The Loudmouths: SAKI TO ME

"The Loudmouths at Mr. Bing's" 1996 

Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas 

14 x 11" 

© Julie Pavlowski Green

It was only yesterday that I took a stroll around North Beach in San Francisco with The Loudmouths, looking for great backdrops to shoot them in front of for various upcoming singles they had coming out. We would walk every few steps past the strip clubs and dirty alleyways and they would oblige me by standing in front of The Garden of Eden or The Lusty Lady. A trip around Chinatown and then back down Columbus Street where we ended the night at Mr. Bing's, an old man bar near Jack Kerouac Alley. 

If you are looking for straight up fast rocking music, these kids are the real deal! The Loudmouths have a way of grabbing you by the hair the moment they start playing and keep you enthralled straight through their fast and furious set. This interview is accompanied by some unseen shots that have been locked up in my Archives which I have brought out in honor of their 1st show in over 10 years and simply because this band should forever live in infamy!

Come on and "Saki to Me"!

Julie Pavlowski Green

Saturday, September 28, 2013

HOW DID THE BAND GET TOGETHER? 

PETE "THE OX” LOUDMOUTH: It kinda formed around Beth. I met her when her band PMS played at Mirmar house and Beth met Jay and Dulce separately at shows. We all had a like minded idea of what we wanted to do musically and went for it. What was in 93.

BETH “B.B.” LOUDMOUTH: 1993. I met all three of the other Loudmouths-to-be at shows. We all bonded on our love for fast three-chord punk rock!

DULCINEA LOUDMOUTH: I would see Beth at shows all the time, and then one night we finally met. I think it might've been at a Girl Trouble show at the Kennel Club. We bonded over beer, the Lazy Cowgirls, Ramones etc. Beth was interested to start a band, and that was a great excuse to finally get my guitar out of the closet. 

JAY LOUDMOUTH: Beth was the glue and we were the glue sniffers. The Loudmouths formed in 1993 and our first show was around spring 1994 at the Purple Onion opening for the Groovie Ghoulies.

YOU RECENTLY PLAYED A REUNION GIG AT THE EL RIO IN SAN FRANCISCO. HOW DID THAT GO?  DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WERE IN A TIME WARP?

PL: The show was a trip and went by kinda fast. The fact that the Idiots and The Jack Saints were playing was a time warp. Playing felt the same except I was way more burnt out by the end.

BL: It had been 12 years since we played together. I loved it, I miss playing FAST! It was an awesome night, hot, sweaty and fun. Our friends The Jack Saints and Idiots also did reunion sets, so it was a blast -- punk rock family reunion night.

DL: It was a total 90s island moment. I thought the show couldn't have gone better. It was hot and sweaty, and I was stoked that we were still able to play balls out.  Plus Beth and Jay pulled out some old rock moves that they didn't share at practice. Ha, but I totally got my rocks off!

JL: The show was a lot of fun and it was great to see some old faces. The Jack Saints and Idiots were great. A good night all around. I also had a great time reuniting with The Loudmouths - hanging out, relearning the songs, learning new songs, etc.  

WHAT OTHER BANDS HAVE YOU BEEN IN?

PL: Before the Loudmouths i was in Blank Pile and after I’ve been in Johnny and the Dudes and the Young Offenders.

BL: The Umbilical Chords (with two of the guys from Monoshock, the Umbilical Chords was a “first band” for all of us), The Manson Girls, Dope Brownie, Pre-Marital Sex which later became Cockpit, Jaded Fucks, The McCools and the Womentors. I am currently in the Meat Sluts, Sick Bags and a uke band, Pineapple Princess.

DL: After the Loudmouths I played in a couple things that never really took off, and then played in the Primitivas. My current band is Midnite Snaxxx. 

JL: The Loudmouths are the first band I played guitar in, but before that I sang in a band in Minneapolis called Iron Fist around 1986-87. After my time with The Loudmouths I had a short stint in the Demonics. I also played in a band with Beth called The McCools as well as a few other bands that had no names or shows. 

WHAT’S UP WITH THE BALL GAG? WERE THERE ANY DOMINATIX OR DOMINATORS IN THE BAND?

PL: I think the ball gag came from a great erotic accessories catalog I found at a garage sale.

The girls definitely dominated.

BL: That photo came from this old S&M book Pete had... that book created a lot of great flyers for us! It's my favorite image we had... you're a loudmouth baby, you better SHUT IT UP! Ha!

