dangerous, heh heh…”
“Do you think there’s any hope for Detroit?”
“I don’t think there’s ever going to be unity in Detroit. The only unity that’s involved is
with the indie garage rock scene. It’s a big coalition of people who are into something because
they’re told to be into something. Why are the tight-pants shoegazing bands who can’t play their
instruments considered indie? I consider Downtown Brown an indie band. We put out our own
records, we tour with our own money. But all these terms get put on all this shit. If we were The
Black Lips and we got naked onstage would Rolling Stone say we put on one of the best live
shows in America? I think we do. I haven’t seen one band besides Gil Mantera's Party Dream that
can even touch what we do. To just get up in front of a bunch of people who have never heard us
and no matter what – emo kids, punk kids, some guy named Rooster with a fucking mullet in the
middle of Texas – what we do translates. It’s universal. But Rolling Stone is never going to say
shit about us because we’re not cool. We’ll always be considered a novelty act because you can’t
smile in rock and roll. You can’t write goofy lyrics. I’m sure any notable, crappy huge magazine
that everyone reads – Mr. Bungle never got an article in that. Frank Zappa is still kind of
dismissed. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel, there isn’t some huge paycheck”
“Never give in though…”
“As long as you feel you’re contributing something that has worth and weight to society,
even if it’s a song about poop. If it puts a smile on someone’s face, if people are entertained by
that I’m doing my job. I’m here to act like an idiot and make people smile. That makes me smile,
that’s why I do what I do.”
“What are you expecting in LA?”
“Well, you were there. The guy really liked us a lot and invited us to play his birthday
party and that’s this Friday. He said there’s gonna be a lot of industry people in the audience, but
I don’t know… We’re fat. LA’s a beautiful town. At least Hollywood, it seems that everyone is
hot. Dudes, chicks, hermaphrodites, whatever… Everyone’s eyes in the entire world are focused
on beautiful people that aren’t even really talented who live in that town because they’re postered
on billboards and plastered on the cover of every magazine that every fat Midwestern housewife
picks up and reads because they’re life is so boring they have to adhere to someone that’s hot.
Not even someone whose talented, not even like a Jimi Hendrix. Someone that could play the
guitar, someone who could sing really well. Someone like Jennifer Lopez, someone that really
doesn’t do anything but she has a hot ass so I want to buy her perfume. That makes me want to
throw up. I think we’re the antidote for Hollywood. I think if we go in there being fat, being
boisterous, complete assholes… They never saw anything like that. They’re used to everyone
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licking their ass. We got in there and we were talking about snorting coke of Johnny Depps' cock
and everyone fucking loved it. Hollywood’s a big ass licking contest. I’m not about to do any of
that shit…”
We kill the day at Cinemark watching the very terrible The Invasion and the fantastic Pyrates of
the Caribbean 3. Somehow we got booked at The Tavern with a legendary local called Beefcake
In Chains, which Cornell shat himself over. Beefcake’s vocalist is this tattooed bulldog of a guy,
and we have a friendly chat as he sips down a few rum and cokes: “Well there’s only two of us
old farts still in Albuquerque – me and Gordy Anderson from Black Maria.”
“In the late 70's/early 80's Albuquerque was sort of cut off from the rest of the punk
world. We invented our own brand and style of scene. There were some true innovative musicians
that did everything from using steel garbage cans for drum sets to mixed media performers that
used film, performance, and occasionally cow guts as part of their act.”
“There were about 20 or 30 core members, you had your comers and goers. There’s still
a bunch of people, but they’re in their mid-40s and shit. None of them hang out. A lot of my
friends became hardcore republicans and moved up to the suburbs. The white picket fence kind of
life.”
“So everything was a total DIY mindset?”
Stephen Eiland: “When bands started coming through Albuquerque we developed a great
reputation for hospitality and were known as a monster party scene. Shows were DIY where
someone rented an old locksmith place or firefighter hall, provided a PA, and happily lost their
ass on the show. Jerry’s Kids were the beginning of the hardcore scene, The Generics were kind
of art punk When skateboarding and hardcore became more in vogue, it became a bit too redneck
for my tastes. I'm one of those old farts who thinks punk died about 1985 after we realized the
world wasn't going to destroy itself in 1984. Most of what I see now is watered down, somewhat
robotic and lacking in soul. Someone found out you could make a buck off of this one-time
movement and squeezed the rebellion out of it. The horrid, oxy-moronic pop-punk movement has
dulled their senses and has further cowed them into buying whatever crap corporate America
shoves down their throats.”
