Shaun Sheridan - The Anthrax Part II

Youth Of Today, Photo: Jordan Cooper

Here is the second chunk of a gigantic interview I did with Shaun Sheridan, who ran The Anthrax with his brother Brian. This originally appeared in Impact Fanzine, and we will continue to reprint some worthy stuff from there from time to time. Click here to read the first part:

http://doublecrosswebzine.blogspot.com/2008/05/shaun-sheridan-anthrax.html

-Gordo DCXX

Youth Of Today...well, Ray had been the drummer for Violent Children. It was a cool band, he wasn't all that good a drummer, but he became the vocalist for Reflex From Pain, when their original vocalist had to go work on a nuclear sub or something. I saw a bunch of Ray's earlier shows, up in Boston and down in Philly, and even then he was a good front man. After he left Reflex, there was the influence of Kevin Seconds and a degree of Minor Threat and Ian MacKaye, then suddenly he wanted to "be there for the kids." He wanted to show them "the way" and "the light." He always had a messiah complex. But it was also natural talent. He could sing and project. He was also a lot of fun, he was a cool and goofy kid. He'd occasionally have a few beers, smoke a little pot. It was like, "Yeah, here's a cool kid."

As far as how it all developed, me and my brother were old school, punk rockers. We were way more into seeing a band like Negative Approach play, or Angry Red Planet, Dr. Know, RKL, The Melvins. We were meeting people from all over the country and being exposed to a lot of different music. You began to realize the sound of the Northwest was different than the sound of the East Coast, Orange County hardcore was much different than, say, San Francisco hardcore, that Battalion of Saints from San Diego don't really even sound like the other guys from Orange County. It was kind of an interesting development. We tried to be as broad and open as possible...we figured anything's punk rock that wasn't this mainstream, Bon Jovi, big-hair bullshit or some Zeppelin/Doors rehash.

It's kind of interesting that Youth of Today isn't credited as a CT band, even though they pretty much came out of that scene. Even as early as with Porcell and Young Republicans. He came from upper-Westchester. It took Youth of Today a couple of years to really gain a following. They weren't really that good at first. After so many years of playing simple music, you're going to get better if you're really interested in doing it. The whole Krishna thing had very little to do with The Anthrax. But there were tons of other bands, on a national level. We did lots of the so-called "youth" bands because, at the time, it made money. I won't say we were totally jaded by their music, but how many times can you hear the same shit over and over?


Youth Of Today at the Stamford Anthrax, Photo courtesy of: Matt Warnke

I still remember, we had Uniform Choice play and I think one of the best fucking decisions my brother, Brian, ever made was to have Crucial Youth open that show. If you've never heard of them, they're like joke hardcore. Ian MacKaye's grandma lived up there, so they'd go up a couple times a year, and they'd check out who was playing. So he was there and Joe Crucial gets on the mic and says "We're happy to be here, we hear Ian's in the crowd tonight. You're so great and wonderful, but, why do you have to use the F-word so often?! That's not very positive! This song goes out to you! Those Who Curse Are the Worst!" The thing was, I hadn't talked to Ian yet that evening, but I looked over at him and he just thought it was hysterical, because he's never taken it that seriously. It's not this Rah! Rah! thing for Ian, at all. He pretty much said "This is no set of rules." I don't know if he's, exactly still like that. The drummer for Uniform Choice got so upset, he went running to Bill the sound guy, who only occasionally drank, but at that time he wasn't doing anything, and started yelling "Shut off the PA! These guys can't play anymore! They've just blasphemed my God!" One of the most amusing things I've ever seen. Ian was like "Guys, don't take it seriously." If kids EVER did the slapping beers out of hands thing in my club they'd be out. It was alcohol-free, but I was old enough to drink on MY own private property with my friends. You're upset by that? I don't care.

