Article on the 80s Bloomington, Indiana, punk scene

This is an edited version of an article on the punk scene in Bloomington, Indiana, in the 80s...

Since the ’70s, Bloomington Has Been a Midwestern Haven for Punk

by Sierra Vandervort

Bloomington’s thriving punk scene of the ’70s and ’80s paved the way for today’s punk bands. Pictured here, Seven Seconds performing at Ricky's Canteena, a Bloomington all-ages club, in 1984. | Photo courtesy of Chris Crewell

It’s 1976: The Ramones have just released their first studio album, and the Sex Pistols are still a basement nightclub band in Sheffield, England. Before punk rock seized American counterculture, the Gizmos had already recorded their first EP in Bloomington, their hometown. The protopunk band sent some of the initial shock waves of punk throughout Bloomington, inspiring young musicians across the city to join what would become a revolution in music.

Soon, punk and new wave groups started popping up throughout Bloomington and Indianapolis. The Dancing Cigarettes, Moto X, Rosebloods, Walking Ruins, The Slammies, Pit Bulls on Crack, Dandelion Abortion, the Zero Boys — suddenly everyone was starting a punk band.

“Most everyone was just happy to be part of something that was fun, rebellious, and socially satisfying,” says Indiana-music historian and ’80s punk musician Rick Wilkerson. “Before punk, it wasn’t really possible to start playing in a band unless you were already an accomplished musician. Punk allowed that rule to be broken. All you needed was an instrument and desire.”...

With few local opportunities to play professionally, most Bloomington bands had to play in friends’ basements and bars to be heard. Eventually, more venues started popping up around town to accommodate the growing counterculture. Bullwinkle’s nightclub, which was located in the basement of the building where Serendipity is now, became associated with the punk and new wave scene in the early ’80s, when longtime DJ Gary Indiana started booking shows upstairs, which soon became Second Story nightclub.

Before he went on to play guitar for nationally acclaimed groups, including the Lemonheads, John Strohm was active in Bloomington’s punk scene in the ’80s and has since chronicled his time in B-town in a series of blog posts for the Indy nonprofit Musical Family Tree.

“Those shows were life-changing,” he writes in his blog of the punk culture in Bloomington, which is often looked to as one of the most progressive in the country by musicians and fans. “I wanted to be a part of that world more than I’d ever wanted anything. … That became the singular, driving force in my life, which continued to be the focus for the next fifteen years.”

Wilkerson started his punk career when he bought his very first Korg MS10 synthesizer. By early 1981, he and his band, Amoebas in Chaos, were performing at Bullwinkle’s alongside some of the peaking local punk bands of the time. It was a small but welcoming community, he says.

“Everyone seemed to be glad to find kindred spirits,” Wilkerson says. “It was still a very small and marginalized subculture that was isolated from the mainstream.”

With their multicolored mohawks, safety-pin piercings, and aggressive fronts, the punk kids of the ’80s were a far stretch from the hippie counterculture of their parents. With the punk scene came a whole new world of invention and visual expression. Mike Whybark, who chronicled the ’80s Bloomington punk scene for The Ryder, and still does on Musical Family Tree, says this helped make the “punk experience” more authentic and intimate.

“It was all new, so it was explicitly cast outside of the mainstream marketing channels of American pop culture at the time,” he says. “It was disruptive and threatening to day-to-day political, behavioral, and sexual norms.”...

Read the complete article here.

Reviewer description of the midwest's punk scene

An edited version of a review I found where the guy gives some good description of music and the scene in the midwest...

The Inarguable -  Cornfields and Black Lace: The Midwest Post-Punk Resurgence

When one thinks about the Midwest, only two things come to mind: Chicago...and endless cornfields, because apparently that's all that happens to be out here. If that isn't bad enough, the general consensus about music out here runs the gamut from Nachtmystium to Slipknot. Yes sir, we Midwesterners sure have an outstanding reputation. Deep beneath the wallet chains, Tripp pants, and drug addictions, something much more glorious (and legitimately downtrodden) in seedy late bars and warehouses throughout our fair land. Call it post-punk, peacepunk, goth rock, or one of its many other names, it is impossible to deny the presence of such new greats as Cemetery, Anatomy of Habit, Population, and Kam Kama (more on the last two later), among many others, in this burgeoning Midwest scene.

