Ted Thacker Was Twelve When He Played for a Room of Rowdy Punks

Karl Christian Krumpholz

[
        {
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size",
          "component": "12017618",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "17242653",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18838239",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17261320",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18838239",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - Leaderboard Tower - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17261321",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        }
      ]

“Our first gig was at Gate 9 at Folsom Field in Boulder. It was just a vending-room cage set up with a stage, some ugly lights and a really shitty P.A. It held 75 people, max. We were playing with the Dancing Assholes and the Dead Weazels. The show was a year after Sid Vicious’s death: “The First Annual Sid Vicious Memorial Dance.”

click to enlarge

Karl Christian Krumpholz

“My dad dropped us off, and we shuffled our gear onto the stage among punks in leather and chains. I remember one guy with an upside-down American flag tattooed on his face, and another dude in ass-less chaps with two girls on chains that he was pulling around like dogs. There were people smoking weed, and a guy with no teeth and a huge nose ring. These were real punks.

click to enlarge

Karl Christian Krumpholz

“I’d really only started to listen to the Ramones. My twelve-year-old soul was barely prepared for this high fashion, but it was a hell of a ride. They ate us up like the little kids we were, but it was everything we had dreamed of: a sweaty, smoking, fucked-up crowd of moshing, leather-and-spike-wearing fans. In hindsight, it was likely one of the best gigs of my life.”

Ted Thacker plays the Lion’s Lair on Friday, May 4.


Editor's Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz's website to see more of his work.