Believe it or not — and these days, many people likely wouldn’t — Anchorage used to have a pretty active underground scene. I spent many, many years as part of it, both as a spectator and as a participant, and it went a long way to shaping the person I am today. I’ve got a lot of fond memories of those times.
Yesterday in my post about Symphony #2 for Dot Matrix Printers, I mentioned Anchorage industrial/noise band Fsunjibleableje (eff-sun-jib-lee-ah-ble-juh). Phil asked if I had any .mp3s of their work, and unfortunately, I don’t — to my knowledge, they never recorded anything. I was prompted to do a quick Google search of their name to see what I could find.
There weren’t a lot of results (though, amusingly enough, the third result was for my old DJ Wüdi propaganda page), but one of the results I got sent me on a long, fun trip down memory lane. Back in October 2000, the Anchorage Press (Anchorage’s version of Seattle’s Stranger or Seattle Weekly) published a retrospective of the Anchorage scene by Josh Medsker — [The Decline of Northern Civilization].
The article is a great look back at the rise and fall of the punk/band scene in Anchorage. Josh is a year older than I am and discovered the scene a bit earlier than I did, so the first few paragraphs are good historical information, but aside from knowing many of the names, I wasn’t around for much of the early events. By the time Josh gets to the early ’90’s, though, I had started to get out of the house and explore the world around me.
Another venue that opened in 1990 was the Ragin’ Cage, a dive across Spenard from the Fly-By-Night Club. The sound at the Ragin’ Cage was bad, and the decor was non-existent, except for the neon paint splattered on the black concrete floor, and dilapidated couches in the corners.
The Cage — home to regular shows by Hessian (featuring lead singer Brock Lindow) and Ted “Theo” Spitler of Heavy Season — quickly became infamous for it’s violent patrons. The owners eventually put a chain link fence up around the stage to protect bands from their audience.
Ragin’ Cage became a hang-out for skinheads. Vox Populli, a local underground publication, started out as a straight-up punk ‘zine before gradually turning into a platform for editor Mark Watson’s white-power views, and a rallying cry for Anchorage skinheads.
“There have never been many SHARP skins (Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice) in this town,” said Jennifer Morris, who was host of “Amber Waves of Ska” on KRUA. “It’s mostly been nazis.”
I never made it into the Cage, though I went by it a couple of times. Unfortunately (well, possibly fortunately), every time I drove by, there were fights going on just outside the front door — often skinheads pounding some person that had ticked them off in one way or another — and I and my friends always decided we’d go somewhere else for the night. The skinhead clientele of the Cage was so well known of around town that I heard more people refer to the club as the “Racist Cage” than by its proper name.
As for the skinheads…I’ve had a few run-ins with them, which I’ll probably go into more detail about in a separate post later on. Briefly, though, I was fortunate enough to meet a couple very intelligent, well-spoken skinheads that I had some very interesting conversations with, and I was unfortunate enough to be threatened (though not beaten) by a group of them, so my experiences ran to either extreme. I ended up with a slight fascination with the subculture, though, and while I’ve never invested a lot of time or research into that particular scene, I’ll often keep an eye out for movies that explore that side of the underground culture (John Singleton’s Higher Learning, Russell Crowe’s early film Romper Stomper, and American History X are all worth watching).
The above-quoted Jen Morris, by the way, was a friend of mine at Bartlett High School. A few years older than me, I got to know her while on tech crew for the theater department there, and kept up with her off and on over the years before I left town. I also had quite the crush on her for a while, though I certainly never told her that (though, me being the oh-so-subtle type I was back then, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she knew).
The article soon turns to the Anchorage warehouse scene, which dominated the underground scene for quite a few years, usually in spaces run by Trey Wolf and Rex Ray. Amusingly enough, the very show that I mentioned in my post yesterday — Fsun’s car demolition performance — is mentioned, along with another performance I attended which culminated in Trey’s crucifixion on a cross made up of circuit boards.
