Interview with Doug Maxson,

[OFF MIC CONVERSATION]

CHIP NOLD: All right, so I am talking to Doug Maxson on November 7th 2016 the day before American democracy faces this test. In my house on Tyler Parkway. And this is Chip Nold. So we're going to talk about Doug's career in Louisville punk bands, from the Dickbrains through the present with the Hal Dolls. So all right, let's get started.

DOUG. MAXSON: Okay.

CN: I know for history, man.

DM: Well, I was wondering about that, how this would--

CN: Oh, wow. So anyway, okay. So we're going again. So all right, just some general background when and where were you born?

DM: I was born May 24th, 1960, in Evanston, Illinois. I come from Chicago family.

CN: All right. I didn't realize our birthdays were that close to each other.

DM: When is yours?

CN: Mine's the 29th. Tom Carsons is the 23rd is a cluster around there.

DM: Are you a Gemini as well?

CN: Oh, yes. So when did you move to Louisville?

DM: In 1965 when I was five years old. I got to go to this kindergarten; I got to go to the Chance school.

CN: Okay.

DM: Yeah, that was...

CN And what was that like?

DM: That was like pretty excellent. I have like some real vivid picture memories of being in that environment. Later in high school or in middle school so many 2:00of these people that I went to school with, also had the kindergarten group shot. We all went to Chance school, went to different elementary schools and then wound up back in the same high schools.

CN: Okay, that's interesting. So then where did you go to school after that?

DM: First grade Wilder, second grade, third grade Norton, fourth grade St. Matthews and fifth grade Wilder, sixth grade Wilder.

CN: Okay, you were bounced around.

DM: I got bounced around because I got -- that was just when the AP was just starting. And my parents kept me out of it in the third grade, but the fourth grade -- I mean that was when all the schools were being built into in the East End. And I had to go to St. Matthew's elementary school to be in the fourth 3:00grade AP.

CN: So did you have Mrs. Crutcher?

DM: Yeah.

CN: I had no idea.

DM: Really.

CN: No. I wrote an article when she died. I mean, she's an incredibly important person for me.

DM: I remember reading that.

CN: Okay.

DM: Was it in the Louisville magazine?

CN: Louisville magazine, yeah.

DM: God it seems like we were in Chicago or something going to a funeral or something. But yeah, I remember reading that.

CN: Okay, all right.

DM: Yeah, so tell me about that.

CN: No, man. What was your experience? Catherine Crutcher was Chip, the narrator's favorite teacher and was just a totally eccentric individual. We spent a lot of times going on fossil hunts.

DM: Yes.

CN: Yeah, and she was really something.

DM: She was a fantastic teacher. We went fossil hunting out in the country. We 4:00did like these vast murals, painted murals with the aborigines, with the dinosaurs. And she had she was good friends with Joe Creason. And she had Joe Creason come in and talk to us. That was so awesome because he was he was a font of civil war knowledge. And we as boys at the time were into the blue and gray, that whole thing.

CN: It's cool you know who you know who got roped in with us. It might have been through Milton Metz' son who was in our class but we did, did you do plays, did you do plays in Mrs. Crutcher's class?

DM: I don't remember any but surely.

CN: We did two. We did at one about the about the ground cutting the Odyssey and one about King Arthur and the woman who wrote them is Randy Atcher's wife. Okay, 5:00so we got to meet Randy Atcher. The same cowboy, man. That was pretty cool.

DM: Yeah. Okay, we did put on a play about George Rogers Clark.

CN: Oh, great perfect, what did you play?

DM: I don't remember what I played, but I brought like, one of the props to the, the play was my mother from pioneer days or something, had this beaten copper pot to put on top of the fire and boil whatever, your mutton or whatever. I got to take this really wonderful prop.

CN: That's wild, I didn't know that. That is really fine because, yeah, no, I mean, she was just she was amazing. Okay, so then where'd you go to junior high and high school?

DM: That was when the middle schools were being built.

CN: Okay.

DM: So I had sixth grade at Wilder and then seventh and eighth we're at Kammerer. And then college, no High School was Pig Sty High was what we used to call it, Ballard because it was built on a pig farm.

CN: Oh I didn't realize that, okay. All right, so you didn't you're a non-Brown Dickbrain.

DM: I'm a non-Brown Dickbrain, yeah.

CN: All right. Okay. Well, so what did your parents do for a living?

DM: My dad was head of merchandising at Vermont American.

CN: Really?

DM: The tool and die manufacturer. That's why we wound up here was his family ran and owned tool and die manufacturing facilities in Skokie, Chicago. And American Saw & Tool that they had was sold to Vermont American and my dad just moved down here from Chicago.

CN: I want to say success, isn't there a successor to Vermont American? Is that universal woods, do you know?

DM: I don't really know, I don't know.

CN: Cindy has worked with them and that's why I asked. But anyway so your dad 7:00was merchandising, did your mom work?

DM: Not initially, she was a house frau. And then we ran into real financial problems when I was in my teens and my mom wound up working at the village tennis club. And my dad he had this vision, he was an intellectual, he just got he wound up in the family business just because he knocked up my mother. And all that stuff in college professorships didn't pay very much right and so he wound up as a tool and die man.

Five minutes before slitting his throat over being a tool and die he did, he had a vision of a series of tennis clubs across Kentucky, across America actually. 8:00He was dreaming big and so he grabbed his pension and spent it all on a bunch of steel that lay on the vacant lot in Bowling Green Kentucky for five years.

CN: That's a shame. So just talk about when -- how you first got interested in music.

DM: When I was 16 I had, I got a job. I washed dishes at the Prospector restaurant out in Prospect on the weekends and made some money. And I just I wanted a stereo. I wanted the components, I wanted that receiver and loud speakers and the turntable. And I just started, I just -- because it's just you -- all that you could WLRS had played album rock after midnight. That's probably where I was where most was exposed to music and it was all really mostly terrible music. But I kept clicking to the Beatles really earlier. I got the 9:00stereo and then bought every Beatles album I could find.

And then I, then my brother borrowed from a friend this album called the Dead Boys Young, Loud and Snotty. I think they thought it was going to be like rock and roll with attitude rather than just this crazy stuff out of Ohio. I taped it on tapes [unintelligible - 00:09:39] I'm not out of Ohio I taped up and made a cassette tape of it and then that's I used to bring it to school and play. There was a cassette player in the room that we all hung out in before school and stuff. And I was thinking about it earlier I want -- I also learned about punk rock from Time magazine.

CN: I learned so much about rock and roll from Time magazine, I mean I remember reading about that, who's smashing their instruments and stuff like that yeah isn't that funny?

DM: Yeah, Time magazine taught me about the Sex Pistols. I would never really known about the Sex Pistols except I read about it in Time Magazine. They've got some really bad facts wrong. I remember that article, like they said that they swore at the Queen on God Save the Queen. Oh, I mean, unless I'm missing something, they did say she was like human being but--

CN: As a metaphor.

DM: Yeah, they weren't actually [unintelligible - 00:10:46] another thing. It was funny because Time magazine taught me about -- in time I learned about Malcolm Lowry from Time Magazine.

CN: Really?

DM: I developed this obsession with Under the Volcano, which I did not--

C. N: Right, because you got your revival back then.

DM: Which I did not read. That Under the Volcano was kind of the book I had -- I attempted it three times in three different editions before I could get past the 11:00Day of the Dead procession in the early.

CN: I've never read it.

DM: Oh really?

CN: I think I have it here, somewhere but...

DM: It is such a brilliant book. And then I also learned about Delmore Schwartz from Time magazine.

CN: That's wild, that's interesting.

DM: At one point I had a collage I made of 18 by 24 size with cuttings from Time Magazine, there's these anti-heroes. There's Delmore Schwartz sitting on a park bench when he's out of his mind, there's Malcolm Lowry and there's Johnny Rotten.

CN: Right, that's great. This is supposed to be about you, but I'm going to tell one story about myself. I remember one of the things like that, it wasn't Time magazine but it was about the same thing I remember learning about and thinking I just had to see Gimme Shelter from William F. Buckley's column and the little 12:00they ran on the orbit page of the Louisville time. That is that thing even though, it's like no publicity is bad publicity, I mean if you heard about it, anyway -- but okay so then, okay so--

DM: The poetry of the flowers in the dustbin.

CN: Yeah.

DM: I mean that was just like "Oh what? Is this really hard but really like poetic?"

CN: Yeah. I had a big argument with a girlfriend in college about that, because I thought that was a great line. I just thought that was perfect. And she was a poet, and she thought it was so sedentary. All right, so the Dead Boys was your introduction to punk rock, and then and so how did you react to it? What was it that--?

DM: I would play it to annoy people. I don't think I came to appreciate that album, it took me a while to realize that it was not just something you can annoy somebody with that there was a total brilliance to it too. That album is like one of the CDs it's still like -- I take it into my car and it stays in my car for weeks and I just drive around town still listening to it.

CN: Okay, and then did that make you invest in other stuff or?

DM: Not really because I didn't -- it was so hard to get to record stores and you could buy the Beatles at a record store. But it was hard to find this other stuff. I remember actually seeing a copy of Never Mind the Bollocks in that store CVS?

CN: Consolidated sales?

DM: Used to be at the GES store on Breckenridge lane.

CN: Yeah, I know. Really it was like the big, it was the anchor store for that first big deal--

DM: Yeah, it had the grocery and then it had this huge department store and the record store they had Never Mind the Bollocks in it. And I don't know why I didn't buy I regretted not buying it because then it was like really -- when I wanted find it, then it was hard to find like anywhere in Louisville, it was hard to find the records.

