Northrup - June 18, 1988
 |
| Ah, my own personal contribution to Sacramento's rock scene. I was the original drummer for Mickey Finn, this was our first (and my only) show. We played a 45 minute set in 30 and then just jammed for the remaining 15. Bad drummer! It was a great time though. |
 |
| Mickey Finn |
 |
| Yours truly: "Pete" Russo on Drums - I had quite shoddy equipment and little money to upgrade it all. |
 |
| Doug Fritz on Bass |
 |
| Ron McBay on Guitar |
 |
| Pete Minns on Vocals |
 |
| You would also think that my involvement with the punk marketing I could have had more input into the design of this terrible flyer, but my head was very much elsewhere then. I don't even think we stayed for Hanzoff and Northrup. |
Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force - June 15, 1985
 |
| So Yngwie Malmsteen is the artist - the album name is "Rising Force" - not the band. Kind of an interesting way of doing it. The idea of concept albums weren't new by this point, but the reverse emphasis on the album for touring promotion is novel. I'm not a guitar guy at all and was not a fan in 1985. However, today I can appreciate this. Not my favorite by any stretch, but certainly not awful as I had imagined then. Billy Sheehan is a "bass playing virtuoso" so this show was for the musicians. |
Poison Idea - June 9, 1984
 |
| One of the more visually explicit and offensive flyers in the collection. I don't recall much about Poison Idea other than they were solid. Seattle's The Accused, as noted elsewhere here, are a personal favorite. This show was in Portland, OR - Poison Idea's home turf. |
Circle Jerks - June 7, 1986
 |
| Another show from Phoenix - they had a hot little scene there in AZ - pun intended. |
7 Seconds - June 6, 1987
 |
| Sentinel Beast supporting 7 Seconds is as close to a metal/punk fellowship as you're going to get in Sacramento! |
D.R.I. - June 5, 198x
 |
| I can't pin down the year on this one, but I did attend. I had a friend whose folks had a house in Nevada City and we went up there occasionally. I remember it being so crowded you could hardly move. |
Siouxie & the Banshees - June 2, 1986
 |
| This one got by me from last week! Siouxie and the Banshees were terrific - all the punk girls I know adored her as well as Nina Hagen. Stylistically they both inspired a lot of the fashion among the young women in the scene. I also liked the proto-Goth Love & Rockets even though neither of these acts are punk - early alternative I guess you'd call them. Love & Rockets were named after a popular comic book - not the other way around as I had imagined. The comic was another pioneer in "alternative" entertainment. |
 |
| Siouxsie - methinks Nikki Sixx may have been a fan. |
 |
| The lovely Nina Hagen |
Max Havoc - May 26, 1985
 | ||
| The world famous Roxy. Weird to think how influential Van Halen was on the rock scene in L.A. One often thinks of their particular style of rock as an 80's thing, but the members of all those 80s acts (Motley Crue, Ratt, etc) as kids watched Van Halen at the Roxy in the late 70s. By the summer of 1980, Van Halen had three monster hit albums already. By the time of this show, Van Halen released three more totaling six now. And since you were wondering who the hell Max Havoc were here's a short little bio: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/max-havoc-mn0001506034 |
Dead Kennedys - May 25, 1985
 |
| The modal male in my college experience couldn't be better described than "Terminal Preppie" - I mean to a T, every line an accurate summation: "John Belushi's my hero, I lampoon and I ape him" - these shits were a dime a dozen. I never found SNL funny and its so called "golden age' is a pretty sad contribution to American comedy. Belligerent boorish awfulness is a singularly unfunny approach and appeals to the worst of us. |
 |
| Above was the creative version and here the logo drop version. The Subhumans were pretty popular with me and my fellow punkers . Like in so many areas, the English punk bands really deserved my admiration: G.B.H., Sex Pistols, Toy Dolls, etc, etc. |
Complete Disorder - May 23, 198x
 |
| San Anselmo is a little town in Marin County - just north of San Francisco. I don't know any of these acts. Though "Red Asphalt"probably doesn't mean a thing to kids today, but then it referred to a public safety film from the 60s dealing with fatal car accidents that was screened to students in classrooms. It was very gory and gruesome, an attempt to scare kids straight about safe driving. I see it's been remade many times. |
D.O.A. - May 23, 1985
 |
| Punks then and today are largely left wing in their attitudes sans the statist parochialism. Toleration, anti racist attitudes permeated the culture up and down, so there would not have been any peace for a band called "Beat Nigs" under the obvious interpretation of the name. That said, the Beat Nigs were a San Fransisco experimental hardcore band of African Americans, riffing on the name Beatniks. Aware of the problematic nature, they made their name one word sometime after all this. |
TSOL - May 22, 1986
 |
| In my time, there were basically two promoters in town, Ground Chuck and Clear & Distinct Ideas. The latter was run by a relatively successful attorney, the former was literally one of the street kids. Their slots in society then couldn't have been more different. Chuck remains a local legend in Sacramento and is still very visible as a chalk artist, musician and promoter. I doubt' he'd recognize me today - it's been 30 years since I last seen him, but we used to be pals through all this. |
Likir - May 20, 198x
 |
| It's a funny practice of coming up with a band name by simply misspelling a term that in some way hints at some sense of your music. In this case, I'm not certain if the "likir" here substitutes for liquor or licker? Nor is there a band member named Likir in the same way that Bon Jovi, or Van Halen are. Whatever it was, I am certain that they were tickled by the ambiguity. I can't find much about this apparently short lived band other than they were big in Stockton, had a reunion gig in 2012, and the original lead has died of natural causes. Best guess is that this show was in 1987. |
