Wild Dog Zine

Wild Dog Zine: The Normals on New Orleans Punk and the Clash (1979)

Like Houston, little is known on a national scale about the first wave New Orleans punk scene. According to Legionarie’s Disease frontman Jerry Anomie, New Orleans hosted some of the band’s wildest shows.

Henry “Wild Dog” Weissborn and Larry Holmes (aka Larry the Punk), founding editor of New Orleans zine FINAL SOLUTION (F/S), exchanged news about the local punk scenes. “Back in the day, every city had one fanzine writing about the music in their town, their bands. Henry had Houston, I had New Orleans, and Henry and I traded articles, traded fanzines,” Holmes told Wild Dog Archives. Launched in 1979, the same year as WILD DOG, F/S ran for nine issues until it folded in 1981.

In October 1979, The Normals hit the East Coast. According to an interview (below) in WILD DOG #3, the band was set to play with Neon Leon, a black punk band, at Max’s Kansas City in NYC and with The Battle of the Minorities, The Laughing Dogs, and Iggy Pop at the Zappa Club in Brooklyn. A few of the stops included CBGB’s on Halloween, The High Club in Philadelphia, and The Rat in Boston.

The Normals and other New Orleans punk bands are the subject of an upcoming documentary by Al Champagne and Pablo-Romero Estevez titled Almost Ready: The Story of Punk Rock in New Orleans.

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(Original galley courtesy of Wild Dog Archives; promo photo of the Normals from Wild Dog #2.)

Wild Dog Zine: The Stains, Austin Punk and Drone Reality (1981)

“Punk rock is wanting to indulge in one’s own kicks unmolested in a society that doesn’t allow it, and in the meantime having to live with the fact that man can destroy himself and is on the verge of it daily. It’s a way of letting everybody know, hey, this is fucked up and that we want to change it and that the plastic bullshit that’s happening everyday just isn’t it.” – Ron Posner, Stains guitarist (From a 1981 interview with WILD DOG zine)

By Wild Dog’s standards, The Dicks and The Stains were Austin’s leading punk bands during the scene’s formative years in Texas in the early 1980s. Along with Big Boys, The Dicks and The Stains frequently gigged together in Austin before both bands relocated to San Francisco, after which The Stains became Millions of Dead Cops (M.D.C./MDC).

Original Stains songs “John Wayne was a Nazi,” “Born to Die,” and “Dick for Brains” were later included on the Millions of Dead Cops LP (1982). The band went on to record music with Jello Biafra through his Alternative Tentacles label.

WILD DOG zine sat down with The Stains in 1981 to discuss revolutionary ideals, what constitutes a good band (influences include the Sex Pistols and Black Flag among others), and the band’s personal definition of punk rock.

NOTE: The Stains had released their own zine, The Austin American Stainsman, at the time of publication.

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(Photos by Amy Mann and Michelle Levinas; original galley courtesy of Wild Dog Archives.)

Imagery of Revolt: AK-47’s The Badge and the Machine Mandala (1980)

One of the most iconic records to come out of the first wave Houston punk scene, AK-47’s The Badge Means You Suck (/Kiss My Machine, 1980) was a protest anthem against Houston’s Police Department (HPD), which had a documented history of racism and extreme violence during the 1970s. Nine victims are named on the cover of Badge, among them 23-year-old veteran Joe Campos Torres and 21-year-old activist Carl Hampton. The HPD tried unsuccessfully to sue the band after the flipside’s release in 1980.

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(Original artwork by Jimmy Bryan; original signed lyric sheet courtesy of Wild Dog Archives.)

Wild Dog Zine: Joan Jett & the Blackhearts at the Agora (1981)

“It’s hard for me to even think about being a feminist. When people say, ‘You are a girl, you can’t do this,’ I can’t even conceive of that.” Joan Jett in WILD DOG zine 

According to Joan Jett, founding member of The Runaways, Texas had always been good for the band. The Runaways played an early punk show with The Ramones in Houston in 1977, before Houston’s first wave emerged. After disbanding in 1979, Jett headed to England to record alongside Paul Cook and Steve Jones, original members of the Sex Pistols. In 1980, Jett released a self-titled album on Ariola (U.K. import); the domestic LP was released by Jett and bandmate Kenny Laguna on their independent label Blackheart Records.

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts sat down with WILD DOG in 1981 following a performance at the Agora Ballroom to discuss Jett as feminist icon, Wyoming’s Accelerators, British glitter influences and living in N.Y.C.

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(Photos by Reta and Judy Hill; Original galley courtesy of Wild Dog Archives.)