One early FSUN show at Spatula City sticks out in Wolf’s mind. The band took an abandoned car off the street, and they and the audience members took turns wailing on it with saws and hammers.
…at one show, Wolf suspended himself by halibut hooks through his hands to a cross made of old computer parts. With Wolf dangling above the crowd, the rest of the band created a violent soundscape behind him using electronics and found metal objects.
I truly think that I have Rex, Trey, and Fsun to thank for my fascination with early industrial, “noise” and experimental bands like Einstürzende Neubauten. While even at that age I’d never been much of one for the pop scene, and had started searching out some of the lesser-known, darker, “alternative” bands (ranging from Violent Femmes to The Cure to Shriekback, Bauhaus, and many, many others), here was something so bizarre, so unstructured, so primal, and totally unlike anything I’d heard before that it blew me away.
Nineteen-ninety-two was also the year the rave scene broke in Anchorage. DJ Fuzzy Wuzzy began spinning techno at Sharky’s on Fifth Avenue, and DJ Drewcifer was spinning grooves from Bauhaus, Ministry and Throbbing Gristle at the Mirage in Spenard.
Both the Mirage and Sharkey’s were all-ages, non-alcoholic clubs. I hit the Mirage from time to time, but I practically lived at Sharkey’s during the time it was open. Originally a top-40/hip-hop club, word started to spread around town that the owners of Sharkey’s were considering opening their basement to the alternative scene. I, along with many other of the kids in town, started dropping by on random weekend nights asking about the rumors, and was always given a “We’re thinking about it…” response — until one weekend, another door was open. I went in, sparing only a quick glance at the upstairs, headed down the stairs, around a corner…and found my home from that night until the club closed.
In some ways, there wasn’t really much to Sharkey’s. The owners had done little to nothing to prepare the basement for use outside of clearing it out and installing a DJ booth and speakers. There was one main room with the dance floor (that had a concrete support pillar smack-dab in the middle of the floor) and space around the side for standing and watching, and two smaller rooms towards the back with a small selection of ratty couches and counter space for kicking back and hanging out. Over time, people brought in paints and decorated the walls, the floor, and the entire space, and as it was all unplanned and uncontrolled by the owners, the decor tended to change from week to week as new paintings went up, stayed for a while, and then were covered by the next round of artistic outpouring.
Steve Kessler, who I’d gone to high school with, got his start as DJ Fuzzy Wuzzy at Sharkey’s. He was one of two or three regular DJs there (unfortunately, I don’t remember the others), and eventually went on to form a promotion company that kept the Anchorage rave scene going well into the early 2000’s (though my fondest memories of that particular scene all stem from its first few years in the late 1990’s, before ‘raves’ started becoming reported as the latest evil to befall the youth of today).
I’d be at Sharkey’s every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday night, hanging out with friends, dancing, and at that time, going a long way towards exploring who I was outside of the manufactured “trying to please everyone” anti-personality that I’d been saddled with for many, if not most, of my younger years. Eventually, of course, Sharkey’s closed down, but it will always be one of the clubs that I have the fondest memories of.
[1992] was also the year KRUA 88.1 came on the air. KRUA was born a few years earlier as KMPS, a campus-only radio station, but on Valentine’s Day KRUA went FM.
Another watershed event in my life. Suddenly, there was a station in town playing music that I liked, not just the pablum of top-40! I was a constant listener of KRUA for years, from the day they went FM on. At one point, one of the shows was asking for dedications. Being terminally single at that point, and not particularly happy about it, I called up and dedicated Depeche Mode‘s ‘Somebody‘ “to all the single people in Anchorage.” Years later, while talking with a friend, I found out that not only did they remember that show, but they still had a tape of the show itself, and I got to hear my dedication going out all over again.
In the fall of 1992, in a small art gallery next to Spatula City, several blocks away from the old Wherehouse, a group of artists and scenesters gathered, forming the core group that would dominate Anchorage for most of the coming decade. The B.A.U. (Business As Usual) Gallery was run by Brian MacMillan, a transplant from Boston known to most as just “BMac.”