The booking for the club was my brother and me, but I could say my mom did it because at that point there was no answering machines and my dad rarely picked up the phone. However, when The Klingons called from Anchorage, Alaska to get a gig, that's when it really blew my dad's mind, he was like "I don't knowhow you guys are doing it, but if you have a band calling you from Anchorage, Alaska you must be doing something good." But they were always supportive, they were always like "no problem!" Finally we got a phone at The Anthrax, not that we could afford it, so my mom dealt with all the bands for so many of the years. My dad was a milkman so when The Dead Milkmen were calling up, she found it amusing as hell! But she didn't even bat an eye when the Dayglo Abortions called. It was just one of those things...she would just get all the names, numbers. Brian, I think, still has all the lists of all the bands that called. She always said everyone had the best phone manners. There was only one time that someone was rude to my mom, I can't even remember who, she didn't write down the information. It was interesting that all these "wild looking punk rockers" were so sweet on the phone.

Minor Threat mock up

I had this local punk guy named Jon LeVine that lived in my town. Jon did a fanzine called Faith sometime around 85/86. Jon also briefly did a record label and worked at a local punk record shop called Grot. When he was first starting his record label he was corresponding with Ian MacKaye over at Dischord and getting tips and suggestions on how to start up a label. Ian sent Jon this unused, uncut Minor Threat 7" for reference on how to hand cut, fold and glue his own 7" covers. Jon gave me the cover sometime around 87/88 when I was buying his Crippled Youth and Underdog 7" off of him. He threw the Minor Threat cover into the deal, along with a cool Underdog New Beginning Records poster that was used to promote the release of the 7". The Minor Threat covers been buried in a box for years and I just recently came across it and thought it would make for a cool DCXX entry. Ordinarily I convert all photos to grayscale for this page, but with this entry I'm making an exception. -Tim DCXX

Jon Roa recalls Ryan Hoffman vs. Billy Rubin

Justice League at Fenders, Photo courtesy of: Jon Roa

Jon Roa could probably write a book of old California hardcore stories, and we are trying our best to make sure that doesn't happen, because we want them all to be posted here. More to come...

-DCXX

Justice League was coming to that point where they were finished spreading their hardcore message. It was time. The band came in at an unique period in HC as the old guard was dying, breaking up, going to jail, etc. and for a lot of people, Minor Threat’s last stand meant a certain closure. Indicative of the period was that the bands with which we wanted to play (and did), bands like Stalag 13, C.F.A., BGK, DRI, Scream, Necros, 7 Seconds…. well, besides the last band, never really made the splash into the next generation. Sure they were liked but they could never tour like the next entering sect.

So, Ryan approached me with the idea of singing at the last show at Fenders with 7 Seconds headlining. He explained that he wanted me singing to have it all come full circle. The set list would be our songs mixed in with covers of songs on records that were out of print and could not be heard unless a tape was available (we played Boiling Point by SSD and not one person sang along). It would bridge the gap between the old and new.

Good. Great. We show up to the show and Ryan is told that Half Off do not want to open for us. Ryan politely goes up to Billy and asks why. Billy immediately starts shouting that we have not played in LA in a year and a half. No one knows who we are. They are more popular, etc. Ryan is trying to have a polite conversation but Billy keeps interrupting him until finally Ryan talks loudly over him saying (paraphrasing here), "Billy, you used to come around and ask us what bands to listen to (true). You act like you are our friend but then you pull this bullshit. This is some rock star move. You have never even toured or put in the work we have (true). Show some respect."

Justice League at Fenders, Photo courtesy of: Jon Roa

Billy, who is not a short person, moves closer and starts pointing at Ryan and starts talking even louder. Ryan then loses it and says, “I ought to kick your ass right now.” Billy says, “It’s over, Ryan. You’re done.” Ryan then screams, “Billy, right now!” and pushes Billy’s left shoulder. Billy turns around to walk away and Ryan shoves the back of his right shoulder. Billy keeps on walking.

We go on first and I apologize to the crowd that has been waiting because “some crybaby in the next band does not have their priorities straight.” We play. It goes well. A picture of Ryan and I eventually is used on the Justice League Discography. We come off stage and Billy confronts me, saying in an innocent manner “Roa, what was that all about?” I say, “Fuck You, Billy” and we get into what amounted to a staring contest. Billy walks away, waving his hand dismissively.

Ahhhm, the missteps of youth. I do not know what this all means today. I say it is all just wind through a tunnel. What I do know is that Ryan Hoffman is never afraid to say exactly what is on his mind, and I love him for that and many other reasons.