CN: Oh, that's interesting because that was the year I was still in college and there'd be some records at the university store. And then I went into New York all the time. So I think I got Never Mind the Bollocks in the British. Never Mind the Bollocks in New York. So I know and by the time I came back, I mean it was not impossible. I mean, you wouldn't get the import singles or something, 15:00but it wasn't terribly hard to find punk records at Phoenix or Karma or something like that. But anyway, but you had a hard time, but this is not about me no, I mean so you--

DM: I mean I was an East End kid I didn't grow like you. I wasn't getting to see Phoenix records and stuff like that. I just like what was it Oxmoor? What was the record store, kind of Vine?

CN: So I bought the first Ramones album at that time.

DM: It's kind of funny what you can find in obscure places. I was like in 1979, 1980, I was, going back and forth between Louisville and my parents place in Bowling Green a whole lot and there's a big mall down there in Bowling Green. And it had this record store and I found like crazy stuff in there. It seemed 16:00like at 1069 I was a hero for a while because I found that it was a double album import of just the best of the Velvet Underground.

CN: Oh yeah.

DM: It's always like four sides of -- and in it was hard to find a Velvet Underground record. Also I remember down there and found this amazing like another important double album of the best of the Troggs. And that's like, I'd never other than, hearing wild thing once in a while, it was just like the Troggs. Where can you buy a Troggs record? And I was like here I have enough Troggs songs to make you realize that you probably didn't need to do two full out two albums because I think probably only one that would suffice if you choose the best of the Troggs.

CN: Okay, so then how did how did it transition into playing it? Had you played 17:00an instrument when you were younger?

DM: My mom made us take piano lessons growing up. I took enough piano lessons to realize it like I had no innate musical skill whatsoever. I could memorize stuff and where the fingers go but that's like typing that's yeah. So and then probably the pivotal thing, pivotal point for me was meeting like Jenny Catlett and Alec Irwin and Charles Schultz.

CN: How did you meet them?

DM: I met them this is a true story. This is a funny and odd true story. I wound 18:00up buying, getting a bike a 10 speed bike, and we lived out in Prospect.

CN: Right.

DM: And I've got this bike and I would just ride into Cherokee Park from Prospect. I was just on my bike riding these intense distances and then I would just like -- sometimes there were -- there was a rock out on highway 42 where all the Snyder and bridge stuff is going on now. But it used to be just this little rock cut and I would just sit there sometimes. I would ride my bike and just sit there on this was, I was a poetically messed up young man. I would just sit there for hours just watching the traffic going by and I had heard about these people through this other guy I knew from school, Patrick Plain, he knew both of us.

And at one time I'd been riding my bike in the Highlands and I knew that Alec 19:00Irwin drove a white VW bug and I was just in the Highlands riding and I saw this bug go down Bardstown road, and I saw this head that looked like an Alec Irwin head just looking out the window at me. And it was this weird interview just like this back to the sitting on the side of the rock.

I was sitting on this rock, and then this white Volkswagen came down 42 and pulled over and it was Alec and Jenny Catlett. And that's how I met them.

CN: What did they say?

DM: It was just weird. It was like, we knew about each other through this mutual friend, but this mutual friend kept us apart. It's a weird dynamics I won't go into. But then it was like suddenly I'd met the coolest people I've ever known. 20:00It was really fantastic and we would, go to the Vogue together. We drive into the Highlands go to Pasquale's because Jenny lived right there on Windsor.

So it was like we're always going places and Alec they've been in -- Alec, I think even Charles and Cathy had been in Europe, in England and they'd bought records. So it's like they had some punk records and this was like a ritual we would do every night -- evening before we go out Alec would pick out a song to get us going for the evening.

CN: That's great. Do you remember some of them?

DM: Well, one of the -- one album that we -- he would request, they had Iggy, the Stooges TV Eye, Iggy's live. So we would sometimes listen to that. To this day I think it's one of the best albums ever it's just that some people dismiss 21:00it, I think it's awesome. They would also sometimes listen to Metallic K.O, a cut-out of Metallic K.O. It was like the two Iggy albums you could get because they were all cut-outs.

CN: Right.

D. N: We would just get pumped up like that.

CN: So what time period is this?

DM: That would have been the summer of '78. Late summer and--

CN: I thought I read -- I thought there was -- somebody told me that some of you went to one of the No Fun shows or something?

DM: Yeah, that's Charles and Alec and Cathy I think went to the show at the Cloisters. And I don't remember where I was or what was -- I didn't get to see 22:00any of those No Fun shows I just heard about them. And that was--

CN: What did they say?

DM: They were just like, "That was the greatest thing in the world." It was this thing that it existed here. That there was this thing going on that was like, really cool in big city, in New York and London. And it was there's this thing going down here. And so they were really excited about it. They I was, I was like, so envious, that I hadn't gone to see them. And, that fall I went to, I entered the fall of '78, I entered down -- went to start down at Centre.

CN: Okay.

DM: So I was like, I spent that that fall down in Danville and just it was, not a good mix. I mean, that was one of the most unhappiest times of my life. And then I would hear back from Jenny or get a letter from Charles or something 23:00about, we went to see this show, and got to see the Babylon Dance Band. And that was finally that was like, -- it really was one of my pulling points to drop out of Centre and come back to Louisville was just like I wanted to -- I was like, I want to see these, I wanted all my new cool friends were having these new cool fun times and I was stuck in Danville, Kentucky.

I was like I want to be I want to go to these shows and stuff and so that's that was the introduction to it.

CN: What was the first show you remember seeing?

DM: First show that I remember seeing was the Babylon Dance Band at the Headrest.

CN: Oh okay, all right.

DM: Yeah, we snuck into that show and stay -- got to stay long enough we saw your set and then the Blinders came on and we didn't know about the Blinders. And then it was a few songs into the Blinders that the management realized that we were not supposed to be in there for any long term. That's something I've 24:00thought about our whole lives, we would sneak into these bars and hope we could get to stay to see the bands. And what could be more obvious about how your age when a bunch of you're sitting at this table, up the front, drinking Coca Cola. We would be, "Oh, if we don't try to buy beer maybe they'll let us stay in here." And then it's like this so fine.

CN: It was wrong.

D. N: It's wrong.

CN: Well, so I mean, without I'm asking this in the in the interests of history, not in the interest of it, not my own vanity. But what were your impressions when you saw that show? I mean what did--?

DM: It blew us, just blown away just totally. I mean, I guess that they had actually seen you guys at a different, in an earlier show. But I just remember just losing my mind. I was just like that something could be so fast and fantastic and frenetic and just -- it was like there was a scene in reality that we're looking to the -- this parallel fun universe. It looks like it was a lot 25:00of fun over there in that other universe.

CN: All right, so then, so did you only go the fall semester at Centre then?

DM: I'd eaten my way through -- they had a winter intercession. I stay for that and then I dropped, came back home and went back to live with mom and dad's.

CN: We've all done that. And then you went to the Louisville School of Art right?

DM: Yeah.

CN: When did you start that?

DM: Well, when I came back from Centre I got a job making pizzas at the Prospector restaurant down on Prospect that was if I was making some money and then there was this -- Mary Ann Currier had this two week painting workshop at 26:00the Louisville School of Art. I think that was in early June or something and Cathy and I got excited about that and we both signed up for it. And that was our entry introduction to the Louisville School of Art. I missed the first week of that, of the two weeks because I was in the hospital.

CN: Why was that?

DM: With a collapsed lung that I got from dancing too hard at a Babylon dance show at the South 40.

CN: I'm so sorry oh, that's funny.

DM: Yeah, it's really funny. Yeah, it was a spontaneous pneumothorax, which meant that there was a little cyst, little tiny little cyst, thing on the lung that popped off because I danced too hard. I mean, that that's my conviction.

CN: Wow, that's amazing. Well, so maybe before we get to what I was saying, let's go back. I mean, just about the experience. Because you said you were having to sneak into the shows. But obviously you were almost fatally successful at some points.

DM: Sometime, I mean the South 40 we got into that, one or two times and then they figured out that they that, this was not to be. I remember one specific show that we went to there where we they would not let us in and we just stayed and hung around out in the parking lot waiting for you all to maybe come out after set outside or something. I mean, that was how much, how hard that, the hero worship was.

CN: Wow, you could hear some of the music, right? I mean, it's not.

DM: Yeah, through the walls.

CN: Okay. So, I mean, what just what do you remember about shows in that time period? What I mean, if you could paint the scene for somebody?

DM: It's hard. I mean, the scene it would be three or four people it seemed like, dancing really hard. There was the Sanders sisters who were always just like, "Holy shit, what is that?"

CN: Describe them for a second before you go on.

DM: It's just hard to describe them to me, because I don't remember Sharrie that well, because, she left so, early. I mean, it was the contrast between Sharrie and Diane. Diane was big and had this look to her and then Sharrie was this tiny 29:00thing and they were there. They were both all in black and with their whips and stuff. The whips, where do those whips come from? I guess Henryville.

CN: So the Sander sisters would be dancing and maybe somebody like Ricky--

DM: Ricky, yeah. I remember the one show that we down at the South 40 that we got to see was -- we saw you guys and then you stopped and then the Endtables started. And we didn't know anything about the Endtables and so there's suddenly this huge guy, guyish guy or thing that was Rigot in all his glory and there was that drummer who looked like the meanest man on the earth.

CN: Steven Jan?

