Thursday, April 28, 2011

Joe D. Foster - Unity / Ignite part III

Photobucket
Joe with early Dubar fronted Unity, Photo courtesy of: Joe D. Foster

Here's part 3 of our ongoing interview with OC Hardcore's classic axeman. If you missed the first two parts:

Part 1: Joe Foster Part I
Part 2: Joe Foster Part II
Big thanks to Joe, much more to come. -Gordo DCXX


How did Unity come back into the picture with the Blood Days LP? My impression is that UC took the front seat for a while in 86-87, and then the Blood Days record came out. Was the idea to make Unity a real band with new songs again? What was your relationship like with Dubar and Longrie at that time? Any recording memories?

The idea was to keep it a real band. I remember Longrie was always kinda bummed Dubar moved on in UC without him. Kinda hard to kick Dyson out of the band though. I ended up jamming with Dyson like 5 years ago…we met somewhere after not seeing each other for ages and figured we would just go jam. Only me and him...I remember after every song, he would lay on the floor and catch his breath...so awesome. I wonder sometimes what happened to him.

Anyway, ya, I guess I was kinda confussed why we did Unity again, but something tells me it was just for Pat to get another release out on Wishingwell…Dubar to me was always hard to read. Pretty sure he always had his best interests in mind but that's all good. I remember when we were practicing for Blood Days, my ex-girlfriend would come over and I could tell Pat really liked her. Anyway, he wrote a song about her on the Staring Into The Sun album, called I think something like,"She's Locked Into My Mind"…so funny. My mom always called Longrie "little hot head." We were practicing in my parents' living room one day and my mom tells us she made us lunch and we should go wash our hands. So Longrie of course goes into the bathroom and jams his hands into the toilet and flushes it…pretty classic.

I actually don't really remember recording too much except it was in Culver City at a place called Casbah.

Photobucket
A young Joe D. Foster kicks out the jams, Photo courtesy of: Joe D. Foster

Speaking of UC, they obviously shifted musical gears by the time the Staring Into The Sun record came out. As a big fan and friend, how did you view this? Did you like the sound/image change or was it weird to see?

I really hated it…I thought a few songs were OK, but the girly vocals haunt me. Scream man...thats what we were into back then- controlled, thoughtful, positive aggression and intensity. So yeah, sorry but not a big fan.

I remember pre-Mind Funk he was telling us he was going to be the next Jim Morrison. Also there was some story from Dubar about eating black tree bark in Tibet and watching his soul float out of his body and sore in the sky looking down on himself while the seaguls all around him committed suicide. He also looked like an American Indian too at this time and had a pet wolf in his backyard…guess my point is I saw it coming and couldn't stop it…

No For An Answer was playing Man Against Man around the same time. How did they end up using this song, and did you write any of their other songs? Did you ever play with them?

Dan really liked that song. It was originally a WOP song called a Better Man. Dubar wrote it about Dan. They, Dan more than Pat, always had this weird "king of OC Hardcore" thing going on. Anyway, Dan wanted it for NFAA and asked me if I wanted to be in the band…I said ya and we ended up using it and Dan named it, "Man Against Man". I did play one show with them too. The photo of me used on the Blood Days LP is from the NFAA show. I think it was with 7 Seconds. Pretty cool and I'm happy I got to be in the band for a small time. I really like Dan and run into him often these days. He's really into reading and writing…

Photobucket
Ian, Joe and Alec MacKaye, Photo courtesy of: Joe D. Foster

During this time period, (86-89), what else were you into both personally and musically? Having been involved with hardcore at that point for the whole decade, how did it feel like it was changing to you?

About this time, shows started merging Punk and Hardcore together on these mega bills at big auditoriums. Big bands from England would come over and then bands like, ST, Decry, Ill Repute etc. would merge with 7 Seconds, MIA, etc…weird mix. I remember starting to see fights and divisions. I think it was a bad idea to do this and totally destroyed our positive scene. Gangs, violence, people who had no idea about the music and just thought it was cool to go slam dance, meat head mentality…it was the death of our first movement for sure. I was always a professional body "boogie" boarder and loved the ocean so I never stopped doing that. I also got into modeling for a while between Blood Days and the beginning of Ignite…

What did you think of the "second wave" of hardcore bands playing through the late 80s, and specifically, the Revelation straight edge bands? Did it resonate with you? How did you identify with the SE scene? Did you ever call yourself SE?

