What We Do Is Secret

Erin Arthur (nee Erin Humphrys) was an original Texas punk and one of the lead singers for Dallas punk band Superman’s Girlfriend. This was an attempted autobiography I worked on with Erin back in 2001 or so. It was nigh impossible to capture all of Erin's adventures and find a way to tell them in chronology. This is the closest I was ever able to get. Please send on any corrections or omissions. Erin is a true original. She is an avowed internet junkie and webmistress of her cool site: http://TexasPunkJunk.homestead.com/OHLOISWELCOME.html - Henry.

It was ‘77/’78. I had been going to this bar in Dallas called Mother Blues ‘cos it stayed open till 5 in the morning. It was there I met this long haired guy wearing a pink plastic dry cleaning bag for a shirt! He was telling me about his band The Dot Vaeth Group, and telling me about punk .I listened eagerly ‘cos god, I was so bored with the 70's music and scene. His name was Pat Conley.

Anyways, Pat invited me out to his trailer in Azle, Texas to hear them practice. A few days later I got my friends and off we went to hear this punk band. They did The Ramones’ "Blitzkrieg Bop", then the Sex Pistols. I was hooked. I knew from then on it was PUNK for me!

The Dot Vaeth Group was Jim Nabors, David Townsend, James Flory, Pat Conley, and Doug Townsend. They had this friend Bryce Parker, who had a house in Hurst where we use to go drink listen to records and hang out. Bryce talked his sister into helping him finance a recording studio, which ended up in downtown Dallas. He named it "E.S.R".

We all went to see The Sex Pistols show at The Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas. Nervebreakers were supporting and for anyone who does not know, it was Bryce who threw that stanky raw fish up on stage and Barry Kooda (Nervebreakers, Barry Kooda Combo, Yeah Yeah Yeah, Punk Rock Dinosaurs) proceeded to gnaw on it like it was a tasty treat. The photo made it into Rolling Stone Magazine. (Barry has a great Sid story but I will let him tell it to you if he wants - barrykooda@barrykooda.com).

The “E.S.R” days were the best! We would hang out, drink, jam and just have fun! So in 1979 we were messing around. Jim ad libbed something about Lois Lane, and I screeched out, “Fuck me I'm Lois”! Superman's Girlfriend was born.

The first Superman's Girlfriend line up was: James Flory (bass), David Townsend (guitar), Doug Townsend (drums), Jim Nabors (vocals), and yours truly Erin Humphreys (vocals). We would play around Dallas, then Austin and Houston. We usually played DJ’s, Gertie’s, Magnolia’s, Lou Ann’s and a few other places around town.


Erin at Magnolia's in Dallas
(copyright Erin Arthur)

DJ’s New Wave Cafe
But we loved DJ’s most because it was strictly punk. It was all ours, and you know punks like to break stuff and fight! There was a clothing store next door called Electricity. They wanted to have a grand opening with a live band but they didn’t have enough room for a band to set up.

That’s when Dolores Nolly entered the picture and started DJ’s. I got the feeling the neighborhood pub was dead till the punks showed up.

Erin and Jim Nabors at DJ's New Wave Cafe in Dallas
(copyright Erin Arthur)

The Dot Vaeth Group played and Dolores was hooked I am sure she saw dollar signs too! So in 1979, DJ's New Wave Cafe on Greenville Ave. in Dallas was born. If those walls could talk! There were lots of characters. I remember one night Superman's Girlfriend was playing and Bobby Soxx (who would later form Stickmen With Rayguns) wanted to get up and sing a song, so we said ok. It must have been a Vomit Pigs song or something. Well he had taken a bunch of Quaaludes and when the song was done he would not get off the stage. The guys in the band finally had to drag him off kicking and screaming!

Superman's Girlfriend performs “Jesus Saves” at DJ's New Wave Cafe, Dallas 1979
(Copyright Erin Arthur)












There were only a few bands in the beginning: Nervebreakers, Vomit Pigs, Toys, and The Dot Vaeth Group. After DJ's opened, the whole scene just blossomed. Our pal Don Gray found a fourplex to live in, which became our after-hours new wave party palace. Eventually, the whole building was occupied by punks. It was called Bryan Parkway. It was there we met three kids who stuck to the scene and to us like glue.

Shit Cherie (VDegenerates), Sharon and Danny Flame.were outrageous, loud, and obnoxious. They’d do anything to get to hang around. Sharon and Cherie were eventually immortalized in the Butthole Surfers’ song “Pepper” off Electriclarryland. Cherie and I had a love/hate relationship. We would get into fights everywhere, scrappers! I called her my mortal enemy.
Eventually, Cherie had done something at DJ's: either broke something or Dolores had found out how old she was, I don’t quite remember. So we were all at the club, but everyone started talking and looking on the front stoop careful not to step in it and we were just dying laughing...well, Cherie had gotten pissed off and dumped some shit on the stoop I heard it was human but really did not look that close, so maybe hence the name "Shit Cherie" hahaha ! Oh yeah, they had two friends that deserve a mention too: Pogo (Kim Wolfe) and Elisha Reneau. Elisha got mad at Pogo one night and whacked him on the head with a cast iron skillet! He went to the hospital with a concussion! Cherie is dead now.