While I never got to know BMac well, he and I ran into each other many, many times over the years, either at shows, or through work. As I’d been working evening/night shifts in copy shops for much of this time (first Kinko’s, then a local shop called TimeFrame), I was quite used to helping run of flyers for shows or articles for ‘zines, and along with Rex, BMac was one of the constant (and more successful) ‘zine publishers in town.
Eventually various monetary problems forced the various warehouses into obscurity, and things moved into other venues. Various coffee joints sprung up around town catering to the alternative scene, with the two most known likely being The Java Joint and Mea Culpa. Given the strong punk contingent of the scene, however, things at the coffeehouses didn’t always go over spectacularly well…
Some bands had a few things to say about Mea Culpa, however. “It was kind of yuppie to us,” says singer Sam Calhoun. One night, at the end of a sweaty, rockin’ set, Calhoun and members of her band, Phillipino Haircut, purposely threw up on stage and in the bathroom. They were kicked out of Mea Culpa indefinitely. “We actually tried to projectile vomit on stage,” Calhoun recalls. “It was just [us] being young and being punk.”
That’s a show I missed. I think I’m okay with that, though. ;)
Of course, all of this has been for the all-ages set, either at warehouses where there wasn’t much in the way of rules, or non-alcoholic clubs. The over-21 set had had a good thing going for quite a few years with the Underground bar, which became something of a local legend among those of us not quite old enough to get in. Unfortunately, the Underground died a fairly quick and very sad death after one of its regular patrons, Duane Monson of local band Broke, accidentally knocked over the beer of another patron — who proceeded to pull out a knife and stab and kill Monson. I turned 21 just a couple months after this event, and was able to get into the Underground before it closed on my birthday, but it was obvious that the bar wouldn’t be open for much longer, as there were only eight or ten other people in the bar (including all on-duty staff) the entire night.
However, the Underground did have one last blowout show before they shut the doors that I was lucky enough to attend — twice even, as they had a 21-and over show on Friday night, and then an all-ages show Saturday evening — when the Washington-based Black Happy came through town. Great show, great music, and the place was packed, giving me probably my only taste of what the Underground must have been like in its heyday.
Nature abhors a vacuum, though, and soon, another club opened for the band scene that would also play a big part in my life for the next few years: Gig’s Music Theatre.
Gigs was owned and run by Mike Sidon, Scott Emery, and later Mark Romick. Gigs, along with the Java Joint and the UAA Pub, were pillars in the local music scene for the next several years, though Gigs intended to be more mainstream than it turned out to be. “It kind of gravitated toward being a punk rock place,” says Emery.
Gigs thrived at first, with shows from the sloppy, classic punk band Phillipino Haircut, the hardcore Beefadelphia, Hopscotch, 36 Crazyfists, the ska/punk band McSpic, the unclassifiable, insanely loud Contour Chair, the rap-rockin’ Freedom ’49, and the punk trio Liquid Bandade.
My brother Kevin was one of the members of Beefadelphia (named after a Denny’s menu item). 
Beefadelphia’s logo was a stylized man wearing a fez, which at one point was turned into a painting by band member Aaron Morgan. The painting was given to Gig’s and hung in the office for years. When Gig’s finally closed down and we were emptying the place out, I was able to get ahold of the painting, and it’s been hanging on my wall ever since then. Not long before I left Anchorage, Aaron came by my apartment and saw the painting. Laughing, as he’d not realized that I’d ended up with it, he whipped out a Sharpie and signed it for me on the spot.
Gig’s, of course, along with the Lost Abbey, was where I spent the majority of my years DJing for the Anchorage scene. Each night, we’d generally open around 8pm, I’d play music for a while, then we’d have one to three bands playing with me providing between-set music, then I’d DJ until we closed down (generally around 3am or whenever we ran out of customers, whichever came first).
