One thin chapter of punk's story, however, isn't so familiar. It's not causing studio execs to line up for film rights, but it has led former Coloradan Phil Gammage to put his skills as a professional Web designer to use. Last week he launched Colorado New Wave/Punk Rock (newwave.50megs.com/) with the goal of unearthing history and recording the days when some local musicians started new-wave and punk bands of their own. Today Denver enjoys a fairly healthy punk scene -- with Pinhead Circus and the Down-N-Outs among the more popular draws -- and Fort Collins's association with the Descendants and All is a longstanding one. Yet those offerings spring from the genre's second and third waves; there's little evidence that the area even noticed the first time punk hopped the Atlantic and thoroughly freaked everyone out. But that, Gammage hopes, is about to change.
"Colorado was influenced by what was going on in the rest of the world -- London, in particular," he says from his office in New York City, where he moved after graduating from the University of Colorado at Boulder twenty years ago and has remained ever since. "But Colorado, being somewhat isolated, had its own interpretation of the music that made it somewhat unique. I'm not saying it was great music, or great art, but it is worth documenting."
On the site, Gammage, who played in Boulder punk bands including Joey Vain and the Scissors and the Corvairs during his time as a CU student in the late '70s, pays homage to the Ravers, the Front, the Jonny 3 and the Young Weasels, bands that may not have included gifted musicians but that held their own against records coming out of more established punk-rock provinces. He also credits the then-new Wax Trax as being Denver's first retailer to recognize punk's staying power and long-gone Denver venues Ebbets Field and Malfunction Junction as the ramshackle epicenters of the scene. The last two provided 3.2 beer and loud, beautifully simplistic punk to the people of Capitol Hill; some of them loved it, while others ran screaming for their Fleetwood Mac records, wondering why anyone would stick safety pins through his ears. Which was, of course, the desired effect.
"I would say most of us were inspired amateurs," Gammage says. "A lot of us were reacting to the kind of jammy/hippie stuff that was prevalent at the time. What we were doing was a direct reaction to that.
"It was a very open scene," he adds. "We weren't criticized if we couldn't play very well. For me and a lot of other people, it was a social thing, and it was about just getting into playing music."
Since moving to New York, Gammage has maintained his interest in playing music, though he's cooled on punk. He's released four bluesy-rock records on the French label Last Call, and he fronts a jump-swing band called the Scarlet Dukes. Many of the people whose punk past he hopes to preserve on his site have long since moved out of Colorado as well, and some of those relocations resulted in fairly successful ends: The Ravers recorded two releases for RCA and penned the tune "88 Lines About 44 Girls," which has expanded its once-cultish audience to include viewers of television Mazda commercials; Jonny 3 guitarist Kenny Vaughan moved to Nashville, where he's a session musician and tours with Lucinda Williams, among others; and the Young Weasels' Steve Knutson is an executive with Tommy Boy Records ("A Weasel No More," January 28, 1999).
So Colorado New Wave/Punk Rock is up and running, featuring essays and reviews by "Icepick Phil" and others who've contributed to the site so far. Obtaining samples of music, however, has been more problematic. Many of the era's recordings are unavailable, unless you're lucky enough to find an occasional copy at Wax Trax. But later this month the Italian label Rave Up Records will release 500 copies of a live album from DefeX, a Denver band led by Chris Murdock in the late '70s, and Gammage has a hunch more will follow.
"Kids who like punk -- they have no idea what was going on then," he says. "Hopefully someone will realize that this is something worth knowing about." Bloody right.
In a perfect world, the next few paragraphs would be filled with quotes from one of the MCs in the Los Angeles-based hip-hop crew Jurassic 5 -- Chali 2NA, Zaakir, Akil or Marc 7 -- or a few thoughtful words from one of their DJs, Cut Chemist or DJ Nu-Mark. But it seems that every single member of the sextet, which is on tour with Fiona Apple and scheduled to play the Fillmore next Thursday, March 16, is too busy to keep an interview date. That's understandable: The 5's jazzy, old-school, self-titled EP has sold so well that Interscope Records is scrambling to release a full-length before the clock ticks away their fifteen minutes. But there's little any of them could say that would increase the number of reasons to go see their set. Even if Miss Apple is crabby and pouts, screams at critics and leaves the stage after 45 minutes like she did last week at New York City's Roseland Ballroom, the Jurassics should make the show an interesting experience nonetheless.
And to those who've inquired: Backwash has decided not to further negotiations with AOL/ Time Warner/EMI, having succumbed to a childhood fear of Foghorn Leghorn. But the column is looking into getting involved in the marriage of Clear Channel Communications, which owns more than 800 radio stations nationally, and SFX Entertainment, the promotional force behind many of the country's mega-rock shows, including those by Bill Graham Presents/Chuck Morris Presents (see The Message, page 12). Of course, that might mean Backwash will be limited to writing about the narrow list of artists spun on Clear Channel's locally held stations and those that play BGP/CMP venues. But we've decided that nonstop spins of the latest from Creed and Third Eye Blind, not to mention Tina Turner and Lionel Richie (in anticipation of their show at the Pepsi Center), really aren't so distasteful after all. God bless America! -- Laura Bond
