Describe your scene from back in the day.

[newwavepunkgirl]

I love that Kurt Cobain line! 'In Utero' is one of my favorite albums, it's darker than 'Nevermind' and more raucous in parts, great stuff! Liek the cover art too as it's unusual to have a visible woman, there was one at at Boston MA museum that I missed seeing.[V](As an artist I find anatomy interesting, sadly it doesn't extend to tkaing better care of my poor body!LOL![:D][:p])

Devolution is real

[Max Murdoc]

There was no "scene" in my area back then. We were considered strange with our mode of dress but still, the babes liked us! There was one place in Youngstown, Ohio called "Cedars" where we saw cover groups but nobody big (as far as I can remember). Trent Reznor could be seen there (before he was in Option 30). The Producers came to town twice!! Yeah! (georgie would have been there)....I almost forgot, The Youngstown Agora....how could I forget that? The Tubes, Modern English, The Ramones, Adrian Belew, League of Gentlemen but that was very infrequent....alot of the people there came to drink and get rowdy, not to see the band.

We hung out at my apartment, had parties, listened to the latest Trouser Press recommendations, watched MTV and waited for the next group to come to Cleveland or Pittsburgh.

[bigwavedave]

Hey KYYX4ever and shovelbum, I have almost every issue of The Rocket from its inception in 1979 through it's fade-out some 20 years later. I think I am missing the 2nd issue with the Clash on the cover, but I must have over 200 issues stashed away. I've been meaning to dig them out because they were such a great reference for new wave and punk, including concert listings and record reviews. I would scoop up every issue at Tower Records the day it came out, and usually have it read before I even got home. Too bad I don't have a scanner...I would have hoped for an on-line Rocket Magazine archive by now but can't seem to find any.

Before I moved to Seattle for college in 1981, we would pile in someone's parent's car and head to the city to dig through the University District record stores (Cellophane Square mostly, which is still hanging on). The stores were also a good stop off point for new wave/punk bands to do meet and greets with the fans. I saw Translator, Echo and The Bunnymen, Laurie Anderson, Bow Wow Wow, and The Ramones do autograph signings at stores like Peaches.

The big local bands of the day included the Allies, The Heats and The Cowboys, all of which were new wave power pop and have since been reissued on cd, happily. There was a pretty heavy punk scene on "The Ave" too.

DJ Stephen Rabow was the coolest, spinning popular and obscure new wave on several radio stations, but mostly KYYX. He had all the latest import 12" singles, and loved spinning the extended remixes on his show. He was the kind of DJ who made you want to run to the import section and snatch up whatever he was playing. Although I can't match Georgie's band list, I did see a few cool acts during the day: OMD on the Architecture and Morality Tour, Thomas Doby, Modern English, The Police, Fixx, Thompson Twins, Big Country, REM, U2, Pretenders, The Alarm, Tears For Fears, Simple Minds and a few others I can't recall...fun times!

[KYYX4ever]

[quote][i]Originally posted by bigwavedave[/i]
<br>DJ Stephen Rabow was the coolest, spinning popular and obscure new wave on several radio stations, but mostly KYYX. He had all the latest import 12" singles, and loved spinning the extended remixes on his show. He was the kind of DJ who made you want to run to the import section and snatch up whatever he was playing.
[/quote]
oh man, I totally hear you. I adored Stephen Rabow and thought he was a god for playing all that great stuff. I mean, he played [i]everything[/i]. he had an awesome sense of humor, too...remember when he'd played records in slo-mo, random bongo stuff in the background, movie clips...ahhh. He and what he played were very inspiring.
[quote]Before I moved to Seattle for college in 1981, we would pile in someone's parent's car and head to the city to dig through the University District record stores (Cellophane Square mostly, which is still hanging on). [/quote]
oh, I'd forgotten about Cellophane; that is so cool that they are still around!
[quote]I have almost every issue of The Rocket from its inception in 1979 through it's fade-out some 20 years later. I think I am missing the 2nd issue with the Clash on the cover, but I must have over 200 issues stashed away. I've been meaning to dig them out because they were such a great reference for new wave and punk, including concert listings and record reviews. I would scoop up every issue at Tower Records the day it came out, and usually have it read before I even got home. Too bad I don't have a scanner...I would have hoped for an on-line Rocket Magazine archive by now but can't seem to find any.
[/quote]
Right on! Loved [i]The Rocket[/i]. I have random issues 1982-ish to maybe 1989-ish. Unfortunately some of them were cut up(by me), cutting out pictures or articles, etc. And marked up, too (they had GREAT concert listings!). I really will try to scan something here soon.

Oh--and remember that KYYX magazine they had for a short time, [i]The Wave[/i] ? What a great little mag that was !

[shovelbum]

You guys are soooo lucky to have hard copy! You're making me misty eyed with nostalgia. My parents (as kyyx knows!) were crazy conservative (my dad was career military and my mom is borderline) and I escaped their home with NOTHING (but my life). I'm so glad kyyx is a nostaliga-fiend because she has all our old notes, tape mixes, writings, pix, articles . . . I have nothing but memories. *sniff*

I remember Cellophane- I used to take the greyhound to seattle (now that's devotion!) just to go there.