By 1997 and 1998, though, the scene finally seemed to be on its last legs. Many of the bands had split up, moved out of state, or both. Gig’s closed, and there were few other places providing spaces for bands to play. The rise of the hip-hop scene was in full swing in Anchorage, and I, along with many other friends, came to the sad conclusion that the “glory years” had finally passed us by.
I bided my time in town for the next few years, catching the occasional show here and there, but eventually decided that it was time to find something else, and in the summer of 2001, I joined the ever present exodus out of Anchorage.
Still, with as little interest as I have in living there again, I have many, many fond memories of my years there. Lots of good people, friends, bands, parties, and shows.
Sometimes it can be a lot of fun to go wandering down memory lane.
Were you still there the summer of ’93. I was camped out at the UofAA campus for the Dante expedition – the robot which got stuck inside the caldera of Mt. Spurr. We may/might have run across each other then – I was running a “blog” about the mission and providing voice commentary for the NASA-net and tv shows as well as appearing on all the local TVs. We had a bunch of open houses, you might have dropped by one of them. Made me want to spend more time in a) Alaska and b) Anchorage. Thought it was a rather fun place, way bigger than it should have been for the number of people there. Something about being the last city on the planet – or something like that.
I was definitely around in ’93 — graduated High School in ’91, and didn’t escape the state until ’01. I remember the Dante expedition, though the only information I got about it was via the news…very cool that you were a part of the project!
My standard line about Alaska these days is that “it’s a wonderful place to be from” — great state, gorgeous, and I like the fact that I grew up there, but I also like the fact that I’m not there any more. Very worth visiting, though.
Hey Woody, you gave me the idea to post about this (kinda) in my blog. Check it out here.
Talk to you later, take care. :)
-Rebecca aka “Apple”
re: Lost Abbey — it is now one of the “non-denominational” churches that are growing all over the city. I wonder if they had whatever a general Protestant version of an exorcism is before meeting there as a church — or if they even know its history from The Abbey Restaurant, through the Lost Abbey to its current incarnation.
I was quite fond of Fsunjibleableje. Those were the days
Ahhh, memory lane. I too enjoyed Fsun.
What? You cats are talking with your Seattle blinders on, talking like Anchorage is dead and gone, like small talk remembrances at an open-bar funereal ceremony. Fact is, this town is more alive than a hundred walking-dead stateside scenes. As I write this from my 19th an Arctic home, local sk8punk outfit Spitshine is wrapping up practice downstairs in SunkDeep Studio. Trey from Fsun is back in town (and standing right here) working on SoleoEyeWhy tunes, colaborations promise good noise from our expira-mental group Muskitodung. I’ve got Richie B. from Contour Chair here saying come on! His recent group Fats Tunamelt is going off weekly featuring Tall Tim on drums. I’m going on two years busting bimonthly summertime free outdoor mega-shows, Cinco-style. Bitoz pizzaria on fourth is hosting punk and hardcore all ages shows every weekend. Visitors from the deep south have been rolling through, Coachwhips, This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb whipping up mad crowds. Spenard Core records is putting out disks for Billy Dirt Cult, Eu Vasham, and a brand new release by favorite Valley cowpunk band Stubby’s Crack Co. Check Jen Hugh’s punk zine online at AKink.com. Better yet, get your azz back in time for this weekend’s ten-band do up at Bitoz, next week’s pub crawl with the Spenard Satans, Anchorage’s hard-drinkin’ mutant bike club. Follow that up with a free ten-band outdoor show on the sixteenth behind Loussac Library. The Autonomous Mutant Festival is sending satellite groups up the Alcan for a midsummer backwoods throwdown that promises to be revolutionary. Punk-rock musicals are in the works, and Spun Hard Films is putting local bands up on Eddie P’s latenite TV show The Venue. I remember all those shows, and I remember all of you. You only think it’s dead because you got old and left it behind, and what do you think all these crazy mohawk kids are going to write about when they are 32 and live in Seattle about this day? “Man, I remember back when Anchorage was cool”.
glad to hear that Anchorage still inspires such ennui, love, frustration, etc… god damn i miss those days. but then again, people have always accused me of being overly sentimental. ha ha. Hey Woody, whats yr email? –josh medsker
Mr. Medsker,
I hear that you are getting married (are married)? You should email me sometime!
the scene is still cool.