DM: Steven Jan, yeah just looked like he would just kill you if you looked at him wrong. Yeah, and later I learned he's like one of the nicest guys when he's 30:00not having a psychotic break. And then there was Alex and Albert Durig and I remember this moment really clearly like Alec and Cathy just turning to one another and saying "That's Alex and, Albert." Alex and Albert who were their former playmates that they -- I guess both their dads were like in -- college professors at IU South East or whatever.

Yeah, Alex they -- the families would get together and the kids would play like back when they were kids. And then suddenly there they were. Young Albert, they knew how young Albert was. I mean, Albert was like, maybe 15.

DM: Yeah, I think yeah. And that just threw a little spark into the whole mix. I mean, that was like, wait a second if they can do this--

CN: Okay. I mean that's such a great story. But let's go back to Rigot. I mean, talk about the impression Rigot made on you?

DM: Just if he was hard to decipher it was he was unlike anyone I've ever met. And here's this big guy, but just in rags, and just -- and singing in the style of just monotonous monotone. He was like meeting somebody from a different 32:00planet. And I think that's a pretty accurate way of state that Rigot really was from a different planet, a better planet. A better dressed planet.

CN: Okay, all right. Then that following fall is when you went to LSA?

DM: Yeah, Cathy and I are both enrolled in there, Georgia was there as well.

CN: So my cousin Georgia Nold.

DM: Yeah, and it was just, there was a life drawing class that we took, I mean it was the -- it was such a weird student body out there. There was us three and then there's a couple other younger kids and then there's a whole lot of -- we used to call them the Bored Housewives. It's really just horrible, I mean I 33:00shouldn't say that because they're actually known in town these days. They were really horrible to us, and then they were -- there was other young people that we met. That was how we met Tari Barr and then there was Barb Fowler was also in that class.

CN: Oh, I didn't notice that.

DM: And then Sam Koch was in that class. You see how you were, like these really horrible people and then there's -- these was young people over there, it was like -- so we gravitated to them. Even though we didn't know their names. Cathy Irwin's always, is really good at giving people names. And so Barb Fowler she had some scars something, so she was Scar Girl and then Sam Koch was Weird Boy 34:00and then Tari was probably just Nice Girl.

CN: That's funny. Okay, well so start moving towards the Dickbrains how did that--?

DM: Well, meeting Tari, Tari lived at 1069 at the -- like another art student. And then and I'm not sure how this ever came to be about, she also had -- one of the roommates was with Sandy Campbell. I don't know how he how Fred Hondo came to be living in that house but he was. And then Sam Koch lived in the upstairs part. And so we started going over there and getting to -- it was a hangout. That was where we met some of the -- and where we started meeting some of the Blinders.

And it's probably around that time was when we started thinking about a word and 35:00when Alec started thinking about the making -- having a band. You probably know Alec is like, he musically really gifted. He can he can sit down at the piano and just -- he was he was composing piano music at an early age. And I remember him putting John Keats poems to music. And I remember this one specific afternoon when we were over at the Irwin's house in Oldham County.

We were down in the basement and we're starting -- they were starting to come -- we were all Dickbrains that's what we should -- that our band should be called the Dickbrains. Because we're just a bunch of Dickbrains that's the -- that's 36:00those Irwin is just--

CN: Because I was always wondered exactly who came up with that.

DM: I think that was probably Alec and Cathy probably, yeah.

CN: I didn't know if it was something that someone that actually called someone that -- became one of those taken as a badge of honor.

DM: Oh, no, I don't think -- well, I don't know. Alec, he is a Dickbrain. I'm sure he's been called the dick brain. But we were in this -- in their basement area and, Cathy had, that crappy little Ibanez, with a little practice amp and Alec had -- he'd gotten a bass guitar but he didn't have an amp so he ran it through this like old stereo system. And then there's a set of Bongo drums that Charles actually played on and they were like, they'd written two songs that was 37:00-- this is way before the band even became a band, they'd written "Fat Man".

CN: Oh wow.

DM: "Fat Man" was a song and then there was another song that Charles had wrote that never made it into the oeuvre unfortunately it was called "Mom and Dad". It has a really catchy phrase me on Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad whoo.

CN: Classical language.

DM: Yeah, actually they are in their sporty runabout. And so they were doing that and I was just sitting there just in awe that I had these such cool friends. And I wasn't doing anything, I wasn't -- I was just sitting there to sit rapture, just like "Oh my god." I hope they don't find out that I'm a fraud and then so, they're all we should do this band thing and then they just nothing 38:00came of it. It's like, doing something like that requires effort, and a location. It was probably like -- it sometime in the winter like January, February.

It's probably it had to have been January or December maybe I was over at Charles' house, I was spending the night were his parents' house down in old Louisville. We we're hanging out and then that was when that second the punk, the second new wave festival was coming up and I just remember getting really excited and just saying "Chuck look up," it was like, it's one of those old movies we got started band. We've got to start this band for -- so we can play at this festival and I got Charles excited enough that then we like gotten -- 39:00called up Alec and Cathy and was like "Let's do this band thing."

And then teach Tari Barr's, is the perfect ally for us because she -- there was living in the house and by that point the, I think the Blinders at least were practicing it in the upstairs. And so, that gave us access to a place to practice and possible use of -- the Blinders actually let us use their equipment for one practice I think, before they got fussy about it.

CN: Didn't you all use ours I can't remember?

DM: We did.

CN: Because we started sometime like -- you all started playing in 1980 right?

DM: Yeah, I think we started practicing in 1069 sometime in early 1980 but yeah. 40:00So yeah that's like we -- they let us use our -- their equipment for like one or two practices and then that, the O'Bannons got pissy about people using their amps and then we, then you all let us use your equipment instead.

CN: All right, so we I mean, so just what do you remember of that, like the early experience of it?

DM: I remember the first practice. We were then in that one room with the Blinders equipment and Cathy was going to be the guitar player because she could play guitar. Alec was going to be the bass player because Alec was enamored of the idea of Bill Wyman. He wanted just to be this guy who stood off in the corner, turned away from the audience with no expression on his face, playing his bass. I mean it was--

CN: That is so funny, oh that's great.

DM: And then to sort things out, Charles had a guitar and an amp, so I tried to play guitar and I realized I just could not play guitar. And so then I sat down behind the drums and it was like, man I cannot make this work. You have to move all four your appendages except for this, so this is not good for the -- this is not going to work. And Charles, was having trouble with his guitar playing abilities because he's he could play better than I could but not by much. And then he sat down at the drums and could actually make it work.

And so he became the drummer and I became the singer because I couldn't do anything else. And Tari was a singer because that's what she wanted to do and thus the Dickbrains were formed.

CN: Well, you say every so often you play keyboards, right?

DM: Yeah, Alec bought this grandma organ that was this big. I had rudimentary enough skills I played the organ for about half the time period. And then at some point, Alec decided that he just he sold it. They sold that from under me my keyboardist career went out the window there.

CN: Okay. So you remember the first practice like people are still figuring out their roles and all. Were there more songs by then or?

DM: There weren't very many songs. The first thing we realized was that the initial impulse in when you starting a band is to like "Oh what songs can we play?" But we quickly figured out that we were too inadequate to do covers, that if we could figure out what the chords were, we couldn't put it together. And 43:00then two sets -- so that's of the only other option was to write your own songs and Alec was really good at -- Alec was a really prolific songwriter. And the Dickbrains, were known for their hooks and stuff and that was all Alec.

He could write a catchy song. And then Cathy started, wrote a couple songs, I wrote a couple songs, Charles wrote a "Laundromat" and another song. And so that's just how the, the Dickbrains sound came to be. It was just like everyone writing their little songs.

CN: Okay, so this is like what winter of '80?

DM: This is probably in February of '80. We didn't get it together in time for the New Wave festival. Which was probably early February am I getting it right?

CN: Seems right, yeah.

DM: So then we just played in February and in March. And then I figured when the first show was--

CN: Yeah, I was I was trying to think of that. Did you play at the South 40 with us maybe or?

DM: No, we never could play. You know where the first Dickbrain show was? At Windmill bar. Where I guess the Babylon Dance Band played and I'm not sure who else played.

CN: Was it a maybe a Fred Hondo benefit or something or?

DM: No, that was later, yeah. I forget who else played, maybe the Frosties god.

CN: Okay. So yes, so just talk about -- I mean the Dickbrains just blew. They existed for a few months, it's a great band. I mean what are your recollections of that? I mean was it just continuation on from that thing or was there a point where you realize hey we've got something here or?

DM: Yeah, I mean yeah it's, there was Alec wrote such catchy songs and Tari Barr had such an incredible voice. That yeah, I mean we quickly, it quickly, I mean 46:00it was we went from being the group of friends to this group of friends that were in a band. And I know I had pretty, I was pretty impressed by the band. And I'm sure that that the self-doubting Irwins, yeah probably not so much. And those Windmill shows that two month period of window that -- I just remember that it's just being one of the coolest times of my life.

Yeah, so many shows, so many -- some of those shows, where they were like you look at some of those posters and it's just like the who's who of like the cool little punk bands. It's like all on one bill its mind blowing. And for being such a short period of time I mean we wound up writing 15 songs I think, it's the tick I did on it. Which in that short of a period of time it's pretty phenomenal.

CN: That's great, yeah, it's an album's worth of songs.

DM: It's an album's worth of songs, it is true yeah, exactly. It would have been a really fat albums worth of sales. I'm sorry that there was no recording of the Dickbrains I mean other than the live. Well, there is the one recording that -- but I don't know whatever became of it. We did a recorded all our songs in the upstairs at the request of Tom Carson. Because after he came in to do his research and went back to write his story, he -- for you guys he asked us he wanted to refresh his brain about what we sounded like, so we recorded all our songs in a little cassette player in the upstairs in 1069 and sent it to him.