In post-punk's early '80s heyday, the Midwest United States proved to be one of the most reserved regions in the country. With the no wave scene to the East, deathrock to the West, and darkwave's earliest beginnings with San Antonio's Lung Overcoat to the South, Middle America found itself in the position of the middle child: appreciated, but only in passing. Though success found itself by way of notable Lincoln, Nebraska act For Against, the first to blur the line between post-punk and "dreampop," many groups like Chicago's short-lived DA! ended up swept under the proverbial rug...

Kam Kama's scope strays from post-punk's usual "doom and gloom" outlook for something much more...nostalgic, which is exceptionally fitting for Middle America. I don't know if many of you have ventured outside the Chicago area, but most of the Midwest hasn't been able to keep up with its concentrated metropolitan areas, leaving most places somewhere in the mid-to-late 1980s, complete with bright, albeit fading, neon clothing, boom boxes, and headbands. Sounds straight out of a John Hughes movie? Well...it kind of is, and Kam Kama's The Tiled House carries that sort of happy, albeit faded feeling which accompanies those sorts of memories. The Tiled House's ethereal, subdued guitars and nasally, endearing vocals (courtesy of bassist and Fosdyk Well member Scott Ferguson) echo the sort of nostalgia one feels when flipping through their high school yearbook's yellowed pages or watching a dusted VHS of home movies. It's a happy sort of sensation, but with a longing for times past.

Read the complete review here.

A piece on a black women who led a mid-80s punk band

An edited version from the piece on the website Please Kill Me...

Jen B Larson

In 1983, the Seattle band Bam Bam, fronted by a talented, elegant Black woman named Tina Bell, created a sound and lyrical foundation for a genre that white men with knit hats and plaid shirts would later make famous as “grunge.” Bell was backed by husband Tommy Martin and lifelong friend Scott Ledgerwood (“Scotty Buttocks”). Jen B. Larson digs deep into the archives to give Tina Bell, who died in 2012, her props as the uncrowned “Queen of Grunge.”

You probably already know the cultural reproach to some extent, but did you know that before Nirvana, before Alice in Chains, before Stone Temple Pilots, a Black woman fronted (what is likely) the first grunge band? If not, the reason you wouldn’t know that is in no way your fault; the story has been kept off the record and out of print.

Bam Bam – 1983. Photo by John Seth

It is not a coincidence that in rock, R&B, and jazz (to name a few genres), Black women, often uncredited for decades, stand at the helm. In general, in most histories, women’s participation has been disregarded from the get-go or cut from the narrative after-the-fact. Though women have played key roles in musical innovations over time, we tend to notice them in hindsight, and only if dedicated crate-diggers are meticulous in excavating the past.

The motif is especially apparent for Black women.

In 1983, singer Tina Bell contributed foundational material for the earliest incarnations of a genre white men with knit hats and plaid shirts made famous when she co-founded the forgotten post-punk, proto-grunge and sludge metal Seattle band, Bam Bam, with her husband Tommy Martin and lifelong friend Scott Ledgerwood (“Scotty Buttocks”). Bam Bam was christened when Tina Bell and Tommy Martin combined their surnames into an acronym (Bell And Martin). The two had met a few years earlier when Tina answered an ad for a French tutor to help her with the lyrics of “C’est Bon Si” for a production by the Langston Hughes Theater with Mt. Zion Baptist Church. They married, had a son named T.J... and naturally, formed a rock band– the order of events is up for debate.

 

Bam Bam began as a three-way union among Tommy Martin’s lecherous guitar scales and Scott Ledgerwood’s thunderous bass strokes, both submerged under Tina Bell’s polished delivery of transcendental poetic doom. The documentation of Bam Bam (their recordings, photos, and videos) capture the essence of the band every punk wish existed. The irony is… they did exist, loudly, while everyone looked the other way.

As evidenced in videos captured at the time, her presence as a front person was striking, moving, and energetic. Over email, Scotty told me, “Tina had an inspirational aura about her that was absolutely regal, but without arrogance. Even when she was ‘raging’ on stage, her movement was so fluid and graceful. She had such confidence on stage; I’d feed off her strength. If a crowd didn’t know us or respond well, she’d lead us on with more ferocity!”...

Though a precursor to the grunge movement (and one who outlasted other early bands), Bam Bam, is hardly recognized even by music highbrows or historians. In Catherine Strong’s 2011 essay Grunge, Riot Grrrl and the Forgetting of Women in Popular Culture, a critique of the invisibility of women in grunge, Bam Bam are not even named. For context, after several years of exploring women in early punk, I had never come across Bam Bam until my friend (a righteous record collector) recently mentioned them to me. I spent weeks researching Bam Bam and Tina’s legacy (strangely, there isn’t much on the Internet) and talking with her ex-bandmate Scotty, who has archived press for the band on his website.