Whoa! I just did a random google search for ‘anchorage rave scene’ and got this page. I really enjoyed reading your chronology of the scene in the 90s. I didn’t start going to raves till 2000 w/ progression 2 by icemen being my first. Icemen, serotonin and chaos have all faded up here. Welllll…Icemen’s still doing 21+ bar nights at the alley and this new club @. I opened housewreckin productions in 2002 after some advice tad sumner had given me. Right now theirs currently Housewreckin, Souledoutdjs, kounterstrike and permafrost. Bigger parties up here (500+) are totally unsuccessful anymore. And from my generation’s perspective, the scene was absolutly wonderful from 2000-2002. After that, it seemed that all the support and partiers skipped town and we were left to fend. I also attend bitoz every now and then and that scene seems to be hella strong. I produce a lot too and am working with this girl on a electroclash band. I think once we get it together we’d like to play at bitoz. Anyways, hit me up some time or you can swing by our very active message board, just goto http://www.housewreckin.com
Peace!
Zach
Hiya,
Wow, interesting blog. I moved to Anchorage in ’88 from San Francisco. I knew all the standard folks in the scene, but was less than out-going or sociable, so I was something of a wall flower. I was more of a silent witness, than a pariticipant in many of the sub-scene goings on, but I remember a lot of stuff, so feel free to email me. I left Anchorage for good (after having moved back to SF or to Seattle or wherever) in ’99. I moved to Portland, OR and oddly enough I encountered several Anchorage people, (notably, Flower (Woody’s ex) Sommer (Trey’s ex) and a few others. I now live in Ashland, OR and naturally there are about 3 of us old Anchorage people here as well. I don’t know if you ever knew Dustin and Shane, but they’re here, and I think Sommer is as well, and Mischa (the father of half the kids in Anchorage) lives in Williams. There was even a reported sighting of old Heath Risinger at some point.
If you would be so kind, I would really be interested in a copy of Vox Populli if you could scan them and email it to me I would be eternally grateful. Eternally. I used to have some of them, but who knows what happened to them. There are issues with people I miss terribly, and well……if you could, I would love you forever.
Whoa, I used to hang out/live @ Sharkey’s as well. Never could remember the name until reading your post. The Underground was a lot cooler when it was underneath the Beef & Sea, and luckily for us they didn’t seem to mind our fake ID’s. You brought back some memories.
Theo Spitler, lead singer/guitar player from Freedom 49 is still laying down rock-n-roll history…and that is a piece of history- I will carry with me forever-as those that follow his music… do!
Memory lane, not much left of it.
I want to see if I can get in touch with my ol friends from 1994-86 punk scene in ANCHORAGE. My memory is not the best, but I remember a handfull of my close friends, from then. I was 14 in 84 and me and my best friend skinhead chris went to the carpenters hall to see The Exhumed, Skate Death and the Klyn-onz, err maybe it was the psychedelic skeletons. I remember seeing this super kewl chick on a skateboard their, it was TIGER.
I had alot of friends then, Mohawk mark, his brother ralph and Doug and Marty of The Exhumed, Greg (epwr) and Peggy, and Nima. hmm damn
Well ne how,
Anyone from then still around?
Cameron
Hi, this is Andy, drummer from the Psychedelic Skeletons from Anchorage. I saw this site decided to drop a line. After the Skeletons went to Austin, TX in 1985 we decided to check out Manhattan where I stayed and played with the “Reverb Motherfuckers” and the “Shaved Pigs”. I am currently in Up State NY playing with all original musicians and still play and record. I had a great time Anchorage at the Wherehaus on Karluk Street. Playing side by side with Skate Death, Exhumed, ABDK(A bunch of dumb kids)….Anyway, I’ll this site for other comments and other “skeletons” from those years when all original/punk/alternative rock bands was jump started in Anchorage.