And I was like, "Why did you not make a copy to myself?" I'll regret that for all my life because it probably would've sounded pretty good because it was the end of the run for us.

CN: Oh man. To think that he probably had a Tom so slack.

DM: Yeah, I can see the point where it's like cassettes, to hell with cassettes.

CN: Right. Well, so just to go back this is once again oral historian You are actually I think maybe the first person to mention the Windmill. It was just for that short period of time. But that actually was a new wave bar downtown Louisville, just describe a little bit about it?

DM: It had this really incredible nautical theme for some reason. Those big 49:00posts and the ropes that were just designed to trip you. And I mean, the Windmill was such a great venue because it had that back beer garden with the broken out fencing that you could sneak into the place if you couldn't get in. If you couldn't get past ID checkpoint, you could, sneak in the back and--

CN: That's funny, you know that?

DM: You could hang out there. If you were brave, you might try to get back into go into the bar. But if nothing else, you could just sit out in the deck, beer garden and listen to the bands. Yeah, we used to sneak, yeah we snuck in there quite a few times. I always say that that was half the reason we became a band was because the cabaret laws since we were too young to be in a bar unless we were on the bill, I was -- that was a fun part. It was new wave Tuesday or 50:00something. So it was like every week there was something going on down there.

It just made life so exciting. There was always a reason to get excited because -- unless there was some sucky band that was playing, one of Chris Lee's bands.

CN: Right, one and then they went all new wave briefly and then they come--

DM: And then they -- yeah.

CN: Well--

DM: I remember the guy was getting -- got excited about it and like was going to get new wave acts into the place and there was one band that played I forget what their name was.

CN: Well, there was the Actuals from Nashville who played I know, we played with them down there.

DM: Yes, this was a bigger act then the Actuals.

CN: Was there a band from Milwaukee called the Ama-Dots that played? I remember them playing in town.

DM: They did play in town. Oh man the Google in my brain is failing.

CN: This is the second file with Doug Maxson and once again on November 7th, 2016. Doug was talking, we were talking about the Windmill and the Dickbrains I'm trying to remember exactly where we were because we were talking about out of town bands playing, there.

DM: And I think the band I was trying to reference is I think the Squeeze.

CN: You mean Squeeze, like the big the British man that is some people say Rabanne?

DM: I think it was Squeeze.

CN: Wow, I don't remember that at all, that's amazing.

DM: And I think they came out, I don't think anyone went to the show, because, they were sucky. Because they were like new wavy, at a time when we were more--

CN: That's fine, because I mean, lots of people just love that band. That's amazing if that's true.

DM: I think that sounds right. And, I'll have to research the archives, but I think it was his power play to become a venue of repute. And I think it was like he probably lost his tail on that. I would say if they had any certain guarantee or--

CN: Oh yeah and then his loyal customers didn't show up because we're above it oh.

DM: They came but they were sneaking through the back.

CN: Okay, well so then the, I mean the Dickbrains basically they -- so after 53:00many, is like a summer thing right? You broke up by the end of the summer, is that it?

DM: Yeah, we broke up a week or two into June.

CN: Okay,

DM: Yeah, it was only like --I forget what the math -- I've done it before I think it was maybe three and a half months that they existed or four -- and door to door casting.

CN: That's how to make a legend. So I don't know what you, if there's anything you want to say about that?

DM: Well, it was just interesting. It was like being in a band in this situation where things could have gone up, things back then anything could have happened. There was that sense in the air like anybody before we you know we realized that we live to defeatist city. That nothing was ever going to come out of you unless your name was Jim James. Because I remember at one show there was somebody was 54:00there from UK from a fraternity they were wanting us to come to Lexington and play a show like that.

And then that the musicality actually did take a -- did get better. I mean, it was like -- there's like -- some of the songs were like Cathy would like -- there would be like guitar solos, interjected into these songs. Where things were getting more sophisticated still on a rather shaky basis but the band could have gone somewhere and but it just -- it was just seems like it seemed the whole city just hit a wall around the - that when the when the summer started it.

When with the Windmill closing there was no venues, kind of shut, there weren't venues, the Endtables evaporated and the Blinders took a weird turn I mean that was about the time that they Sandy left the band and didn't take off, when did 55:00they take off to Philadelphia?

CN: That was a little later I think.

DM: A little later?

CN: Yeah, but they I mean, I'm trying to remember. I haven't talked to anybody, I really want to talk to Sandy and Wink about all that. I mean, I don't have, they really had an artistic Odyssey, it seems to me. I mean, like you think about that first EP and then the music they were making later were different. But anyway, okay. I think we went back to playing at the South 40. I know. But yeah, it was, it was like, there was this efflorescence and then and then yeah, 56:00there are only five bands in the city, right and two of them stopped.

DM: I mean, I'm compressing the entire summer into one because it was -- I guess what the Blinders left that -- the Philadelphia is probably in the fall. When exactly did the Malignant Growth do their switcheroo? That that was more like in '81, wasn't it?

CN: Yeah.

DM: Yeah. I don't know. That's just, it just seemed things just ground to a halt there. And the Dickbrains I forget exactly their outcome. I mean, Charles and, Cathy, had their tensions, but I think it was mostly just like Alec got tired of it and wanted to do something else. I think Cathy went to France, for a while 57:00with Michel. And so yeah, the band just evaporated one just disintegrated and that's what I think happened.

CN: One thing I remember about you personally is that, when you all were practicing everything else and when I first met you, you had shoulder length hair and my recollection is by the first show you did, you cut your hair short.

DM: I'll tell you the truth, yeah. The first show we did was that show at [ Nedelkoff's Barn ] where I had hair halfway down my ass and I'm remember somebody in the audience heckling me cut your hair up.

CN: That's funny.

DM: So I went home and probably the next week I was -- it was Steve Rigot who cut the hair, cut my hair. Yeah, it was just like, he took it all off. He cut me, he got drunk and cut me, so bad that I wound up with a bald patch on the back of my head that did not grow hair for years.

CN: Oh, that's hilarious.

DM: Yeah.

C. N; Wow.

DM: So yeah, I could be in the hippie left for that first show.

CN: Okay, all right. And then are you thinking of doing music more, what's going on with you?

DM: The impulse was to try again next band, figure out what's going to happen next but it's just like nothing worked, nothing happened really. I mean I know Charles and I tried to do stuff but it's just like there was not enough of musical juice between the two of us to get anything going. I remember one time we got Steve Jan over to play drums for us and it was like he was at his most 59:00polite and we're like oh we're going to have just like nothing really working and maybe I was even playing a bass or something who knows?

I feel like, well next time if you want to do -- we should do this, and he's like something like "I don't think there will be a next time." So we never really played, so yeah nothing happened and that's -- I just remember it like this is the city just being really horrible at that point for like the longest time and just the situation at the house was just really boring. And that was like when the Fowler's wound up living in the house both of them and just nothing was happening that's inside like was that was like early '81.

That's when I left town, that's when I went up to Connecticut, biggest mistake 60:00of my life.

CN: What were you doing in Connecticut?

DM: But you remember Dennis Matthews hippie guy that would hung around towards the end, a sketchy guy. Anyway, he wound up in Ithaca, he met a lady, he was always meeting ladies. And he met this lady and went up to be with her in Bridgeport, Connecticut. And I mean, she worked for GE or something and he persuaded her to, give him her life savings. And they were going to start this all-natural bakery and like a situation like that, a whole grain hippie bakery. And so Dennis was up there and he kept calling 1069. He was trying to get 61:00Charles to move up there and be like, his worker or helper, and Charles was not at all interested.

I was at the end of my rope, in town, just because nothing was happening. And I jumped at this chance. So I got one of those driveway cars loaded all my shit up, drove up to Bridgeport, Connecticut to work in this whole grain bakery and this is why I hate hippies. The thing was I went up there to work at this bakery while he was opening this diner next door it's all hippie stuff.

So I went become the baker, I'd learned how to bake bread whole grain bakery and but I wasn't paid a cent. I was earning equity in the business, it's like fucking hippies.

CN: So how's that paid off for you? 30 years down the road. You living off that bakery man?

DM: Somewhere I have this piece of paper where I charted all my hours that I worked at this place and I was working first two weeks I was there I worked every day, 12-hour days. I was the bakery, I work like 800 hours there and never got a cent.

CN: Wow.

DM: Never got a cent. And the whole deal was set up so that if for some reason I wanted out they would give me 200 bucks. Well, what happened was they went into bankruptcy and this it was a long, convoluted thing where we wound up taking a trip. We all packed, jumped into this car and they were going to Ithaca or something and I knew some kids in Hamilton, New York and we were they were going to drop me there. But instead they dropped me at the Greyhound bus station in 63:00Albany, New York at nine in the evening and basically drop kicked me out. I spent like two weeks just -- I wound up in Hamilton meeting.

I mean I was just like this is a -- they treat me like dirt.

CN: With no money?

DM: No money, no.

CN: Jesus.

DM: I had enough cash on me to buy a bus ticket to Hamilton, New York. But yeah they just kick me off and at that time I was said to Dennis, 'Man, aren't you going to give me any money or anything?" And he was like "You have to talk to Peg she's the one who handles the money." It was a terrible time. I went through some stuff and then it was there, from there I wound up in New York City. I hitch hiked from upstate New York to New York City and this is my story. It's like I have this incredible story of getting to the city.

