“I went to Frisco / Bumped into Cisco / He had a shoebox
Behind his icebox, but now / You I'll be following” - You I’ll Be Following - Arthur Lee & Love
Last week, I wrote about my very first out of town gigs with my band From. Here's part two.
CALIFORNIA
We got into Santa Cruz early in the morning, like 5am, but our gig wasn't until the evening. We parked the van at New Brighton Beach and slept a few hours. The day was fuzzy to me because at the time I really wanted to dive into playing gigs and my memories skew more toward the gigs than the in-betweens. But, I've realized as I’ve gotten older, I appreciate the in-betweens a lot more because really, the show is only 1 out of 24 hours, however, at the time, all I wanted to do was play play play.
Anyway, the gig was at a popular punk house called Laurel Street Punk House, run by Chris who was a student of UC Santa Cruz and a fellow South Bay boy connected with the punk rock scene. As I was looking at the old fliers, I realized we weren’t actually booked to play, just our tour mates Two Minute Hate. Luckily, Chris was cool and let us open the show, so we made our own flier and passed it around town when we got there.
In the early 2000s, the punk scene leaned toward bands like Two Minute Hate. We weren’t sonically punk, but we lived by the punk rock ethos, in that we did our own weird thing without the fear of judgement and top to bottom, did it all ourselves. The argument about what punk is/was was also a hot topic on this tour as I argued The Clash were “more punk” than the Sex Pistols to the dismay of TMH’s bassist Frankie, who felt the opposite. We got heated, but obviously there’s no actual answer to this and it’s frivolous, but we were teenagers and this was our passion! In fact, that argument is certainly not “punk” at all. But I digress…
What was great about this Santa Cruz punk house, was that the other bands and their fans / hangers on were so welcoming and I got this really heavy sense of community, akin to our scene in the South Bay, but more…college? See, the bands then were, again, like Two Minute Hate and had a sense of style that matched almost a mod or hipster appeal, and was less about spikes and mohawks and more about tight jeans, sardonic humor but more importantly, intelligence. This was also right before the Disco Punk, electro-punk phase so a lot of the bands were starting to integrate keyboards and disco beats among other things. Id imagine musicians from those bands went on to be famous in other bands, I just wouldn't know. Either way, we felt the love and beyond just a house venue show, there was a book and zine share along with people eschewing the merits of anarchy, socialism and anti capitalism, which are things that have stuck with me 22 years on. I got a copy of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and read it when I could on this trip. I still have that copy.
“To the rich and powerful, socialism is always a crime.” - The Jungle
The sense of community I got there, a mix of vegans, punks, anarchists and weirdos who seemed excited to do something with purpose and be part of something special really spoke to me. I know that this can be a phase for many, especially those of the college age, but those who do aim to be “punk” and live their own lives, generally passes away by fear of capitalism and the fear of being an adult, paying pay rent, etc. This was before the fear, so there was hope and excitement about learning and being an individual. It really brought to light and magnified this feeling of being free on the road and also being free with my mind. It was really enlightening for an 18 year old me even though I may have been a bit green and some of The Jungle subtext went over my head.
For more on the Laurel Punk House, check out their Instagram !
Dan looking at my stupid hair. Also, there was a Foster’s Freeze across the street, hence the stage design.
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