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Here are some amusing
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Wasting
your life chasing a punk rock dream: a true recollection of success,
failure and idiocy
by Dan Cofer
I
joined the Parasites as drummer in fall of 1992. I had been in a
spectacularly unsuccessful (but quite amusing) band called the
Plagiarists for a couple of years and we had recently decided to
call it quits when the opportunity to join the Parasites came about.
Not just me, all of the Plagiarists. Myself, Damon Fries and Matt
Buckner were to become the "new" Parasites, backing Dave (then
called "Nikki" for no reason I could ever get out of him) Parasite.
Dave was moving from New Jersey to California, so Mel of Shredder
Records had taken it upon himself to have a band waiting for him. We
learned a set's worth of Parasites songs and had been practicing
them for a couple of weeks before we even met Dave. It was strange:
we didn't know this guy and he didn't know us, yet we were supposed
to be a band together, sort of like an arranged marriage. It worked
out all right at first but, after three shows, it became obvious
that Matt wasn't right for the job. He was fine musician, which may
have been the problem. This is rock n' roll, not Mozart. It doesn't
work if you're too good. I
believe this was the only time we ever officially fired someone from
the band (everyone else had the sense to slink away on their own,
when the time came). So, in comes Ray Lujan on bass. Ray had been in
Pariah and Parade, so it was only appropriate that he join the
Parasites, just so his bands' records could be filed next to each
other alphabetically.
This early period, 1992-1994, is
remembered mostly for bad haircuts and poor fashion choices. We
played local shows at Gilman Street, the Berkeley Square and other
hot spots, opening for bands like Green Day, Rancid, NOFX, and The
Mr. T Experience. We did two regional tours, including one with the
Queers, and ventured as far south as San Diego. This was my first
experience with sleeping on floors and in the backs of vans,
something I was to become very familiar with in the coming years,
and I've got the chiropractic bills to prove it.
Somewhere
during this time, and I must admit the chronology is somewhat
muddled in my head, Damon and I reformed and re-broke up the
Plagiarists twice.
The first California Parasites recordings were
the "Something to Hold Onto" single, the b-side of the
"Letdown" single and one song for the "Punch Lines" album recorded
with Kevin Army at Smooth Papa's in Berkeley. We then did a track
for an Avengers tribute comp which never came out, as well as a
track for the "Pair" album at some studio in San Francisco with some
guy I have no recollection of (not a slam on the guy or his studio,
just my squishy brain refusing to give up details). To clarify: both
"Punch Lines" and "Pair" were recorded, almost entirely, before Dave
moved out from New Jersey. We added one new song to "Punch Lines"
and three songs on "Pair" were new recordings of songs from the
first album, "Pair of Sides". Of those four songs, I play on two -
would have been more, but I went and got hit by a car on my way to
practice one night and was out of commission for six months with a
broken hand. That's why there are two songs on "Pair" which are
credited as being recorded in California, yet also credit the old
New Jersey drummer. Since I couldn't play, they re-used the original
drum tracks (sped up a bit) and replaced everything else. Ah, studio
magic.
To back up a step - shortly before I went out of
commission, Damon left the Parasites to concentrate on the band
which would become Smitten. Jeff Yih stepped in as a temporary
fill-in guitarist and then - Pow! - I've got a cast on my
hand, which ain't good for a drummer. Okay, that brings us back up
to date. Gary Gutfeld (from Courduroy at he time, later of the
Hi-Fives) was nice enough to sit in on drums during my convalescence
and this lineup of Dave, Ray and two borrowed musicians played a
number of shows in early 1994. They weren't good shows, I'm sorry to
say. Some were better than others but, I must confess, I
walked out of one show at Gilman because it was so embarassing I
couldn't take it. Somewhere out there is a comp called "Teenage
Kicks" which has a live recording of this lineup doing one of Ray's
old Parade songs.
After this awkward stretch of time, when I was
again in playing condition, Rob Green joined us on guitar. He
practiced with us for a short while, then promptly disappeared (you
will see, as this story progresses, that Rob had a habit of
appearing and disappearing). And then Ray was gone. Did he quit? Was
he fired? I'm sure the answer depends on if you ask Ray or Dave. All
I know for sure is that Dave and I were making plans to go on tour
and Ray refused to do it, so we decided to go anyway. We got
ourselves a temporary bass player, hit the road, and had no
intention of taking Ray back when we returned. I guess you could say
he was fired but didn't know it.
