THE RAYBRAZEN.COM STORY, PART ONE

It all began in Ensenada, Mexico on July 22, 1988. That was the day I first discovered the band that would ultimately lead me to the humble beginnings of one of my greatest projects... and greatest adventures.

I was on a weeklong safari in southern California with my parents, and had successfully begged them to take me to Mexico while we were there. Rather than risk driving, we opted to take a tour bus. It was driven by a wonderful Mexican guide named Val (pictured below with yours truly during a quick pit stop in Rosarito), who was almost as entertaining as the country itself. But I didn't want to just fritter around Tijuana for a couple hours and leave quicker than I'd arrived -- I wanted to dig a little deeper than that. And so we rode that bus all the way to Ensenada, down Route One along the Baja Peninsula, where I saw the biggest, most ferocious ocean waves I've ever seen to this day. Ultimately we arrived at our destination and a big shopping strip populated by roadside taco carts (which I was admittedly too wary of to try, much though they were very tempting), sad-eyed poor kids selling penny candy, and lots of stores.

Of course, I went right for the record shops, finding them practically by instinct. I already had a basic knowledge of the local rock music through bootlegs like "Mexican Rock & Roll Rumble," and was hoping to find some records by one band in particular, Los Locos Del Ritmo. There were none to be found in that strip in Ensenada, but in one particularly dusty bin I found another very mysterious album whose cover immediately took me by surprise. The front depicted three guys dressed in cool jumpsuits that were true '70s rock period pieces, playing amidst a haze of dry ice. They looked almost like Mexico's answer to Black Sabbath. The name of the album was emblazoned in big silver letters: "EL LOCO." When I flipped it over I immediately noticed that most of the song titles were in English. Two names in particular stood right out: "Stupid People" and "We Always Hate Your Manners."

That was it. I'd seen all I needed to see. It was obvious this album stood a pretty darn good chance of turning out to be some seriously heavy duty music. I paid six American dollars at the counter for it, and in a flash, my quest for Los Locos Del Ritmo was quickly forgotten. From that day forward, Mexican rock would be all about Los Dug Dug's for me.

There would be four agonizing days of obsessive speculation about what they might sound like before I would finally get to hear them. But on the night we returned home to New Jersey, no sooner had we brought in our suitcases than I pulled "El Loco" out of mine and went straight to my turntable. Side one, track one was"Stupid People." And yes, the song rocked, all right... but in a way I didn't see coming for a second. It was a very strange mix of hard rock and mariachi music! There was even a break in the middle of the song which featured the world famous Mariachi Vargas just wailing their butts off for 30 seconds! It was a weird sound to my gringo ears indeed. But you know what? It totally worked! Beyond the mix of local and international influences was a great song with beautiful playing. And again, it rocked. As did "We Always Hate Your Manners" and some of the other songs as well, which were considerably less mariachi and more straightforward hard rock. And the title track was a quirky instrumental prog-rock parody! The album also had a couple of slow ballads that I didn't care much for at first, but would come to appreciate over time. All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better record to bring back from Ensenada.

My interest in Los Dug Dug's might not have gone much further from there if not for a chance second brush with fate about a month later. I was browsing around in a used record store on St. Mark's Place called Sounds when suddenly I came across... another album by Los Dug Dug's! I mean, really now, what were the chances? It was proof they'd made more than one record for sure, appearing to be a "greatest hits" collection of sorts. There were several photos of the band that showed them in various stages of their career, and they added to the intrigue already created by the "El Loco" cover. And it was in the one dollar bin of all glorious places. Sold!

Upon bringing this second album home I immediately jumped to "Stupid People" simply because I was quick to notice it appeared to be a shorter version and was curious about it for some reason. I waited for the mariachi rock explosion to follow... only to be greeted by a totally different, balls-out garage-rock version that stood the "El Loco" version on its side! Then, going back to the beginning, I was greeted by the experimental strains of the intro to "Lost In My World," which then became a strange psychedelic waltz like no other I've heard before or since.