I was determined. It was four in the morning I was determined that I was going to walk through the Lincoln Tunnel and this -- get all the way to the -- all the roadways, where there's no way to walk -- walking on these massive roadways. Trying to get to the Lincoln Tunnel because I'm convinced I'll be able to walk through it. And then this limousine stops and the guy says "Get in" and I'm like, this is how my new life starts, man.

CN: Woah, it's so great.

DM: And of course, I didn't know about livery drivers, I was this is this guy taking pity on me, dropped me off in New York City. And then I wind up at Sharrie Sanders' place and stay there. Overstayed my welcome there for many months and then wound up hitching a ride back to Louisville with you guys.

CN: Oh I'd forgotten that.

DM: After that New Year's show yeah.

CN: Okay, so you were gone that whole year then?

DM: I was gone that whole year, yeah. And this is what I remember best is 65:00getting letters from Charles. He was like, "Oh Louisville sucks I'm going to get out of here. Because it's not fun anymore." And I get to New York City immediately I'm getting letters from Charles saying you are in Connecticut and then New York and getting letters from Charles, "Circle X is down here. And it looks they're living in this house and it's like yeah, we could do it all these shows and there's all these shows going on. Everything's really fun."

I'm like, man I got to get back down to Louisville because it's really fun I get back down there and there's like nothing going on. And he's like Circle X is gone. You guys were on -- you're trying to make your career and that's the logical segue into Your Food.

CN: Well, yeah well I was going to say I thought I've talked to John and he said to me when you came back to from New York City, he remembers walking into the living room at 1069 he said you were looking -- you were smoking a cigarette and looking really bummed to be back in Louisville. So okay, so yeah let's talk 66:00about Your Food, you're back in Louisville and--

DM: There's a couple of Orange Orange practices. And that's, John Wolf and Tari joined it. I don't know the dynamics, but I guess she just became the drummer because she was like being den mother or something.

CN: And I think she, I think that somebody, I remember that she's liked the idea of playing the drums, she wanted to.

DM: Well, to explore the rhythmic side, she was a super little drummer. I mean, she's like a metronome she could keep the beat like nobody's business. I mean she always like tag on "Oh I'm a terrible drummer" like you can keep that beat. I got one cassette of her playing on Your Food show, and this is like, bam bam 67:00bam. It's just it's a thing of beauty anyway, so they would they did a couple practices and I was just like, I just got up I got it my nerves. It's like the second time in my life.

When I said Charles we've got to form this band, it's like this was a man, I got to figure this thing out. And I went up as soon as that for a couple of practices, I went upstairs to one night and to Tari she was living upstairs. I was like "Can I be your singer in your band?" kind of situation. And she's like, I have to talk to the boys about it and seconds. That's how I made my way into the band.

CN: So I mean, had you gotten to know John and Wolf for at all at that point or not?

DM: No, they were just these young guys that I didn't really nothing about them 68:00I've got Charles had written me a real descriptive letter about like these two young guys they were like hanging around the house and that they were okay. Except, he'd have to like figure a way to get off those stupid buttons off their jackets, because they apparently were all these stupid punk rock buttons on their jackets, and he was not approving of it neither did I.

CN: Okay. So talk about Your Food then, I mean so while you're just talking about it from your standpoint first. Just like okay so you see gotten this band and then how did it start to work out?

DM: It just started to work really well from I mean I have -- I mean I was surprised how capable I was that becoming part of it. That I really what John 69:00and Wolf doing musically it was like so unique that's what I was liked about it. And their attitudes were -- their attitudes of not giving -- not really giving a fuck about it was really.

CN: How would you characterize what was unique about?

DM: It's hard to describe it's that how they could just from song to song, it could vary from just straightforward punk songs to like these weird interactions between the guitar and the bass and where sometimes the bass would become the melodic instrument. And John's use of distortion I would have always loved that. How he can, I mean how he can like a song like 'don't be' there's not really chords and there's not like a separation between the verse and chorus, it's just like a train just going down the tracks, it's very unique.

Taking the whole, verse chorus verse chorus thing and just throwing it up in the air and seeing what happens and what how it lands. Wink once made this comment to me with regard to the whole Louisville punks' philosophy of the, this is a song because I say it's a song. And that's what I really liked about Your Food was journey they wrote outside because they did, I mean there I mean Wolf was like 17 at the time and they were just kids and they had just picked up their instruments. They didn't know how structure worked, that Wolf would just write these songs like there's in weird time signatures.

I mean there was an early song "3/4", there was a punk rock waltz he wrote it in 3/4 time.

CN: I had forgotten about it.

DM: And that song "10/4" Joe Gayles was always like -- thought it was about trucking and it was like no, it was wrote -- Wolf wrote the song in 10/4 time. I'm a champion of that band just because I think it was doing things that that most other bands weren't doing.

CN: Oh such a great band, I mean I was going to say. So when you're talking about being two for two great bands I mean it is funny I mean it's really hard. 72:00Can you think of a band that sounds like Your Food?

DM: No, and I get there are people in the in the inter webs that like stumble across Your Food and are just like I'll get emails sporadically about people are just like totally blown away because it doesn't sound like anything else. And I think it opened doors in a way for I think the younger kids that got to see Your Food. I think it opened people's the way of thinking of what a song could be. I think those like -- that whole post rock thing. I think Your Food redefined what a song is. So a song can be what -- this is a song because we say it's a song.

CN: Well, so and you felt pretty early on that that you were doing something 73:00good that was different.

DM: Yeah, I mean I was--

CN: Sorry go on I don't know who this is?

DM: Yeah, I was hitting like, new personal heights myself, I mean, just like what -- I'm not a singer, but there, I was doing this, pretty unique vocal stylings. And that's the writing I was doing. I stand by my lyrics I think I wrote some really good lyrics, which is funny, because I'm, like the world's worst poet. I've proven myself that to myself, like many times during the course of my life, like I can write really terrible, terrible stupid, poetry. But my 74:00lyrics can -- I like my lyrics and I think I can do some good stuff there.

And I don't know the band itself seems like it was really special. Your Food was a band that could have, got more significance than it did I think. Yeah, I mean, it was just -- we were part of that tide of Midwestern bands in the early '80s that, there's some fantastic stuff. Music that was me, from the Embarrassment to the Get Smart and, in between new American music I mean, that's what we're all we're going for.

CN: Yeah, and it was before that jangly REM stuff was the predominant thing I 75:00mean they were another band at the time but it wasn't -- so many bands by the mid '80s were following that or the replay.

DM: Is the point the college radio right. Became a pretty wide highway.

CN: Okay. Well, so, let's see. Yeah, so all right, so you were together. John said he thought it was only what only about 22 months, but it seemed like it must have been 10 years. I mean, what did you -- you're talking about the band, looking back on as a whole. Do you remember, like a progress through it I mean in terms of artistic progress, or?

DM: Yeah, there was a definite progress. Unlike John's comment about it being like, 10 years. I mean, we were a unit. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about 76:00there I mean. You're not just friends I mean, John and Wolf are over at the house all the time. It seemed like it was like we were always together, and not just being in a band together, but living as a band in a way of speaking and yeah. I'm sorry that there wasn't a second album for Your Food because I think it would have been like balls to the wall I mean that we really just like we -- there was a lot of that. The early mid period stuff was very special to me. But that later stuff it was it was all just like kick out the jams.

CN: What are some of the songs that you did?

DM: "Hoagie", "Burger", "Old Milwaukee", I'm a big fan of that we called it 77:00"Buttlust" that's the one where I had the washboard I was a star and "Gun Club" that's one of my favorite songs. The songs that we named after the band started riffing off right.

CN: Yeah, there was a "PIL" wasn't there?

DM: There was a "PIL" there was a there's a "Devo" as well.

CN: Oh I remember "Devo" was it pillar was it pillish, I'd see?

DM: It's "PIL" yeah.

CN: I don't know where I got pillish from something but okay all right. So--

DM: "Old New" was another of it that's that was one of my favorite lyric, lyrics was the rave up outro, where I'm like comparing like people going through the Arby's drive through with the people, the European population in starvation and 78:00like '46.

CN: Of course.

DM: You're European in '46 you can't stand up. You can't even get out of your car just pull up and eat up

CN: So I guess the other thing you could talk about is, I mean, this is the real strong period of 1069 you were living there, am I remembering that right?

DM: Yeah.

CN: And then at that point you were practicing there the Babylon Dance Band was practicing there, was that it or was there any?

DM: That was it yeah.

CN: And you and Charles were both living there and then John and Wolf were coming over all the time. And then they got the place above lots of pasta bars.

DM: The bachelor pad yeah. Because Tari and Michael O'Bannon were living in the upstairs and then when they left Wolf moved in up there. I figured when John moved that was maybe when John was hooking up with Sue. Yeah, that made it just it turned it into the super house when Wolf was upstairs.

CN: Well, so yeah but just talk about I mean it's a legendary to all of us and people who've heard us talk but what would you say was the 1069 essence?

DM: The central thing about it was the magnet. I mean that was the coolest thing because I didn't have to ever go anywhere because people were always coming over. And when that dissipated towards the end with the house on Eastern Parkway 80:00and stuff and it's like so many people weren't coming over anymore. I was like did I do something wrong or something I don't know it's just like it was--

CN: The house on Eastern Parkway, you mean--?

DM: Where Kit Luthi lived and that was like the second punk house.

CN: Oh I never--

DM: 1826 or something like that.

CN: I was never there they must they must be shunted.

DM: Wink lived there and stuff and Charles and that was like--

CN: All right

DM: You had to have been over there it's like during the Bulls' time.

CN: Okay. Oh it was Sherwood right or what no you're right we parked we came through on Sherwood and came in the alley okay oh yeah the Bulls time right, we 81:00practiced there. Well, so 1069 was the magnet and it had been the magnet for a couple years at that point and so I mean.

