| KARLA MADDOG: THIS IS YOUR PUNK ROCK LIFE! ( OR, HOW THE MASQUE WAS WON BY THE MADDOG ) |
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I began practicing my drums more furiously now cuz i could smell the return of rock and roll so i started learning every ramones song every dead boys song blondie songs that i liked then the sex pistols arrived from england i bought the uk version of the lp and heard a slowed down version of the new york dolls then i learned malcolm mclaren was their manager and i remembered he had managed the dolls. but their songs were funny and the drummer was solid so i learned their songs too. by august 77 i could play all those songs and my brother said you're ready to play in a band but you'll have to go to new york cause they won't have a scene like that out here, and i thought yeah la land of leftover hippies and bands that try to be aerosmith but they missed the point...so i just continued to practice and went to see all the new york bands when they visited la. people came to see them which proved that real rock fans occupy even the land of nod. i had a few days off in september so i decided to go to hollywood and terrorize the tourists by riding my skateboard up and down the boulevard and scaring the shit out of em, the dogtown way. i'd been skateboarding since the polyurethane revolution with skateboard wheels. i had a custom made skateboard a surfer guy i knew in dogtown( santa monica ) made for me and used to have membership at torrance skate park where me and my brothers would skate all day( we were the only negros skating there but in the 80's our numbers grew ). well i'd had a pretty good night scaring all the suckers and i was ready to call it as night. i was skating towards cherokee cuz some other skaters were down there and i wanted to talk to them. then i saw them: a guy and a girl dressed like the punk rockers i'd seen on tv in magazines and on the records i had; punk rockers in la!!!!! i skated after them and scared them by skating close to them and stopping blocking their way. i said you guys are punkers where are u going and they said there's a club and i followed them and tiny the bouncer looked at me and said you can't ride your board down there and i said yeh yeh ok ran down the stairs got on my board and skated around the corner into...the skulls playing 147;VICTIMS148; at full volume and a room full of punkers dancing around. i talked to a guy there who i later found out was a roadie for the motels the only cool local band. i had found my place: i was gonna come back and join a band. i got to know the bands who were out then:the eyes the skulls the controllers who i saw play at the whiskey with the dils, the zeros the bags( i knew alice bag b4 the punk scene when she was a 15 yr old school girl ) and the germs who i learned didn't have a drummer from paul roessler who i engaged in a conversation outside the whiskey.( and he and his sister kira became my first buddies at the masque and the first maddog fans they always pogoed whenever i got on somebody's drums ). but it was a week after my 21st bday that i saw the band that was then and still is my favorite:THE AVENGERS. from san fran they came the best looking band on the west coast and they could play well( that mattered to me; it separated the real musicians from the bandwagon jumpers ). well they blew me away and i had to get to know them. i started with the drummer danny furious and we talked about drums and he said controllers should come up to san fran and play which we eventually did. 1978 was the happiest year of my life i was in a band that played rock and roll the way it's supposed to be played with guys who loved the same bands i did the stooges ny dolls velvet underground ( lou reed!!! ) black sabbath jimi hendrix etc. we loved the ramones who we decided rescued us all. we played in la with all the masque originals and got more and more fans with each gig. in september 78 we got a show in austin texas at a club popular with university students. they were hip to our music and promised us nirvana if we came. so of course i quit my 1500 dollar a month job at the post office and got on the road to texas. the trip was interesting to say the least . we played the club but were shortchanged by the opening band who played for 2 hours. we had time for maybe 8 songs and it was over, the audience was disappointed, because they expected us to play longer but not knowing anything about how texans did things we were too polite to tell the opening band to stop and let us get up there. they were sweet kids our suburban suicide ep, the first recording of the maddog on drums, on their jukebox. i went to san fran after the road trip for a vacation and stayed at the avengers house where danny penelope and jimmy lived. i hung out with them smoked a bunch of weed got to know the local sf punkers who thought i was crazy. penelope introduced me to ricky sleeper singer in the band the sleepers who had made a bitchin ep. i got to know negative trend the offs( don vinyl rules ) and alot o other cool people. i returned to la and we wrote some new songs and then chris desjardin of the flesheaters asked us to record 3 songs for a compilation lp he was doing. of course we would!. we did jezebel a cover song of part of a ricky ricardo( i love lucy ) song, another day about how lazy we were, and electric church about the beginning of the tv evangelism phenomenon. middle class was on it the germs and i forget right now. in june 79 the band broke up because of a stupid reason that i'll only explain if you call me on the phone and i can talk about it, but it's too fuckin stupid to write down. ok, i didn't find this out until 1997, but the GEARS wanted kid spike to join their band so he broke up the band citing stingray's lack of bass gear as the reason. i was pissed off: the GEARS lead singer axel g. reese used to hang out at my house in hollywood and i was friendly with him, not realizing that he was stealing my damn guitar player. anyway, i moved to san fran then went to vancouver to start a band with brad kent who'd replaced greg in the avengers after he quit( for