A Moment of Crystal Clarity - Memories..

[dropdeadgothic]

A lot of us came of age in the 80's. Share a few of your memories.

1) How did you become aware of "new wave"? Was it someone you knew, a song you heard, someone sporting "the look", an album cover that grabbed your attention? 2)What was your greatest club memory? 3)At what moment, in the full flush of youth and identity, did you say to yourself "this is it, I never want to lose this memory, feeling, or moment"?

If I could buy my reasoning,
I would pay to lose

[dropdeadgothic]

WEll, I thought this would be cool to think back on, but no responses...So, I'll go first.

1) I became aware of "new wave" a couple of different ways. The first was when I was down at SouthCenter Mall in '82 at Wherehouse Records and noticed the album flats for Flock of Seagulls debut. You couldn't help but notice, although there were a lot of great album covers that year, this grabbed my attention. They were were giving extra's away, so I grabbed a few. I put them up in my locker, and that was the way I met this girl that was also interested in "new wave". The second way, was when I was over at a friend of my mothers. The daughter of the woman had all kinds of great records, Devo being one. These two events were to be the beginning of a lifelong passion.

2) My greatest club "moment" was slamming a 40' of Old E or Mickeys, because we were too poor to afford much else, that was my hazing. From there we went to Skoochies, where we hung outside the club in the snow, because we didn't have the money to get in. We could hear the music, because it was LOUD! And we weren't alone, we were in good company. It wasn't long before we started going in! Ha ha.

3) I guess the moment that I realized I never wanted to lose the memory, feeling, or moment was when I started to become more popular with the girls than I'd been in school before that time. It was a great feeling to be young, alive, and experiencing, feeling so much for the first time, and this incredible music was at the center of it all.

I'd really like to hear some of your memories, take a moment, give it a shot!

If I could buy my reasoning,
I would pay to lose

[Frau_Blucher]

1) It was at the end of 8th grade in Catholic grade school. I had collected enough Campbell's Soup labels to pick some crappy prize. Among them was the new Cars ST album. OMG! It was amazing compared to everything else. When high school started after that summer, there were some kids talking about crazy stuff like the Ramones and crazy KROQ shows like Young Marquis & Stanley and Rodney.

2) "Remembering" your greatest club moment is an oxymoron! [8D]

3) I can't remember now! [:0]

[KYYX4ever]

I also am intrigued by this question--[i]what was it that got you aware of/into new wave[/i]--and raised a similar question earlier:

http://www.nwoutpost.com/forum/topic.as ... first+time

But you know what ? As nostalgic as I am, and hold dearly on to these memories, I can't even really recall what it was, exactly, that got me aware of new wave. I believe it was some songs I heard. For my preteen years, I used to listen to Kasey Kasem's Top 40 countdown. I even wrote down the song titles. I recall that one afternoon in 1982, I got tired of Kasey and started flipping around the dial and heard Freddie Snakeskin's Countdown on KYYX. I don't think my dial hardly moved after that !
I generally credit KYYX, best station ever!
After I began listening to KYYX, everything fell into place pretty fast. I suddenly started noticing the cool album covers at the mall (hey, dropdeadgothic, I remember the South Center mall, too!), cool posters in general, people's lockers, people's stickers, cool-looking wavers and those early skaters, etc. [i]Friday Night Videos[/i] and early MTV came at that time, too.

2. Clubs: Metropolis and the Eagle's Nest up in Seattle were the most fun for me. They hassled you the least for being underaged. Skoochies was cool, too.

3. Listening to KYYX late at night on my headphones, under the covers 'cuz my parents wanted lights out. I remember thinking I was doing something [i]BAD[/i] (and it was NOT bad, of course, ha ha, but I was a good kid), special, and private and I never wanted to lose that feeling.

[Ollie Stench]

I've posted it in other threads but in the spirit of boring everyone yet again, here goes:

1) Winter '75-'76 my best friends big sister came home with a copy of Autobahn. My friend called me up and told me I had to hear this great comedy record. When I listened to it my 8 year old brain immediately realized that it was no joke, that Autobahn was the coolest record ever.