Take Care, Andy Malm
Hello all
its been a long journey for sure.
found site on Google.
turning 40 this year,
son of a bitch…
any
clean (10 years) married & two kids
living in Seattle.
-Marty
(hello Cameron!
BTW Mohawk Mark turned into skin-head Mark.
of course he was no longer fun to play with after that)
Man, I love this thread. really brought back memories for me. Especially Jen, or Amber. I am proud to have dated her for a bit and she’s cool as hell. A couple of the names I recall for sure!
Anyhow, Mark and Ralph are living in Washington now. Both have kids and are doing great. Vox Populli has evolved into a anti-government website at: http://groups.msn.com/VoxPopulli ; and an online radio station at: http://www.live365.com/stations/ne033x .
This is Dan and I’m currently living in Copenhagen, Denmark, on my way to Ireland. Would love to hear from any of the old school folk out there. My e-mail is at: ne033x@gmail.com .
I’m on the air now, but not for long. Handing over the reigns to another punk who truly wants to take the station on. Any takers – it’s a paid for stream until next March?!
Anyhow, great to see everyone and hope you all are doing great!!!
Dan Watson
MArty!!
Holy fuck man, I can’t believe it..Yer off the tar, so am I. Woohoo, I had almost forgot about this page….
Dood come by and see me at work for lunch, err sumthin. I work In Wallingford…. Man the last time I talked to you was like 87? We were drinkin at gasworks in your grey VW Bus. I think it was after a dri show in Tacoma.
My Website http://www.thebizlist.com
Email me!
Cam
Hey Andy,
Were you at the acid party at that like hubcap collectors place in anc. I forget the name of your guitarist, but he was playin the guitar, and some one said plug it in, and He says, IT IS! lol
NE Way, awsome to here from yah. I had been posting on a few sites, looking for you guys.
The Skelatons kicked ass man! Along with the scene…
Cam
Sounds like fun – this nostalgia for Eighth People’s Werehaus Republik. I press this electrode to see what happens ZAP!!! glass imbedded in rear wall from the 40 oz beer missiles. punk monoply board. VW rabbit, like a ship in a bottle. unfinished fly on the refrigerator. HaHaHa black bathroom & washroom bats. Bone puppies. Lollipop and candy TV. Dg’s acid squished turtle. sheetrock tunnel from 1984 Halloween as it decayed into 1987. The 2-4-5 combo lock. ZapZap Logan OHNO Logan’s smashing everthing aaagh Lobsters strobes. I know I’m not Elvis but I have left the building. In ablue 1962 Ford Falcon.
Woohoo,
Greg has been here. This iz kewl!
Greg, I remember one wintery night at yer house, you were cooking up a big pot of spaghetti, and you needed something for it so you sent me an, I think it was Ralph to the store for what ever it was. I think I felt apart of a household for the 1st time, since getting kicked out of my dads house, for punk rock hair.lol
Thanks for dropping a line.
Cam
hi, i remember a lot of you folks from mid 80s not really fond times when i look back,, broke ,angry,kinda lost,,fun was shows and my punk rock friends tho,,i remember cam pretty well,,who doesnt remember the president??love to hear from some of you,marty,surprised to hear youre alive?glad to hear it tho,, i live on the canadian border,recently retired,was a pls last 15 years,have 15 year old son 3 month baby girl,much older wife,,gimmy a call hwatson@nas.com love to hear from some of you…
mark,,mohawk mark…
The prez just hooked me to this. Marty, Mark, EPWR, the Exumed. Holy Fuck, I am alive and well down here in the swamps of southern Louisiana. Halloween has always been a special time for me. But the cops here did not think so, went to a costume party dressed as you guessed it SID, went to jail with three counts Saturday night got out Monday morning, friend of mine at the DA’s will make it all go away, SID LIVES.