That did it once and for all. I was now officially obsessed with Los Dug Dug's and there was no turning back. I couldn't stop playing either album for trying. These were two of the most uniquely brilliant records I'd found in a long time, and to think I'd discovered them in Mexico. The only clue I could gather about them was that they were led by a man named Armando Nava, whose credits as writer and producer of both records were the only information given on either one. Whoever he was, Senor Nava was now offficially my new rock idol. Both albums had just as mysteriously been released only in Mexico on the RCA Camden (!) label, and I was very determined to find out more about Los Dug Dug's.

But remember, folks, we didn't have this here thing we call the internet in 1988. Back then, if you wanted to know more, you actually had to get out there in the real world and dig for it. I had but two options at that time: the first was to send a letter to RCA Mexico at the address on the album covers and hope that someone there spoke English. They never replied. The second was to alert two close friends I knew were going to Mexico at around the same time to be on the lookout for any and all things Dug Dug's while there. One of them did report back that they'd seen a poster for a DD's concert in Mexico City. Ah! At least I now knew they still existed in some form... if not much else about them.

It was during the early stages of this obsession that I purchased a copy of a fanzine called Kicks, published by the husband and wife team of Billy Miller and Miriam Linna who also run the great Norton label. I saw both of 'em around town a lot in those days, and while I never really became friends with them, I do recall them as very nice folks. And this strange zine they wrote was also to have a profound effect on me around this time. It had the Trashmen on the cover and a massive cover story and interview with all of their surviving members. It also introduced me to all these obscure artists they'd all discovered completely through massive crate digging. Billy and Miriam would find totally unknown '50s and '60s rock 45s, then actually try to track down the folks who made them! Whenever they hit paydirt they'd interview the artist extensively and then publish it in Kicks. I was immediately drawn to the stories of Billy and Miriam's exploits and I absorbed them all like a sponge. To me there seemed nothing cooler than going from some strange garage sale discovery to meeting the men on those old, dusty 45s in person.

It may not have had any articles on Los Dug Dug's in it. But Kicks magazine put the whole situation into perspective for me. It flat-out made me determined to have a similar moment of glory with the mysterious Armando Nava. It would take me almost a full decade to get it right. But ultimately I would. And in the most accidental of ways, too.

It was in 1994 that I heard about the internet for the very first time. I remember exactly how, too: my roommate at the time had a friend of his over and I walked into their conversation just as she was starting to describe it. Even before I ever got on it myself, I could tell by the fact that this friend said she spent hours on the damn thing that this was something with the potential for maximum time-wasting. About a year later, when my mother finally got online, I found that out for myself for sure. It seemed like you could look up just about anything on it. Anything, that is, except Los Dug Dug's.

Ultimately, it would be me who would fix that.

BEACH BOYS & STEVE MILLER BAND, 1978

Seeing as how punk was influenced in part by surf music, it makes perfect sense that I was into surf music myself well before punk came along. When I was ten years old, my cousin Danny played me a little song called "Wipe Out" by the Surfaris. It blew my mind and sent me into a frenzy of discovering other surf groups like Jan & Dean, the Ventures (who became my all-time favorites), and finally, the Beach Boys. I started with "Surfin' Safari" and "Fun Fun Fun" of course. Then came the day I heard a later-period song of theirs called "Heroes and Villains." Whoa. This wasn't the Beach Boys I knew, but something else entirely. My mind was blown all over again, but in a different way this time.

The summer of 1976 was unquestionably the happiest of my entire life. America celebrated its Bicentennial that summer and the party was a total blast from July straight through to September. Swept up in the spirit of this nationwide shindig, my folks packed up the car, placed me in the back seat, and drove me to Florida, where I not only visited my current city of Orlando for the very first time, but also watched the premiere of the Beach Boys' NBC special on our hotel room's TV set. The music and the tropical surroundings combined to hypnotic effect, and there was no turning back.

Needless to say the Boys were my main soundtrack for the rest of that glorious summer, which culminated with the first two major concerts I ever attended, headlined respectively by Neil Diamond and Liberace. Those shows were a double consolation prize for my mother's inability to get me tickets to the show I REALLY wanted to see, Elton John at Madison Square Garden. Both gigs were fabulous, though, and they both greatly expanded my 11-year-old mind in different ways. I'll never forget Liberace's lightning-speed piano runs or his glittering jewels, nor will I ever forget Neil leading the audience in setting off the flashbulbs on their cameras in unison at the count of three. The resulting blinding light filled the entire stadium and to this day I swear that flash told me I was going to be an entertainer myself someday.