Which brings us to late
1994. With the help of Joe Queer, we were off into the wild gray
yonder to seek our fortunes as a touring band. Joe was good enough
to hook us up with our touring bass player, JJ Nobody (of the
Nobodys, naturally) and also to impart the wisdom he'd gained on the
early Queers tours. It was Joe who showed us how to do it, gave us
the contacts we needed to book the shows and provided invaluable
knowledge which made our first extended foray a success. Since then,
Dave has tried to do the same for other bands, to help them the way
Joe helped us.
Once out on the road, we were surprised to see
how many people turned up at the shows. This was a good time for our
genre of music in general, which I'm sure helped get out an
audience, but there were people who knew the Parasites, who liked us
and we're eager to see us live. It's too bad that we weren't all
that good. Because of the missing second guitarist, we couldn't play
many of the more complex, poppy songs. We could do the short, fast
ones just fine but weren't able to give a better representation of
our repertoire's range. It also didn't help that neither JJ nor I
could sing the harmonies. Still, all in all, we generally went over
well.
We did six weeks on the road, through Texas without air
conditioning and through the snow in Minnesota. While out there we
recorded our track for the "Water Music" comp (on Thanksgiving in
Columbia, SC), as well as the wholly unlistenable "VMLive in Chicago
1994" single. It seemed like a long trip at the time, yet it was
quite brief compared to what would come.
Thankfully, the trip
was a success (I believe we broke even, financially) and we knew we
had to get out quickly and do it again. First snag, though, was that
there were only two of us in the group and the whole low-fi approach
with just drums and guitar wasn't going to hack it, so we needed to
find some new guys. Luckily, Rob Green reappeared at that point and
was up for some rock n' roll. My brother Scott, one of the finest
bassmasters around, agreed to work with us in exchange for a french
dip sandwich.
It was this lineup that recorded the "Burnt Toast"
single, one song for that split with the Beatnik Termites and our
contribution to a Descendents cover album. Scott learned the songs
off of a tape I gave him and, being the consummate professional he
is, had it all down cold when he showed up to practice. This was the
best lineup to date, in my opinion, but it was not yet to be. Scott
couldn't go on the road, so we drafted Jason Duncan to handle the
bass wrangling duties. Jason was running Just Add Water Records out
of Spartanburg, SC and had put out the "Water Music" comp which we
were on, as well as the "Burnt Toast" single and the Termites split.
The spring 1995 tour was longer than the first and better, too.
Since the three piece lineup from last time had been a bit sparse
musically, it was good to have a second guitar and a bit more
experience to perk up the act. We were building on our previous tour
to establish an audience base in various towns and we were able to
send money home to cover our rent and keep the bills paid. It was
starting to feel like this was something we could do regularly and
for a long time, something which was self-sustaining. Also, we were
honored to play the second half of the tour with our friends Squirtgun, just the sweetest
bunch of lovelies you're ever likely to meet. From this tour, we
actually did well enough for Dave to buy a new guitar and me some
new drums, so you know we were some happy boys.
For those of you
keeping track at home, during this tour we recorded the "Top Secret"
single and our track for the "I Can't Believe It's Not Water"
compilation at Sonic Iguana
in Lafayette, Indiana. Also the "Nyquil Fueled Rock Armada" double
live album at WFMU in East Orange, New Jersey.
So the touring
thing seemed to be working out, at least for some of us. Rob decided
that this wasn't the life for him and bowed out, but plans were
already afoot for tour #3 so we contacted a hot guitar player we'd
met in Kansas City named Mike Alexander, who was between bands at
the time, to come with us. We seemed to be developing a habit of
finding potential new members in other states, while on tour, and
conning them into moving to Berkeley to join the band. We were
always scouting for talent. In fact, when we met Mike, it was
already obvious that Rob wasn't going to stick around so Mike was
immediately at the top our our recruitment list.