DL: I still love that picture. Yeah, we'll they didn't call me il dulce for nothing. 

JL: Beth and Dulcinea are the dommes. Little known fact: I have a torture chamber in my basement...

HOW DID WENDY O. WILLIAMS OR TURA SATANTA INFLUENCE THE MUSIC OF THE LOUDMOUTHS? DID YOU EVER GET TO MEET THESE MIGHTY LADIES?

BL: Wendy O. is a big inspiration to me. She was just so all-around tough and BAD ASS. I'm a huge fan of the Plasmatics and the Wendy O. solo stuff. In the late 80's I went to see her band Wendy O. Williams (Wes Beech was only Plasmatics member that I know of still playing with her then) at the Paladium in Los Angeles. Somehow I finagled my way backstage and got to meet and interview her. It was after the MAGGOTS album came out. She is very tiny... about my height, 5' 5". She had lots of healthy food backstage and was burning incense. She was really cool to me. I sent the interview to Maximum RnR but they wouldn't print it (said it was too self-serving because she was talking about her new music?!) so I sent it to FlipSide and they printed it. I am still sad that she committed suicide.

JL:  I never met either of them, but I did get to see The Plasmatics open for KISS in 1983 and W.O.W. solo a few times in the mid-late 80's, once with Motorhead. 

DL:  On the Wendy O tip, the Loudmouths also had a song called Reformatory Girl. It was a tribute to Wendy on the "I was a teenage Plasmatic" 7" comp. Wendy and Tura were both tough ladies who pushed the boundaries with their own unique brands of leathery badass. We pretty much wore their influences on our sleeves. We celebrated that female toughness in our music always paying homage in spirit and imagery. In 1997 Tura was doing an in-store in Sacramento (at Cinemania) where I was lucky enough to meet, interview and wrestle her for Girlyhead magazine! It was definitely a thrill to meet her. Lucky for us Pete and Jay could always appreciate a tough lady...

WHAT WAS ONE OF YOUR MOST MEMORABLE SHOWS?

PL: I remember a non show in Memphis. We set up and had a great sound check, the best we sounded on the whole tour. Then not one person showed up to the show so we just left.

BL: On our first US tour we played a party in Lexington, Kentucky that was off the hook. Those people know how to party!! It was with the HOOKERS and the ROCK AND ROLL TERRORISTS and the whole night was just crazy fun. Drag queens, fire breathing... whew. How about all those US tour shows I set up WITHOUT A CELL PHONE OR THE INTERNET!? Kids today wouldn't understand.

DL: That was in the era of when Timebomb Tom was ruling Green Bay with an iron fist. Later, we had some killer shows in Europe. Oh and of course another highlight was when we were the backup band for The Lewd as the Lewdmouths.

JL: Yea, the Lexington, KY show Beth mentioned was great, the people there know how to have fun. The shows in Green Bay, WI were always fun too!

I LOVE THAT YOU COVERED THE 70’S AUSTRALIAN BAND ROCKS’ AND PUT OUT A 7” SPLIT WITH THEM. WHO WAS THE BIG ROCKS’ FAN?

BL: I have three of the “Where Birdmen Flew” LP compilations, that's where I first heard the ROCKS. I have been a ROCKS fan for a long time. I think Dulce suggested “Kick Her Out”... been so long, I don’t remember! Coolest thing was that they found out we covered them (I think I sent them our record) and the split 7” happened because of that. Their drummer Bibs came to the U.S. to travel, came to one of our shows, and drummed on the ROCKS’ songs we did! 

DL: I was pretty obsessed with 70s Aussie punk in general, so it was a natural choice. At that time a lot of that killed by death stuff was resurfacing, so there was a plethora of underground gems to be consumed.

JL: I believe Dulcinea brought that to the table.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT BEING IN THE LOUDMOUTHS?

PL: Just playing with friends who wrote great songs. Also playing with some of my(our) favorite bands.

BL: Getting to hang out with and play music with some of my best friends, rock hard, be loud and play with other bands I LOVED!

DL: Getting to scream my head off, hanging out with the band and being able to play places I'd never been before.

JL: Playing loud fast rock and roll, sans guitar solos. One of my favorite record reviews of The Loudmouths stated we were "three sheets to the wind two-chord punk", although we did play more than two chords.

“ROCKIN’ AT THE ROLLERDERBY” WAS SUCH A CLASSIC! DID YOU GUYS EVER GET TO PLAY THAT IN FRONT OF SOME SKATERS?

