“Assholes Unite” for Denver Punk Legend Duane Lance Bodenheimer

Legends never die.

That sentiment certainly pertains to Duane Bodenheimer, the Denver-born and Seattle-praised punk rock icon and irreverent frontman of the Derelicts who passed away on August 17 after a valiant battle with prostate cancer. He was 59.

Lisa Woodhouse first met Bodenheimer in a philosophy class when they were teenagers attending Metropolitan State College in the ’80s and struck up an instant friendship that would last a lifetime. “We were pretty much friends right away,” she shares. “We were like two chicks on the phone all the time. His mom would constantly be telling us to hang up and get off the friggin’ phone.”

The two ran in the same circles during the mid-1980s, as Bodenheimer played in early Denver punk band Psychodrama, a group he formed with one of his best friends and forever bandmate, guitarist Neil Rogers.

“He was funny, wildly inappropriate all the time,” Woodhouse recalls, adding that as much as his in-your-face antics made him a must-see, he also housed a softer side, including his love of “ugly little poodles,” Burt Reynolds and the Rolling Stones.

“He loved the Rolling Stones, that’s not punk-rock cool or anything, but he and I share that,” she says of the man who never forgot a birthday and was quick to send a postcard or quirky care package. “Our favorite movie is The Jerk. He loves Steve Martin. We can quote the movie. We were very annoying to people, I’m sure.”

“It’s funny because his on-stage persona is so good, and he’s been hanging out with punk-rockers forever,” Woodhouse continues. “But my perception of him is different. He’s a really sensitive person. He acts all cool and tough and punk-rock and stuff, but he’s a freaking baby. You could hurt his feelings in about five seconds. Anybody who knows Duane knows that.”

Even now, reminiscing about Bodenheimer, who later went by Duane Ash Shole, she speaks in the present tense. Woodhouse kept up with him after he and Rogers moved to Seattle in 1987 and started the Derelicts, which became a wildly influential yet underrated punk band in that scene at the time.

There’s a now-legendary 1990 show at the since-shuttered Motorsports International Garage where the Derelicts opened for an up-and-coming Aberdeen trio called Nirvana. The bill also included Dwarves and Melvins. It’s known in Nirvana lore as the only gig with Dan Peters, of Mudhoney fame, on drums, as a young drummer named Dave Grohl was in the audience and would join Nirvana less than a week later.

From the jump, things got rowdy, as Bodenheimer explained while recalling that night in 2017 for a story that was published on author Nick Soulsby’s website, Nirvana Legacy.

“The Dwarves, they borrowed our drum kit the first time they came up — destroyed it, and we got into a huge fight then made up the next day and became best friends,” he wrote. “ … I was dressed up as a girl and when the Dwarves were playing I lobbed a bottle at Blag [Dahlia, vocalist] and hit him right in the forehead. He chased me around. … A lot of people didn’t like us just because we were dicks, not intentionally so but … when you’re drinking and stuff. … We weren’t violent — it was mostly internal violence, we would fight with one another a lot. Me and Neil [Rogers] would get into it onstage — don’t know what caused that, love the guy to death, best friends, always were.”

He adds he has “no idea how we ended up on the bill,” but Bodenheimer’s signature self-deprecation would indicate the Derelicts were simply lucky to be there. The truth is the group, which put out a single (“Misery Maker/Wash,” 1990) and album (Don’t Wanna Live, 1990) on iconic Seattle label Sub Pop Records at that time, was a local tour de force.

“They were killing it there,” says Woodhouse, who kept up with Bodenheimer. “They were really doing well.”

Marie Archambault, another early Denver running mate and cherished chum, echoes that sentiment, but points to Bodenheimer’s well-documented struggles with substance abuse as a pitfall the Derelicts all fell into.

“They were touring a lot and playing. He scored heroin for Kurt Cobain and all that kind of stuff,” she says. “They were doing so good, but I felt like his addiction took over. They couldn’t get it together. I think they would have made it huge if the addiction wasn’t such a problem at that time.”

Still, the Derelicts were eventually honored with a plaque at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture.

“They had a whole thing on the Derelicts there. We made him go and take a picture by the plague of the Derelicts,” Archambault says of a previous visit. “He loved it, but he hated it. He didn’t want the attention, which is so weird for a frontman. When he was on stage, he demanded attention; he got attention. He was such a good live performer. He would take his pants down and tuck his penis. It was the way he screamed and just raw energy on stage.”

From the mid-1990s up until his death, Bodenheimer bounced between Seattle and Denver, where he lived on the streets for a spell while he struggled to get clean. Bodenheimer kicked his habit and became a vocal advocate for sober living, including recently celebrating fifteen years of sobriety. His catchphrase became “Stay Clean.”

While back home, Bodenheimer continued performing locally with Superbuick and the Tomgirls. Denver punk vet Krayön recalls playing with Bodenheimer and the Tomgirls for the first time over a decade ago.   “He was probably one of the best frontman I’ve seen,” he says. “They were really cool. They didn’t have an ego. Duane’s always been really awesome like that.

“He was wild. He’d be up on the bar and having people shoving singles in his pants,” Krayön continues. “He was the real deal. He was a character. He made so many friends. Anybody who saw him loves him. If you ever met him, you liked him.”

So it only feels fitting that Bodenheimer’s memorial — dubbed Assholes Unite, a reference to a 1994 Derelicts ditty — on Sunday, November 9, at Mutiny Information Café will be part punk show, featuring one of Krayön’s current acts, the Teflon Dons, Clusterfux and Self Service. All three local bands are going to share a Derelicts cover. The Teflon Dons are also busting out “East Bound and Down,” the Jerry Reed classic from 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit, starring Reynolds.    

A similar celebration of life was held last month in Seattle at Slim’s Last Chance, where Bodenheimer was a beloved bouncer during his last seven years living there. A chair in honor of him now sits by the door.

“We figured we need to have on here,” says Woodhouse, who helped organize it with Archambault. “There’s a lot of people here, too, who love him and miss him.”

Once they heard he wasn’t doing well, Woodhouse and Archambault had a chance to visit their friend towards the end. At first, he was hesitant, telling them not to fly out.

“He cared so much about other people; he didn’t want us to be hurt by how much suffering he was in,” Archambault says, adding that his peers in Zeke, another Seattle hardcore heavyweight, had to convince him to see anyone. “These people were from all walks of life, just the most diverse group of people.”

“There was probably a hundred people who came in there those few days and just sat in there bawling,” Woodhouse shares.

She realized then just how much he meant to so many and learned how he was known to hang out with the unhoused in his Seattle neighborhood, sharing what he could, be it apples or cigarettes. “I was surrounded by his friends and band members, I was like, ‘Oh, my god. I see it. This is his thing here,’” Woodhouse recalls. “They called him a legend there. That’s what they were saying.”

Then he was gone.

“He woke up and saw us, said he loved us and hugged us and then he didn’t wake up again,” she shares, holding back tears.

Luckily for the living, Duane Lance Bodenheimer leaves behind a music-filled legacy that can be listened to anytime, not to mention the stories and memories that’ll continue to be shared and cherished by all who crossed his path.

As Archambault concludes, “He’s a legend.”

Assholes Unite, with the Teflon Dons, Clusterfux and Self Service, 5 p.m. Sunday, November 9, Mutiny Information Café, 3483 South Broadway. Free.