Actually I kinda missed it. I was off in Europe and Japan. When I got back, everything had changed, the sound, the style etc. That's why I started Ignite. Because I wanted to hear that old school type of hardcore again. In high school I didn't drink, smoke etc. It was influenced for sure by Minor Threat, but we never labeled ourselves. I might have X'd up once or twice my whole life…


Photobucket

Joe D. Foster, early Unity, Photo: Joe D. Foster

21 comments:

ShayKM said...

Nice bondage pants and leather! You definitely capture the west coast scene in that photo. In those early years that Brit-punk look was king. Classic.

Anonymous said...

When Ignite first came out it was such a breath of fresh air between all the boring metallic hardcore druing those days. I loved it. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Blood Days is the shit!!!!!!!!

proven hollow said...

my first show was uniform choice and reason to believe in the late 80's in pensacola florida. obviously it was amazing. we made reason to believe play their set twice they were so good. i have to admit, being 15 yr old skatepunks, we were a little disappointed by the "look" of UC, haha. long hair, baggy morrisey shirts, david lee roth pants. dubar was strange to talk to. all he would talk about was his "pleather pants" and "some new band called soundgarden" he was obsessed with. but once they started playing, it was awesome. all the hits. and he even screamed the "new songs." an excellent first show. i was hooked forever.

Anonymous said...

Great entry

Anonymous said...

nice read. i have one question though, why don´t you interview current bands on a regular basis? Bitter End, Down To Nothing and such - I´m sure they´ve got a story to tell.

DOUBLE CROSS said...

Anonymous - Truth is, we were at one point actively pursuing a number of current bands to be interviewed on here, but a lot of them never came through. There are still a few that we've talked to and may bring into the fold, so we'll see what happens. -Tim DCXX

Anonymous said...

Because Those bands Pose thats why comprende?

Anonymous said...

at least these bands still exist ;-)

our shop said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ben Edge said...

"I remember pre-Mind Funk he was telling us he was going to be the next Jim Morrison. Also there was some story from Dubar about eating black tree bark in Tibet and watching his soul float out of his body and sore in the sky looking down on himself while the seaguls all around him committed suicide. He also looked like an American Indian too at this time and had a pet wolf in his backyard…guess my point is I saw it coming and couldn't stop it…"

This is the greatest paragraph ever constructed in the history of the English language.

Edward said...

I dunno if that qualifies as a paragraph exactly Ben. There's no real subject sentence, or body, just a conclusion which was stated at the end. I would consider it more an excerpt from a stream of conciousness.
But we should definitely get pet wolves.

Anonymous said...

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jersey561 said...

If I remember correctly, UC ripped off Hallmark.... I think the song was Don't quit....Classic

ROA. said...

Edward: You out-Ben-Edged Ben Edge!

Anonymous said...

Unity and UC my fav bands

ROA. said...

FYI: In the pic with Ian & Alec, Joe is wearing a Unity shirt featuring the first vocalist. The shirt depicts a live shot taken at the Cathey De Grande.

Anonymous said...

in re: pat dubar & native americans

uh...corporate avenger? pat dubar and a dude from doggy style doing an insane clown posse meets nu-metal kinda thing...with face paint that's like a cross between hellraiser & black metal corpsepaint (dubar looks a bit like abbath from immortal)...half the songs are about native americans, the rest are super over the top (like christian death style) attacks on organized religion...and yeah. I mean there's not much more you can say. oh ain re: pat dubar & native americans

uh...corporate avenger? pat dubar and a dude from doggy style doing an insane clown posse meets nu-metal kinda thing...with face paint that's like a cross between hellraiser & black metal corpsepaint (dubar looks a bit like abbath from immortal)...half the songs are about native americans, the rest are super over the top (like christian death style) attacks on organized religion...and yeah, there's not much else you can say. oh dubar's name in the band is adawee the wind. so, yeah. if you thought mind funk was his most embarrassing post-uc project, think again...

Anonymous said...

Joe D. Foster is an abusive piece of shit who rapes, beats, and controls his girlfriends. He belongs in prison, not on a pedestal

Anonymous said...

If you really know Joe Foster that last message hit's the nail right on the head..

Vic said...

Foster is full of shit ...he never wrote any songs that were on Screaming for Change or any UC records for that matter....from what I read it seems the only thing he is consistent at is lying..