PL: Weve played to roller girls and skaters.

BL: I think we played for more skateboarders than quad skaters! But as far as Rollerderby goes, the song is used for the end credits in the documentary “Demon of the Derby” about the old-school derby badass Ann Calvello (R.I.P.).

DL: At the time, that would've been a fantasy to play in the center of a roller rink. In reality we always had more of a skateboarder following. On a Loudmouths tour we always had to make some skateboard park/ empty pool pit stops for Pete  "the ox". 

JL: Not that I am aware of.

HOW DID SKATEBOARDING OR ROLLER SKATING INFLUENCE THE MUSIC OF THE LOUDMOUTHS? WERE YOU A SKATER?

BL: You mean ARE you a skater! I grew up roller skating and skateboarding both. And still do both! When the Bay Bombers (old roller derby team) did a "comeback" of sorts (years before the current girl roller derby teams that are popular now), they would set up the banked track and for $10 you could go skate it before the match. I did that a few times, it was SO FUN! Learned some moves from the old-timers too. I interviewed old derby queen Ann Calvello (who was punk rock before punk rock!) for Girlyhead Magazine in the 90s. I went to her 69th birthday party too, at a roller rink in San Mateo. Sadly, she passed away a few years ago. But there is a great documentary on her life called "Demon of the Derby". The Loudmouths' song "Rockin' at the Rollerderby" is used for the end credits.

DL:  I am so old I used to love watching roller derby on TV as a kid. I was always fascinated with the show and skaters.  I think I was a natural born "jammer", ha! Like Beth, I skated the banked track too and went through a roller derby training, but I never went full throttle.  I grew up in Southern California so roller skating and skateboarding was pretty much what you did as a kid/adult to have fun, cut loose and to go fast. That teenage romance of skating culture was definitely in our collective attitude and energy. It came out in weird garage/ skatepunk ways with over driven guitars and drum beats at break neck speed, but we wouldn't have had it any other way.

JL: I used to skateboard a lot as a young metalhead/punk kid and skating was a big part of our scene, but I kinda sucked at it. Luckily Minnesota is flat, I would have killed myself if I skated in SF. Still have the Santa Cruz Bullet I bought on my high school graduation day, then we went to see Metallica that same night. I used to roller
skate all the time as a pre-teen in the 70's. We had a place called Wooddale Roller Rink near where I grew up outside of St. Paul, MN. It was during the disco era and they had a lit up dancefloor in the middle of the rink where you could take your skates off and shake yer booty while every one was shooting the duck or limboing around you. 

TELL US A TOM GUIDO STORY!

PL: Years after the Purple Onion I saw Tom at the beach just sunning in his speedos. and these bikers were harassing him with a fishing pole with a hotdog on the end of the line. He was giving it right back to them. 

BL: There were so many!  He got mad at me one night and tried to attack me with a plunger from the mens room. He was chasing me around the room in front of the stage,  screaming at me and trying to smack me in the face with the plunger. (He never got me!) It was all in good fun of course. Another time he had on this jumpsuit thing... like a worksuit. I unzipped it and lo and behold he had no underwear on! I couldn't even look! He was chasing me around the room in front of the stage,  screaming at me with his weenie showing! I think he liked chasing me around and screaming at me.

DL: Every night at the Purple Onion was a Tom Guido story. Usually the scenario revolved around the toilet which was always plugged up. He loved to accuse random people of plugging up the toilet and then would kick them out of the club. He also loved to pull the plug on bands to make random announcements or just stop a show. I swear sometimes he was like Z-man from Valley of the dolls! 

JL: I recall a night (and I could have the bands wrong so someone can correct me if so), when The Loudmouths were supposed to play a show at a warehouse on 17th and Capp in SF (where Werkstatt motorcycle shop is now) with The Registrators from Japan and The Stitches (i think). The show got busted by an undercover cop before we played. It just so happened The Trashwomen were playing a show across town in North Beach at Morty's (or Cocodrie?), so The Registrators and Stitches were added to that show last minute. We all jumped in the Loudmouths Family Wagon van and headed to North Beach to catch the show, but on the way, we dropped down into The Purple Onion a block away for a couple minutes to see what was going on. The Highlander 2s were on stage playing in their kilts, and of course Tom Guido jumped on stage to rant at Beth or whatever. Tom was wearing a jump suit with nothing on underneath (unbeknownst to us). He unzipped it, pulled his dick out and chased Beth around the bar with it, so we all ran out of the Purple Onion and up the street to see The Registrators, Stitches and Trashwomen. 