This tour lasted
two and a half months (more or less) and meant that, from November
1994 November 1995, Dave and I had spent six months of the last
twelve on the road. Dave loved being away from home so much because
it got him away from his cramped apartment and telemarketing job. I,
on the other hand, liked my life back home and didn't enjoy being
away from it for so long. Being on tour is mostly a lot of driving
and waiting, with brief periods of music every now and then. It
stops being fun after a couple of months, especially if you're the
one with the ear infection.
For your score cards: back again at
Sonic Iguana, we recorded our track for that "Grease" comp plus two
originals and a Smiths cover that have yet to see the light of
day.
Tour 3 had been moderately successful, but the four of
us were having those ever-popular "creative differences" which would
eventually result in a 50% personnel change before going on the road
again. First, it was Jason deciding to move back to South Carolina.
Brother Scott was able to join the band on a permanent basis, so the
bass slot was filled easily. Mike then found himself the odd man
out, being ten years younger than the rest of us and not enjoying
being aroung such filthy old men. Aside from that, Mike had always
(and this is strictly my own impression here) wanted nothing more
than to be a rock star. When faced with the realities of life among
the Parasites - the hard work, the lack of money, the lack of
recognition, the lack of chicks - he decided that life in
Kansas City hadn't been so bad after all and bought himself a
Greyhound ticket home.
For some reason we were popular in
Spain. We'd licensed a couple of albums to Munster Records in Madrid
who'd distributed them on vinyl over there and there was interest in
bringing us over for a few shows in spring of '96. One small
problem: once again, we were without a lead guitar player. But,
wouldn't you know it, Rob Green had one more reappearance left
in him. So, with our passports in hand and our handy phrase book
teaching us how to say "The Cat's Pajamas" in Spanish, we set off
for adventure. It was great. This particular Parasites lineup had
felt right when we'd recorded the year before and it felt right
again. We played some of the biggest shows we'd ever done. In Spain,
the audience expects you to play for at least an hour and a half,
otherwise they feel they haven't gotten their money's worth. Thrifty
people. We had to play almost every single song we knew in order to
satisfy them. It was fun, most of the time. Our tour manager got
drunk, our merch girl ran away and Dave got deathly ill from eating
shrimp. But so what, we were in Spain!
After wowing 'em in
Spain, we had a very quick turn around before going out again. Our
latest new guitarist, Denny Muller, had actually been working with
us since before the Spain trip, but wasn't ready at the time (also,
I think there were legal problems which prevented his leaving the
country). I think we'd found Denny somwhere in Wisconsin and coaxed
him out to the coast.
The spring of 96 tour was not a happy
tour, aside from the good times we had with The Halflings opening on
most of the trip. It was meant to coincide with the release of
"Nyquil Fueled Rock Armada" on both Wingnut Records (CD) and Munster
Records (double LP), so we had shirts made with the cover art and
expected promo copies of the album to be mailed out with posters to
all the clubs and zines along the way so all of everybody would come
to see us. Unfortunately, Wingnut flaked royally so we had no CDs,
no promo, no nothing. Needless to say, the tour didn't exactly come
off with a bang since nobody knew and nobody cared. We were,
essentially, touring in support of our new t-shirt. Thus begins our
period of trouble with the record labels, as well as my own growing
disenchantment with the business of touring.
On the up side,
we recorded "Rat Ass Pie" with Mass Giorgini at Sonic Iguana, which
turned out to be a pretty darn good album. So good, in fact, that we
knew right away there was no hope in hell we'd let the dopes at
Wingnut release it. Thus began two years worth of conflict
which...well, I'll get into that later.
Denny left the band
at the very end of the tour. Once again, it "just wasn't working
out".
Break out the scorecards, y'all, because on this tour we
also recorded "Loyola" for a Dictators tribute which may or may not
have ever come out (available now on "Compost" from Go-Kart Records)
and the instrumental tracks for that incredibly stupid split
7" we did with Boris The Sprinkler (vocals were done
elsewhere, later, by mail). As well, we did "Ronnie is a Psycho" and
"Daydreaming" at Fish Tracks in Portsmouth NH, produced in absentia
by Joe King for his "More Bounce to the Ounce" compilation on
Lookout Records. Last, and pretty nearly least, we got a second
crack at a VMLive EP, this time recorded at the Fireside Bowl in
Chicago. It's better than the first one, but that's about all I can
say in it's favor.
