In 1984 I was living in the back of a storefront at 10649 Burbank Boulevard in North Hollywood.  I helped construct an 8 track-recording studio in this double storefront sized space during much of the previous year.  The place was dubbed Spinhead (that’s skinhead plus pinhead, just in case you were wondering.)  It was named, owned and operated by Phil Newman, bassist and budding audio engineer.  It was also the name of his record label, the label that housed our bands Sin 34 and Painted Willie.  It was a difficult living situation, but this was my first time living away from my mother's apartment as a teenager and I couldn’t have been more happy. We had no shower or hot water.  Bathing was done in the industrial backyard with a garden hose.  The only kitchen facility was a hot plate.  Phil also lived there along with Steve the dog, a stray black Labrador I had taken in.  Phil was attempting to run the studio as a business, but having a difficult time doing so.  Sin 34 would rehearse and record there, in addition to a few other bands like Americas Hardcore and Bad Religion.  Eventually Redd Kross, Sonic Youth, Screaming Trees, NOFX, and L7 would all track there at one time or another, Phil’s engineering skills improving with each session.  In addition, we hosted many wild parties, including the night Black Flag rocked the house down.

Vic Makauskas of SVDB had been over a few times to jam with us.  SVDB (Saint Vitus Dance Band) were of the poppy / catchy / crunchy type so-cal punk variety; a pretty tight live band with a definite Damned bent.  His band was also on the verge of disintegration, as were many of the bands in Southern California that year.  Not to mention there was another band using the moniker of Saint Vitus recently signed to SST.  Around the same time in walks this kooky Canadian named Nick Delaney, who had just come to LA in search of the Punk Rock dream.  Nick was buddies with the second former Black Flag singer Chavo  (real name Ron Reyes), who had moved from LA to Vancouver and filled Nick’s ears with stories of the Southern California punk scene, of which Nick became convinced he was going to conquer. 

Meanwhile, Sin 34 was on the rocks which allowed the focus to shift on Painted Willie.  Phil and I had been playing for a few years by now, we had grown leaps and bounds musically.  Part of it was having the studio to play in 24/7.  Enter the post punk era.  We had grown tired of the restrictions of the hardcore scene, which was seemingly crashing and burning before our eyes.  The genre had played itself out, suffering from clone conformity and gang violence.  L.A. has always been like that, something original happens, and then is quickly copied at a rapid pace.  Meanwhile many of the good bands seemed to go unnoticed and unrewarded. There was an interesting post-hardcore scene emerging in LA at the time with 100 Flowers, The Gun Club, The Salvation Army, The Dream Syndicate, Opal, Redd Kross, and The Bangs (who would become The Bangles).  This was dubbed “The Paisley Underground” by the local press.  I wasn’t down with the cheesy moniker, but there was some great music here.  But of course, all the truly great stuff was appearing on SST Records.  Bands like The Stains, Saccharine Trust, Husker Du, Meat Puppets, Black Flag, and later the Bad Brains and the best band on the label, The Minutemen.  It was an insane roster, unprecedented in American independent rock history, blowing everything else around it into oblivion.

Phil and I started Painted Willie as 4 piece; 2 guitars (Vic and Nick), and Phil and I on bass and drums respectively.  Phil had dubbed the band Painted Willie from a 1950's thesaurus he had found in a thrift store.  Apparently it was an old English acronym for homosexual, or more approximately transvestite or drag queen.  Phil was straight, I think he just enjoyed the imagery and the confrontational aspect of the name. Right before our first show, at the Cathay De Grande dollar punk night, Vic suddenly dropped out of the band.  Apparently his straightforward rock guitar playing didn't jibe with the wilder, avant-garde stylings of Willie (Nick, who now called himself "Willie" after the band).  Willie was getting more and more out there, with so much energy and ideas constantly exuding from him.  It was hard to tell if he was a genius or a complete freak (what's the difference?)

Painted Willie debuted as a three piece, and quickly recorded a three song (one song each from each member) 7" ep simply titled Painted Willie. Ragged Army (Will, er, Nick's) best song by far, Paper Tiger (my contribution, with a definitive Meat Puppet II influenced mid-section), and Phil's stunning Kill It as the B-side.  It's a gritty and unique record, with odd time signatures and quirky arrangements.  There was a fair amount of airplay of the single on KROQ's Rodney On The Roq show.  But the music scene in LA in 1984 was just a little whack.  All of the clubs had closed, and punk rock, post-punk, post-hardcore, whatever you wanted to call it- had no venues after the Cathay shut it's doors.  The venues that remained had decided to shut their doors on punk shows. The second wave of LA punk had crashed. It was around this time I first heard the word "alternative", and it was used in a review in Option magazine to describe our debut single.  Years later this “alternative” would become a different beast, a music business marketing moniker and a radio format. 

