Punk Rock Days

Circa 1985, I was so punk rock. My hair was cut like that famous punk rocker Rick Springfield. I wore jean jackets and saw the Damned at the Palladium in Sugar House. Actually, I didn’t see the Damned at the Palladium, I saw them at the 7-Eleven as they were buying packs of cigarettes on their way to the show.

I didn’t go to the Palladium in 1985 because that punk-rock scene kind of scared me. You see, I wasn’t SLC Punk in ‘85, I was BYU Punk. I think they did a movie on this punk movement, too. It was called Fraggle Rock.

Fast-forward 20 years to 2005 and the weekend I sold the faux-punk life of my BYU days to 666(ish) South State Street at Egos.

The deal I made on Saturday night to become punk rock wasn’t with the Devil; it was with Jamison, Jeff, Chopper and Mike. They’re the members of a band who play punk-rock songs for Egos’ Punk Rock Karaoke. This isn’t karaoke with the wistful, soft-focus videos playing in the background as the words scroll across the screen with a bouncing ball. No. Punk Rock Karaoke is hardcore, dude.

You’re onstage with a band. The drummer raps his drumsticks together (one, two, three, four) and the guitarist strums his strings (my, dog, has, fleas) then the bass kicks in (bum, bee, dum, dum) and you, the singer, have to know on what beat to come in (la, la, la, la, la, la, la).

It would be a lie to say I’ve never been onstage before. It was a prerequisite of living through the ’80s to start a garage punk-rock band with an anti-establishment name like Agent Orange, Millions of Dead Cops or Dead Kennedys. My ’87 punk-rock band that blew the fetch out of the Provo establishment was called the Weather Poets. That three people agreed this would be the name of a band begs the question: What names did we reject? The Grass is Greener Boys? The Silver-Lining Smile Band? Heavenly Father’s Brothers (H.F.B. for the fliers)?

So how does one transform from a Weather Poet to a punk-rock star? It was quite easy. In true punk-rock form, I stuck it to The Man.

Saturday night Ruth and I rode our bikes downtown, because earlier in the day our friend Mike gave us two tickets to Egos to see his band play the Punk Rock Karaoke.

The music was amazing; it was like I’d gone Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox. Every new song and every new lead singer that hopped onstage was like a flashback trip to the heydays of my punk rock Weather Poet life.

Egos, with its open dance floor, raised stage and a new server named Aja (pronounced: Asia), who sang “Holiday in Cambodia” better than Jello Biafra himself, all made for an excellent evening … and an $89 bar tab.

“Hey, Drunky Magoo,” Ruth said to me when she saw the bill. “How do you expect to pay $89 for one night of drinking?”

“Easy,” I said. “I’ll stick it to The Man.”

In my Irish whiskey fog, I remembered I had this gig with City Weekly. I knew if I wrote about getting drunk at Egos, they probably would never cover my tab. But, if I got onstage and sang for my supper, so to speak, I just might get more out of this evening then a horrible hangover on Sunday morning. Singing one song would be like putting $89 in my punk-rock jukebox bank account.

I put my name on the list for a Black Flag number and as easy as one, two, three, four, the drummer clicked, the guitarist strummed, the bass bumped and with backup support from Chopper (both in singing and standing), it was 1985. Only this time, I was SLC Punk.

“TV party tonight! TV party tonight! We’re going to have a TV party tonight! All right!”