expense paid trip to New Orleans. His plan of course was to ditch the chick and hit all the record stores.
One of his ploys is to turn up at peoples houses without letting them know he’s coming. He did that quite a bit in the UK a few years back. He told me the reason he did this was so people wouldn’t have a chance to hide their best records. He has traveled extensively around the world through the years, including Australia, Europe and Japan, plundering and pillaging wherever he goes.
Another collector said this about Rob’s relentlessness. “He wants to make deals that satisfy him totally ("you have cool records but mine are better") and he is very pushy about getting a record. I wish I had hidden away the RED SQUARES "Time Change" 45! And you have to insist on getting the records from him first and insisting on registered shipping of records…”
Deep down in the psyche of the record collecting epitome, a sort of nice if not troubled person lurks. Rob, like most of us, had the sort of unhappy childhood that led us to punk in the first place. And thanks to him, I’ve been the proud owner of the HOLLYWOOD SQUARES 45. Nuff said!
Class of ’77
In December 2001, old LA punks got together for the “Class of ‘77” punk reunion gig, wherein luminaries of yore strutted their sagging asses. This month’s correspondent, a distant relative of Thrashhead, gives us the following inarticulate lowdown.
HAL NEGRO AND THE SATIN TONES - featuring Brendan Mullen, ex-Masque honcho on drums, doing lounge versions of classic rock. Shite. Brendan’s new book “We Got The Neutron Bomb” is totally amazing tho and well worthy of your attention.
CONTROLLERS – Overweight and sloppy.
GEZA X - Solo acoustic. Histrionic. About as appealing as it sounds.
PHRANC – Cancelled. Thank God.
MIKE WATT AND GEORGE HURLEY - George was behind the drum kit, Mike stood to the far left on bass, pointed to the empty stage and shouted "dave boon". Guitarless versions of MINUTEMEN songs. Edgy and meaningful. Ended with a :15 second cover of the URINALS’ “ack ack ack” that was intense. Probably the most "punk rock" moment of the evening. As Watt left the stage, he shouted "Start your own band".
DOGS – Tight blaze of guitar, with Loren pogoing around. Insisted on playing their new 45 "Class of '70" which sucks balls and includes a lot of corny revolutionary lyrics, but they redeemed themselves by ending with a brutal “Slash Yr Face”.
CHERI CURRIE AND SANDY WEST OF THE RUNAWAYS. I said, "Are you all right ?" "I wanna hear you sing, 'It's all right'". "C'mon, louder". This is the kinda rock star ramalama bullshit that drove me to punk in the first place. Ended with the stuttering "Cherry Bomb", which is d-u-m-b, but undeniably ridiculously catchy.
SKULLS - Manic and entertaining. Building models, victims, on target, kill kill kill!
THE REST OF THE SCREAMERS – Paul Roessler on keyboards and KK Barrett on drums. Distorted, arty and great.
ADOLESCENTS - A fucking riot. All the original members. Rikk Agnew has ballooned into a mountain of lard with a bushy black beard. Looked like Pig Champion. They looked like shit but sounded hot. "No Way" and the place just erupted.
FEAR – “I Love Living in the City” and “I Don't Care About You” were good, but they played way too fast. And Lee Ving in his jean jacket and long stringy hair is looking too much like Willie Nelson…
SOME OF THE CIRCLE JERKS – Keith Morris and Greg Hetson with a supporting cast. A couple of CJ tunes (“Wild in the Streets”, “Century City”), a pretty decent cover of "Nervous Breakdown". Woulda preferred "Wasted" "Fix me" and "I've had it". Then they dragged Cliff Roman up there on guitar for "We Got The Neutron Bomb" and "Solitary Confinement". Again, this veered into gross out rock star spectacle territory a la "rock’n roll hall of fame all star jam" bullshit.
BAD RELIGION, AGENT ORANGE, TSOL – Missed ‘em. Fuck’em.
posted by Henry @ 3:13 AM 
