Got some goodies in the mail yesterday from my good buddy Karl from Chicago, a man linked up to the whole Milwaukee punk/space/noise/blah scene I’ve attempted to champion for the last 12 or 13 years. The two goodies are in fact video tapes w/ footage of F/i, Boy Dirt Car, Impact Test, Shrilltower, etc. It’s funny as hell watching BDC bang away on steel cans on a high school stage ca. 1984 to a partly absent/disinterested/scared crowd; a joy to see a primitive 3-piece version of F/i from the same year when they were still in the midst of their electro/industrial/futuristic phase and yet to take the leap into “rock”; but best of all… best of all is the footage of Die Kreuzen in 1983 being interviewed on public access TV by a straight-ish PBS-type woman about this phenomenon known as “punk rock” (the guys in the band, barely out of their teens, awkwardly mumbling out responses, fumbling and fidgeting along the way), only to be followed by a 20-minute set by the group belting out all their early hits – songs from their first EP and LP – in the studio. Now that is some ass-kicking footage. I know, I know, contrary to the opinions of just about anyone and everyone reading this site, I do honestly prefer Die Kreuzen’s 2nd and 3rd LPs over their first, but throw ‘em into a community-TV studio and let ‘em fire it up in a room full of squares and it's the sound of American youth gone wild.

Now that reminds me: does anyone out there have the footage of Tesco Vee being interviewed on a similar show of the era being rather less well-behaved? Or a videotape of Donnie Sutherland's atrocious interview with Jello Biafra on the Sounds program when the DKs visited here in '83? It's the stuff of legend.