WHO ILLUSTRATED YOUR AMAZING YELLING HAND?
BL: That’s an old Santa Cruz Skateboards logo. We shamelessly "borrowed" it and added "The Loudmouths"!

DL: I think that was a Beth heist. 

THERE IS A HIDDEN TRACK YOU GUYS COVERD OF GG ALLIN’S SONG “I WANNA FUCK MYSELF” ON YOUR “GOTTA LIVE FAST!” 7”. DID YOU EVER GET TO SEE HIM PERFORM?

PL: The one time I went to see GG he never showed up because he was in the hospital from the night before. Shit.

BL: I saw GG live in SF about 15-20 years ago... last tour before he died. It was at some warehouse around Townsend and 2nd street. It was a great show. NO ONE was standing 20 feet in front of the stage, and everyone would run for the back when he darted towards the audience. I was stupid enough and drunk enough to feel brave enough to just stand there and during one of his rushes into the crowd -- he grabbed my arm and tried to kiss me. Seriously.

I was lucky I wasn’t one of the other people he grabbed and bashed in the head with his microphone. I yelled and struggled to get away from his grip -- I turned around and all my buddies had run away and no one was coming to help me. Ha! A couple weeks later I was at a show and this guy came up to me and said "You were that girl who was kissing GG Allin!" I thought about it for a second, then said, "YES, that was ME!". Hey, why not!?

DL: I remember when he came to San Francisco, but I can't remember why I didn't go.  Maybe I didn't want shit thrown on me. Still love that Jabbers stuff.

JL: I never saw him perform, but I did meet him at an Iggy Pop/Ramones/Dickies show at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Sept. 1988. It was outside on the sidewalk before the show. He had apparently just arrived in Chicago and was looking to get a band together, so all of these people started gathering around him saying "hey I play guitar" then the long haired GG would say, okay, your my guitar player and exchange numbers. I only had a short exchange with him, he was pretty friendly. I was supposed to see him play in SF at The 6th Street Rendezvous, 1991 after prison i think, but I don't remember why I didn't go. 

BEING THE ILLEGITIMATE BRATS OF THE RAMONES, TELL US A PERSONAL

STORY YOU HAVE INVOLVING THESE GRANDDADDIES OF PUNK ROCK.

PL: Seeing Dee Dee play a pizza parlor in Concord was weird, but fun. He played a hand full of song then got mad and left.

BL: I got to interview them when I was 19 for my punk rock fanzine at the time “Wake Up!”. I got to talk to each of them individually for about five minutes, including Vera Babydoll Ramone, Dee Dee’s wife at the time. I was so happy and nervous. The reason I got backstage was because this guy I went to high school with was the nephew of their manager, Monte Melnick. I had just gotten my first tattoo -- the RAMONES logo on my arm... I showed it to Monte (who was guarding the door backstage) and he looked so disapproving about it. I namedropped his nephew's name, and he let me back to do my interviews... he made me show Joey my tattoo... I remember reading my questions to Joey and my hands were shaking.

DL: When I was in fifth grade, I heard the Ramones for the first time. I knew then that all I ever wanted to do when I grew up was be one.

JL: A Ramones highlight for me was meeting and taking pictures with Dee Dee and his wife Barbara after a show they played at The Paradise in SF. Although I don't think the feeling was reciprocated by Dee Dee, it was cool that he took the time to do that. Beth was there too. It was great when he started coming up to SF playing shows, including the one in Concord Pete mentioned. I recall being stoked to be seeing him at The Pound SF, but he died like a day or two before the show was to happen. I was crushed. I was the only person I knew that actually went out and bought Dee Dee King rap records when they came out. I love that shit - still have my Funky Man 12". 

TELL US SOMETHING WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT THE LOUDMOUTHS!

PL: We all didn’t’ hook up with each other(unless theirs things I don’t know)

BL: We declined an offer from PROBE magazine to pose nude for their cover back in the 90s -- cause we were too shy to do it. And we do have SOME class dammit!

DL: Uff no nudes! I guess we should also mention that Adam Can't was in the Loudmouths too, but as he loves to remind us...we fired him, hahaha. 

JL:  Well, I didn't know Beth and Dulcinea were asked to pose nude. I can't believe they wouldn't take one for the team?!? 

No one ever asked me to pose nude…