From Buttocks Production

Turns out, in the ‘80s, Bam Bam performed at big Seattle fests, shared bills with popular bands, created videos that made it to TV, and were twice-honored as Best NW Band by listeners of KCMU/KEXP. Although they were dedicated, fiery, and played to big crowds who loved them, the scene didn’t want to embrace them. There may be more than one answer to this, but more than certainly…

The story of Bam Bam and their fierce front lady Tina Bell has been slighted more than once.

In the book Everybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge, subjects recollect Bam Bam as a “three-piece,” entirely leaving out Tina Bell. In 2015, a Wikipedia entry on Tina Bell was reported for “a lack of sources” and deleted on Christmas Day...

Bam Bam – Mike Patnode photo

Sadly Tina, who fronted Bam Bam until 1990, died in 2012. So, although she isn’t here to share her memories or feelings, people close to her continue to fight for visibility of her legacy. “Fight for” might even be an understatement. Scotty actually risked his life in 2017 to save Bam Bam’s master recordings from a house fire (a story for another day).

Recognizing social and political motivators for the collective gatekeeping of Tina’s work, he adeptly points to racism and misogyny as probable suspects. “America was certainly fucking not ready for a Black girl up front in a hard band let alone as a media sweetheart no matter how gorgeous she was,” Scotty laments. “As far as Bam Bam being suppressed? There’s probably several reasons, but race and gender clearly played a major role. The continued reluctance by Seattle to accept her is maddening. Part of it is people are uncomfortable around the race issue… it’s like ‘kill the messenger’ when I try to talk to folks about it.”

He says exhaustedly, “So yeah I’m pissed and puzzled by it all.”

What confuses me most is: Not to mention Tina’s talent and beauty, how can anyone miss the significance of a Black woman fronting a hard rock band in the ‘80s?

In a 2012 article in The Stranger, Jen Graves writes, “Bam Bam struggled, in part because audiences weren’t on board with an African American female punk singer. ‘The press compared her to Tina Turner, as if that made any sense,’ Tommy (Bell’s husband) says.”

Nearly 40 years have gone by and neither the talented band nor their one-of-a-kind frontwoman Tina Bell have garnered the respect they deserve–even in retrospect by important figures in their own city– for their role as early architects of grunge. After recognizing the injustice, to me, the verdict is quite clear: Tina Bell, the brilliant frontwoman, stunning vocalist, lyricist, and performer, is overdue for her crown. In order to get the facts straight, music historians must honor her, posthumously, for a title she more than rightfully earned.

It’s more than time to crown Tina the Queen of Grunge, and not as a woke PR move, but because it’s the Truth.

You can the complete article here.

Labels: 80s, 80s punk, Bam Bam, black punk musicians, black punks, blacks in punk, female punks, females, females in punk, musicians, punk women, race, racism, research, sexism, singers, Tina Bell, women, women in punk

A post from a long time Des Moines punk rocker on reaching middle age

The following is an edited version of a post from Davo Wilkins' personal website...

Life as a Middle-Aged Punk Rocker

by David DaVo Wilkins 

"I don't climb mountains to prove I'm a man, I tear them down." - Unknown

Not sure who said that or when but it has be a motto for sorts for most of my life but increasingly when I've taken a close look at my current tearing down mountain progress and wonder if those days are behind me. I really wonder if there is a true difference between being established and having already left your mark on the world and being a wash up or a has been. Now don't think that this is some self pity or debasing exercise that I'm going through. I've done a lot and have been blessed with being in the right place at the right time more times than I'm even interested in counting and maybe more than anything that is why I even begin to question my relevancy in the first place. It's just more and more often, I find when I'm posed the question, "What is new?" I have less and less to report.

Now I have to bring up age, I'm 42 and in a little over a month will be 43. I have noticed that I volunteer this information much more than I should. In part because I'm proud that I have made it to this point and because people seem to always think I'm younger based almost completely on my clothing and interests. I still dress about the same as I did in 1988, 501s or shorts and band t-shirts. The only thing at really changes is maybe my foot ware. In the summer it's the old school tie up Vans or Steel Toed Shoes and in the winter it's Creepers or Steel Toed Shoes. Basically it's a style I developed which is part punk, part Skinhead but mostly gas station attendant. Now this style seems to float in and out of style much to my undying hatred because it usually means I have to pay more for something I buy because it was affordable and last forever...

