Neal

I dream of tasty tones that radiate from my finger tips in the form of loud, crude distorted notes that penetrate a prop filled room. I love the sound and the smell of old classic smokey two stroke YAMAHA RD motorcycles. These bikes seem to piss everyone off; NOW THATS PUNK ROCK. I have an awesome punk rock record collection...some are from my JR. high school and high school days. Some of them I seen in the .99 bin in the late 80's and now they are like 50.00 each at Vinyl Fetish in Hollywood. I guess when im a old man I can cash in and buy a bunch of candy bars. I have been playin the geetar forever...longer than I have been driving. I remember riding my bicycle with my cheezy heavy metal guitar strapped to my back and falling hard almost snapping the neck in half. My dad repaired it with elmers glue and pieces of wood. I played that one for 2 years until I discovered electronic tuners and had come to a realization factor that I could never tune it. I got another piece of crap guitar when I played in my first band called HELLFLOWER in 1982-83. The singer darryl was a manager at a park so we practiced in the recreation center at night. We played our first gig at the park and everyone hated us. They threw basketballs, baseballs and soccer balls at us. I dont think Gardena had ever been exposed to punk in the early 80s. Darryl was let go as manager because out of desperation he started to pogo all over the place and ripped down and wrapped his naked body with the "HELLFLOWER" banner his girlfriend Polyanne painted the night before; it was a wonderful disaster and people were shocked. We were definitely one of the first punk bands to come out of Gardena or the only one(although, some members of Wasted Youth were from Gardena). I think the typical Gardena rocker back then listened to REO Speedwagon and Journey. As the years went on, I joined a slew of punk bands mostly from the South bay and Los Angeles Area honing my skills and making new friends. During my college years, I formed "The Spinning Ceilings" and got signed to Arista Records but the only thing that ever became of that was paying "musician guild" dues and signing this bullshit contract that was filled with legal terms none of us understood. We were dropped immediately because of the lack of self-promotional packaging. We were naive just barely in our 20s and being dropped didn't bother us because we believed in the DIY ethic(do it yourself). I was a young, hungry music addict who sat down every night writing songs and musical ideas on a college ruled tablet. At one time, I must have wrote like 100 complete songs with intentions to take my band into the recording studio to impress the major labels. We were really poor back then and recording wasn't cheap. We eventually recorded at a friends house on an old yamaha 8-track and the result was good enough for demo purposes. I drove all over the Los Angeles area in my beat up 1980 Honda Civic(donated by my mother) passing out demos tapes to bar and club owners. I eventually landed a gig at The Shamrock in Hollywood which is now Cheetas Strip club. A week before the show, the Ad came out in the LA WEEKLY but it wasn't us on the bill because they booked the Paper Tulips and the Jeff Dahl band instead. I called and demanded to get booked on that bill but, of course they said they would and never called me back. A week later Wren from the Anti-club in Hollywood called and wanted to book us on Friday night I agreed and after that came a slew of shows with our popularity rising. It seemed like they were the only club that would book us. It wasn't based on how good of a song writer you were but who you knew. I wasn't a salesman and I was terrible in promoting the band. I was a musician/songwriter/guitarist not a band manager/promoter. At the peak of our popularity we played a gig with Firehose; a band Mike Watt formed after the tragic death of Dennis Boon of the Minutemen. Two weeks after that we played this warehouse show in Torrance ca with Sublime featuring a very sober Brad Nowell(R.I.P). It seemed like the only clubs that would greet us with open arms were so underground and very detached by the west hollywood sunset strip where everything was pay to play and I REFUSED TO DO SO. The days of the Poodle hair Heavy Metal was at its end so those people cut their hair and became "alternative rockers". I stayed true by writing songs that was soley based on my musical influences and not jumping on some bandwagon like everyone else. In the early 90s, all these record companies were buying in to the manchester post punk sound which later morphed into the Seattle Sound(Nirvana,Soundgarden,Alice in Chains). Our music was influenced by 70s rock/pop (Big Star, Badfinger, The James Gang, Beatles, and of course early 80s punk) we were indeed a fish out of water. We played our last gig at the legendary Hong kong cafe as problems with drugs, alcohol and fighting reared its ugly head and had taken its toll on all of us. The breakup was amicable, and I was glad to leave all that behind me. I moved on to see what was out there musically and the pickins were slim as usual. A month later, I met some people in college and joined this horrible band called "the steps". The music was compared to early Duran Duran/The knack. It was a step alright...a big step backwards. I decided to flake out on one of the afternoon gigs at school and they fired me the following week. The singer said that he didn't want me to ruin his big show they booked at some swap meet in los angeles. I agreed because who wants to ruin anyones "big break". I don't understand till this day why anyone would want to play a swap meet ;it sounds like the end of your career. A month later, I joined "The Nip drivers" one of my all time favorite punk bands growing up. I started to get the itch to write music again. I collaborated with Mike Webber and we wrote "DJ Sissy" which is featured on the 7" single "dirt in my hole" on fearless records. The Nip Drivers were booked at the Music Machine in West los angeles with Duchess De Sade. I flyered all over the south bay mostly in the beach areas including Hermosa and Manhattan. I walked into this headshop on the hermosa strand and asked a fellow named Mike if I could leave some flyers on the counter. We instantly became friends and started hanging out going to gigs on the weekends. He told me that he wanted to start a band and take over the world. I agreed... and the rest is history...