Eric Fennell - Supertouch Documentary

Eric Fennell is the guy who did the "Supertouch And Other People" documentary that has been in very limited circulation since it was completed in 1991. At one point it surfaced on YouTube, but it no longer can be found there. Luckily, Eric plans to give this a formal release in the near future, which is pretty cool since it features some great footage of the band both live and off stage.

I caught up with Eric to get the backstory behind this footage, and he also hooked us up with some great photos of the band as well. Check out his site:

http://altpick.com/ericfennell

-Gordo DCXX

What gave you the idea to do the Supertouch documentary? What was the reason for doing it?

I wanted to do the documentary because the scene and the music was interesting. I would travel with the band to photograph them and to drive the van that they bought. I had noticed that most of clubs in the different cities where Supertouch played had kids from all types of backgrounds enjoying the music together. You did not see this in the earlier Punk Rock era. I also liked the rawness of the music. Rock ‘N Roll in general had gotten so over produced, so for me it was nice to see that hardcore had kind of a back to basics type of feel and energy to it. I thought doing a documentary on Supertouch and the scene that they were in would be good for people to see whether or not they were into hardcore.

What was your relationship with the guys in Supertouch? How did this change or not change over the years?

Anyway, I knew Andy the drummer years before Supertouch. At that time I had a very large 1965 Chrysler 300. When I was not hauling my film making and photography equipment, I was helping Andy haul his drum kits and other instruments from his bandmates to different gigs. When Supertouch came around the Chrysler was still hauling but after a while Supertouch bought a Chevy Van. You can see the front of my Chrysler on the back cover of the 7" with the Supertouch members standing in the background. I seem to remember that the band broke up just about the same time I had finished editing the documentary. I have not had any contact with any of the members of Supertouch for many years.



What was the time period over which this was shot? Did you travel with the band?

Supertouch and Other People was shot during the first half of 1990. I remember starting to shoot some footage in January and was finished with the shooting of both interviews and performance footage by late May or early June of 1990. For the rest of 1990 and well into 1991 the long post production process kept me busy. I had hours of footage to edit plus all of the other things and projects that I was involved with. All of the still photographs were done by me and some were taken in 1988 and 1989 before I even knew I would do the documentary. As I had mentioned, I heard the band broke up at some point in 1991 just after I had finished the editing.

What were the best live performances you saw from the band and why do these stick out?

I think the some of the best Supertouch performances were at CBGB’s. I could be wrong, but I think they enjoyed that club the most. For me, CBGB’s was always the best club to shoot still pictures and video. This was not because of all of the history there, but because of the way the stage was set up. It was set up in such a way that photographers could get great shots of any band they were photographing. Other photographers have said the same thing to me. I have shot many bands at CBGB’s and I never had a bad roll of film from there. I can't say that about other clubs. I think there are a lot of Rock ‘N Roll photographers out there that are sorry the place is gone.

What can you tell us about the unused footage?

For now, I am still planning to put together unseen footage from the documentary with a re-released DVD version. I cannot say when it might be ready but I am hoping it will be with in the next few months.

Photographer Spotlight: Ken Salerno Part II

Outburst - City Gardens - Trenton, New Jersey


SNFU - City Gardens - Trenton, New Jersey


Pagan Babies - City Gardens - Trenton, New Jersey

Jimmy Yu - Part II

All photos: The Matinee Photographs, by Drew Carolan.  Jimmy seen on far right wearing the Cause For Alarm shirt.  Mark Ryan in the back with hood up.  DBD style.

My brother Steve is three years older than me, and he was best friends with Mike. And they got into punk...but guess what punk band? You'll never guess this…Duran Duran! Crazy, right? But at that time, 1980, they were considered punk. Now we look at them, and it is like the softest, weakest music. Duran Duran used to be punk? Funny right? Them and Blondie…Steve and Mike would listen to that and be like, "hah, yeah, we are punk!" Of course I didn't know any better. I mean everyone else is just into Eddie Van Halen and AC/DC, but this, in America, was punk. So my brother and these other guys took Mike to see Duran Duran and to get him into it. You would have to check, but that might have been Mike's first punk show! Think about that, Mike going to see Duran Duran. Too funny. But he and my brother got into it. And then me.