 
For a majority of people that were involved in the punk scene it was a stage in their life. A passing fancy which outside of their musical tastes did not effect much else in their life. Which is fine, nothing is more punk than living the life on your own terms but for me, living life on my own terms meant having Punk as my culture. Now that might make me sound like a nut but Pop culture has been completely irrelevant to my life. My friends, my news, my art, my films, my profession, my life view. my politics etc.. came into my life in some minor or often major way because of this punk rock thing. The sub-culture exposed me to a great number of things that I wouldn't have found in pop culture because it simply wasn't hip. Sometimes years before it entered pop culture. So it's strange because so many times I was well ahead of the hip factor.

The thing with punk rock is that there is always a point where you have to wonder how long can you keep this up? I look back and realize that often I choose life paths basically because I was unwilling to give it up. At times this was a self destructive path. Not in the traditional way that most people think of as being self destructive. Sure I've drank enough to get the population of Des Moines drunk. No it was a discipline and unwillingness to give up freedoms either in dress or attitude... Also I guess in a lot of ways I can blame punk on my ethical ideals which has also limited my profit. I've been told more than a few times that I was too honest to be rich and the older I get the more I realize this is true...
I don't know but I think one of the biggest factors is that the people that I had all these great experiences in the past with and were my playmates and collaborators are increasingly less like to come out and play. I have to admit that I'm guilty of this too. All of our lives have changed, we all have kids now but I really wonder if it isn't a jaded case of be there and done that? Or is it simply that the present won't ever live up to the past. That time is long gone. Those times were a combination of the first time around but more than anything it was the combination of the people...

I guess the hardest part is getting off the couch and in fact going out. For years I went out 2 or 3 times a week because I was afraid that If didn't I'd miss something. The thing is that there was a time when I would have missed something and increasingly I've noticed most of the things I'm missing are worth missing. Maybe it's cause I'm the old guy at the club but that's nothing new when you consider I was in my mid 20s when I started promoting all ages shows...

Who knows what the future will bring or what new adventures it has in store for me but I know for sure that I'm who I am and that ain't changing any time soon. My son will continue to tell me to turn down the music and every time there is a band some where that just is on it, I'll wish I was there. I will always crave action, the wonders of conversation and walking through a crowd with a smile on my face because I'm in on something they don't really understand.

DaVo

You can read the full version here.

Labels: 80s, 80s punk, 90s, Davo Wilkins, Des Moines, Iowa, Iowa alternative scene, Iowa punk scene, Midwest, punk culture, punk ethics, punk scene, research

From the wall of the 80s Des Moines bar, So's Your Mother

Labels: 80s, 80s punk, bars, clubs, Des Moines, finger (the), giving the finger, humor, Iowa, murals, music venues, research, So's Your Mother, venues, walls

Site with a bunch of photos from the 80s American punk scene

This is just a site I found doing research that features a bunch of black and white photos from the 80s American punk scene. I've included the introductory paragraph here with a few of the photos.

Portraits Of…North American Punk Culture From The 80′S & 90’S

When I look at old photos of the punk scene, a really good feeling comes over me. Maybe because I know I’m looking at my roots – the people that helped make me who I am. One of my regrets is that I did not pick up a camera, but being 12, taking pictures was a lot harder back in 1981 (this was way before even the first disposable camera). With the internet, we now have the power to see the global impact of the punk scene during the 80’s and early 90’s. Now places like the American Punk/Hardcore Archive (78-91) exist, where people can share photos and more from their past. I can spend hours on this site going through images that take me back in time; especially the flyers for shows that I went to as a youth. The energy that I see in these flicks is the vibe that drives me to do what we do here at CVLT Nation every day. The amount of creativity and passion in these images is unavoidable! I want to salute all of the photographers that captured our history…When you are done here, head over to American Punk/Hardcore Archive (78-91)!

Photo by Patrick Houdek Lost Cross House 1987 Lost Cross House Carbondale, IL

Photo by Bill Daniel Big Boys, Chris Gates and Mr. Biscuit at Club Foot, Austin.

Photo by Bill Daniel Black Flag, Henry Rollins, Austin 11/28/81 ALA Club

Labels: 1981, 70s, 80s, 80s punk, 90s, American punk, Austin, Carbondale, Illinois, live music, Lost Cross House, photography, photos, pics, research, shows, Texas