But anyway, back to the Beach Boys. At the end of that Bicentennial summer, Giants Stadium officially opened in East Rutherford, NJ, just on the other side of New York City. Initially intended as a football field, it wasn't long before the idea of having concerts there was successfully pitched to the powers that be. And on June 25, 1978, Giants Stadium held its very first concert, with the Beach Boys and the Steve Miller Band as headliners. A dream come true for me, as I adored both bands at the time. This time Mom was able to score the precious tickets, and so we made it my end-of-school year party. And what a party it was.

It was a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon just perfect for a Beach Boys show. We set out fashionably early and by the time we got to East Rutherford, the highway leading up to the stadium was filled with pedestrians hoofing it from the nearby bus stops to the show. Hitchhiking was commonplace in those days, and Mom and I figured we had nothing to lose by giving a small band of hikers a ride to the parking lot. The ones we picked up turned out to be a lovely, laid-back bunch of hippies who treated us like their long lost friends for the privilege. Once at the stadium, we approached the nearest t-shirt dealer in sight for a Beach Boys souvenir t-shirt. It turned out to be a totally bootleg, very badly silkscreened piece of sweatshop shit which hardly fit me despite a tag claiming it was my size. Oh well.

Our seats were in the upper tier, pretty high up but facing the stage with a nice view of the panorama of people spread out all over us. The loud, booming sound system ensured we'd get to hear everything. Some folks had brought binoculars for a closer view of the stage, and the folks sitting next to us generously shared theirs with us. The sun was beating down on us and it was hot, with Mom and I both dressed sparingly but foolishly not bothering to use sunscreen. This unwise decision would haunt us both much later.

The concert began with a local group bearing the unsavory name of Stanky Brown. Though they were briefly signed to Sire Records, they never found national fame, and with good reason -- their music was every bit as "stanky" as the name implied. We then had to endure a set by one of the lamest soft-rock bands of the '70s, Pablo Cruise, which was exactly what you would've expected, "Whatcha Gonna Do" and all. But then things got good. The buzz going around the stadium was that the Steve Miller Band's entire set was about to be broadcast live on WNEW-FM and other stations throughout the northeast. And when they began blasting 'NEW through the sound system as the stage was being set up for Steve, the crowd went fucking hog wild. The jumbo screens began flashing "HOW ABOUT THAT? WE'RE ON RADIO! LET'S HEAR IT!" And indeed, some folks were making noise as loud as possible, perhaps hoping their loved ones at home could hear them above the massive crowds. (And you thought my "radio debut" was on WFMU!)

It was the height of Steve's late '70s success with "Fly Like An Eagle" and "Book Of Dreams." Though I'd already discovered punk by then, I was still listening to some of what's now called classic rock, and I loved both those albums to death, especially the spacey, highly experimental synthesizer interludes opening and linking the songs. In that regard, Steve didn't disappoint me when he gave "Eagle" an extended space intro leading into a trippy ten minute version. He put on a great show from start to end, and I'll never forget the image of him playing guitar with the axe positioned upside down behind his neck. As much as I loathed Pablo Cruise, their bassist deserves some credit for saving the show by loaning his gear to Steve's bassist when his rig blew up midway through the set. The encore was an interesting one, starting on a new song called "Heart Like A Wheel" which wouldn't even be a hit until years later, and finishing on an honest-to-goodness reggae version of "The Joker" putting a welcome new spin on his well-worn standard. And their whole set was aired live on local radio, and you can now stream the original broadcast in full below. It takes me back there every time, as does this brief dose of silent footage of the general atmosphere of the event. 

By contrast, the day's headliners weren't aired live on 'NEW, though someone out in the field did make a bootleg recording of their set which has recently surfaced (and, alas, has very bad sound quality). But there they were, the group I'd waited so long to see... THE group, the classic Beach Boys lineup of Brian, Carl, Dennis, Mike, and Al Jardine. The REAL Beach Boys, not a cheap Mike-led knockoff. They came out and immediately launched into a killer set, filled with all their hits and then some. That shitty bootleg t-shirt I'd been scammed for in the parking lot at least now made a nifty banner to wave around in the aisles as I danced and sang my ass off. But this was no ordinary Beach Boys gig, I would soon find out.

