The 'new' Dicks were completely different people than my Texas band mates. Lynn and I were close from the very start. Her energy brought a whole different side of me out. I felt a total dedication to the band and was able to define it by actually saying those words with no shame. she had been drumming since her days with the Wrecks in Reno. All young girls playing the pure punk rock sound with out the need to dress up an look punk Joan Stebbins later played with Imperial Teen. She also became one of my really good friends. Bessie on guitar. i never got to know her very well, but seemed sweet. Singer Helen Pardy was the crazy one of the band. and in day to day life too. great singer and a blast to hang around. she and Lynn were best of friends and Helen was always a part of he picture. Phillip, Lynn, Helen, and i would spend lots of Sunday after noons drinking boxes of cheap wine. playing AC/DC at top volume they lived tight on Haight St near Clayton so parting was on the menu all the time.....Sebastian was a very pseudo-macho, German in every way. A little defensive and ready to get pissed at the drop of a hat. He was really a handsome guy and had tons of girl friends. Usually beautiful girls willing to take care of him. . He respected me a lot, though. And he played good. He was really into being a punk rocker. Sweet, but it was hard to bring that out sometimes. He never thought Tim was punk enough to be in the Dicks. This, of course, caused problems right from the start. I was compleatly infatuated with Tim. He and I spent tons of time together. He was a very creative guitarist and loved playing music.. i had this big crush on him and gave him total freedom to sort of lead the direction the music was going in. This started a little bit of trouble with the other members. Debbie hated it when he and I would leave her notes offering ideas how to do business better. I mean she hated it. Although we were practicing almost everyday at the Vats and writing lots of songs no body was having too much fun.
The Vats were starting to get a bit scary with a new crew of crazy people hanging out. Meeting up with nuttie people in the hall ways became common. A busy dominatrix lived on the top floor...like 7 flights up. her whole trip was humiliating straight married men. 10 or so of us would be drinking beer on the stairways outside the building. a cab would pull up and out would come some guy dressed in a skirt and blouse, tacky hand bag, and lipstick. we knew the dominaatrix had ordered the guy to dress in simi drag and climb the stairs to her beautiful abode and get his ass beaten for an hour or so. Dave Dictor made friends with her and used to watch from a closet or something...in her room while she "worked". i wanted to watch too, but men in hose never turned me on. when they walked by us we always yelled at them and laughed and asked real loud..."gee, i wonder where the pretty lady might be going tonight?". soon, though, it was starting to get a bit crazy so we began looking for another place to practice. we knew of a cool woman, Carrol Lennon, who had a practice studio on Capp St...the street of the poorest prostitutes in SF. Capp, between 16th and 17th. Rough. However, we went to look at the place and it as very cool. plus Carol was so kind and so cool. an English women with two young teen boys. we decided to move into Capp and start practicing there. we practiced three days a week, and some weeks more. although we didn't get along to well as friends we were all very into the music. we wrote the songs that ended up on the album THESE PEOPLE. we were playing lots of shows around SF. Black Flag and Fear and MDC and DRI all still were bands we played with a lot. a new place in SF became a venue for live music. The Farm. a cultural center, really much like the places i would see later on in Europe. People lived there and used the space of everything from day care to after school places for kids. all kinds of music as going on in the Farm. it had a big music room and big stage. Playing there was always good. Soon we started recording These People. Klus Fluoride was producing. although Jello came by the studio almost everyday to check on the progress. He and I were always friendly. he loved to talk and give his opinion on everything. He is one of the very smart people in the world. He never failed to give me a great deaal of respect and always complimented my singing. Recording These People is another bit of a blurr to me. I never had money for day to day livin g but always had money for beer. Phillip was there druing the recording almost every day and Debbie was also there as manager. she and Phillip and I loved drinking ith each other so beer was always on hand. Lynn, Tim, and Sebastian never had much to drink. I do remember Tim and Sebastian having lot of different ideas on how songs should sound. the sound i was always very proud of was about my child hero George jackson....the Black Revolutionary who was killed in prison. and i loved Sidewalk Begging.
a ong about the new population of homeless people that were starting to be on the streets of the city--everywhere. the recording went smooth, i guess...because one day it was finished and we had a big show record release party. i loved record release parties.
Reagan was becoming more and more fascist. he had invaded Granada, broke the airline strike, laughed as the streets were filling up ith homeless people. and the atmosphere in the punk rock scene was geting more and more political. one of the meeting places of the political gatherings was a free lunch room known as the Zoup Kitchen. people started lining up about an hour before it opened this was at the Methodist church about half a block from the apartment Phillip, Debbie, and I shared. so i was there everyday...along with the MDC guys, and most other bands of any street dignity! a block from haight St. and tons of hippies and punks were coming together to eat. Skin heads were starting to appear in SF, but most of these guys were yesterday's punk rockers, and so every body was pretty friendly with them. Most of them came to Dick's shows and were nice to me. Uniting us all was an older guy called Diamond Dave. He would tell us he had been the one who turned Bob Dylan on to marijuana . i believe him. he was a street poet and looked upon himself as the thread to tie the hippies, punks, and skinheads together. Dave Whittiker. still around SF. the Cozmic Lady was also an older hippie poet. she would get up and say poetry ato the eating crowd everyday. punks would do acoustic shows....the cooks and cleanup staff were all dedacated to feeding the hungry. It was a real moment in SF political conscieness. i espically kept an eye on a volunteer. he was there everyday. thick build, black hair and big dark eyes. a beautiful smile and seemed really shy, but very dedacated to being there to help cook and clean everyday. i found myself looking to see him hen i went to the Zoup, which was about every day. the 1984 democrtic convention ws in SF that year. so huge plans being made to demonstrate. The Dicks were planning to record a 45 single around this time. we had written a song called I Hope You Get Drafted. Pointing to the apolitical folks i so disdained. I as wishing the 'give a shit' types would get drafted. i had to go through it o iwanted everybody else to. it would certenly put ome thinking into a blank head. MDC included thi on one of their compulation albums. they were running their own label now R Radical Records. when the Dicks recorded Hate Teh Police we made up our own label since we did not have one and knew we never would. we called it Radical Records. I knver knew how R Radical came to be but it did, so ironically WE ended up doing the single ep on R Radical. we got the great punk rock producer, who had produced KILL FROM THE HEART, Spot. i thought the ep should have a name. PEACE? i called it. it came from my wanting peace in the world, but wondering if it could ever come. the song on side one was NO FUCKING WAR. people loved that song and sang along with it at every show.
we recorded it at Howie Kline's studio... one Sat. all three ongs. No body asked me, I hope You get Drafted and No Fucking War. Somehow we Had Spot in town to produce the project. what a great guy to work with. a ture nerd and musical wonder. That he liked the Dicks was a real honor for us. His method was to let the band play and do it's thing. ever so often giving a little hint of what might make the song ork better. for No Fucking War we had a bunch of friends show up and sing on the Chorus.....everyone shouting as loud as they could..."we don't want no fucking war..and e don't want to fight no more..." It mde me think of the last time i had lots of friends inging along in the studio. When the Texas Dicks were recording Kill from the Heart and we recorded Anti-Klan Pt @, with Tim Kerr from the Big Boys on Dobro and all ou friend doing back ground vocals on the "We'll fight you" chorus. Most days i was thinking of Buxf, Pat, and Glen and wondering how they ere doing and what they were up to. i figured they hated me so i didn't call.
I was living a sweet life, always broke, eating in soup kitchens and living free with my two best friends. sometimes though i felt a little empty nd lonely. who dosen't feel tht way sometimes?