D.R.I. - May 18, 1986
 |
| Another one from Phoenix - the art work on their flyers has steadily improved. |
D.O.A. - May 17, 1985
 |
| Pretty sure this was my first concert I ever went to - even before my first arena show: Huey Lewis and the News at Cal Expo. Been a huge fan of the Circle Jerks ever since. |
Matrix - May 13, 1988
 |
| What's to say about this one? I must have known somebody in one of these - maybe Matrix? Otherwise, all defunct bands, none recorded as far as I can tell. Non recordatus. |
Death Angel - May 12, 1987
 |
| Poster sized flyer - Death Angel, an integral and original part of the speed/thrash metal scene in SF, are still around today - always just the one band outside of the Big Four. |
Hüsker Dü - May 11, 1986
 |
| The Hüskers were another band held in very high esteem that I just could not get into at the time. I've poked around recently though and I think I'd like them today. There's a time and place thing about these old acts where they resonated with you at a point in your life when they felt really important, but this one never spoke to me. Now, the Descendents are another thing entirely who I adore all out of proportion. Their latest album Hypercaffium Spazzinate from 2016 is amazing. I had a demo tape of the Sea Hags around this time and that got a fair amount of play though they didn't record officially until 1989. |
 |
| Logo arrangement for the poster one here and the more creative handout version above |
Witch - May 11, 1985
 |
| I knew or had met someone in this band, otherwise I don't remember a thing about this. There's a band called Witch out there doing what's called "stoner metal" (zzzzz), but not the same guys. This Witch, who was a big deal in the LA scene in the 80s, has an interesting and comprehensive website here: https://www.witchtheband.com/ |
Black Flag - May 11, 1985
 |
I don't recall going to this one, but I wasn't a fan of the supporting acts either so it's possible I've forgotten it. Black Flag was big, but I definitely preferred other things at the time. Rollins is definitely the better front man, but I think the music was better under Morris. |
 |
This is the poster version with the above being the handout. (I had added the "hardcore" clipping, as well as the doodle.) Skulls with mohawks - iconic of my interests then! |
Christ on Parade - May 3, 1987
 |
| Christ on Parade were a big deal then and I enjoyed their first LP, Sounds of Nature. I don't recall any of these other acts. Like any other human endeavor, some take off and thrive and others can't get any lift and perish. |
Ludichrist - May 3, 1986
 |
| This Long Island show features a bunch of bands I'm not familiar with. Searching around, I'm sure I would have liked Ludichrist. Understand there was no internet then so the primary way to hear new music for me was KDVS the college radio station we could get from UC Davis. They had weekly late night shows featuring acts from all over. I used to record it on cassette, then track down the acts/albums I liked at Tower Records who typically carried most of what I wanted, bless them. Maximum Rock'n'Roll was another source for scene coverage and band interviews. |
Adolescents - May 2, 1987
 |
| I do remember being at this one - mostly because after which the band was roaming the streets of downtown Sacramento and asked us what there was to do here in the late hours. "Nothing" was our reply. They were a band whose work I knew and liked before seeing them for the first time -great teenage angsty material. Memories are terribly infallible, yet I think this was also the evening where a buddy and I were sucker punched and almost knocked out cold. By the time we stood up, the assailants were gone. No serious injuries and I believe we took a pair of girls home with us, so not a bad evening on the whole. |
Dayglow Abortions - May 2, 1986
 |
| I don't know any of these acts, but after sampling "Dayglo" Abortions I'm sure I would have liked them. I also can't pin down the location of this venue, nor any reference to the promoters. Very nice of the Catholics to host such an event though. |
M.D.C. - May 1, 1983
 |
| Not the first "Rock Against Reagan" - nor was it the last. This Dicks was the Austin version which, like MDC, called attention to continued police brutality among other things. The later, SF version, sound was described as "Hard Blues Rock". In any case heir reputation hold up after a relatively short existence (1980-86), but I had ever warmed to them particularly, nor the Crucifucks for that matter. Vocals matter. |
D.R.I. - April 26, 1987
 |
| Easy in my top 5 acts of all time - Texas's Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. Their first album was notoriously fast and almost unmusical but they went on to powerfully influence, if not create, crossover and metalcore. The "skank man" icon was among my most frequent doodles in the margins and notebooks of everything I possessed. Not sure who backed them on this leg through S.F. |
TSOL - April 26, 1985
 |
| "Sebastion Presents" spelled wrong but otherwise a humorous take on the cultural dialogue of the time. I can't find anything on the U.A.T. band. TSOL (True Sounds of Liberty) was very popular with my friends; I had a few songs of theirs on various cassettes, but they were a bit too pop for my tastes. I preferred nastier stuff. D.I.'s "Richard Hung Himself" fit the bill, and it's melodic refrain still flits through my mind from time to time. |
Sentinel Beast - April 25, 1987
 |
| Here's Heathen again - man I wish I had that demo tape of theirs - great riffs stick around forever. |
 |
| This is the poster sized one with the postcard handout sized above. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)