After 45 minutes or so, everyone suddenly left the stage. Everyone, that is, except Mike. Then, a different backing band came out and suddenly it turned into the fucking Mike Love Show! Huh??? It was Mike's new, very short-lived side project, Celebration, who had a horrid new album out from which they played four whole songs. According to my sources, this was the one and only time they ever hijacked a Beach Boys show. I can't help but wonder if Mike strong-armed his cousins into letting his new band hog the stage like that. Fortunately, that part of the show was soon over and then Brian and his brothers came back and joined them and kicked right into "Heroes And Villains" of all songs, and all was well again. Of course you had the "Good Vibrations" singalong and "Surfin' USA" and "Fun Fun Fun," and I was on my feet in the aisles for the whole thing and it was awesome. I'll always be thankful I saw the classic Beach Boys lineup with all three Wilson brothers while they could still put on a rocking live show.

The sun had been beating down on my mom and I for over six hours and again, we'd forgotten our sunscreen. And so we took home the worst sunburns of our entire lives. My burns were practically second degree. On our way out of the parking lot, screaming for some lotion to put on our legs, we came across the exact same band of hitchhikers we'd driven to the parking lot and gave them a ride back to their bus stop. They were such cool people. I still remember them vividly. The atmosphere throughout the whole day had been calm and peaceful. Everyone was there to have fun. I know I did. But damn, I thought my legs would never heal.

(This post was updated with new links and photos on March 5, 2021.)

SUN RA & HIS OMNIVERSE JET SET ARKESTRA, 1987

One of my favorite periods for new musical discoveries in my life was the mid-to-late '80s. It was just after I'd grown sick of hardcore punk and wanted something deeper. Inspired by my first Butthole Surfers gig to explore more adventurous and forward thinking music, I started listening to WFMU DJs other than Pat Duncan. Thanks to the connections I had there, I also started hanging out there regularly and getting to know the DJs I liked. God, I learned so much from them. Irwin Chusid turned me on to the Godz, William Berger introduced me to Krautrock, and on my own I discovered the Silver Apples and avant-garde jazz. One artist in particular stood out in that genre for me: Sun Ra, the Man From Outer Space.

From the first time I heard his strange music and read liner notes which claimed he was born on Saturn, I knew this was no ordinary cat even in free jazz! This was music that would have scared the daylights out of me if I'd heard it when I was ten years younger. But I was now grown up and no longer scared of what awaited me in the unknown. Not long after I began working my way through the Sun Ra section of WFMU's massive record library, a one-hour documentary about Ra and his Arkestra called "A Joyful Noise" aired on my local PBS channel. I taped it and watched it back over and over again, gripped both by its music and his unique philosophical musings and ramblings throughout the whole thing. And then, at the height of this burst of Ra-mania, I got the word that he was bringing his band to New York's Central Park for a free outdoor show on June 20, 1987. The timing could not have been more perfect for me to bear witness to one of the most extraordinary concerts I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

(As an avid collector of bootlegs, I am always seeking out recordings of certain shows I happened to be in attendance at over the years. It just so happens that there is a partial recording available online of the very show I'm about to detail. I strongly suggest you begin streaming it now, before you read further.)

Things started with the Arkestra making their way onto the stage, all of them dressed in shiny, colorful robes. They immediately started into a long spell of joyful improvisation. It was hard for me not to get swept up in their happy cacophony, even as I began to notice that Sun Ra himself hadn't bothered to take the stage yet. The jam ebbed and flowed a bit before building to a loud, blaring crescendo led by Marshall Allen's saxophone squalls. And then... and then... June Tyson started to sing.