an equally stupid reason ). he'd found a girl singer named heather who could wail like a white tina turner and he'd gotten randy rampage from doa( who'd quit for another stupid reason ) to play bass. brad had some radically original songs in a style that was uniquely his and i added my weird maddog jungle rhythm to it, with a hint of keith moon. the band was called the .45's( why i don't remember ) and we moved down to la to play the clubs we knew we would get us exposure( plus my rep in la and the fact that my friends would give us gigs ) and we were convinced we would blow people away. well our style was about 3 years ahead of it's time and people didn't get us ..in la that is. we played a show in san diego and the people there LOVED US!!! we seriously rocked their asses off and san diego gets props for being ahead of la which always calls san diego 147;slow148;. well i beg to differ, since alot of the people there are either in the military( navy or marines ) or college students( san diego state, baby!! ) people who have open minds to new music. anyway we came back to la and things sucked then randy got homesick so we all packed up and went back to vancouver. when we arrived randy had a major freakout so the band broke up( for no reason at all, not even a stupid one ). i flew back to la for a while with no band and no job and no place to stay( oh well you know i crashed at the hollywest building with the cheifs. then i went to san fran and from there i flew to london, where i'd decided i would try to join siouxsie and the banshees( hong kong garden fucking spins your head, like being in a nursery run by the ss ). well i ended up doing something else entirely which i'll write about if enough people want to hear it. email me if you want to hear about maddog's european adventure( it's a story of psuedo success ). 20 years later I'm in la against my will and i'm living in hollywood and i enter a record store called green hell records i spot a copy of tooth and nail and go to pay for it and the clerk recognizes me!! a week later kid spike is calling and 147;skull control148; which had the old singer of the skulls spike and some 2nd generation punkers on bass and drums. of course spike wants me to play and i haven't played in 9 years but he, pat smear of the germs, plus lots of other 147;maddog fans148; keep bugging me and then bibbe hansen( mother of beck ) says we need you in there maddog and I'm trippin' becuz punk rock is still alive people are paying ridiculous amounts of money for my records and looking at me like I'm some kind rock and roll mythological 7 headed demon goddess of tribal rhythms so i say ok my life is over and i joined skull control. spike fired billy bones in 92, just b4 we went in the studio and recorded the cd 147;RADIO DANGER148; had a mixture of old songs and new ones. as you know it went quadruple platinum ( NOT ) and skull control are living punk rock legends. anyway johnny stingray came back and joined the band ( which included a lead guitarist, the awesome mike alessi, who was a controller fan ). we recorded a demo in 96 ( a new version of Jezebel, a new song SUN CITY, and WHITE TRASH CHRIST, which were never released and had some of my best drumming ever recorded. well, legal weapon were looking for a drummer and kat, the lead singer talked me into playing with them. I'd always thought she had a great voice, but i never liked their music. well they'd written a bunch of new songs that ruled, so i played with them and recorded an album's worth of material which also had some great drumming by the maddog( which as soon as i figure out how, I'll put in on this site as downloadable mp3's( fuck metallica and all those out of touch with the real world rich assholes; chuck d of public enemy says free music and I'm with him..napster rules ) anyway legal weapon broke up becuz of a drug problem so i started playing with the leaving trains, which was fun and falling james was a controller fan( he even asked me and spike and stingray to autograph his copy of the suburban suicide ep which we were happy to do ). the trains got a tour offer to tour with the humpers and in may of 1997 the maddog went on her 1st tour of the USA. we played in nyc Philadelphia new jersey( where we blew the humpers away ) Cleveland Des Moines Sioux City Charleston West Virginia( where a Nazi dude wrote me a love note!!..go figure ) Denver , New York City, Philadelphia, New Jersey( where the trains blew away the Humpers ). it was fun becuz the humpers were my buddies so we got to be real asswipes everywhere we went. but the thing that drove me bananas was every city we played in people knew who i was and had either tooth and nail or suburban or both and wanted me to autograph it!! falling james always smiled at my reaction which was disbelief; the controllers never toured the USA and we only played one out of state show in Austin Texas( where they had our record on the jukebox ). but these kids, some who weren't even born when i was playing my first shows with the band, they knew our music they loved it we were even the favorite la punk band to some of them, especially in Sioux city which was Controller town the kids were screaming maddog between songs....,very scary. Melanie, leaving trains rhythm guitarist said to me maddog, you're PUNK ROCK, you're famous and i thought damn i am. some of the kids had the RADIO DANGER cd and others didn't and wanted it and i told them what label it was on and try to get a copy. well i heard on the grapevine that Chris Ashford the guy who had WHAT records in 77 and ILOKI in the 90's( the label radio danger was released on ) is gonna re-release all the controller shit he has control of. the 1st controller ep neutron bomb( which i don't play on and you can tell ) and RADIO DANGER TOOTH and NAIL was put out by the Flesheaters singer Chris Desjardin( he's plays a govt agent in the Kevin costner film 147;NO WAY OUT148; ) and had to re-press it 7 times since the original pressing and people are still asking for it. speaking of the flesheaters i played on a coupla songs on the 1st flesheater album i think it was called no