And at this time, my Mom wasn't ever really home. She's a single parent, traveling for business and everything. So she would leave my brother with money for us. He's 15, I'm 12, and we are crazy kids…you know? How do you think that went? We didn't know how to manage money. So we would spend it all right away and then not have any for the basics. So Mike would help us out, to get food, gas money, etc. But with my Mom not being there, my house just turned into like, "the pit." We would just go crazy, we'd slam into walls, jump into the ceiling, practice our stage dives and our "moves." It was bad.

But more and more I was really getting exposed to punk, and my brother, Mike, and these other punk guys in Montville were who I learned from. I think the first punk in Montville was this guy Paul Schraff, and Howard Horowitz, too. They were a little older and friends with my brother, but we were all outcasts. My brother got picked on too, but since we moved there when he was a little bit older, he didn't deal with it as much, because the kids his age weren't as cruel. Usually it was the younger kids that said things.

So I used to fight the kids that made fun of my brother. And so did Mike. We were very angry, and very violent, and we stayed that way. Sometimes we would just jump these kids. Later on once we started driving, we would see them somewhere, and we would just stop the car, get out, and jump them. We would beat the hell out of them, get back in the car, and go. It was terrible, I know. I'm really glad I found Buddhism!

My first show was Vice Squad, and that was the first time I saw slam dancing. And I remember seeing Eric(Cassanova) slam dancing so hard. And he just ruled the pit. He was crazy, he was so skinny, but it didn't matter. Back then, there was a particular form of slam dancing. I'm not sure what people do now, I mean I saw this band the other night, like a metal hardcore band at a friend's show, and there were these kids with long hair just pushing each other. When I was coming up, people always took care of each other and looked out for each other, and were just expressing themselves in this extreme way. Once in a while you would get some dickhead punching people. If that happened, we would take care of him, and just jump him. But when I saw Eric that night, I was just like, "WOW…WOW."

At the same time, we were also really into skateboarding. Of course, this was a total outcast activity back then too, absolutely nothing like it is today. So we all skated together, even Mike had a board! He mostly just held it, but, he did have a skateboard! He really wasn't bad at skateboarding. We would take our boards into the city, and get out at Port Authority, and skate through the city, and he could do that. And that's what we did every weekend. Usually we would go in on Friday for a party or a show, because we didn't have any friends or anything to do in Montville.

Sometimes we would drive to the city, but most other times we would take the bus. A lot of times we would just stay over there all weekend, crashing at a random kid's house, or some skinhead's loft, or some rundown place, or even just stay at Port Authority. Through this, we got to know Mark Ryan, he lived in Nutley, New Jersey. We would pick him up in Nutley and he would come with us.

We went to NYC every single weekend, if not more. And we saw so many great bands. For example, Bad Brains, we saw them at least 30 or 40 times. HR was so crazy, but they were so talented, too. I mean, they had incredible leads! We were like, "solos? We can't do that!" I mean we had some solos in Judge, but not like that. HR though, he would just run up a wall and flip back, or just do flips on his own from a stand still. Every time they played CB's, it was like an ocean of heads. There wasn't even a pit because there was no space. The whole floor would move as people tried to get on stage to dive. Sometimes we would just wait on stage before they started playing, so we could have a head start. We didn't want to be up front in front of the stage, because we would get crushed and never be able to get back up! So we would wait, and the lights would go down, and then the feedback, and people would start diving. I remember the big monitor on the side of the stage that was hanging, kids would crack their heads open on it when diving. Once they stopped the show because that happened, and the ambulance had to come. Every time they played, every time they came in, we went.

Minor Threat, each time they came to New York we saw them. Black Flag…we saw them dozens of times. Henry Rollins was so much older than us, but so crazy. He looked so strong, so violent…I mean, he was built! At that time that was different, because the New York kids weren't muscular, they were strong from fighting, but they didn't look like that. I remember one time some kid was diving, and Henry just grabbed him out of mid air and threw him down. So Black Flag stuck out.