June Tyson was a fucking goddess. A powerhouse of a woman who should've been given much more to do with her voice in Ra's scheme of things. No sooner did she open her mouth than the crowd began to erupt in a sea of gasps. Her voice was so soulful and deep it was unreal. Soon everyone was moving and grooving and clapping their hands as she sang, "Outer space is such a lovely place, all spic-and-span, all lovely and grand..." Her lyrics were an open invitation to follow her to all the ends of the earth. Believe me, I would have done so immediately, without a second thought. Alas, she only sang that one song, then exited. Had she continued to sing for the next two hours, I would have stayed for every last note and not even cared if Ra never emerged.

No sooner had June finished her song than the percussion section went into a break that started subtle but grew in intensity as it went. By this point the show was already over fifteen minutes old and the Man From Saturn still hadn't shown his face yet. But suddenly, the horns joined in and completed a fanfare that sounded just as majestic as it was otherworldly and freaky. And then... Sun Ra finally made his entrance, walking very slowly, dressed in his classic space costume. He bowed to us, then turned to face his Arkestra. For what seemed like an eternity, he just stood there at first, completely motionless as the band continued playing. He stayed still, waiting for the band to reach a fevered crescendo. Finally, at the precise point where you were beginning to wonder if he was ever going to move, he raised his hand and motioned for the band to grind to a screeching halt. Then they paused just long enough to take just one deep breath... and plunged head first into the most amazing fucking jazz jam I've ever heard in my entire life to this very day.

Alas, the version of "Calling Planet Earth" they played that day is not included on the bootleg recording of the show for some weird reason. A great, great pity, because it was nothing short of transcendental. The members of the Arkestra got up and began dancing in time as the crowd followed suit, and soon, everyone was swept away in a tidal wave. We were all as one, band and audience, answering to a power higher than ourselves. The call-and-response soon began and we were all communicating one-on-one with the forces of space. If you weren't dancing by this point, you were most likely dead. No church service I ever saw in my younger years was half as rapturous as this. Central Park was no longer part of New York City -- it was now officially part of Saturn, and we were all residents of a new planet.

And that was just the first half hour of an almost three-hour show. Admittedly, the rest of the show after that would pale by comparison. It seemed quite unusual for Ra to go from that into -- wait for it -- a completely straightforward, extended version of "Mack the Knife," with one of the Arkestra doing his best Satchmo impression for vocals. It went on for several minutes and once again saw the band getting up and dancing around the stage in a circle before it was over. It was a good version, but it seemed like an awkward segueway from what we'd all just seen and heard. And indeed, much of the rest of the show was given over to standards like "Take the A Train." But even within some of these old chestnuts the occasional brief burst of outer-space freakiness would break free, just enough to let you know this was Ra and not Duke you were listening to. And now and then another free-form jam would show up in between songs, nothing as expansive as the one that opened the show, but just long enough to remind you where you were. All of it was well done and they finally ended on a note similar to where they'd started with "Space is the Place." When the ride was over, no one wanted to return to earth. Least of all me.

Five years later, on July 4, 1992, I had the privilege of seeing Sun Ra for the second and last time, again in Central Park. Frankly, this show wasn't half as grand as the first, with June Tyson nowhere to be found and Ra making a somewhat depressing entrance in a wheelchair with no big opening fanfare. He played for less than an hour and was still good, I guess, but clearly on his way out by then. Less than a year later both he and June were gone, Saturn having called them back home. I'm thankful to have seen them while they were still "calling planet earth" their home.

CHRONOLOGY OF A BRAZEN CHILDHOOD, 1970-79

I heard my first garage punk record in 1970, when I was just five years old. My mother helped me start my record collection with these "grab bags" of cutout 45 RPM records she'd acquired from the department store she sold cosmetics part-time at. 10 singles for a buck, totally random selections, most of them totally obscure. In one of those mystery bags was a single by a group called Five By Five. One side was an even heavier version of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" than the original, with swirling Hammond organ added. The other side was a group original called "Hang Up." I took one listen and was changed forever. It was loud, raw, heavy and mean. Thusly, "Hang Up" became my very first favorite punk rock song. That's right, folks, I knew I was gonna like my music hard and heavy when I was only five. Can you say the same?

Around that same time, my then-Aunt Yvonne babysat me one fine Saturday afternoon at her apartment just two doors up the street from me. In an effort to entertain me, she put on a new record she'd just bought: "Unicorn" by what was then just a two-man group called Tyrannosaurus Rex, with Marc Bolan. It was totally unlike anything I'd heard in those grab bags. Its dark, mystic nature scared me a bit at first, but I was totally absorbed in it by the end, and I still couldn't forget it days later.