Flash forward to DEVO on SNL. I was 10. My brother thought DEVO was a sketch on the show. I realized it wasn't.

Forward again and I hear "Heart Of Glass" on the radio, and a few months later I see DEVO again on Fridays. That was it, I was 12 and my life changed forever.

2) I was always an anti-social kid so I never really went to clubs all that much. In the summer of '83 there was a group of sober DJs who thru a weekly dance for underage kids at a local park. My best friend and I went every Saturday. He's still my best friend to this day, too.

3) Defining moment I never want to forget? So many, but getting the first kiss from my first "real" girlfriend while her friends in the other room were arguing over who the cutest Duran Duran member was stands out. Getting my ear pierced waiting to get into the Psychedelic Furs "Mirror Moves" concert, stage diving 5 times at the Dead Kennedys show in 1984... I could go on and on but I won't.

Oh, and seeing DEVO on Fridays... I can remember it like it was yesterday. That was a defining moment.

[dropdeadgothic]

KYYX was and still is the best radio station I ever listened to. Hell, I'd buy that airply if it was out there. It was that good.

I don't recall Metropolis, and Eagles Nest. Where were they? Might jog my memory. I went to Gorilla Gardens, Tonights The Night, The Monastery, Skoochies, Club Broadway, and another that looked like an old lodge or grange hall.

I remember getting my ear pierced right before graduation. I couldn't manage it any sooner. It was still kind of racy and daring,
and you had to be sure which ear you pierced, lest you send the wrong signals out. I pierced the other soon after.

I still remember stage diving at a Black Flag show, and the buckets of pigs blood thrown on the audience. Crazy shite! Top that Rancid!

Blir, Ollie, KYYX4ever, thanks for sharing it's always interesting to hear others experiences. I don't know if any of you experienced it where you went to school, but did you encounter a lot of shit, from the herd in and out of school? We got things thrown at us, we were spit on, physically assaulted, it actually wasn't easy to "stick out" back then, not like the way "alternative" is marketed for mass consumption nowadays!

If I could buy my reasoning,
I would pay to lose

[i_like_lectric_motors]

[quote][i]Originally posted by dropdeadgothic[/i]
I don't know if any of you experienced it where you went to school, but did you encounter a lot of shit, from the herd in and out of school? We got things thrown at us, we were spit on, physically assaulted, it actually wasn't easy to "stick out" back then, not like the way "alternative" is marketed for mass consumption nowadays!


[/quote]

I went through that kind of crap constantly, growing up in a town of less than 20,000 people with no major cities anywhere nearby and maybe 3 other punks in the entire school. It's cool though ... someone had to pave the way for future generations, right?

[hexicon]

[quote][i]Originally posted by dropdeadgothic[/i]
<br>.

I don't recall Metropolis, and Eagles Nest. Where were they? Might jog my memory. I went to Gorilla Gardens, Tonights The Night, The Monastery, Skoochies, Club Broadway, and another that looked like an old lodge or grange hall.

If I could buy my reasoning,
I would pay to lose

[/quote]

Hi DDG, welcome to the board. Nice to see another Skoochies alum. If you search for this board for Skoochies, you will see lots of my reminiscing posts. Out of curiosity, where did you go to school, and what class were you? Just wondering if we might have any mutual acquaintances. (I'm supposedly writing a memoir in novel form about my teen New Wave days in Seattle, but I've been stuck at 40,000 words for a very long time.)

[Ollie Stench]

I got shit all the time. My brother and his friends used to beat up "all them punker fags" at his school (we went to different high schools) so I got it at home as well as out in public.

Most of the time it was just verbal taunting but a few times it got kind of hairy. Some friends and I got chased by a bunch of jocks in a muscle car once and had to cut thru about 5 yards to ditch them.

Another time my girlfriend and I were getting harassed downtown (Minneapolis) and the people harassing us started pushing us around. She started pushing back until the manager of hte record store we hung out in pulled us both inside and told us to go wait in his office. We were in there for about 10 minutes before he came and told us the coast was clear.

