Monday, December 15, 2008

Billy Rubin - The Truth...


A young Dan O'Mahoney and Billy Rubin, Photo courtesy of: Billy Rubin

Tim got an email from Billy Rubin recently, and in their exchange, Billy wrote what is below. I think you can say that this is a little bit of an introduction to what will be some ongoing material with Half Off / Haywire's notorious singer...
-Gordo DCXX

Regarding the "feud" between us and Youth of Today, or more specifically, me and Ray, I can speak for the Half Off guys when I say that we never really cared. It was always amusing to us that people were so worked up over something they knew nothing about. There was probably more of a hustle bustle over Half Off being critical of the SE movement. At the time (in that scene) being critical of SE was like a US citizen being critical of our foreign policy in Iraq (2 years ago). I was chastised for not being "hard". Or in my analogy it was like being unpatriotic.


Drugs & Booze The Sure Way To Lose

The Jeff Banks/Dave Mellow story you posted is great. I have my own Dave Mellow story...

I grew up in a kind of upper class area called Huntington Harbor. I was isolated from punk rock. There was a shopping center about 2-3 miles from my house with a bar in it. Every now and then a punk band would somehow pull off playing there. I would keep tabs on the place and skateboard over there (I was too young to drive) to stand outside and try and listen through the walls to hear live punk music. This would have been 1983 or '84, which made me about 14. At any rate, I was over there one time all by myself, a little rug rat, probably wearing a Husker Du t-shirt or something, with my ear pressed to the wall.

This older guy (in his 20s) came over to me and was really nice but a little buzzed. He told me he was in a band. He was almost too nice. It sorta scared me. He drove a beat up blue van and had long hair. He came off like a serial killer or a child molester. He gave me a demo tape from his band. I had no idea what the name of his band was and there was no label on the tape. I didn't even know what "demo" meant. Well of course, the guy was Dave Mellow and the band was UC.

A few months later, I started high school at Marina High. I met Dan O'Mahoney...now that is a story in itself. Dan and I became best friends. Dan always wore this weird "UC" shirt. I mean he wore it every fucking day. With the same pair of jeans that had "die kreuzen" stenciled on them. One day Dan drove over to my house (with someone named Paul Theriault) to pick me up (I still wasn't old enough to drive). We were driving around in his car (a metallic green Nova) and he had the same demo tape playing!

Thats when I figured out that Dan's UC shirt was the same band as the child molester guy's. Then I figured out that UC stood for Uniform Choice. Shortly after that, Dan and I began stalking Pat Dubar. Dan knew Dubar from Mater Dei high school. Dan had been kicked out of Mater Dei which is why he was at my high school. Later I came to know Dave Mellow as one of the nicest, most authentic guys ever. His brother was my age and I knew him from high school as we lived nearby each other.

I also worked with Dave and Big Frank doing the concerts way before Frank befriended Jeff Banks. The other guy that was around back then was a photographer named "O". He later was in a band called Olive Lawn...I could type your eyes out telling you those stories.


Dan and Billy, Photo: courtesy of Billy Rubin

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Paul Theriault = Sloth Crew!

D. Sine said...

Hooray for Billy Rubin.

200lbu said...

Uh....I would say I definitely need more of this...Please keep the Rubin content coming...If you get up to talking about Haywire, I'd be beyond stoked.

Unknown said...

I was laughing out loud when I read the part about how "the scene" reacted to Billy's betrayal of Straight Edge or whatever...sooo fricken funny....and so o ooo oo 100% true. You would have thought Billy assassinated Ian MacKaye or something.

Unfortunately my friends and I were not innocent bystanders. I remember some pretty "heated" discussions between guys like me and Bill at Zeds over what now seems like just the silliest stuff ever.... classic

Man....that Zeds crew of Big Frank, Billy, Raul, Mike, and Katon was the BEST. We spent a lot of time in High School driving up to LOng Beach to look at demo tapes, fanzines, and shoot the shit with Billy.

Anyway, that was a great read. It's also good to see you're alive and still kicking Bill.

Joe Nelson said...

Hmmmmm..... no idea why that showed up as Diane.... but anyway, that above post was from me.

Isaac Golub said...

I'm not sure if Billy Rubin ever liked me much and I'm not too sure looking back how much I liked him, but Half Off was a great band. It took a new energized life when he joined. They played a lot and I was there every time I was able. Billy was the first guy to rock camo shorts that I know of (other than Sons of Samoa...scary) and I will admit I was jealous I didn't think of it first. We were all young and full of piss and vinegar, too outspoken for our own good. Billy had a style, Billy had meaningful ideals. Billy was real and repped it for the scene. Thanks my friend, good read.

Anonymous said...

More Rubin Content! Billy, keep it coming.

SFader said...

So many times you get the best stories from the guys that tell them the least. Taking the bus to Zed's from HB, Frank & Katon, Dan 'O, Haywire, Paul T, UC, all great memories brought back by one silly story. Awesome.

Bill "Nego" Case said...

Billy - Thanks for the post. An extra special thanks for keeping things on the up and up. Too many times people use these forums to rip people and put them down for things that happened 20 years ago. Hopefully we can all look back and laugh. I'm looking forward to reading more. It's been cool catching up with you the last few weeks.

Diane, er...I mean Nelson - Thanks for the "shout out" in one of the other post. Things are well on my end.

Isaac - "We were all young and full of piss and vinegar, too outspoken for our own good" good point! Well stated. Strange we've never met. Then again maybe we have...my memory is going in my old age!

Anonymous said...

Like pretty much all the great '80s hardcore bands, I got into Half Off AFTER they'd broken up. Great band. Hopefully someone will release a discography at some point.

I lost count at how many times Evan used to blast Haywire's Private Hell LP at my parents' house way back when. Damn good band as well.

Thanks for contributing to DC, Billy.

Billy said...

Joe, Thanks for your comments. I remember those discussions at Zed. To this day I tell people I knew a guy who had a fish named "mustache rides".
Nego, thanks for tracking me down.
Isaac, I appreciated your comments in the Jeff Banks story of his stint in Half Off.

Joe Nelson said...

HA! Thats so funny... you remember that. I actually did have a catfish in high school with super long feelers, which I named "Mustache Rides".. I remember when he died.. Evan Jacobs, and I made a mix tape...that was on a 90 minute cassette. We then drove 90 minutes until the tape was complete, and actually buried "Rides" at Spahn Ranch in Simi Valley... Yes the same Spahn Ranch where the Manson family lived... Then we drove back to OC, getting home at something like 4 am, which was a semi big deal on a school night.. We called it the "Ride for Rides", and still talk about it till this day.

Anonymous said...

I don't remember "Mustache Rides" at all but I do VIVIDLY remember the duck phone that quacked instead of rang that you had around that same time.

Anonymous said...

I also remember long hours at Zeds, Fenders, Gilman, Spankyes, and too many other places to list. I consider myself lucky enough to hang out with the likes of some really cool people. And I still consider all of you friends despite the fact we havn't seen each other in many years. Can't believe people are still talking about high school antics twenty years after the fact. Good to know you are all still alive.
P.S. Has anyone seen my twin brother? last we heard he was in Austin Texas.

Unknown said...

Let's not kid ourselves...Half Off was not that great. Don't get me wrong. I loved them. They rocked, but not because the music was great. It was more because they tried really hard. The first time I saw them was in Lohman's garage with Back to Back and Section 8. BOBBY MUNOZ when he was white power, before he realized he was mexican, then turned cholo overnight. Those were the good old days.