lust for life reflected in live show. The way Bowie holds things tight to the chest w a thrill in his throat. none of that.

On October 9,  1977, The Ramones opened for Iggy Pop at the Masonic Temple. Tickets cost $7:50, and Carol and I sat in the balcony directly opposite the stage. The Ramones came out stronger than ever, and played songs that I had never heard, Cretin Hop, I Don’t Care, songs that took what they were doing up a notch or two. Songs with deeper sophistication and wit and still muscle lean. It was the best I ever saw them, the peak of their initial burst, before things started turning sour for them. Iggy Pop did more of his beligerent bad boy stuff, but the band wasn’t the stooges, did not have a credibility to match his, and my favorite part of his show was that for the half hour it took to tear down the ramones’ stage and set up Iggy, the PA blasted out symphonic Beethoven at Rock Concert volume. Ludwig was good company for the brudders and the igster,  it remains my favorite all time changeover music.

classical music overview.

complete control- us trying to do that w post card (4 radio shows) and manager....

Oct 77 t heads 77 comes out   ????  this is for 19.

which also features dead boys show and scenics lifestyle update. (including p smith on tv.)

Oct 15
 

Gary and Gary said they would be our manager, and took copies of the demo. Ken and I took a photo of us opening for Talking Heads,
and turned it into a promotional postcard, something we could send out to get reviews and gigs. the text on the back said “

For some reason we did not release the demo as our second LP, or as a long EP. There were still so few people we had met who totally got us and  valued what we played and wrote. So few independant releases. We didn’t have the type of chutzpah that would transcend all this, get 500 copies manufactured, (which admittedly wasn’t cheap), and mail them off to every fanzine and new wave radio show we could find.
    By November Ken had created a nest for himself in our basement studio, which, if  not cozy, was spartan and unappealling. These were rooms with fibreglass on the wall under loose plastic. Rooms that were bombarded with loud, strange noise, smoke, (cigarette and pot), the smells of greazy take out food and young bodies sweating, rocking out in the insulated, tiny, door shut environment. Old carpets on the floors, and the forced air heating providing a genorous circulation of dust, debris, detritus and friction- three young guys, very different, different back grounds and styles, Andy lassaiz faire to the point of unconcioussness, Ken liking everything to be under control, and Brad hoping that Ken and my crazy ideas about music wouldn’t scupper whatever hopes we had as a band.
   With Ken living there, the place got cleaned more reqularly, the coffee table zambonied off and the floor actually mopped.  Garbage taken out, and, for security’s sake, (Ken already having one bust on his sheet), the pot was shifted out of our rooms. A stash was located in the furnace room beside our place, behind a brick, behind a pipe. Back in our suite, a wider selection of Ken’s imported american pornograghy showed up.
  Ken had a mattress and sheets neatly made up on the ground, and once, he told me of his carefully arranged regime- one coffee and breakfast at Mcdonald’s up the street, exactly how much he could spend each day (and how),  steak and a kaiser from the Golden Restaurant, exactly how many coffees and cigarettes (for, alas, under Brad’s influence, and in response to his primative living conditions, and to my stunned disbelief, Ken had taken up smoking again.)
  Ken adapted to this carefully regimented lifestyle quite well. I’ve always observed that Ken has a type of S&M relationship to descipline and doing with out. Somewhere, deep inside, he gets something from knowing exactly what he is, and is not, allowed. (I wonder how that factored into the Scenics’ non-meteoric rise in the bizness.) As far as I could see, the only intake that was not strictly controlled was pot.  We would rehearse most weeks Mon to Thursday nights, Ken stuck in the basement due to his job at Long and Mcquade’s, and like me, having nothing he would rather do. Brad was in like a dirty sheet, as well. He didn’t seem to have a job- his connection to high quality Scarborough pot seemed to keep him liquid. I was working maybe 20 hours a week putting copies of the “guide to Canadian literature” in boxes and sending them off, occasionally doing other mailings for the Writer’s Development Trust, and considering I was living at home and paying no rent, this kept me afloat. Carol and I still hung out on the weekend, in her basement, on her recliner, watching the re-run of Patti Smith on Saturday Night Live, the encouraging miracle of this music being brought to the near mainstream, and from then on being regular viewers. Having aimless sex, still feeling a familial tenderness and connection to each other, but me essentially floating through any part of my life that did not involve holding an electric gtr or rock and roll record in my hands, or a joint, or my tape deck at a rock and roll show.