"Hey
Mario...where's Luigi?!?!"
- (insert your name here,
smart-ass)
Born To Be Wild
My name is Mario, and I like punk rock.
I wasn’t around during punk’s formative years; I was born in 1977. When punk started to take shape as a legitimate movement, I was eating strained carrots and wearing diapers.
I grew up in a music-friendly and musically diverse household. Both of my parents loved music, albeit from opposite ends of the musical spectrum, and there was always a radio playing or a record on the turntable. My Mom gravitated towards singer/songwriters such as Johnny Mathis, Carole King, and John Denver, while my Dad was more into rock n’ roll; he liked Steppenwolf, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, and the like. There was also a strong Latin music presence in our home, courtesy of my Dad, who was born in Mexico City. As a young child, tapes of my parents’ Beach Boys and Beatles records were favorites.
Carefree Metal Daze
Radio used to be cool…well, at least to me anyway. I listened to Top 40 radio religiously during the early 80s, and always made time for Casey Kasem and the weekly countdown. Top 40 radio eventually gave way to hard rock and metal as the hair bands of the 80s rose to prominence. I spent a good portion of the 80s listening to rock n’ roll played primarily by men that may very well have owned stock in Revlon and Aqua Net.
I soon grew tired of bands that spent more time in front of the mirror primping than writing songs. I discovered Metallica circa “Master of Puppets,” and became a huge fan. I was a metalhead for most of my pre-teen years.
In 7th grade, my then-best friend, Kevin, inspired me to learn how to play guitar. He wanted to be Slash from Guns N’ Roses; I wanted to be Randy Rhoads, Ozzy Osbourne’s deceased guitar god. Neither of us succeeded. After a few months of lessons on an acoustic guitar, I talked my parents and grandparents into buying me an electric guitar, which I would pay for by getting a paper route. They agreed, and I ended up buying my first guitar: a black, Les Paul Studio. It was an auspicious first guitar, and pretty impressive for a 12 year-old kid.
Who Am I?
The first time I heard punk rock was in 6th grade. A friend brought a Suicidal Tendencies tape to school and let me borrow it. By this time, I was already exhibiting characteristics of musicalis freakazoid maximus. I mowed lawns for $10 so I could literally run to the drugstore (back when drugstores carried vinyl, tapes, and CDs) to buy a new tape. My friend’s description of this new band intrigued me. I liked what I heard a lot, but it would be several years before I would eventually purchase a copy.
The first time I recall “seeing” punk rock was when a leather-clad, safety-pinned, mohawked kid moved in across the street. I wasn’t in awe as much as my parents were. We didn’t have much to do with each other initially because of our age difference; he was in high school and I was in 6th grade. By the time we became friends, he’d cut his mohawk, retired the leather jacket, and was more into post-hardcore stuff like Fugazi and Quicksand (which was okay because I liked those bands too).
I went to my first punk show in 7th grade at a recording studio called Adair Studios with several local bands. It was about the size of a small bedroom, and there were a lot of kids there. Bigger kids. My friend Kevin and I were probably the youngest there, and we hugged the wall trying to avoid being smacked by people who were slamming into each other. It was the first time I had seen slam dancing. Little did I know that one of the bands playing that night would evolve into another band in which I would later play bass briefly in high school.
Throughout junior high and for the first year or two of high school, I was still listening primarily to metal, but it was getting harder, faster, and more extreme: blast beats, Cookie Monster-esque growls, and a penchant for all things dark and evil. Through my interest in thrash/death/grind, I stumbled upon hardcore and punk. I bought CDs by bands like Agnostic Front, Sick Of It All, Corrosion of Conformity, DRI, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, Bad Religion, etc., and decided that punk was way more interesting than metal. I was 14 years old.
I don’t know if I found punk or if punk found me or if it really even matters. I always viewed punk as a natural progression in terms of my musical palette. There was no landmark band, record, or live show. Things just fell into place.
Smells Like…Bullshit
It would be foolish of me to write a piece about my musical upbringing without addressing the band that arguably turned more people of my generation onto punk than any other band. I was never a fan of Nirvana. I ultimately bought their CDs out of curiosity more than anything else, and ended up selling them back shortly after I purchased them. People will go on and on about how much this band changed their life and how influential they were. Whatever. Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but I believe Nirvana’s legacy has been both a blessing and a disaster for a variety of reasons, which will not be addressed here. That’s another story.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.
Journey To The End Of The East Bay
The mid-to-late 90s was a great time for punk. Fortunately, I lived only a short hour’s drive away from the greater San Francisco Bay Area. I went to numerous shows at venues like 924 Gilman, the Berkeley Square, and the Trocadero Transfer. During this time period, there were a number of Gilman Street “house bands” like AFI, Screw 32, and the Swingin’ Utters, among others. It seemed like virtually every pop-punk show I attended included The Mr. T Experience, Groovie Ghoulies, and Hi-Fives. There were a lot of great hardcore shows, too, with bands like Torches to Rome, Redemption 87, and many more. It was a vibrant scene with great bands, great records, and great people. I made frequent trips (at least once a month) to the Bay Area to buy records at stores like Amoeba, Rasputin’s, Leopold’s, and Epicenter.
Unfortunately, many of the bands I liked in the 90s catered to an older crowd and played the bar scene exclusively. By the time I turned 21, venues like the garage-friendly Purple Onion were long gone. I could only read about incredible garage and punk rock n’ roll shows that I missed because I was underage or didn’t know about them.
In the late 90s, the scene took a hit when the Berkeley Square and Trocadero Transfer closed within a year of one another. Gentrification, fueled by the dot-com boom, was lurking right around the corner. Although my show attendance dipped during this time, I continued to buy records and read zines.
I moved to a remote area of southern California for a brief period of time in 1999. Record stores and punk shows were few and far between, and I survived on a steady diet of mail order and record buying trips to San Diego and Arizona. I moved back to northern California in 2000.
Young ‘Til I Die
At 25 years old, I am a little older, a little wiser, and still very much a music freak. Without question, music is my passion. I own a lot of records, I buy a lot of records, and I go to shows. I live in Sacramento, California, where there is a diverse scene with cool punk bands.
I’ve got a pretty open mind when it comes to punk, something about which I am very proud. If it can loosely be grouped into the punk genre, I’ll give it a shot. Check out my picks of the week and monthly playlists to find out what I am listening to these days.
Whether you’ve been listening to punk for 25 years or 2 weeks, there’s a lot of great music out there waiting to be heard. If you think you’ve heard it all, you haven’t; if you think you know it all, you don’t. Your musical education should be an ongoing process. In my opinion, there are few things in life that are better than hearing a record for the first time and being blown away, or experiencing a band live and realizing how lucky you are to be in the audience. Complacency stinks. Take a chance and buy a new record today. Go to a show. Read a zine. You might be surprised what you find.
I am privileged to call Willy Aadnoy my friend, and I must concur that he is, in fact, a “true rock n’ roll maniac.” You can learn a lot from him. I know I have.
I hope that you have as much fun reading my contributions to this web site as I have preparing them.
You now know too much about me…and this was the short story.
-Mario Solis