Aside from the VDegenerates, Shit Cherie shared a makeshift band with me called The Cut Rate Toxins. It also included Valerie Bowles (bass), John Lacey (guitar), Chris Williams (guitar) and Dan Burton (drums).

The Cut Rate Toxins, at the Metamorphosis Concert Hall supporting Deprogrammer.
It was the only time I ever shared a stage with Shit Cherie (shown singing)!
(Copyright Erin Arthur)












In 1980, Val and I moved to Oak Cliff to Will’s house (Telefones, Red Tapes) and we started messing around with the very experimental Red Tapes. This is when the song “God Reasons'” was done. This was released posthumously on the Tales From The Edge 5 & 6 double CD by George Gimarc, the local DJ from The [radio station] Edge, in 1992. The Red Tapes were Jack Crow, James Flory III, David Price, Will Clay, yours truly Erin Humphreys, and Valerie Bowles. Paul Quigg was in the early version of this band in ‘79.

We all did a lot of LSD and made some strange but what we considered good music. We called it our religious experience, HA ! We had an 8 track reel to reel in the basement of the house among synthesizers and other music making devices. We spent most of our waking hours recording and experimenting. In 1981 or so, Val and I moved to the Hodge Lodge.

I remember moving in with Val in her apartment and we headed down to VVV, the local record store owned by NCM's bassist Neil Caldwell. There was a record release party for this band from Manchester, England, The Fall. We went to their show at The Hot Klub afterwards. Michael Ritchy offered up his mom and dad’s house for the Party. So we all showed up and the party was on. While the parents were upstairs asleep, we all did some crank, shot pool, listened to music, lit every candle in the house, had snacks and lots of conversation until about 7 in the morning when his parents threw us all out.

Well, Val and I had made some new friends and we wanted to party some more, but they had to go on to Chicago. We had this friend Karen and she offered up the money to buy 2 plane tickets back to Dallas from Chicago. So we took her up on it. So drummer Karl Burns and Road manager Grant Showbiz were on their way back to Dallas. They wanted to see the lake so we did that, played lots of Defender at 7-11, ate lots of toast ‘cos we didn’t have much money, did some crank and had lots of bedroom fun! The day they were to go back a cop pulled us over on the way to the Consulate and we explained they had no time. He let us go so they barely got to the airport in time. We said our goodbyes and that was another mark in memory. The popular records we played over and over again during this time were Killing Joke, The Furs, The Go-Go's, and The Cure. But The Furs got played the most while our visitors were in Dallas. Cheers to Karl & Grant: The Fall Tour of America 1981.

The Hot Klub
By ‘81/’82 there were quite a few clubs to play by this time in Dallas, Houston, Austin and Fort Worth. Life was GOOD and we were having a blast! The Hot Klub got going good. Good enough to book bands like Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Stranglers, Richard Hell, The Stray Cats, Adam Ant. Our bands made pretty good money too, plus we got our drinks free and we got into the big shows free so it was a sweet deal. Unfortunately, DJ's kinda fizzled out...well, we all know there ain't no honor amongst punks!

Superman's Girlfriend at the Hot Klub in Dallas.
(Copyright Erin Arthur)











The Hot Klub would be where Superman’s Girlfriend played their last gig. The lineup at this time was the same minus David Townsend and plus Paul Quigg. Well I had been girlfriend of our drummer for a few years by now and the band was getting sour and so was Doug! Our last gig was in ‘80 I think and that night there was this party and there I met this guitar player who would later be in NCM, David Hill.

Unfortunately, I met Heroin too. That was a long trip and the only way was down, but we all did it (been clean now for 9 years)!

There was this house in the same neighborhood as The Hot Klub and they dubbed “Bachelor Hell”. But my friend Valerie Bowles (Teenage Queers) and I needed a place to live. So we talked Jerry Hodge, the guy that owned the house into letting us move in, against the majority vote of the men already living there. Suzi Mustang (Cringe) came later and we all had a room and that stereo blared 24/7, Bobby Soxx lived there and would play that Flipper’s “Sex Bomb” over and over and there was not a little stereo in that house it was a fuckin’ PA system! We renamed “Bachelor Hell” to "The Hodge Lodge".