DM: People will go there to -- it's because I know not everyone had a phone. If you went over there you'd probably meet some you'll see someone you know. Like you could walk up and go for a walk up Bardstown road so maybe run into somebody you know.

CN: How would you describe it physically?

DM: Physically? There's that scene and in this 'It's a Wonderful Life' where 82:00Jimmy Stewart like puts his hand on the newel post and it comes loose and he says "Why do I have to live in this drafty old house anyway." Kate and I used to say that all the time at 1069 and because it was a great place to live but it was just like a dump. It was just like a shotgun house built when they didn't even bother to build them nicely.

CN: Right I mean that's one thing I noticed the pictures from the destruction is does not look like there any there's any insulation on those walls.

DM: There was no insulation at all no.

CN: That's a scandal.

DM: Yeah, the installation was that the brick tars stuff that they put over the 83:00original siding and that was the insulation. That was a fucking cold house because it was, the only heat with those two space heaters. There was one in the front room and the one in the in the living room and by that period we were like so in debt to LG&E that we, I mean we didn't burn the use them, we just left them the pilots on. Because we owed LG&E so much money that they couldn't turn the gas off but we Charles and I just felt so guilty to want to use their gas but since we couldn't pay for it.

The insulation and the cracked windows I used to have a -- there was a period where I slept in that little room off the living room. And I saw that there was a staircase to the upstairs on the side which made for this little closet, that 84:00I put a little mattress in there that was my bedroom. Like, I'd like, it was like sleeping in a coffin and I would have a glass of water I would set out, outside, in case I got thirsty in the middle the night and that would be frozen solid in the morning.

CN: Wow. So there's that going on and like you say, it's a magnet. I mean it seemed as if I'm not going to mention any names, but I can remember people who almost showed up there like they were applying to be Louisville punk rockers. Do you remember what?

DM: You could say that, it just also just attracted other people they're some scary people who would show up just like that thinking this might be the place 85:00where I can party.

CN: Right. But so yeah one thing, John said was he said "There's never anything to do so we practiced all the time."

DM: Yeah, I mean, we practiced I don't know, three, four times a week. I mean, yeah, it would be if you hanging out and get some beer, do you want to practice.

CN: Yeah, nothing better for putting the band. I mean we had a really, we practiced felt like a lot we practiced almost every night I think.

DM: Yeah, and you would you would play every song like 27 times.

CN: Fair enough I've heard this criticism. We were trying to get them right.

DM: What Charles says is right the Babylon Dance Band and Your Food were really tight bands I mean it's that much practicing like is such a good thing for a 86:00band. I mean it's no wonder you all did your sojourns like to the East Coast and were so well received because you guys could just -- it was phenomenal to watch the Babylon Dance Band. When we first saw you guys with Mark and that that was really great. But by the end, you guys were so tight and just, you were a machine to be feared, and envied, and Your Food tried to be that good.

CN: Well, the thing so I mean, maybe the last were if 1069 because, there's something I'm thinking about. Because if you come in the back, there's the kitchen, there's the living room, there's the practice room and then there's the 87:00front bedroom. Like a shotgun and so my recollection is that we would be practicing and we'd have the door closed, because we were just concentrating on practicing but very often there be, full house out in the living room, which led to comments about I think you got that song 22nd time you did it. I mean, but that's the app -- it was like the atmosphere of the house was so built around the music.

I mean, I could imagine the people who actually lived there deciding, "Hey guys, knock it off," but you never did. I mean, a little bit of teasing along those lines was the most of it.

DM: But you all were paying your rent, we were able to give the landlord's 88:00little something.

CN: Yeah, that's true. But okay.

DM: I mean that was that was a cool situation where you guys would be practicing and then we would be in the next room. And then people would be coming over and it's like all the bands are practicing, it just fomented like just a real nice social situation I think. It for all joking getting to hear the joke Babylon Dance Band every other night was pretty awesome.

CN: But okay let's see. So then the period of Your Food getting together corresponds with the advent of the Beat Club, I guess, is that right? I guess Your Food must have played at Tewligan's.

DM: We played the Tewligan's and then got banned from Tewligan's.

CN: Why was that?

DM: That was I mean, I think this was the Tari era. Yeah, it was the Tari era. 89:00One night we were playing, and I think it was Sean, Sean was in the audience and goading us.

CN: Sean Mulhall?

DM: Sean Mulhall like saying something, he said something about, Jil Thorpe and the Beat Boys and I said -- I drank too much back then. And I just like say Jil Thorpe and the Beat Boys suck and that I banned.

CN: I remember this now because they played there and they thought that they drew a good crowd.

DM: They drew a good crowd, they made that place a ton of money and yeah I said the wrong thing and yeah we got--

CN: Forgotten that wow that's really something and did you ever put you might -- you surely played there again.

DM: Yeah, we did yeah we I mean then fortunately the Beat opened so we had the venue to play and we played there and played there until he moved it to the other place and ran it into the ground.

CN: Right so the first one was on Third Street.

DM: Third Street yeah that was such, that was such a nice dive.

CN: To me that's nobody's really gotten that was a very particular atmosphere that Beat on Third Street.

DM: Yeah, it smelled like I don't even want to say, it had that that ceiling fan that I just did that was just like it was a ventilation or something I just like it was probably 100 years old. And it look like it came off an airplane or something and just like and there's some tapes that I did where you can't you just have to, get used to the fact that whoosh that's going to be behind all the music yeah.

CN: Wow. In what ways did it seem like a different way to play from Tewligan's?

DM: Well, I mean, it was just I mean, it was just so in the city. I mean, it was downtown you're going downtown. I mean the beautiful thing about Tewligan's was it was five doors down from the house. It's like you didn't have to use the bathroom at Tewligan's, we didn't have to buy their beer, yeah, downtown. It was like, yeah, you're, making a commitment. And, you guys played so many different places in the city. I'm sure that was wasn't such a big switch for you. But, just like, yeah, we're downtown, we're hanging out.

CN: No, I think you're right. And my recollection is that it felt like it was more dedicated to being a punk club than the other places we had played.

DM: This is true. Yeah, Joe Gayles made that commitment. It wasn't just like, yeah, exactly. And, I almost wish he'd never tried to become bigger, when he moved that that second location that was on--

CN: Market Street was it, Market or Main?

DM: It's on Main I think in that whole like area, maybe it's one of those buildings that got torn down. But I just remembered it's being cavernous, just like not at all, it's like, you'd be on stage and you'd be like looking for people in the, on the horizon line or something, and it was just didn't have the intimacy at all.

CN: Yes, the third one was really compact. I mean, there's probably what you 93:00think like, I don't know, 20 or 30 feet from the stage to the bar, maybe I'm just trying to think of a way to crush it but yeah. There was other thing about it once again, I'm testifying now rather than asking, I just remember I mean the fact is that most of the other bars on that block were strip clubs and the Beat had been a strip club. And, I just remember it being very sleazy. There's a scene in Sid and Nancy, where Malcolm McLaren is barking outside someplace where the Sex Pistols are playing, as if it's, an adult entertainment club.

And I always had that feeling I remember one night like going out on the street like between sets or something and there was this woman just standing there in a nightgown. I mean like clearly had just was doing business in the bedrooms 94:00upstairs and just, wanted to catch a little breeze. I mean, it was just, it was very interesting but anyway.

DM: They hadn't had that sleazy level of -- just the area was sketchy. And that that blows my mind more than anything thinking about like those all ages shows and language like that people would drop their kids off like.

CN: Drive from Bardstown road to yeah, that's really true on. On Your Food real quick I mean the one change that we haven't talked about is and is Charles Schultz replacing Tari as the drummer. Which I may just wonder obviously he was your friend so that must have been great but how did -- how did that happen? How did that affect the band?

DM: That was like actually really seamless it was like so sad when Tari decided she wanted to quit the band because I really like that unit I thought that was a cool unit. And that she decided to do whatever else and that but then that was just like beautiful it's like well what do we do now? Of course what do we do now here's Charles, Charles you want to be and it was barely a month before we were playing again. I mean it's like it happened really fast Charles he just jumped in and it just worked perfectly and then we became like then it was like we were like the bachelor band, it became something different.

I like having women in the band I think it gives you a broader thing but I like the whole camaraderie and the four guys yeah facing life. We're going to go on 96:00tour, we're going to conquer the world but then our van's going to break down.

CN: Okay. Like you said, you felt like it was a really, the tight band doing something really interesting. And you felt like, you personally, were reaching new heights as far as the stuff that you were doing. And you had the appreciation for the stuff that John and Wolf were doing. So what are you thinking, what are your visions at this point of what this band might be?

DM: It's like this band could be your life I mean, it's like, when that fall 97:00when we got the pressing of the record and started doing these tours it just seemed like the next natural thing would be to, that we would start getting written up. That we would start like, breaking through and that we'd get the contract, life was just right there, you know what I mean, we would have to work really hard for it but we were ready to work really hard for it. It's, just too bad that we had the fiasco but more importantly I think is just the changing of the musical landscape. I think we were like hitting it a wrong time is.

CN: How do you think?

DM: Well, it was like that was at the era where things were fracturing into more of the jangly, more college music I mean, and then the West Coast stuff. Wolf used to call us, in pub in print arty-hardcore, and he would use that expression to piss off both sides. Just like the art rock stuff and then the hardcore did not like us.

CN: Okay. So when you said the West Coast that's what you meant like the hardcore bands like Black Flag and Circle Jerks, MDC.