And so did The Misfits. Actually, one time I saw Glenn Danzig at a flea market back then in New Jersey. And he had his hair up! I'm like, "hey, you're Glenn Danzig!" And he was cool. He was there buying those metal pointed studs for the Misfits jackets and everything. He would go there because that stuff was cheap. Otherwise you would have to buy it in the city, and it was expensive. But that was cool.

Sometimes we would stay at some rundown place in the city, and we would just have an all nighter, and maybe Agnostic Front or another band would play. And there wasn't a flyer for it, it wasn't a real show, but there might be fifty or sixty kids packed in, so there would be a pit! And we would go off. We would also stay at A7 sometimes. Because after the CB's show ended, we would go to A7 for the next show just an hour later, and after that just stay there.

Pretty quickly, even though we were these kids from New Jersey, we were recognized as a part of the New York scene, because we hung out all the time. We still got in fights with these other punks – either like Mohawk punks or nazi skinheads. But we all stuck together. Even though the NY kids grew up on the streets and got into it all a little bit earlier, they took us in. The original New York skinheads, they were really just street kids. No parents, no family. Harley, Eric, Raybeez who worked the door at A7 (who I just found out died, Mike told me), Frenchie, all of them. Even like Little Chris, he was the youngest. At the time I was 13, but he was like 7! And he ran away from home. People were living at this guy Alex's house. There were two things in their lives: Hardcore, and Hare Krishna. And Hare Krishna provided all of us free food. You know, if you were living on the street, that's where you would go. And the New York City Hare Krishnas were all different, with like tattoos all over, because they were like former skinheads or whatever! So Hare Krishna, even if you didn't really follow it, it was a part of that early scene.

The real core of people at CB's, the punks, we all knew each other. Even though some people were into so many different things, we all hung out. Vinnie Stigma used to be like, "Man here come these crazy Jersey kids that love to fight!" He was a lot older than us, but we would go hang out with him. And the funny thing was that he had his own apartment, which was right next door to his Mom's. I remember we got there and we were like, "Whoa! Great apartment!" While we were there we made food or something and he ran out of something, and he's like "Hold on a minute, let me go to my Mom's and get it." We are like, "Huh?" Because this is Vinnie Stigma, New York City Skinhead from Agnostic Front, going to his Mom's! But he goes literally right next door to borrow salt or whatever from his Mom.

So, we were exposed to so much amazing music, and we saw everyone. If someone good was playing, how could we miss it? It was incredible. Those bands were so much fun, and there was so much energy, the adrenalin was unreal. It was unlike anything else you could ever encounter. And that kept us coming back. And it made us want to create our own music. We had to. These bands…we saw their performance, how they played, what they did. It was so much to take in, and we just soaked it all up. We decided we had to do a band…

Fanzine Spotlight: Inward Monitor

Back in early May I did a spotlight on Alex Brown's pre-Schism, Loveseat Fanzine and planned to bring more of my favorite fanzines into the light for future entries. This time around it's Inward Monitor.

Inward Monitor, done by Jon Reed from Rhode Island and with help from Sue Gendler of New Jersey, was a fanzine that definitely rose to the top of my collection. Issue two, was a combined effort by Jon and Sue when both were going to school in NYC. Packed into issue two were interviews with: Insted, No For An Answer, Turning Point and Pressure Release. Not only were some of the best bands of the time period interviewed, but every interview came complete with some of the best photography you'd find in a fanzine at that time. Nearly all the photos were large, perfectly halftoned, crystal clear and simply captured hardcore greatness. The layouts were clean and fairly professional looking, but still maintained a fun cut a paste look to them.

One particular photo which appeared in the pages of the Turning Point interview always stuck out to me. It was a photo of the band hanging out around a pool table, with the words, "Pool Hall Justice" around it. For some reason I just always thought that was a cool photo and nice change of pace from all the usual live shots. It also gave you a different look at the band outside of the standard hardcore setting.


Next time you see this issue of Inward Monitor on eBay or come across it on someones list for sale, do yourself a favor and snatch it up, you won't be disapointed. -Tim DCXX