We had great parties. There was this really drunk girl there one night and she left her purse by the back door. Bobby swooped in like a vulture and got cash and her camera ... then the rest of us finished it off. I am sorry to say but we were relentless and unless you were one of us, you were walking into dangerous territory. Especially if you were rich and wanting to be a punk! Eventually the house was sold, me and Bobby were there till the last he had plugged into the condo next door for electricity...but a few nights before all the guys took sledgehammers to the walls the staircase, now that was loud I carried my stuff down what was left of the stairs and got in my 68 Cadillac that barely ran and drove away then for a brief stay at my moms.

Summer of 1982, Austin, Texas
After a very brief stint at my moms, I decided to head to Austin. She gave meenough money for a bus ticket and off I went. Richard and Angel, who I’d met on their visit to the Red Tapes house, met me at the bus station and let me stay at their apartment. Richard was managing Jerry’s Kids, who were Brett Bradford, Steve Sonleitner, Rey Washam, Chris Wing (Sharon Tates Baby) and Bryan Finger. Brett and Rey would later form Scratch Acid with David Yow. So we got in all their gigs for free.

Every night we would head down to Sixth Street. There were great shows. Black Flag at the Ritz Theatre. Everyone played Austin. I saw The Clash with Stevie Ray Vaughn supporting them. I met this guy named Mike (played bass for ?), down on the street. He looked like Sid Vicious. He asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend. For lack of anything better to do I said “Yea Sure”. Well I was in the process of moving into this house for the summer that had been rented for the college kids in the fall. So Mike took me back to the apartment where Angel accused me of fucking Richard (which I did not, by the way!) I was stoned and not in the mood for a fight so we just got my shit and left. I never saw Mike again after that, heh heh. Guess it was a bit much (or he thought I was a puss) for the Sid lookalike.

The Fear record had come out and we loved it. Richard and I made shirts with stencils and spray paint and blasted that record constantly. Well I got moved into the house and we had our own rooms and air conditioning too. Val came for a stay and never left she is still in Austin! Brett Bradford and his girl Karen (the college student), Steve Anderson, Valerie Bowles, me and Mark lived in the house.

David Yow (Toxic Shock, Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid) was a regular. He and I got on great. In the meantime I had put out flyers to sing in a band. I wanted to be in a hardcore band 'cos that was the big thing at the time .But my reputation of being a bitch to work with preceded me I am sure, so no luck! Whaaaa! Jammed a bit at Gary Gutheries house but never a solid thing! Usually, it was Val, Mark and Gary and I in his garage we would do Joy Division type stuff.

The very best show ever was at ClubFoot: Killing Joke, July 1982, The club was hot and sweltering, packed upstairs and down. Gary's band Talmadge D'Amour was supporting which was strange cause they were a synth band...well when Killing Joke came on they were fuckin great you could feel the building shaking, the floor in front of the stage was full up with punks, skins, you name it: all in a mass frenzy of slamming and stage diving! The club owner decided to pull the plug for some reason and that crowd went absolutely apeshit. IT WAS GREAT! Well they plugged the band back in cause they were gonna sustain more damage to their club if they didn't!

Anyway, the summer was coming to an end and it was time to head back to Dallas. In '82-'83, I moved into Jon Lacey's (The Beautiful,Punk Rock Dinosaurs..2001).

Then, I got a job. Ahhhh !

Erin back in Dallas, at Jon Lacy's 1982.
(Copyright Erin Arthur)

The Mid-80’s, Dallas
The Twilite Room, Studio D,& Theater Gallery times were really great. I had landed a job as barkeep working for Charlie Guilder in ‘85 I think, at Charlies Liberty Hall, later The Twilite Room / Circle A Ranch. Saw some great shows there: UK Subs, The Exploited, Johnny Thunders, Butthole Surfers, TSOL, Tex & The Horseheads, Circle Jerks, & Fang when they were babies, to name a few.At Theater Gallery, saw Meat Puppets, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Scratch Acid.

Studio D hosted The Misfits where me and my friend Terry Jo came home with autographed LP, 45 & T shirts ‘cos she flashed em her tits! Stickmen With Rayguns were supporting a lot of these acts by this time and making a name for themselves.

Erin with pet
(copyright Erin Arthur)

Casualties:
Will Clay (Superman’s Girlfriend, Telefones) – Heroin Overdose

Discography:
7”:
Vomit Pigs/Superman’s Girlfriend split EP (EV 04) 1992 (500 on red vinyl)
Unquestionably Late For The Trend Compilation EP (EV12) (1012 press, 162 on green vinyl)

LP:
Are We Too Late For The Trend? Compilation LP (ESR)

Cassette:
Steel Rok Presents Compilation (1983)

CD:
as Red Tapes on Tales From The Edge 5 & 6 Compilation (1992)

Unreleased Recordings:
Backing vocals on “Hitler’s Come Back” with Bobby Soxx

posted by Henry @ 11:59 AM