And once I was riding hte bus and felt what I thought was a bee sting on my arm, only to find a rusty, flattened piece of a muffler that someone had chucked through the bus window at me.

In 1985/86 I started carrying a camera around with me and took pictures of everyone who would yell at me, give me shit, etc.

Turning it all to our advantage, though, when the baseball All Star game was played here in 1986(?) my girlfriend and I hung out by the stadium and charged tourists $5 each to take out pictures. We probably made $40-$50 in 2 hours.

[Frau_Blucher]

[quote][i]Originally posted by dropdeadgothic[/i]
<br>Blir, Ollie, KYYX4ever, thanks for sharing it's always interesting to hear others experiences. I don't know if any of you experienced it where you went to school, but did you encounter a lot of shit, from the herd in and out of school? We got things thrown at us, we were spit on, physically assaulted, it actually wasn't easy to "stick out" back then, not like the way "alternative" is marketed for mass consumption nowadays!
[/quote]
Never. This was Socal - par for the course. I distinctly remember learning about The Teardrop Explodes from some guys on my football team.

[djcraig]

I remember being disgusted with the state of FM rock radio here in Cali back in '82. I mean, how many times can you listen to KLOS play "Sweet Home Alabama", Foreigner and Loverboy at the expense of ignoring other great new music?

So, as I cruised in my black, 1979 Chevy van, I flipped around the dial and found a sound I wasn't familiar with. It was KROQ and it's neighbor KNAC playing the stuff nobody else would touch. Idol, Clash, Ramones, etc. I had never heard a format like it.

What an eye/ear opener!

Things haven't been the same since.

Except now KROQ now seems stuck in Grunge mode and KLOS actually plays The Clash.

[KYYX4ever]

[quote][i]Originally posted by dropdeadgothic[/i]
<br>I don't recall Metropolis, and Eagles Nest. Where were they? Might jog my memory. I went to [b]Gorilla Gardens, Tonights The Night, The Monastery,[/b] Skoochies, Club Broadway, and another that looked like an old lodge or grange hall.[/quote]

Cool, I went to those clubs too.[8D] Gorilla and the Monastery could get a little intense for tiny ol' me. They seemed to be where the scariest punks went. I wasn't [i]afraid, per se[/i], but I was a straight kid (no drinking, drugs), and there were lots of both there--both secretly and in the open. That kind of stuff freaked me out back then! The Monastery also had a lot of strange vibes with the homeless kids and the sexual predating (is that a word?lol). Nevertheless, they were still cool for some great music to dance to that you never heard anywhere else. Plus, the Gorilla Gardens got the BEST punk and goth bands.
Eagle's Nest was on 708 Union and it was open all night long! 'til 6 am.
Metropolis was on 2nd Ave. somewhere, close to the beginning of it.
Vogue, on 1st Ave., was awesome too, for more Euro-poseurs and great fashions.
Oh, the memories!

[dropdeadgothic]

KYYX,, did you ever go to Astor Park? That was a great club as well. Didn't Metropilis turn into "Weathered Wall"? Club underneath the monorail?

Monastery was interesting to look back on, it's now the site of a rental car agency, I believe. It had it's darker element to be sure.
A lot of preying on homeless and/or drug addicted kids. That's another thread I'd like to talk about, because I really haven't in all these many years is prejudice, homelessness, and being gay, as it affected many kids I socialized with. I hope you will ALL comment in this next thread.

Hexicon, I went to Foster High school out in Tukwila, class of '85.

If I could buy my reasoning,
I would pay to lose

[KYYX4ever]

heh, Monastery a rental car place.
Always wondered what became of it. I had heard about its demise, and then I wondered where all those kids went.
Yes, I think Metropolis turned into Weathered Wall--that sounds familiar. I don't remember. I was sad when they shut down Gorilla Gardens !
I lived in Lacey from 1982-1985, and my going up to the cool Seattle clubs was infrequent, but it always proved a thrilling adventure. The more [i]interesting[/i] kids were up in Seattle!

[KYYX4ever]

p.s.
dropdeadgothic,
I emailed you in the other thread about trading CDs...have you received that email yet? Email me at: wanke_a AT earthlink.net