Wild Dog Zine: Legionaire’s Disease, SLUGGO! and Austin’s 1206 Club (1979)

“Punk to us was: Do what you want, whatever the fuck it is, as long as your heart is in it.” –  Jerry Anomie, Legionaire’s Disease

The Houston and Austin punk scenes manifested simultaneously yet from different soil. Both cities began experimenting with shows in 1978. Houston had Paradise Island and Austin’s stomping ground was a near-campus Tejano Bar called Raul’s, which hosted early punk performances from The Violators, The Skunks, and The Huns.

Judging by this letter to WILD DOG from SLUGGO! – Austin’s original punk fanzine – the banter seemed friendly enough on the surface between the competing scenes. While Wild Dog is lauded for its coverage in “Smogville,” there were menacing threats toward what Henry described as “the most notorious, original Houston punk band,” Legionaire’s Disease.

The “Diseased ones” formed during the earliest days of Houston’s embryonic punk scene. Discussing the band’s early shows, frontman Jerry Anomie told Wild Dog Archives, “Some bands were busy rehearsing, and they wouldn’t play for an audience until they got good.” In the DIY spirit of the times, Legionaire’s Disease followed a different tactic. “Man, we just started doin’ shows, you know.”

Anomie was the undisputed wild man of the Houston punk scene. “Anything could happen at our shows, and it usually did,” Anomie says. Brawls, fist fights, and full-fledged riots have been attributed to many Disease gigs.

Legionaire’s Disease was still a cover band in early 1979 with its roster of songs by the Dead Boys, Iggy Pop, Richard Hell, and the Sex Pistols. “What we had going for us was that we put on wild ass shows,” Anomie says. Released from prison in 1973, Anomie literally had no fear and there were few limits to his brazen stage antics when he was in high gear. “Our shows were wild as a motherfucker.”

The Huns from Austin were introduced to the Disease at a show at the Island. “We never did really connect with any Austin bands,” Anomie notes. “They were mostly college guys, and we considered most Austin bands as arty farty with the exception of The Dicks, Big Boys, The Huns, and a few others.” After hearing about the chaos of a Disease performance, The Huns invited the band to play in Austin.

Legionaire’s Disease accepted the offer and made the trip to Austin in mid-April 1979 shortly after their Rock Against Racism performance.

(continued below…)

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(Original galley courtesy of Wild Dog Archives.)

Stabbing at Austin’s 1206 Club

The 1206 Club was a dive bar in Austin. “It was an old hippie bar in a black section of town,” Anomie recalls. Historically, the building was once the famed “Charlie’s Playhouse,” which opened in 1958 as a blues and jazz club. It was a known hot spot throughout the 1960s and shuttered in 1970. At the time of the Huns/Legionaire’s Disease gig, the 1206 Club had recently reopened in December 1978, and punk bands performed there as a side stage to Raul’s.

“The place was packed, and the old hippie that ran it made a lot of money off the bar,” Anomie says. “He asked us that night if we would come back and play in two weeks, and we said ‘Hell yes.’”

What the Disease didn’t know was that the core of Austin’s punk scene had come out against the band just after that first performance. SLUGGO! had published a scathing review of Legionaire’s Disease, and the band came back to a near empty house. Says Anomie, “They just didn’t like us; they thought we should have more artistic ability.”

There are two ways to look at small crowds, according to Anomie. “Some bands would get discouraged if they didn’t have a turnout. For us, the fewer people we had at a show the harder we would play.” He adds that the Disease’s second show in Austin was “one wild ass show!”

After the band’s set, Anomie approached the club owner for a cold drink. “I ain’t got nuthin’ for you!” was the reply. “I thought to myself, ‘we’d better get outta here. This is about to turn nasty,’” Anomie remembers.

He and the band started to load up, but before they could leave, Anomie’s nephew, drunk from the show, turned over a table inside the club. “When he did that, this guy punched him,” Anomie says. “Next thing I know, Norman’s got this guy jacked up and he’s trying to push him through the window, and then the fight spilled into the street.”

Within minutes, a crowd had gathered from the surrounding neighborhood. “Franky Frazier, who was known around the Houston scene as a bad motherfucker, had a baseball bat and we were all in full swing.” Anomie then witnessed an unknown assailant stab bassist Norman Cooper in the back, which ultimately punctured his lung and landed him in the hospital overnight. He snuck out of the hospital the next day.

The fight after this gig proved to be the end of Austin’s 1206 Club. And what appears to be a tongue-in-cheek insult from SLUGGO! is referencing a brutal assault that took place only weeks before the letter was written. Although the “junk rot” reference may sound harsh, Anomie explains the band “didn’t get good until I finally got David Tolbert and Craig Haynes on guitar and drums.”

Once the band acquired the rehearsal space behind the Old Plantation, its sound improved and by the end of 1979, Legionaire’s Disease had released its first single Rather See You Dead/Downtown, introducing Houston punk in the New York, L.A., and San Francisco scenes.

