After a hard afternoon's rocking the other Chevelsky couldn't hold back any more. The next practice saw both Otto and Hugo holding rock sticks.
The neighbors, all of whom had it in for me, complained to my folks that their dogs were going deaf and that we needed to find another place to rock. Otto came to the rescue, saying that his mom owned an abandoned house that for some reason still had the electricty hooked up to it. No heat, but juice at least. It was mid-February in Minnesota, where the high temp of the day was a balmy -4 below. We got to the house after a tumultious bus ride and loaded all our gear into the living room of the empty house. Fatt Matt checked the fleu of the fireplace, deemed it somewhat safe, and proceeded to bust up cupboards and doors to stoke a fire. Soon we had a roaring blaze going and the rock was flowing.
Whilst at "The Ol' Gein Farm" as we named the house (well, actually I just named it that right now) we worked on new songs like "Pig Fucker", "No More Wheels", "Hey Headbanger" as well as covers of "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" by the Sex Pistols, and the Clash-ified version of "I Fought The Law". We still sucked to God's high heaven, sloppy as shit, slow as hell, but that was the idea in the back of my head, even though I hadn't realised it yet. I wanted the Ed Gein Fan Club to be the ultimate punk band, the idea that ANYONE can do it, all you need is the balls to actually DO IT. It was the idea of attitude over ability. Who cared if you couldn't tune your guitar? If you had the guts to get up on a stage then that's all that mattered. It's something that I still fervently believe in to this day.
The Ol' Gein Farm lasted about 2 months, then we were booted out and the Man took it over and turned it into a HUD home. Once again the search was on for a suitable home for my rock and roll dreams. Finally Emma and Fatt Matt's folks said we could use their basement when they weren't around so the gear was moved once again.
By now it was November of 1985. We still sucked musicaly, but with some fine-tuned finagling I got us our first gig. It was gonna be at someone's house for Yermom's 19th birthday. Only problem was that in the past few months The Ed Gein Fan Club had somehow made a few enemies. Maybe it was my loud mouth that got us in trouble, maybe it was the name of the band, or the fact that I was proclaiming to all within ear shot that The Ed Gein Fan CLub was the best fucking band ever and every other band ever created sucked ass in our presence. Because of this, The Ed Gein Fan Club's debut to the world was actually played under the name The Chevelski Fun Time Family Show Band to avoid getting our asses kicked by those who hadn't seen the Fan Club light.
Set-up and sound check for the world premier of
The Cheveleski Fun-Time Family Show Band (aka The Ed Gein Fan Club)
The first song of the first set of the first
performance of the Ed Gein Fan Club:
Ollie Stench singing "The First Song"
Before we played Yermom had the bright idea of taping the set for it's historical value, which I must admit was a brilliant idea. However, Yermom is such a fucking moron that Yermom placed the boombox right under the snare drum. You can kind of hear what's going on, but mostly all you hear is snare.
Now, keep in mind that Emma and I were strictly sober people. We were NOT straight-edge, as we didn't preach it, but we made damn sure to avoid drunks and rope heads. we thought them all to be stupid sub-human slime. Fatt Matt and the Chevaleskis were know to pop a beer once in a great while, but were far from being drunk at any point in this great story.
We played all of the songs we knew (except for The Beach Song, which Fatt Matt couldn't play): No More Wheels, Pig Fucker, Y.F.S., the Great Rock and Roll Swindle, I Fought The Law, the Batman Theme, C'Mon Everybody, and probably a few more that will remain nameless.
GODDAMN DID WE SUCK!!!!!!!!!!
But it was beautiful! The fucking drunk-ass headbangers and stoned hippy dirtbags that
were assembled didn't have any idea what was hitting them. Insults were
hurled to and from the "stage", we ran thru our set and high-tailed it
out of there after telling everyone to fuck off and that they weer fucking morons.