Nick was an eccentric, and very awkward socially, but his guitar playing and song writing was unique.  He was in a few bands in his native Vancouver, Canada (No Exit).  He shaved his head like a Hare Krishna, except for a small circle on the top, which he died blue, with, a black center.  He would later explain this was the island on his head.  He would affix a cocktail umbrella to the center of it, and claim to take naps there in the late afternoon.  It only took a month or two of "Will" Nick's living with us in that crammed back room of Spinhead, for tensions to come to a boiling point.  As much as I liked his songs, his “genius” turned annoying.  We soon gave Will / Nick his walking papers. 

Without missing a beat, Painted Willie recorded a 12" EP titled My Fellow Americans as a stripped down two piece, with Phil and myself comprising the line-up.  Phil played the guitar parts, and quite well at that.  I took the photograph which graces the simple black & white cover.  It was a homeless man in downtown LA's skid row, covered in an American flag (it was actually Lino Lousy of the band Crankshaft.)  The Los Angeles 1984 Olympics were underway.  Ronald Reagan was reigning supreme in the White House.  This would be Painted Willie's decidedly most political record in the band's brief 4 year history. My Fellow Americans opens the ep with a dirge instrumental with a somewhat humorous political discourse layered over the top of it. The left wing discussion is mixed to the left channel, and is spoken by the Dutch punk band BGK. The right wing chatter is on the right channel, spoken by various girlfriends of the band, one being Jennifer “Precious” Finch (future of L7) who was hooked up with Nick at the time. They were not speaking seriously of their political leanings, we told them to be as conservative as they could imagine being. It's an interesting track, and it was the one that got the most airplay on this disc. This is followed by Part Two, a Phil composition originally performed by Sin 34, but never recorded. The song was inspired by the gloomy nuclear nightmare movie On The Beach and tells the story of an atomic bomb survivor in his last moments of life.

Crossed Fingers opens side 2 of disc, which yours truly warbling my lyrics of genuine hope vs. direct action. It's one of my favorite songs I have ever recorded. Phil wrote the music, and it was created during the early years of Sin 34. I remember Julie's version of that song, it was called It's The Great Punk In, Charlie Brown. Too bad that was never recorded.  It's followed by a punk/funky anti-Ronny Reagan song I wrote and sang called Republican Suntan (Sunburn) . It's decidedly light hearted and comic relief on this collection. The side closes with a psychedelic instrumental of the title track "My Fellow Americans". However, we were once again a rhythm section without a guitarist.  For the few live shows we played in 1984, Phil and I once again enlisted our old friend Mike Vallejo of Circle One on guitar.  He was also an early guitarist in Sin 34.  We played a hall show adjacent to Macarthur Park in Downtown LA and a show at the Mabuhay Gardens as a part of a Maximum Rock N Roll night. 

In early 1985 with no fulltime guitarist, Vic Makauskas rejoined the band and we wrote a new set of material.  The band became more straightforward punk / rock than our quirky origins with Makauskas back in the fold.  That spring two separate demo sessions would yield the band a record contract with SST Records and a six-month national tour with my heroes Black Flag in 1986.  We were beyond psyched to be added to the SST roster, and even more excited to have a six-month tour of the continental United States awaiting us.  If that weren’t enough, SST also agreed to distribute my new film Lovedolls Superstar.  If I would have been told a year earlier that I would be on SST, I would have not believed it at all.  We re-recorded the ten songs we had done as demos with Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn producing.  However, his production (over compression and lack of dynamics) stripped the material of its punch, and the subsequent LP release Mind Bowling suffered.  In hindsight, it was the typical situation of the demos being so much better than what would end up being released. 

Just as we were preparing to hit the road the shocking news came of D. Boon’s death on the highway.  Dennes Boon was killed as the Minutemen’s touring van went off the interstate 10 just inside the Arizona border in the early am hours of December 22 1985.  His girlfriend Linda Kite was driving and had fallen asleep at the wheel.  D.  Boon was lying down in the back of the van with a fever, he was decapitated in the accident.   Linda survived the crash, as did her sister Jenene, who became permanently disabled and wheelchair bound after the accident.  This was an extremely dreadful turn of events. All this looming greatness was eclipsed by this tragic event.  I didn’t go to the funeral services, I just couldn’t deal with it at the time.  I remember being locked up in an edit bay for days with no sleep, trying to finish Lovedolls Superstar before the New Year and the tour.  My friends Jordan and Jennifer Schwartz recounted the service for me.

D.  Boon’s death cast a dark shadow on the tour.  Everyone was severely thrown; it was like a bad dream.  I thought perhaps the tour would be postponed, but the show went on in the grand tradition of the business.  For scores of dates that year, many who attended the show would come backstage to express their grief.  I am blessed to have known D.  Boon, and lucky enough to be a veteran of countless Minutemen shows.  In addition to being my all time favorite guitarist, he was a super sweet guy.  I recall the last conversation I had with Dennes.  It was in front of the SST offices on Artesia Blvd.  He was changing the spark plugs on the Minutemen van.  The same van he would be killed in a month or two later.  “Welcome aboard!” D.  said smiling, knowing Painted Willie had just signed to the label. 