Steve Rabow was the BEST dj ever, IMO. I used to keep my radio on late at night (door shut, lights out) and just listen . . . He offered us incredible exposure to the world of NW music. If it weren't for him we never would have known half the bands we love, let alone appreciate obscure mixes. He educated us on the importance of those 12' imports!!! What he taught us about music is more intricate than the knowledge of the best wine connoisseur!

Like KYYX, I mostly stomped around dt Oly, gravitating toward 4th Ave records (I can still smell the vinyl and patchouli!). That is still a great city to live in if you love the liberal/hippy live-and-let-live lifestyle. If it weren't for bad memories of growing up there (combined with the fact my parents still live in the area!), I'd probably move back. . . Well, okay, there is the weather too! LOL

"I drank what?" ~Socrates

[Moparmark]

I hate to be the downer but my scene(a very loose interpretation of the word)was a bleak landscape of bad discos,a few stripbars and alot of Legions(cheap booze).The city I live in at one time had a large army base so entertainment was kind of geared to that as well as a large blue collar population so New Wave/punk acts were scarce.
As I posted before I was a bit of a hayseed redneck so I did my time in the strip bars and country bars where myself and a few pals would try to score the lonely single moms.But it wasn,t all bad I did see Billy Idol,The Boomtown Rats and Chris Spedding all in the early 80,s.

[bigwavedave]

Yep KYYX4ever, I also have copies of The Wave stashed away with my Rocket Magazines. Remember Backlash magazine? That was all about the local Seattle scene and I have a few of those too. Time to dig the box out, for sure!

I mentioned in an old thread that I got to go to Stephen Rabow's house in Seattle so we could plan a charity dance he agreed to DJ. As you can imagine, walls of cool import vinyl. Oh, and he even spun a Seona Dancing 12"- that was cool even though none of us had any idea who the band was!

[KYYX4ever]

cool. I recall you mentioning that, in the past.[8D]
No, I haven't heard of this Backlash magazine.

[sunzgem]

Yeah, living in a fairly smaller town there wasn't that much of a scene here as well. But my own personal scene was from about '84-'89. I was in Jr. high and high school and was very much into 120 Minutes and 'college' music. Anything played there was what I liked. Still being young I had posters of Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Robert Smith and Morrissey all over my walls too. (Still can't get over Nick Rhodes!) In high school I hung out in what was called "The Quad" which was this big outside open area where they actually allowed smoking and all the rejects were. I hung out with a bunch of punks then. They got me into the Sex Pistols and Black Flag but after school it was all about the new wave.

Good times, good times.

[sunzgem]

WoodlandParkPunk,

I know of Wax Trax. Been there many times. In fact, I still go there looking for industrial music whenever I'm in Denver.

[geoffolehane]

I was in college in Northern Vermont from 1977-1981. Six weeks after graduating I landed a radio gig in Sanford Maine from 1981-1985. So I didn't get to witness first-hand a lot of the scene. You had to drive several hours to Boston or Montreal to really be in the thick of it. At college there were plenty of us who looked and dressed the part (like me).

I remember DJ-ing a college marathon for Multiple Sclerosis. I introduced a lot of the dancers to stuff they never heard. They had to keep dancing for 24 hours (with occasional breaks) so it was a captive audience. But many of the songs I introduced that weekend became staples at all the college dances.

A prime example was "Ca Plane Pour Moi." When I wasn't DJ-ing, I was dancing. There was one particularly attractive student who always sought me ought to jump around to Plastic Bertrand. She happened to be one of the most popular women on campus and she always wanted to dance with me to that one. Later on when I went to Maine there was a club in Kennebunkport that had a great DJ, which is where I first heard "Jet Boy Jet Girl."

The radio station I worked at in small town Maine (WSME) was an Album Rock Station that was willing to try out a lot of the new stuff. SO at least I was surrounded by it all the time and constantly exposed to new stuff. And I was able to build a pretty good record collection of throw-away promotional albums and throw-away singles.

There were plenty of great cover bands in my area. I remember going to a fantastic New Year's Eve party (80-81) at at place called The Rusty Nail in Stowe, Vermont (which still exists but I haven't been there in 25 years). Stowe is one of those popular tourist spots which drew all the snow babes. The cover band was playing all the hottest New Wave dance tunes of the day. I danced a lot that night.

Boston had the Paradise and the Orpheum Theater, which brought in some great acts. Gary Numan played the Orpheum.

[Mheianne]

[quote][i]Originally posted by empyrean[/i]
<br>In my place, early 80's. Most of us don not comb our hair. We wear lipstick (damn Smith[:D]). And although its hot and humid here we like to wear trench coat just to imitate the cool British bands. We have cool gig places like Mayrics where most of our local bands came from. We wear Creepers boots. Record stores who sell New Wave albums were Eclipze, Khumb Mela, High Adventure. Fashion stores were Arte Linea and Top 40. Mobiles were very in that time. You rent them for your parties and play all New Wave 12"s. Most notable were Social Distortion, Central Distraction...Radio stations of course (you know 'em already) 102 WXB and 105 DZBM.


<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u189/spawndrigo/incan-main.gif" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>
[/quote]

Yeah, right! And I missed the good old days...