Do I know who is running this site?
Keep the Faith
wow OTTO in the deep south eh?still got that unquenchable thirst for budwieser?got punk rockers calling you to bail them out of jail??i hear youre sucking the earth dry of her oil these days?wonder what them southerners think of you??always remember sid comeing home with a case of bud that unmistakable sound of engineer boots comeing up the stairs,,then digging up bones by randy travis blaireing from his room,,same guy??hey send me an email,,
mark hwatson@nas.com
So,some of you people are not dead?
mike belyea- thehumanthumb@yahoo.com
Heya Mark!
Wow man! Congrats on your family! You were always like the older brother I never had, :) I remember hanging out in the basement of Tammy’s apartment talking about the universe and things with yah. And bummin cloves off yah, or gettin yah to buy us packs ov cloves. :)
Looks like I have started somethin here on this site, pretty cool to see so many poppin in to say hey.
Im working in Seattle at a pc shop, and live down in kent with my girlfriend and her two kids, 17 and 14. Kicks ass taking them dirtbike riding and hangin out with them and there friends. Guees I am still a big kid.
Peace,
Cam
Mike! Elvis! Thumb! We’re no dead, but we kinda worried that wuz you they found inna chili last year at Wendy’s.
Prez- greg.granquist@acsalaska.net
That WAS me in the chilli! But I pulled a Def Lepard and am typing w/ my one good finger.So, whose site is this? They’re probably wondering who all these ancient people are showing up.
But the real question-WHERE’S TYGER?
You Will like this one…
[URL=http://img438.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ralphpics0635xu.jpg][IMG]http://img438.imageshack.us/img438/7395/ralphpics0635xu.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
Like this..
http://img438.imageshack.us/img438/7395/ralphpics0635xu.th.jpg
I ran into Tyger at the northgate mall like 10 years ago, here in seattle.
No shit?! I haven’t sees Tyger since 86.
Try this one it’s bigger and better.. :)
http://img438.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ralphpics0635xu.jpg
How about-Sunni? Doug? Jason Riquellmy?
I lived with Doug fer awhile in Auburn, like a long time ago. He was in the Military reserves and going to green river college at the time.
I havn’t seen him since, Marty might know though…?
Marty?
Cam
Doug lives here in Seattle
he is a registered nurse
he works at a convalescent home
Jason lives in Houston
don’t know what happened to Sunni
Just now getting caught up
Mark has been sending pics and I talked to Greg
pretty cool
still trying to digest.
wow.
hello Mike
-M***y
hey cam i remember you very well..nice to hear from you,,and glad to hear youre doing good,,nice work on this sight..ive wondered about all of these people from time to time its been close to 20 years since ive seen most of you,,hey mike are you still in texas???yeeehaw..
greg is it appropriate now to ask you if you remember almost smashing that small car into the brick wall in the warehouse??its all a blur to me but you were steering and a lot of deviants were backing it up and pushing the car like hell towards the broken glass wall and im all like “dont hit the brakes this time”when i could catch a breath between laughs…couldve ended out a bad night huh??geez i never get to do shit like that anymore???
Hey M***y (hehe), I was just kidding about caring what Jason Riquellmy is up to. He lives in Austin and plays drums in my band!
What’s up with the only posting one-? That’s not what I wrote!********************************************************************************
Maybe you can write it like-M888Y?
*
*
*
It did that to me to….
maybe this will work
M * * * Y
there.
Tell Jason I said howdy
or he can email (or anyone for that matter) me at
martyL23@msn.com
Ayy I just remembered a show at carpenters hall. The exhumed were playin, and Marty, :)……. had a beef heart hanging from his teeth while he was playin the bass!!! hell yah! then it got thrown into the pit….