question. he used me don bonebrake and wall of voodoo drummer joe nanini, who are both 1st rate drummers so i was in a-one company. bob lee, drummer in backbiter and alot of other bands told me maddog you have your own style, which is the greatest compliment you could pay a drummer. my drum hero is john bonham of led zepplin who had his own unique style, just like keith moon ginger baker and bill ward of black sabbath( who hit so hard his entire kit would lift off the ground for several seconds ). i was also influenced by mitch mitchell, jimi hendrix' original drummer, dennis davis( with bowie on station to station ) grand funk's drummer don brewer, stooges' drummer,scott asheton( who i can imitate pretty damn good he's my drum soulmate ), don bonebrake of X( my spirit guide and teacher and a good friend who lives to drum ) dave drive of the gears( another good bud who can play bonham's drum solo on moby dick almost perfect which is hard to do ), aerosmith's stick man joey kramer( i know the secret to sweet emotion hahaha ) ....oh sorry only drummers will know what I'm talking about. so i find myself the inspiration of a lot girl drummers and boy drummers as well. the thing that separated me from other 147;chick148; drummers is that i hit hard and i could play well, even in my early days i kept solid time. now I'm as solid as a drum machine. and drum machines don't scare me, i'd prefer to program the d.m. and my job would be done( I'm getting old I'm 43 DAMN IT! well i thought james was mad at me and he thought i was mad at him so we didn't talk to each other for a year. legal weapon broke up and skull control played it's last show in 97 at club mesa to a crowd of maybe 30 people( there was some hare krishna meeting that nite ) and broke up for another stupid reason( lack of big record deal which we shoulda got instead of bad religion which to me are just kid spike songs with chord changes in different places but never mind ). i didn't play at all in 98, just worked at the phone company got cable and got fat. i called james after new year and he was happy to hear from me and they needed a drummer so i joined up with the trains again and recorded 4 songs for a possible single( my fave on that was a song called 147;use your weapons against you148;, falling james taking aim at the military/industrial complex that we live in under over or however you deal with u.s.of assholes. we played at the house of blues which ruled real hard with a band i'd been trying to see for 8 years PYGMY LOVE CIRCUS, who ruled beyond what i was told about the band, which included one maddog fan i think he's the guitar player big guy named mike...anyway the point is the maddog played the house of blues just like X did so i proved myself and played pretty good so they tell me . anyway i joined this new band EL REY which has two Mexican American sisters from Bakersfield who can sing really good who write funny songs about life in their world which is a lot more accessible than the world most punk rockers live( d ) in, in other words they represent your average everyday american who has to work for a living but on the weekend they get rid of the stress and have some relief from the slave wage system they're prisoners of( they have a song called BARTENDER. you can guess what it's about.we have Trina rey on guitar and lead vocals cynthia or 147;chen148; which is nickname( or starchild which is a nickname a former band member gave her and is only used when she's acting up ) they've only been playing their instruments for 3 years. they also do one of my songs( yeah i can write songs and sing and I'm pretty good at both..i play a mean rhythm guitar ) which is called HELL'S KITCHEN and it's a true story about a day in the life of the maddog. i have to sing the damn song and play drums at the same time which sucks but i can do it. we'll start playing around town probably in july august so i expect true maddog fans to come and check us out. no it's not punk rock so don't expect to hear that... I'm sick of punk rock the way they do it these days there are only 2 bands doing 147;punk148; i like:the beautys from indiana and zeke from seattle( these guys are fierce and should making the money that green day is making ) oh yeah green day they are from the bay area so why does the guy sing with a fucking english accent? anyway that's what the maddog is doing these days playing in an all girl band writing fucking hit records and waiting for my turn in the 5 second spotlight. well i got on the internet in 1995 and i noticed there's nothing about the controllers on line so I'm starting this page to change that and as i gather more shit I'll put it up and anybody that has anything on the controllers send it to me. for now here is a picture of the controllers summer 1978 taken by ronn spencer who is a badass photographer and boss of whitenoise records who are dedicated to keeping los angeles punk alive.........well we had X and the GOGO's and the GERMS( kurt cobain had a germs tshirt and a germ guitar player in his band so he wins the new punk crown..too bad he was murdered just think of the shit he'd be doing now with pat smear in the mix...damn.......well kurt and darby are in rock and roll hell bitchin the devil out of his mind ....hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaha....gimmegimmeyourhandsgimmegimmeyourmindrapememyfriend pennyroyalteaaaaaa.....maddog 2000 go away now you're buggin'...... JULY 23 UPDATE:el rey has taken a sabbatical due to financial problems so the maddog isn't playing drums right now with anyone...,.which gives me the opportunity to do my acoustic thang i'll be turning up at different shows playing guitar and singing my compositions( you'll find the lyrics of some of my songs in the lyric and poetry room ) keep your eyes and ears open for a different side of my talent...... ALSO i've added 400 BLOWS to my list of bands i like and TOTI MOSHI from oakland who i like and they gave me a free cd too they might move down here this year the bass player is a girl and she's pretty cool as well as good lookin'...
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