DM: I mean we were all very aware of that I mean Wolf especially in, I mean we used listen you have the Black Flag and Fear and all that stuff all the time. But it's not like we wanted to play it. I've had this conversation with Brett Ralph before and it's like Malignant Growth, the granddaddies of hardcore with a 99:00drop the South End rise and stuff. And how you can even to this day there are people there's hardcore, it's all about and Brett was the one that said we got bored. Hardcore was boring after, you can only do so much with it right?

That's what I liked about Your Food we would do all these different things it wasn't one style. But as far as becoming what we were -- where we were wanting to go I think it was like at the tail end of what we have it's like say the Gun Club would continue going on and on but it would the Gun Club would be different from what the Gun Club was in like 1983.

CN: Okay. I'm going to have to take that would be a good way. Okay. So you mentioned the existence of an album -- oh, this is part three with Doug Maxson on November 7th 2016. As I was saying you mentioned the existence of an album but that is that's the first album that any of us put out any Louisville underground band put out. I mean just talk a little bit about that. I mean how you came to do an album.

DM: How we came to do an album has a lot to do with the fact that Wolf was--

CN: John already told that part of the story is I mean if you're worried about it being--

DM: No, I'm not worried about that at all no -- yeah I mean Wolf was, since he was living by himself he was not connected to his parents so he got nice Pell Grant and that that finance with other funds, the majority of the recording and 101:00release of the pressing of the album. I will go on record and saying there's another rare form of my being an insistent person. When we first started talking about recording an album because we recorded that five-song demo with Tari Barr that was one of the Michael O'Bannon headed that four track and he recorded a demo of yours as well.

CN: I don't think anybody has that any more.

DM: Somebody should, I have it.

CN: You do you really?

DM: I think I've got a copy yeah.

CN: Not this conversation.

DM: So we started talking about okay we're going to record it out and we're 102:00going to go into the recording studio and then though they immediately it's like it's I don't know it's it seems so many bands do this. It's almost like you're shooting yourself in the foot we're going to go into the recording studio, but we're only going to record four songs. We're going to like do an EP because they're so popular they're going to do a 10 song EP or maybe one of those 7 inch like 33 and a third EPs. It's like we're going to go to all the trouble of going into a recording studio and we're only going to record four songs.

Even today we'll get into this later and I might my whole MO and go into recording studios is a lot of people like to do perfection, I'm just like "Man just get this done, just get this down." And so I was the one that pushed for us to record an actual not enough songs for a full album. And so that was so we went into Gary Falk's studio and Fern Creek is based his garage studio and blew 103:00his mind. I guess probably Falconetti blew his mind more than we did.

CN: And he recorded in that [ No Fun ] demo too.

DM: He did yeah I didn't realize that until a lot later that year he recorded that which next time you talk to Tara, tell her she didn't -- I don't understand why can't go buy a new fan album. I know she's got some mad skills and it's better you better get that goddamn album out because before I died. I like that it's like these all these albums that I want -- I want that Babylon it should be a two disc a double disc probably a Babylon Dance Band album. And I want that Falconetti album, I want that Monsters album it's like why aren't people giving 104:00me these albums that I want?

CN: So you insisted on--?

DM: That we were going to do a bunch of songs so we went to Gary Falk's studio and we each took, we each had our half -pint of whiskey because we'd graduated from the fortified wines.

CN: What a great line.

DM: And it was a great line that Tara said, once I think about Charles who had to go to bed it was like, looks like he's riding the Night Train Express downhill fast. So there we were, we recorded how many songs did record? We recorded that's nine songs, nine songs. We recorded a version of "Order" that was so bad that we didn't we just cut it. The kind of song that just cannot be 105:00done in a studio. We recorded the album in one evening and then went back a second time and mixed it.

I think pretty much everything was one take in contrary to standard practice it was all pretty -- it was all not only was it live but I sang along with the recording rather than overdubbing the vocals. The only overdubs on that album was "Corners" has this shortwave radio frequency in the break on that and then John put in a guitar solo in. Was it on "Leave" I forget? And then we had the 106:00cassette of the Tewligan's show that had "Order" on it that the beautiful version that appeared.

That night's recording, that tape is labeled "Live and on our best behavior" because that was when Tewligan's allowed us to play there again after being banned for the almost a year.

CN: That's so great. So you've done that -- I mean, I wonder to what extent, I mentioned is the first album that any of us did, I mean, were you very aware of that? Were you like I mean, did you think about that? Did you think that we've gone where the Babylon dance band never tried?

DM: I mean yeah, we were aware of I think it's in retrospect it seems bigger than I remember it. I think because it was of course -- did [ Jil Thorpe ] have another too?

CN: Did she ever hang around? [ Jil Thorpe ] is great, so well that that's, I said sarcastically I'm just joking on what Doug said earlier.

DM: But then yeah so I mean we had an album, it's like if you have an album it seems like you're -- there's no way of avoiding success. It's not just like you had this crummy little single, we had actual album out and yeah and they actually got distributed by a Dutch East distributed it and it got a couple of 108:00reviews and got panned too.

CN: Oh, really?

DM: Yeah, it got panned a couple times I think. Maximum Rocknroll refused to review it because we weren't hardcore enough.

CN: Wow.

DM: Because we were kind of pussy, pussy rock yeah. And there's somebody else who reviewed it but I can't remember who it was somebody out and not locally. Because it did not get reviewed in town. That album never got any mentioned in any anywhere. Not the Courier, not Main Street nowhere. There's no mention of that album that's why my metaphor for Louisville was always been is if the god Saturn it's going to eats its children and as required it vomits them backup so that is.

This one this one reviewer like listened to the A side and just like saying it 109:00was just like the worst crappy like new way nonsense bullshit and that he was like literally about to just throw the record out the window when we turned it over onto the B side and played "Order" and proclaim that like, the greatest thing ever.

CN: That's funny. So then you all did a little bit of touring.

DM: Yeah, we toured for that. It was like, in no fault of Wolf. He was our manager too, he was like this 18-year-old kid, managing the band as well, because he had all the connections is not to put him down, but we just like yeah. We did a tour we -- it was like we drove to our, first tour was we played this empty ballroom in Baltimore and then we went to DC where he Wolf become 110:00friends with what was her name, Catherine Rice?

CN: Barbara?

DM: Barbara Rice yeah and play this Oscar's Eye gig that went pretty well I think that was the one where people were overheard like people saying like "Oh there's four walking skeletons."

DM: Oh, right. Yeah, and then we did the second to that was in October and the second one was like maybe in November that we played Maxwell's and had a packed house.

CN: Oh really?

DM: Like we're really well received.

CN: Who did you play with?

DM: I don't remember.

CN: Were you the headliner?

DM: We think we were I mean we were out of town, the out of town band made money. Like, we made about $300 or something. I mean, it was like that was like, 111:00okay, here this is it. We're taking off, you better strap yourselves in boys because it's the beginning. And then the next night we were played at the Rat club in Boston the van broke down like somewhere up in Connecticut or somewhere like the van just died. And like we're like an underpass got there was an overpass that John got us to and we just like what do we do now? We're in a dead van and we'll never get to Boston and then John somehow got the van going again.

And we'd show up at Boston and go to the Rat club and it's like pouring down rain and the band we were playing with doesn't show up the local band. They got this last minute like rock and roll band to come in and they -- were proud because they had their they had a punk rock song they it was this and nobody showed up. There was a mystery third band that was like maybe like one of the 112:00locals like heroes was playing with maybe somebody from, REM or something was going to happen. And we finally figured out that was just like how the bartender's got their friends in was like on this third bands guest list.

And so we did this whole huge drive up to Boston and basically played for like two people and our guarantee like vaporized. We were supposed to like have some place to stay and that like just vaporized as well. We each got like two drink tickets that was how we got paid. We've got two drink tickets and it was it was just a nightmare we loaded up and we were in the back alley and just like that was where they had the stack crates of empty beer bottles and we just started throwing beer bottles at the back of the place.

It was like Boston we were we want it we were hoping that some of the beer bottles some of the cases were full that they're empties and we were like, "Well, we could take them all down and take them to Coach Stop for, 80 cents." It was just pouring rain we got out and started getting, heading out of Boston and we got to this toll road and we didn't have money for a toll, to pay the tow toll.

CN: Wow.

DM: We had no money I mean, it was like nobody had a quarter maybe, and it was an automated toll booth you so we just ran it, just like left Boston, the sound of this the siren going off behind us.

CN: Oh, man. That's great, that's perfect.

DM: Yeah, that was as beautiful then the final tour was in -- it's January let's go, North and that was show we should -- went to DC and we had a show scheduled in Richmond but the van broke down before we could get out of DC and then we did that show at the 9:30 club which was probably one of our best shows ever. And even though it was snowing, there's some people actually showed up and, in my fantasy world, somebody recorded that show I just have not found the tape.

That was the set that we did "Order" after we recorded that song. We I think we only played it live one more time. We played it, but we sped it up and made it into this like monster dance hit. I mean, it was just so cool to watch the 115:00audience just like going wild over this.

CN: Oh, that's so cool.

DM: And then for an encore which we did cover of Z.Z. Top's "La Grange" where we didn't really know the song, John -- we knew the riff. And I knew the, there's lots of pretty women down there. So it's like, I would just like, did that and then I had a tuning a pitch pipe that I played as a harmonica, I mean, it was, it was a brilliant show. And then we drove home and, the clutch went out in West Virginia and Maryland. The whole shebang just died on us. And that was the end show. That was the end of it -- having to call John's father to drive up from Louisville with a station wagon that could tow the van back to Louisville was 116:00that was the end of the band van.