“Were there ever problems with extremist groups?”
“In Phoenix they had a Nazi problem. Two many of us are brown around here to deal
with Nazis. You know, those little splinter groups you see in different places -- the straightedge
people, the all this and all that. It was never really like that here because it was ‘us against them.’
The people that didn’t get us would say ‘punk rock faggot.’ It was like a pyrate flag. The old
hardcore guys, we were rambunctious as shit, but we also protected the younger, weaker kids. For
that reason we had a very strong, bonded crowd…”
“Ever met GG Allin?”
“I never met GG Allin. To be honest I always considered him a bit of a pussy. All that
crap about how he kept saying he was gonna off himself on stage on Halloween but kept
chickening out. He finally accidentally OD’d. Fuck him.”
“You’ve got a bunch of tattoos. What’s your favorite and what’s the story behind it?”
“I have an executioner's hood on a skull with crossed axes. Underneath it says ‘In Honor
of El Duce.’ The other is one that says ‘P.V.’ -- it stands for ‘Party Vikings.’ It was my old crew.”
“When is going too far going too far?”
“I've yet to see that. However, if you do a song about sexually abusing kids, I'll kick your
teeth down your throat.”
“Are you saddened at all by the way things are going in Albuquerque?”
“Without a doubt. So much is being regurgitated. So many bands I see are shitty pop
punk. And I never got that term. Pop punk? What the fuck is that? It’s oxymoronic as ‘military
intelligence’ or ‘gay republican.’ There’s no shock value left. Emo kids that cut themselves are
sad. I hate Masochists and nihilists in general. Kids need to find their balls. Clubs I go to now,
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they have signs that say no stage-diving. In my teens if I saw that sign I’d be the first one jumping
offstage. There’s no evolution. A kid with a green Mohawk these days, you’ve never seen that
before. People just need to figure out their own identities. They just rehash what they’ve seen,
they’re still wearing GBH shirts. We had Ronald Reagan which we really pissed and moaned
about. You have the worst president EVER in office and the only one’s saying anything are old
farts like Jack from T.S.O.L. and Mike from NOFX. No one has any fight left in them
anymore. Put down the Wii controller and get pissed you little fuckers…”
PRESCOTT (9/26)
Beefcake Steve was so cool he gave us all their door money, and arranged for us to crash at his
band mates house, who ironically has a long brown beard, dresses completely Amish, and is, of
course, the solo artist of the noise-core project AMISH NOISE.
$85 later in gas we arrive in the mountainous region of Prescott, Arizona penniless and
late for the gig at Sundance’s. We’re screwed -- both openers have long played beforehand, and it
isn’t until 1am when DTB hit the stage to play for 8 people in a dead bar.
Somehow, someway -- thanks to screaming fat girls with a chub crush on Neil -- we walk
out with $120 in merch. The rockabilly bartender – overjoyed we know Twistin’ Tarantula’s –
gives us free CD’s of his band The High Rollers and fed us $70 in complimentary liquor…
SAN DIEGO (9/27)
We’d awoken somewhere in Arizona at the manager from Psychostick’s house where glass bowls
filled with condoms laid on every table surface. “So are there any mint flavored ones?” I ask.
‘Well no. But there might be a banana.” “Yes, perhaps. But I only seek mint.” “Why?” “So you
can offer me a condiment” [insert rim-shot + laugh track here]…
Onward to The Villa Winona. Just one last interstate through the mountains, road ending
at the Pacific crest… We’re stopped at a draconian checkpoint so farcical it couldn’t be authentic.
There are American border control foot-soldiers with AK-47’s manning a roadblock, snooping
through cars looking for illegal immigrants or Muslim jihadists.
There is a giant green sign that reads “HOMELAND SECURITY TERROR THREAT
LEVEL: ORANGE.” It’s got all the five colors and this little magnet pointing an arrow which
indicates how afraid we should be. This isn’t my high school in 1996. This is real, this is
happening. Welcome to THE BIG SHINY PRISON.
The show is on Ocean Beach at The Dream Street café. The crew comes roaring out – Dr.