So almost a year elapsed before we toured
again. After the 1996 tour, the important thing was to get out of
our deal with Wingnut Records and have "Rat Ass Pie" (at the time
called "Que Pass Out") put out on a decent label who could support
it. The problem was, Wingnut still wanted the record, so bring on
the lawyers!
While all this was going on, the remaining three of
us recorded the "It's Alive" album of Ramones covers at a studio
known as "Outer Space" in San Francisco, produced and engineered by
our former guitar player Damon Fries. That's right, it wasn't done
live at Gilman Street on New Year's Eve like it says on the cover.
As if anybody believed that anyway.
It wasn't until the end
of the year that our legal hassles came to an end (bankruptcy can be
fun!) and we had officially regained control of the album to do with
as we saw fit. We'd been in contact with Lookout records for a
while, being as we were both based in Berkeley, we'd been on one of
their comps and were friends with some of their bands. It seemed
quite natural that our band would fit in well with their style and
we already knew that there was considerable crossover between
Parasites fans and lovers of the overall "Lookout Sound". They heard
the album, liked it and agreed to do a 3-song EP to be followed by
the full-length. Things went well at first, and in the Spring of
1997 the EP came out with "Hang Up" as the "A" side and two lesser
songs removed from the album to be "exclusive" b-side tracks.
And so, with a new deal and a new release on a new label, we
packed up our new guitarist (a lanky Texan from Florida named Brett
Swain, again somehow convinced to move west for the band) and headed
off for five shows in Japan. As the cliché goes: "We're big in
Japan". And I don't just mean big as in "popular". Some guys thought
Scott and I were American sumo wrestlers. We did nothing to dissuade
them.
These were some really great shows, kind of like the shows
in Spain, only smaller (That's a joke, folks! Get it? only smaller?). Figuring we were going
to be out over the Pacific anyway, we also arranged a few day's
stopover for a show/vacation in Honolulu. Mostly vacation, as the
show was a complete bust but who cares? It's friggin' Hawaii: Palm
trees, coconut monkeys and Don Ho.
We spent about a week at
home after returning from Hawaii, then headed out for another trip
across the mainland. It was not a very successful tour. Our troubles
with Wingnut meant that we hadn't put out anything new other than
the "Hang Up" single (sure "Nyquil Fueled" and the second VMLive
were in circulation, but live records don't really count) so there
was a big "Who cares?" response in most towns we played. There were
a few high points in the towns we could always count on: Green Bay,
Chicago, NYC and others, though not much anywhere else. At least we
got to visit some new tourist traps, roadside attractions and thrift
stores which served to take our minds off the fact that we were
losing money at a fantastic rate.
It's sad to realize that money
is so important when you're on tour. If you didn't have to worry
about your finances, it probably wouldn't matter when you have a
string of bad shows. You could just say "oh well, at least we're out
seeing America, playing music and having a good time". Instead,
you're worried because you've got a set amount of money you'll have
to pay back when you get home. The van rental's got to be paid,
there's no getting around that. You still owe for the t-shirts and
you've got to pay back the money you borrowed to buy sticks and
strings. I remember, mid-tour, sitting down and figuring out how
much income we had to have in the remaing weeks in order to break
even. Divide that number by the number of remaining shows and that's
he minimum you've got to earn every night. When you've got that
number stuck in your head and you're panicking that you're not going
to make it, it's hard to think about anything else. It's impossible
to just relax and just enjoy the trip.
Already, hints of bad
faith were already beginning to be shown by Lookout, casting doubt
on our future there. Add to that an openly hostile relationship
between Dave & Brett and it all totals up to a pretty shitty
experience. I was seriously beginning to wonder why I was even doing
this anymore. I wasn't having any fun and I was constantly broke.
For the first time, I started thinking seriously about quitting the
band and going into a more secure line of work. Pearl diving,
perhaps.