CN: Well, so how did you feel after that?

DM: Pretty devastated. I mean, it was like, we've lost all our money I've spent, my rent money like trying to get us out of that, that situation and get home. And then it was just like, I remember about a week later, we scheduled the band practice and John showed up like without his guitar and amp and saying, telling us how, he had to sell it because he's becoming a family man. Because Sue was pregnant at the time and yeah that was. I don't know how long the band would 117:00have lasted anyway because there was that whole like, divide of stay in town go to New York,

CN: Who would decide?

DM: Well, John obviously wanted to stay in Louisville but Charles was going back to U of L at that point. I think he could probably even had a job or something so he was he was inclined to stay. Kate and I were just itching to get up to New York and I think Wolf might have gone for that as well. So that there was that yeah, that's devastating. I mean, I wish we kept it together enough to record a second album had a little faith that, things weren't at an end and everything.

CN: I don't know if you have any particular thoughts about it, but I mean, a band ending is, it's such a big thing because it's like a gang. You've got 118:00personal relationships, you've got your creativity and it's also a business failure. I don't know if that -- if you have any thoughts on that I've given mine?

DM: Yeah, I mean, it was really just the fates just being just being a dick to us? And I mean, I take that stuff personally. Yeah, that's it, everything was just like the things -- I mean, having the band was like something to hold on to, in this life that was like, I mean, at that point, 1069 was just a wreck of a place and, just that existence, doing crappy jobs, and to not even have like the band.

CN: Where did you work during that time period?

DM: I worked, there was a period where I worked as a busboy at the Sweeney's 119:00Sports Page downtown in that big office tower down there. Kate had a job there as a waitress and then I worked -- she got a job at the Breckinridge Inn waitressing there. And I got a job cleaning up the lounge in the mornings. It was like one of the weirdest jobs I've ever done. Because they're the self-service restaurant and then the downstairs bar I cleaned up the bar it was like one of the nastiest jobs I've ever had.

You're doing this just to keep going and then the band is just poof. That's when you have a party when things get out of hand and you have to leave town really fast.

CN: Right well I was just going to say I don't know if you want to put a period on it there I mean that sort of the perfect place to end it. It was January when went when you came back from West Virginia and a few weeks later I can't remember who played in that Super Bowl.

DM: I don't either. Yeah, because I mean that was not the point, the point was the pony keg of Little Kings yeah.

CN: What's your records? John and I talked about a little bit but John wasn't there when all went down. He said he couldn't remember if he was sleeping in the other room or if he'd gone home.

DM: He'd have gone home because he wouldn't have been able to sleep in the other room that was too much noise going on.

CN: I mean if you don't want to talk about this.

DM: No, I can I don't mind talking about it because I just like actually I've been doing a final copy edit on the material I wrote about that era now. Then 121:00there's have an autobiography of that era and I've recently just like finished doing a final typo hunt and stuff, from the file size like all very fresh in my mind. It was just like very fresh in my mind because it was like it wasn't, we were there was the party going on upstairs with the [unintelligible - 02:01:21] and there was another one of those why do I have to live in this drafty old house anyway points for me. Because I just got a little drunk and then start banging on the walls and just hearing the plaster rattling.

CN: Now this is upstairs?

DM: This is upstairs yeah.

CN: That's where the party was going on?

DM: That's where the party was and that's so I like instigated that because there's I started like hitting the wall really hard and denting the plaster and then and then the South End crew just took over and it just started, I remember 122:00will Wolf coming. He was in the other room it came running into the wall and did this like polka step like up the wall and it came running in just like kicking off the wall and then the chair start going and then this is.

It's again I wrote it down it's so much of this is fresh in my mind and just at some point like the plaster dust in the air got so thick that I just had to leave, I mean it was I couldn't breathe. And then just that utter devastation of that hole just being punched bigger and bigger and bigger and all the crap that just was falling out of the house onto the Arby's parking lot, until one point like that their managers for coming out in like yelling at us. Like because we were like shit was falling on the cars and the people there and at one point like this guy was really mad and was like, "Hey fuck you stop throwing shit on 123:00my car."

And those guys up there were like "Hey fuck you come up here and do something about it."

CN: Wow.

DM: And then just yeah then waking up the next day and thinking you have that like, pretty millisecond when you wake up and you don't remember what happened the day before. And then you remember what happened and it was like holy shit. And the first thing I did was I went down to Walgreens and bought a roll of film and that's when I took my final picture and then it says--

CN: It went up on Doug's website hardcore Louisville, punk award spaces. Is that the right?

DM: Louisvillepunk. Yeah, awardspace.com. Yeah.

CN: All right. There you go. So you took the pictures.

DM: Took the pictures.

CN: And I mean great instinct but why did you do that?

DM: Because I understood that this was the end that and just because I wanted to have evidence and I've never seen anything like that devastation like it's like what this party went really wrong. I mean and for just for the I mean this hole in the side of the house I mean it went through completely there was nothing there but the studs and the hole God it was like 20 feet long or something, 4 feet wide. It was a massive gaping wound and I knew I needed photos of it. I wish I'd probably bought a couple of rolls of film and here's the thing, here's 125:00the worst thing was it took several days for anything to happen.

For there to be any official repercussions and the way it played out was like to my worst nightmare was I was alone in the house in the afternoon like a Monday or Tuesday or whenever when they was a knock on the back door. Just a rat, tat, tat and I like got up from the living room and walked into the kitchen and I saw it was the landlord, not the landlord but the print shop owner next door and his sidekick. I just like quickly like veered into the bathroom walked into the bathroom and hoped that they would just go away, that maybe they hadn't seen me rat, tat, tat and I was like okay I got to go for the door and just like opening the door to T. Paul Monk and like him to say "What happened? And just like were 126:00you going to tell me about this?"

I was like you [ [xxxin'] ] drove by this house so many times today, because he didn't know about that until someone came -- was walk off the street came into the print shop and said "Did you know that this house next door has this big fucking hole in it?" And I'm just like dude you drive by that you want me to come over and tell you about this? You didn't see it? Like you go through the Arby's drive yourself you didn't look up or you didn't see the debris field?

CN: So what is [ [your answer] ]?

DM: What I said was there was a party it got out of hand and so he was like grilling me some more and I just threw Wolf under the bus, he was like "Weren't you going to come over and tell me about this?" I was like well that's upstairs, I live downstairs and then he was like "Well, when Wolf comes over send him over I'm excited to talk to him." And then this is the beautiful part was Wolf went over there to talk to him and say what was what's going on and the guy asked, T 127:00ball, the landlord's proxy asked Wolf "What happened?

I mean was were I've heard about LSD and how it can just make people crazy and lose it, was there something like that going on?" And Wolf was like "No just beer." His sidekick just like slams his fist on the desk. He just said "Goddammit I've never seen beer do that to anyone." I told Wolf later I said you should have said that's because never been to one of our parties.

CN: Well, so you're a very responsible homeowner now, a father, family man. I mean I'm just curious what you think about that now. Like--

DM: It's part I mean there's -- I'm I can be ashamed.

CN: I'm not suggesting you have to but I just I wonder how you reflect on it I guess.

DM: Well, again that that was upstairs. Now there's been, I mean yeah as a more responsible older person that was a terrible -- the whole thing, I mean it was just, that whole living situation was so preposterous that we were able to like get away with not paying rent, not paying utilities, things just like always getting back into the hole getting deeper into a hole. I don't know it's like 129:00how Your Food used to do a lot of spray painting around town. And I've proof of that.

There was the one night that we got in the car with Bruce Witsieppe and well were drunk and drove down to the Belvedere and spray painted the Belvedere with that was with Your Food and Falconetti graffiti. That was another morning when I woke up and things felt really great until I remembered what we'd done the night before. There's a degrees of differences here because I felt really ashamed for that about that. Bridge underpasses not so much it was like you're facing something for other people.

It's the same way I feel about graffiti today is, on the back of a garage your alley buildings, I don't care, that doesn't bother me. But when I walk in, say Tyler Park and somebody has tagged a tree this I'm just like seriously you 130:00tagged a tree?

CN: Where's I mean, I guess my reaction to it is I mean, I don't think I would have done it at the time. I really would have been it would have been interesting if I had been over there I'm not sure how I would have reacted. And I just wonder how you felt in the middle of it. I mean, I'm once again I am not saying that in any judgmental away because I think that's the way, that I'm a pussy but I mean, like when you were doing it, did you just feel was it just like on a what the hell vibe or was there only because when you said to yourself, what are we doing?

DM: Yeah, I mean there was actually, there's a level of catharsis involved, just it was getting a lot of stuff out. I will say, I mean, I did not break the hole that was not, that was that was people that did not live our house.

CN: Good yeah excellent point. I don't know, it's just such an interesting -- it's such a beautiful like I say it's such a beautiful punctuation for the end of a particular moment in that scene.

DM: Yeah, it is so perfect it is such a -- yeah it's like there's a -- I think when the -- I think there's something similar like when the when the Embarrassment broke up.

CN: Oh, I don't know.

DM: Because there's a Big Dipper song called Ron Klaus wrecked the house or something. Where it just sounds like another wall smashing party at the end of the band's career.

CN: Wow. Wow. I never knew what that was about I didn't recognize the name. That's interesting. Okay. Well, I'm content to stop this here and maybe do another session.

DM: Definitely, yeah.

CN: And I'll have a chance to listen to these. I don't know if there's anything else that you think is important to say.

DM: No, I can't think of anything if something comes to me then I'll give you a drop on the phone.

CN: Okay. Great, I'm going to hit stop./AT//