An Oral History Of Crime
HANK: “Ripper quit – I’m pretty sure he was getting pressure from one of his many girlfriends to settle down, but at any rate, Joey D’Kaye, who had been a roadie and sound man for us, took over the bass. We started letting Frankie do a couple of songs as a lead singer, as a compromise. Something he always wanted was for us wear lime green jogging suits, but with badges! We never caved in on that – but we made another attempt to boost ourselves by playing the Boarding House, a fairly prestigious club, two nights in a row (September, 7-8, 1979). The first night we had Buddy Holly Jr, a Buddy Holly impersonator who played guitar, and sang with pre-recorded accompaniment, open for us. The second night we wanted The Residents, but we settled for Snakefinger.”
JOHNNY: “The Boarding House shows were very low energy. We weren’t at our best – Ripper had just quit, and it was the first show where Joey was playing bass. It was also the first show where Frankie had his vocal-only numbers, and the sound we built up with two guitars was lost with me doubling up. The place was also not right for us – the club’s security were very wary of having a punk rock band play, and they made sure no one in the audience got out of line – and their idea of ‘out of line’ was pretty ridiculous.”
HANK: “The overall attendance on the two nights was not too hot. We bought radio spots for the show on the local Top 40 station, which seemed to have no impact. Everything we tried wound up being a big cash drain, and the morale of the band was deteriorating. There was a big rift between Frankie and Johnny over songwriting, among other things. Frankie kept coming in with the same song, with different titles!”
JOHNNY: “Frankie’s ego seemed to grow larger every day, and he walked around like some little god, and you just wanted to strangle him.”
HANK: “We used to meet at Hanno’s, a newspaper bar near the rehearsal space, before going over to rehearse. And after a while, we wound up staying longer and longer at Hanno’s before going over to rehearse, until finally we spent a whole rehearsal session at the bar. That’s when I knew that things were going down, and I had to leave.” -> -> ->
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