Any one remember that…
I remember the beef heart. I don’t remember much bass playing going on… (sorry M * * * Y)!!
i remember that show,, i thot marty just coughed up a part??
soo is skatedeath now on horseback and wearing big belt buckles and 10 gal.hatz??
remember jason well.. the punk rock version of the energizer bunny??
HEY ! what id really love to know is what ever happened to floyd?? you know the first skinhead in anchorage ,, used to wear a sign on his chest that said “say hi to floyd”???stole my idea!!!!!
hey i came across a skatedeath album in the celophane square in bellingham,,couldnt bleeve my eyes,,
dig this sight ,, always wondered what 20 years had done to most of you???
mark…
Hey Mark,
Keir here. Floyd was still living in Anchorage when I left in 96. I worked at the Arc of Anchorage for a while with people with developmental disabilities and he came to our program on occasion. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still kicking.
Do you ever talk to Lieb at all?
Doh! I guess Floyd passed acc. to Greg. RIP.
I played in a band for two years
yet I never quite learned how to play
I recently got a old piano (1949 Kohler & Chase)
and I cant play that ether
but my 8 year old can play the heck out of it.
I guess actually playing an instrument skipped a generation
the beef heart was was to distract the crowd
from my Bass playing
though the taste never really goes away.
maybe when the family is over on Thanksgiving and ask me to play a tune I will put a beef heart in my mouth to distract em while I play.
-M-
Update on Floyd, the unofficial town greeter and Saint Spenard. He passed over about a year ago. So the position is now open. Mark? The Anchorage Daily News got it right and honored him with a special obit. I sat across from him on the bus once. He kinda reminded me of the Dalai Lama. Maybe he was his VP.
Hey Greg,
I worked with Floyd some at the Arc of Anchorage and he could be really violent sometimes; not an easy guy to deal with. But he was interesting. Too bad he passed.
Hey guys. Just wanted to drop in and say hi — I’ve noticed a couple of you wondering just whose site you were on, and, well…that’d be me.
I don’t think I know any of you, as from the sound of it, you were all around the scene before I got into it (while I hit the Wherehouse a couple of times, most of my time running around was during the Sharkeys/Fsun-in-a-warehouse days). I did end up making some slight name for myself for a few years as DJ Woody (or DJ Wudi, or DJ Wüdi, or however I was spelling it that week) at City Lights (very briefly), The Lost Abbey, and Gig’s Music Theatre.
In any case, whether or not I knew any of you, I’ve been having a blast watching all the comments roll in — it’s been a lot of fun watching from the sidelines as all of you hook up again after all this time. I’m glad my little spot on the ‘net is coming in handy for something other than my usual pointless rambling!
Here’s the article the ADN wrote about Floyd when he passed away that Greg mentioned. While it was bound to happen eventually, I was sad to see him go, too.
Anyway, that’s it from me. Have fun!
yah nice sight mike,,,look what youve done!!youve opened the gates!!
hey anyone remember “wild bill” like heres what i remember ,,okay yah get tanked up downtown right at the capt cook monument,,well into the afternoon a train leaves anchorage,,you hop on,,then when whoever knows when you all hop off and roll into some guys yard ,,kinda nowhere behind spenard???i never met wild bill to my knowledge,?a band always played at his house,and he wasnt about running out of beer,,really some great times there..i remember asking who he was and i think he was never home for his partys??always wondered if there was a wild bill ??or some poor bastard had a huge cleanup every summmer after he got home from vacation??
I heard his last name was Sheffield and he hadgreen hair???
“Wild Bill” was Otto’s brother
a very nice guy
Basically after a party
Sid would make Doug, Brian and I clean up
if we complained he would simply lift up one of those big engineer boots of his and give us one of those
“Do you really want this boot up your ass?” looks…
We cleaned in fear.
Sorry to hear about Floyd
-M-
Sie sind Kameraden, aber sie sind nicht Blutsbrüder. Robert ist Bruder Ottos. Charles ist Bruder wilden Williams. Ich habe ihre Pässe und Identifikation Karten