Flipside Video Fanzine No. 1 (1984)

Established in August 1977, FLIPSIDE fanzine covered the early L.A. punk scene. The first issue featured an interview with Eulogy and performance reviews for The Quick and Devo.

One of the more successful publications to emerge from the first wave in the U.S., FLIPSIDE evolved from a small-run, photocopied zine to a glossy newsprint with worldwide distribution. After a 23-year run, the publication folded in 2000.

Since debuting his zine in April 1979, Henry “Wild Dog” Weissborn exchanged news about the Houston and L.A. scenes with founding editor Al “Flipside” Kowalewski.

In 1984, FLIPSIDE began releasing video fanzines featuring live punk performances and interviews with both local and touring bands. The first of the series featured live shows and recordings from Social Distortion, the Vandals, Black Flag, and the Circle Jerks and an interview with M.D.C., an original Austin punk band that relocated to San Francisco.

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(Media courtesy of Wild Dog Archives.)

Wild Dog Zine: The Hates on Destruction at the Island (1981)

“In the past there have been alot [sic] of situations where people were up and pogoing, but there has never been fist fighting and destruction as went on at my last two shows. There were things being thrown at us, and I liked it.” — Christian Arnheiter on performing at the Island, WILD DOG #5 (1981)

Christian Arnheiter formed Guyana Boys Choir with bassist Robert Kainer and drummer Mike McWilliams in 1978. The band’s first live performance took place December that same year as an opening act for Louisiana Zydeco performer Clifton Chenier, at the downtown Masonic Temple.

Guyana Boys Choir was short lived, and Arnheiter regrouped as Christian Oppression with drummer Glenn Sorvisto and bassist Ed Felch. The band was renamed The Hates after Kainer rejoined Arnheiter. The Hates’ first two EPs were recorded at Wells Sound in Houston in 1979 on the band’s private label, Faceless Records.

“The punk scene in Houston is systematically suppressed,” Christian Arnheiter said in WILD DOG #1 (April 1979). Arnheiter commented in a 1981 interview (pictured) with WILD DOG that punk shows were becoming more violent at the Island — and that he enjoyed this response.

“There’s a punk crowd in Houston, and this is part of that hardcore crowd,” he said. “It’s building up; before you just had a few people going crazy in the crowd. There seems to be different factions, too…they really didn’t get along, and I thought it was great.”

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(Original galley courtesy of Wild Dog Archives.)

Grass Roots Activism, Rock Against Racism (1979)

Before WILD DOG zine, Henry Weissborn, a sociology student at the University of Houston and President of the Direct Action Committee (Yippie Chapter), edited the organization’s underground zine, ULTRA (1978-1979), which covered civil disobedience, gay rights, feminism, marijuana reform, anti-nuclear campaigns, and the counterculture.

In 1979, Weissborn booked New York’s Joy Ryder and Avis Davis to headline a Rock Against Racism (RAR) outdoor concert/event at the University of Houston. The Yipster organized show was cancelled at the university campus, and the lineup was rescheduled at the Paradise Island club. Houston’s first RAR concert on April 1, 1979, featured first wave punk bands Really Red, Legionaire’s Disease, and Christian Oppression (The Hates). Vast Majority, a band Weissborn later joined as Henry “Bad Guitar” and helped to produce its only release on Wild Dog Records, made its first appearance at the venue, as did AK-47.

ULTRA #4, Weissborn’s last issue, covered Houston’s emerging punk scene in its last pages and notified readers about an April 1 “Be In.” Only weeks after the RAR showcase, WILD DOG #1 debuted in April ’79.

“We’ve only just begun,” Weissborn said in his inaugural Editor’s Note in WILD DOG. “The Houston punk scene is getting off the ground…the April 1 Rock Against Racism brought out virtually all the punk bands in town. Wild Dog hopes to keep the heat on!”

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(Students of the University of Houston. Houstonian 1977 – Seniors: Voigt – White. Houstonian Yearbook Collection. Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries.)

Wild Dog Zine: X on Chicano Punks, L.A. and Selling Out (1981)

“Obviously, the scene we come from is gone. But we still believe in the whole thing…All the bands in L.A. that started out three years ago are still doing what they believe in and they don’t do it for money.” — Exene (interview with WILD DOG zine)

Henry Wild Dog sat down with members from L.A. band X in 1981, four years after its debut 45, Adult Books, was recorded.

In this exclusive interview, Exene Cervenka (vocalist) — with a copy of WILD DOG #4 in hand — and John Doe (bassist) discuss an appearance in the Decline of Western Civilization, Mexican punk bands in L.A. and Houston, feeling “creepy” about being on the road, the death of The Germs‘ Darby Crash and the band’s unwavering resolve to stick it out with an indie label. x-interview-wd-5 (1)

(Official galley courtesy of Wild Dog Archives.)