A couple of sites containing cool Puppets content came to my attention this week:
The first is Adam Hartmann’s new podcast, The Bottom 40 Rock Show. Half of the the current episode is devoted to You Know Who. Adam is just starting out, and he’s still getting his chops down (the volume balance between his voice and the music is WAY off, and he needs to watch is “P” popping), so check him out and give him lots of encouragement!
Geoff Cordner on the other hand is a professional photographer with a slew of great pix up on his Austin Punk Vignettes pages. There are three live photos of us from the legendary Black Flag/Nig Heist 84 tour, which has been so extensively covered on a previous post.
I don’t remember much about this gig. I do remember hitting my head hard on a low beam the next night. I remember haggling with Flag about money in Texas, and I remember Flag experiencing vehicular trouble which would vex them for the entire first half of the tour. Mostly what I remember about this leg of the tour was being hassled by the cops in Louisiana, both in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. One was simple posession beef, but the other was a full-blown harrassment, complete with physical abuse.
As I recall, Cris had been trying with no luck to find parking around the New Orleans club. Everything was “reserved” for the restaurant across the street. In fact, the local police were keeping punks out. Finally, Cris rolled down the window in exasperation and said to a policeman, “where the fuck do you expect me to park??” The next thing he knew, the cop was running towards him, weapon drawn.
Cris did what any fool would do: he tried to floor it out of there. But this gave the cop all the excuse he needed. Accusing Cris of trying to “assault” him with the car, he forced Cris at gunpoint into an adjascent alley and began kicking the shit out of him. Curt and our soundman ran up at that moment and made like to help him, but Cris screamed, “stay back!” Sure enough, the cop warned them off with his gun.
Needless to say, we did not play that night. Whatever arguing we’d done with Flag over money the few nights previously became somewhat moot, since it took a couple grand to get Cris out of jail. I don’t remember how it all got resolved, but I think it took another couple grand in lawyer’s fees to make it all go away. Once Cris was safe and sound the next day, we fled to Baton Rouge. There, we replayed the scene, this time with our soundman, who was hauled off to jail for posession of a small pot pipe and a pocket knife.
By this time, Rollins and the boy were good and fed up with the Meat Puppets. And we were barely a week into the tour.
Yup, I thought we would never see Cris again. I was sure those cops in NO were going to literally kill him.
The next night was REAL trouble. Nig-Heist played and the place was CRAWLING with cops. They checked everyone and everything. It beacme obvious that they weren’t there for any other reason but Puppet harrassment when Mugger actually (mid-set) walked up to an undercover feamle officer and began his shtick on her (I have the audio and he refers directly to the previous nights bust as well). She never blinked, and instead was watching YOU guys. All this time your van was being turned upside down in the parking lot.
I’ll never know how we got outta Louisiana alive.
And yes, there were a LOT of hard feelings towards the Pups from SOME circles of the touring party. ‘No-Neck’ was one for sure. I confess, I was just scared.
Tom
Left by Tom Troccoli on June 22nd, 2006
Sweet lord! I guess it’s a good thing that “Captain America and Billy” were not on the bill as well. If I am not mistaken I think Louisiana was where they met their fiery end. “They won’t make it out of the Parish alive…….”
Left by Steve H. on June 25th, 2006
please come to europe, germany , hannover! i will manage everything for you!!! REALLY!
Left by hendrik baempfer on June 28th, 2006
Howdy! This account predates my initiation into Puppetdom (Berkeley Square, 1985… I think?). But it does remind me of a time in perhaps 1987 or 88 when I rolled down to Santa Cruz with some friends to see y’all play the Catalyst. No show that night, either. My recollection was that the bouncer didn’t recognize Cris and was pushing him around when he tried to come in for the sound check. Even then, when I imagined the Pups would be around forever, I understood what I had lost!
Great site, Derrick – thank you for sharing all of this!!
Mike
Left by Mike Renning on July 24th, 2006
Thanks for still braving tours into the South after all that shit. I saw you guys in Birmingham at the University of Alabama at 1987 and it was truly awe inspiring. My friend, Eric, convinced his Dad to drive us down to the show. Upon playing the first note of the first song, Curt released his guitar to dance around and it hit my friend’s forehead and busted it open. We were all a little taken back- but my buddy touched his head- saw blood on his hand- looked very wide eyed at us and exclaimed “Cool!” We all became lifelong fans then and there.
Left by Pudd on September 17th, 2007