A week later, when Mom took me to the record store to pick out the very first album I'd ever own, I knew right away it had to be "Unicorn." To my delight, they had it. But Mom was a bit unsure of it at first. I still remember the conversation that ensued. "This isn't hard rock, is it?" "No, Mom." "Are you sure? Because I don't want you listening to hard rock." (Never mind that I'd already discovered it!) "Trust me, Mom, it's mellow, Aunt Yvonne played it for me." "Okay, I'll buy it for you, but if I don't like what I hear, I'm taking it back." We went home, I went to my room and put it on, and soon I heard a knock. "Is that the record I just bought you?" "Yeah, Mom." "Hey, this is good, I like it!" She and I are both huge T. Rex fans to this very day.

With school five days a week, Saturday became my go-to music day. I could've slept late, but that would've meant missing the Monkees rerun at 9:00 followed by the British glam-rock show Supersonic at 9:30, which featured T. Rex, the Bay City Rollers, and Roy Wood, among many others. Then, in the afternoon, Grandma would take me over to hang out with Vince Bailiff, my first music buddy. We bonded over Zep and Rush for awhile, but ultimately drifted apart after he disagreed with me about the merits of punk. Or sometimes I'd hang out downstairs in Uncle Joe's "apartment" listening to his records. One afternoon he and then-aunt Yvonne were telling me about how they were going to the local Mr. D's club (run by someone who lived right across the street from us) to see the New York Dolls. Not knowing who they were, I made jokes like "Oooh, are they cute? Can I come along?" The answer to both questions was no. The next day I asked Joe how it was. His two-word review: "Too loud." (He never liked heavy rock anyway.)

One Sunday afternoon in '76 I went with my parents to visit some friends of theirs who had a son around my age, the name of whom I've long since forgotten. We went off into the rec-room while our folks drank and talked in the kitchen. Fumbling for a way to break the ice, he asked me if I liked hard rock. Of course! "Well, wait until you hear THIS!" he beamed as he then lifted the lid on a piece of stereo furniture and pulled out a double live album by a new band I'd never heard of. He showed me the cover and I was mystified and baffled by the fully made-up faces, the outer-space costumes and the images of their bassist breathing fire, and quite taken aback by the music. It all looked and sounded like a comic book come to life and I fell right in love with it. And that was my introduction to Kiss. I adored them... for awhile.

Meanwhile, back at the department store, Mom's newest co-worker was a lady named Sue who moonlighted in the offices of a magazine distributor. I was heavily into Marvel Comics by then and soon I was blissfully getting them all for free, as Sue would regularly sneak big yellow envelopes filled with the latest Spider Man and Fantastic Four adventures out of the workplace and into my hands. Month after month I awaited the latest batch of Marvels, and Sue always delivered right on time. Then came the day I opened that big yellow envelope and saw that this time she'd thrown a music magazine in there too. It had Led Zeppelin on its front cover and its name in big neon letters: CREEM. This was the magazine that would inspire my lifelong writing hobby... and corrupt me forevermore in the process.

I loved my first issue of Creem so much, with its crazy writing and photo captions and off-kilter points of view and now-legendary writers like Lester Bangs and R. Meltzer, that I bought another issue with my own money. It was the July 1976 issue with Kiss on the cover, and it was even more insane than the last one in every way, with a thoroughly ganja-soaked account of Lester's recent trip to Jamaica, a chronology of rock & roll deaths, and bold ads for fake "legal highs." I knew Creem was something a tween like me shouldn't be reading, yet I still left it foolishly lying around the living room one day. My parents found it there, flipped through it out of curiosity, then promptly called me downstairs to watch them throw it in the garbage and hear them say "Don't EVER let us catch you reading this trash again!" Believe me, I cried all night long.