Santiago, Mr. Skinner, Brandon, Panda, Jo-Jo. DTB gets Wax & Herbal T (the best identical twin
white rappers in America) to join onstage for a freestyle session. Skinner’s steals Panda’s bra and
starts dancing onstage in drag playing with his nipples…
Long walk on the beach, too many tall cans and painkillers. We find ourselves at an after
party hosted by Donnie L. Carter from The Fabulous Rudies, an independent ska band the boys
made pals with on Warped Tour this year: “We’re a little more rude than we are fabulous. To
quickly sum it up, we are a Southern California ska band. We did the entire Warped Tour in
2007, did some dates in 2006, 2005… This year we were the BBQ band. Warped Tour is almost a
circus. The bigger bands will have their tour bus, booking agent, manager. We rented our own
RV -- our tour managers were just Tom and myself. It’s definitely DIY. If anything goes wrong,
you’re to blame.”
“When you boil it down, what’s the message of The Fabulous Rudies?”
“We’re a ska band trying to bring fun music back to the public. The other half is kind of
politically conscious, socially conscious. The fun music, the dance music -- but there’s also lyrics
about the wars, suicide… Ska was kind of a bad word in the record industry so we started to
branch out, but we always had that as our roots. Everything came together these last 2 years.
Southern California is starting to accept it again, other areas in the United States as well. There’s
another crest of the wave right now.”
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“Where does ska go over best?”
“There are some crowds that don’t get it. Not so much this year, cause we were definitely
going up the wave. We’ve done the whole southwest, we’ve done Northern parts in California,
Vegas. We have seen some crowds that don’t accept it. Right now there is a big acceptance,
especially here, LA & New York. Those are the two big ska movements – Southern California
and New York. After the third wave which produced bands like Reel Big Fish, Save Ferris, The
Bosstones, those have been the hotbeds of ska activity in US.”
“You’re in other projects too?”
“In San Diego it’s hard to avoid reggae. Me and the sax player have Stranger. For us it’s
a side project, but they’ve been in it 6 years. They’re in South Bay area San Diego, which is close
to the border of Tijuana. They have a bit of that Mexican influence, which is kind of the heart of
music in Chula Vista and East LA. They kind of epitomize the reggae aspect of that area; the horn
section is a beautiful thing. I play trombone. The horn section for Rudies is tenor sax and
trombone. When we record I play trumpet. For stranger, that’s generally what we stick to. Side
One Dummy was looking at signing them, maybe even taking them on Warped next year. If we
do go on tour this summer, we hope Stranger gets on half the Warped Tour…”
“What is the strangest thing that happened on tour this summer?”
“We actually hit a mounties in Canada with the RV. We had gotten into an accident in
Vancouver and kind of bent the tail end of our RV. So when we passed we scraped the side of
this Mounties…”
THE VIPER ROOM (9/28)
As we pull into the Hollywood strip I ceremonially Frisbee the new promo disc of Critical Bill’s
debut record into the gutter. Just another one of those encoded “if this leaks on the internet we’re
suing the pants off you” albums sent for review. Floccinaucinihilipilification…
Our rage has never been so fever-pitch. For another useless Detroit band like that to get a
major label deal -- for that much money to be invested in a Godsmackey, rapcore hangover with
the word “Detroit Underground” plastered all over the press release when all they do is play the
fucking Emerald Theatre in Mt. Clemens? Our blood is boiling, and it’s time to demolish The
Viper Room.
This is Downtown Brown’s finest moment. The venue lets us have the prime parking
space in front (doesn’t happen), allows us to bring ALL the merch we want inside (against the
rules), give us free reign to shoot all the video and photos we want (normally it costs $250 for
video and $100 for photo), give us a limitlessly free full bar tab all night (pushing $500 easy), a
20 person guest list ($15 per ticket), and the co-owner paid a soundman $300 to record the DAT
mix for his own personal live album. Merry Christmas assholes…
3 hours later, the big moment, sober & razor-sharp. The red curtain opens, the Detroit
Expatriate packed floor goes wild, and Neil’s eyes are glowing with the satanic thunder of Loki:
“We are Downtown Brown from Detroit, Michigan!!! FUCKING BURN IN HELL LA!!!”
* * * * *
2 hours after Hiroshima. The Viper Room has become the Double O Pub from Redford,