I had known D. thru punk rock parties and shows; he was a shot of life.  I recall buying a copy of The Descendents "Fat" 7" ep, and The Minutmen "Joy" 7"ep (both on New Alliance, his label with bandmate Mike Watt) off of him personally at the San Fernando valley dive Godzilla's!  D. Boon also promoted shows early on at the Star Theater in San Pedro, where Sin 34 played once on an amazing bill with Red Cross, Mood Of Defiance, and The Stains.  I remember being shocked when he handed me $100.00 at the end of the night, as Sin 34 never made that much money at a gig before at that point.  I remember hanging out with him in alleyways of Hollywood and the South Bay, getting drunk and laughing a lot.  D. once dressed as a flasher for Halloween, he said it was the cheapest costume he could find, a trench coat he already owned, and his birthday suit.  He flashed the audience in between every song that night at that Minutemen show at Cal Arts Halloween 1983.  It was hilarious.  I asked him to be in Lovedolls Superstar, playing the part of a baked potato (don't ask, I do not remember why).  He was also going to record a song for the soundtrack upon his return from Phoenix, but alas he never came back.  I dedicated the film to him.

The relentless six-month tour which commenced right away was an intense and sometimes grueling experience. The tour itself ran with military precision;  thirteen of us in all total, two white Dodge Ram 350 vans, and one International Harvester Truck for the massive PA system.  Painted Willie would record and release an live EP during the tour titled simply Live From Van Nuys. I met quite a few interesting people on this excursion, first and formost Joe Cole, Mitch Bury, Dave “Ratman” Levine, Cel Revulta, Sim Cain and Andrew Weiss.  The In My Head Tour was the title of Black Flag’s eminent swan song release.  There was more weirdness to be had in this reality of 1986 . To me the writing was on the wall from the get go; this would be Black Flag's last waltz.  I was under the impression Ginn decided to pull the plug on the band before this tour started.  He just resigned himself to the schedule and situation and went with it.  He seemed more excited about playing in Gone.  The original plan was in fact to have Painted Willie back Ginn as Gone.  I do recall us practicing in this incarnation.  However Ginn’s instrumental band came together right quick before the start of the tour, with the amazing talents of Trenton, New Jersey’s finest rhythm section; Sim Cain and Andrew Weiss, (which Henry would snatch right up when he formed The Rollins Band the following year.)  I suppose then it wasn't so strange that in all of those six months I never once saw Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn speak.  They traveled in separate vehicles and came together on stage.  The oddest thing about it was how the tour went on so smoothly. However, Rollins did give me a hard time whenever I broke my camera out.  Apparently he wasn’t too thrilled that I was documenting the tour.  His bad vibes did not deter me, I kept the camera rolling.  I ended up shooting eight hours worth of material that I eventually edited together in a film I titled Reality 86’d.  It’s a harmless little concert film, unfortunately Greg Ginn got in the way of its release.  Ironically, it was Henry who wanted to release the film in 1994 through a distribution deal he had struck with Time Warner.  Ginn was adamant my film would remain unseen.  Such a shame, as it is a historic musical document. 

Painted Willie embarked on a US tour the following year in 1987 in support of Upsidedowntown, and broke apart soon thereafter.  At some point the following year Phil joined the band I Love You as they were involved in a major label bidding war.  This band was made up of longhair 20-somethings fresh from Suburban Florida who recently landed in Hollywood, living in the same building as mutual friends Redd Kross drummer Victor Indrizzo, Tate Mosesian (son of b-movie actor Sid Haig), and Fred Trujillo and this is how we met.  I placed I Love You on a compilation I was producing called The Melting Plot for SST.  This is how they met Phil, as he engineered the session at Spinhead.  I Love You did not come from the punk underground like we did.  They didn't have much experience being in a band, let alone being courted by every major record label in town each filling their heads with their version of the Rock ‘n’ Roll dream.  A dark cloud immediately descended on Phil, now he was now in line to be a Rockstar ® a'la Guns & Roses.  This was a world we were never a part of, but alas the late 80's were closing in.  We were punkers who put out our own records, and toured rigorously in vans, sleeping on floors.  His tenure with the band would not last long. Phil would appear I Love You’s pre-Geffen release before leaving the band, and the music business under much duress.  In 1988 SST released a posthumous compilation of Painted Willie's early work on the LP Relics, this would be the band's swan song, along with a cover of Captain Beefheart's Clear Spot for The Melting Plot.  Ironically enough, The David Geffen Company would end up releasing my next film a few years later.

-Dave Markey

Painted Willie @ My Space

One of the last shows, Ventura County Line, Fall 1987 (Photo by Joe Cole)