Premise: Four Iowa punk friends in their early 20s agree to see 100 shows that year, while also dealing with the ins and outs of their own personal lives and the wild world of 1984.
Sorry, no story so far. Working on research. But I'll post writing exercises, research, outlines, and whatnot. You can read my long treatment at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kCeqaT1Ug3zuEgjTeTTCby-1IJcreATvtH5tyAklFVM/edit?usp=sharing. Feel free to comment or make any suggestions.
The debate over who started punk rock is as legendary as it is pointless. Legendary, because of the transatlantic feud between The Ramones and The Sex Pistols; and pointless, because it wasn’t them. Thanks to an overlooked section of declassified COINTELPRO and CHAOS documents, we finally know exactly who created punk rock.
One agent working for the CIA in the late ‘60s invented the entire musical genre to de-legitimize the very concept of protest. Though he’s retired, he asked to remain anonymous, fearing reprisal from violent Jawbreaker purists.
Former Agent: I wanted punk to seem dirty, like hippies, but also militant, so people would confuse it with more serious groups. Black Panthers, Socialist Workers, etc. It came down to two elements: bad music, and clownish fashions.
HT: But punk artists with clear political messages eventually started popping up Stateside: Bad Religion, Anti-Flag; even Andrew W.K.’s partying has revolutionary potential.
FA: Messages about rebellion and corruption will always slip through, but there simply aren’t enough of them to counter the suburban, radio-friendly punk ethos we designed later. My successor created Blink 182 and Hot Topic for that reason.
HT: Really? The Hot Topic company was a CIA creation?
FA: Yes, down to the Happy Bunny character, with the slogans. People take one look at that, they decide revolution doesn’t sound so great after all.
My story takes place in the fictional metropolis of New London that's basically where Des Moines is in our reality. I didn't think until recently that there might be a real New London, Iowa!
New London is a city in Henry County, Iowa, United States. The population was 1,897 at the 2010 census.
History
New London was originally called Dover, after its founder Abraham C. Dover, who came to the area from Illinois in 1833.
Geography
2010 Census
New London is located at 40°55′31″N 91°24′4″W (40.925224, -91.401105). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.01 square miles (2.62 km2), all land.
Geography
2010 Census
The racial makeup of the city was 96.5% White, 1.7% African American, 0.3% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 0.1% from other races, and 1.1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.9% of the population.
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.
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.
Iowa is a very diverse state, covering people of every religion from Mennonite to Presbyterian, every skin tone from alabaster to milky, and from every corner of the world from Britain to Germany. There's even those thar Lutheran type of people in Iowa... On the average day in Iowa, you can hear every language from English (slight country accent) to English (slight eastern accent). Hail, Iowa!
"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.
This is an edited version of the first of a series of posts by a long time Des Moines punk rocker about a location that housed a couple of the venues playing punk rock in our fair city. And I threw in a video he did about the location at the end.
2307 University Ave was the location of 2 of the most important music venues in Des Moines, Iowa. Safari Nite Club and Hairy Mary's were not only this first venues to really open up to the idea of doing all ages shows on a regular bases but they were the home of the local music, a tour stop for countless national acts, a club house to those that hung out there and the room in which Slipknot cut it's teeth and got signed...
Just the first Mary's would be a novel in itself and I have to state from the start that if it wouldn't have been for owners like Tony, Shawn, Jake, Jeff, John and Fathead, I would have nothing to write about. They had the vision and often the martyr like precedence to forge ahead when any rational person would have given up.
Many would have to ask why write anything about the place in the first place. It was a dump, the sound system was substandard and crowd tend to be a little on the, well, let's say a little on the rough side. If you really did a count on average attendance at the club in the 12 years that it hosted the Underground Music scene it would be around 50...
Now Des Moines has countless venues for live music. Nice clean places with sound systems that work and bathrooms that don't have the scent of rotten flesh but the thing is none of them are a club house, a center point to a developing and evolving music scene,,, You see you didn't see Punk bands or Metal bands or even bands that wrote their own music in nice clean, safe and well organized clubs. No those shows were usually in venues in the worst part of town, with bathrooms that didn't work and often completely without security...
DaVo's Vlog #5 - A history of the venue at 2307 University Ave in Des Moines that is currently Lefty's Live Music. In the past it was Safari Nite Club and Hairy Mary's. Also live foot at Lefty's Live Music from Emily Davis and the Murder Police, Mountain Sprouts and Barnyard Stompers.