But where there's a will, there's a way, and I soon picked myself up, dried my tears, and called Vince Bailiff to ask if I could come over his house and read HIS copies of Creem! I was already hanging out with him every weekend anyway, so I didn't even have to concoct a lame excuse. For the next several months I continued to secretly enjoy my favorite forbidden zine at Vince's. Then came the issue that featured an article by Lisa Robinson on a new sound called punk rock and a new band from England called the Sex Pistols, just mere weeks after their infamous British TV interview. I read that piece and felt something click inside my brain. As if that weren't enough, the following issue had a piece about a recently disbanded Detroit-based band called Iggy and the Stooges, the first time I would ever hear of them as well.

Finally, after about six months, my folks found out I was reading Vince's copies of Creem. But by then I guess they figured it was too late, because not only was I not punished for it, but just before my next visit to Vince's house Mom pulled me over and whispered, "I don't mind if you read Creem, just don't let Dad know, okay?" The ban was lifted just in time for me to follow their monthly series of punk rock reports. But within mere weeks, a new ban would take its place... soon after Mom read the report on the Sex Pistols. Mind you, she didn't mind me listening to punk rock, either, and had even bought me the first two Ramones albums. But to her the Pistols were just too extreme to allow.

But the whole Pistols ban quicky proved as big a joke on her part as the ban on Creem, because not only were they getting occasional airplay on WNEW-FM by then, but I'd additionally made a new friend in school named Zoltan, whose older brother Laszlo was the first real punk rocker I ever met. It was through him that I received the access to the Sex Pistols I'd been denied at home. I was forbidden to buy their records, so I went to Zoltan's and taped them, then listened to them in my bed with the tape player hidden under the sheets. Once again my folks found out... and once again they just shrugged and figured it was too late by then. Damn straight it was. (Interesting footnote: a couple years later, one of Laszlo Papp's photographs of Stiv Bators would adorn the front cover of "Night Of The Living Dead Boys." I still remember the day he came home excitedly waving a copy of the album to show me.)

When Elvis died I remember being somewhat shocked by the news but not particularly saddened. But on that very bleak Saturday morning in September of '77, when I was sent around the corner to fetch the newspaper and saw a front page headline which read "Marc Bolan Killed In Car Crash," I cried my eyes out. Still to this day I consider Bolan's death the infinitely more shocking and significant of the two, and I will hear no arguments to the contrary.

Punk fascinated and gripped me to the point that I was soon buying every punk record I read about. In almost every case I'd never heard the band play a note beforehand, and almost every time I liked what I heard immediately or grew to like it over time. But even the Sex Pistols didn't prepare me for what fate had in store for me next. After being flat-out denied in my request for "Never Mind the Bollocks" for Christmas in 1977, I suggested the first album by the Damned as an alternative, and amazingly, my folks bought it. In retrospect they would've been better off just buying me "Bollocks."

The first Damned album scared the living shit out of me the very first time I played it. It was louder, heavier, faster, and more ferocious than anything I'd ever heard before. The musicians sounded like they would kill me if they had the chance to, and the production made it seem recorded in the depths of hell itself. And the whole album's vibe was dark, sinister and creepy, with songs like "Born To Kill" and "Stab Your Back." I listened to this monster just once... then put it back in its sleeve and handed it back to my mother shaking like a leaf and sheepishly moaning, "Uh, Mom, I don't like this record, can we exchange it?" Upon being told I couldn't, I then hid it in the deepest, darkest nether regions of my closet, where I didn't touch it again for an entire month. The day finally came when I summoned up the courage to listen to it again. It absolutely blew my mind in a million tiny pieces that second time, and from that point on, the louder, heavier, faster and more ferocious a new punk record was, the more I liked it.

The Damned, God bless 'em, still rage on to this day, but as we all know, the Pistols burned out quickly. I found out about Nancy Spungen's murder and Sid's arrest in conjunction with it on the school bus from Zoltan the morning after. A few months later, Mom called me from work as soon as I came home from school to inform me of Sid's death. I didn't cry that time, but when I suggested it was sad, she quickly snapped back with "You shouldn't be mourning him, son. He was a sick person." Yeah, maybe he was, but I still have my doubts that he was the one who killed Nancy.

That very same month, I discovered a new local band called the Misfits. But I've already told you that one, and anyway, I think that's more than enough bedtime stories for one night. Now get some sleep, kids, and don't ever let me catch you reading Creem again.