All I needed were some songs, some people to play the songs, and a place to rehearse said songs.
No problem...
I started dating Emma Rotgut, and one of the things she told me on our first date (seeing the Dead Kennedys, which she slept thru) was that she kinda played bass. The next day I gave her my bass and told her she was in my band.
I called up an ex-girlfriend, An(gie) Archy because she bashed out noise on her step-dad's drum kit. I told her she was now the drummer in my band. She said "cool, we can practice in my basement". I said "cool".
Then I called up an old friend from Jr. High who went by the name of Nails Johnson. He had a guitar and an amp. I told him he was in my band and to meet at An Archy's house the next Saturday.
"Cool", he said.
We had out first practice and it sucked.
None of us knew how to
play at all, except An(gie) who kind of knew how to keep a slow beat on
the skins. After 6 hours of bashing out an excurciatingly slow version
of Black Flag's version of "Louie Louie" we called it a day.
And made plans to get together the next weekend.
We were'nt any better the next weekend, but we did write our first original song after An(gie) started playing some fucked up surfer beat and Nails faked his way thru a chord progression that was nothing more than "Wipeout" played backwards. Emma followed Nails' guitar line and I spewed out a tale of an afternoon spent at the beach, and all of the wonders to be seen there. Camel Toe, dead fish, big tits, white foamy shit at the shoreline. With the genius and originality that was the Ed Gein Fan Club we decided to call this song "The Beach Song".
Emma and I had been telling (badgering) Randy Elvis from No
Life Music about the band. He was our first fan without ever hearing
us. He gave us the encouragement to keep working at it to get the band
off the ground.
He wouldn't have been so kind if he had actually heard what we sounded like!
At the next practice, our 3rd, we wrote another song (which I can't remember right now, I'll have to dig thru the vast Plainfield Archives(tm) to see if I can come up with the song), played The Beach Song about 47 times, and our old standard Louie x2. Nails had brought along a friend of his, and if I remember correctly this guy jammed with us as well.
We had the bright idea of calling up Randy Elvis on the
phone and giving him a private performance of his favorite band. I
diald the number for No Life and got him on the line. I hit record on
the boombox we were recording with (we recorded several of these early rehearsals for the good of mankind)
and An(gie) counted off. We launched
into our 3 song set. When we were done I grabbed the receiver only to
head a dial tone.
I knew Randy Elvis would be sorely disappointed when he finally
heard us... (he used the excuse that he was really busy at work and
didn't have the time to listen to us)
The next day Nails called me up and said he was retiring from the rock and roll lifestyle, it was just too intense for him.