Keep those score cards in your pockets, kids, because
we didn't record a thing on this tour other than a WFMU broadcast
which, as stated above, doesn't count. Brett quit shortly after we
finished, and the rest of us decided to go into hibernation until we
could get "Rat Ass Pie" (at this point called "Kid Tested, Mother
Approved") released. Like true cockeyed optimists, we figured if we
could just get the damn album out everything would be just fine.
Would it? Not yet, that's for sure...
The folks at Lookout
decided that they'd never made any such agreement to release our
album. They claimed they had only planned to do the single and that
was all. Complete bullshit. That's the problem with verbal
agreements: one party can always say "I never said that" and the
whole deal's off. Why? Quite honestly, I don't think we were cool
enough for them.
After months of waiting, the album still wasn't
coming out. We shopped it around and were courted by a couple of
different labels. Having someone actually want us was kind of nice
for a change after the Lookout rejection and in the end we went with
Go-Kart records out of New York. This time we had a contract, damn
it, no more verbal agreements.
Springtime of 1998. The new
album was coming out, only two years after recording it. We had a
new guitarist, Dennis Marmon, formerly of the Blisters out of New
Jersey. Dennis was an experienced old fart like the rest of us and
it felt good. At 30 years old I was the youngest member of the band
for the first time. Ah, youth. We headed off across the country for
tour #6 in support of our great new album on a new label with a new
lineup that was really working, hoping for that fresh new start that
would put the band back on track and.................it sucked.
Worst tour ever. No luck anywhere, with maybe one or two bright
spots. Almost three months of nothing, nothing, nothing. Losing
money. Getting pissier all the time. Dave and I, arguing over the
stupidest little things like an old married couple. I quit the band
a thousand times in my head and certainly once or twice out loud.
Why did the tour suck? I don't know. Everything seemed to be in
place. It should have been good. Maybe we'd been too long in getting
the album out and our audience had grown up and moved on. Maybe our
type of music had gone out of style. Maybe the great Snake God was
punishing us for not leaving enough corn in tribute at his altar, I
don't know. Whatever the cause, we straggled home, exhausted and in
debt. I remember telling Dave a few days later that I'd never do it
again. I am, of course, an idiot. We did it again six months
later.
In Ocrober 1998 we landed the opening spot on tour
with The Queers and The Mr. T Experience. There was no way, we
figured, that we could fail this time. Yet, the Parasites and
Failure have this strange on-again off-again relationship. Our leg
of the tour started in New York and went the northern route west,
ending in San Francisco. In order to get ourselves to New York, we
decided to play our way across the country. Bad idea. We spent three
weeks of hell working our way east and those three weeks were worse
than the entire previous tour. When we made it to our safe haven in
New Jersey, I officially quit the band for the first time. Later
that day, after a lengthy group-therapy session, I was convinced to
rejoin. As stated earlier, I am an idiot.
We hooked up with the
other bands and the journey west was much easier. The shows were
good and the crowds large, but I'd decided (for about the thousandth
time) that I was through. At this point, it was an easy decision to
make. I was sick of coming home broke, going back to the day job,
earning money to help pay off the tour debt, then saving up to mount
the next tour and repeating the whole process again. It's a cycle
that Dave didn't seem to have much of a problem with but, for me, it
was time to jump out.
I spent the week after returning
from the Queers/MTX tour figuring out how I was going to break the
news to Dave. Maybe I flattered myself to think that he'd be all
upset about it and wouldn't just start reviewing his mental list of
drummers he'd met recently. I was working up my courage, when I got
a call from Dave telling me that Scott had just quit. So, I told him
that I was quitting, too. It turns up that Dave was, indeed, pretty
upset about it. He officially declared that the Parasites had broken
up, but I knew this was a band that would refuse to stay that way.
Other people might be in it and it might move to other states, but
Parasites are hard to get rid of.
One year later, 1999: I'd
gotten a real job, Scott was married and back in school and Dennis
was tending bar at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick. Dave had been
overseeing the release of "Compost", a collection of Parasites odds
and ends for Go-Kart. Go-Kart had just signed the Buzzcoks and were
putting them out on tour. Greg Go-Kart offered Dave an opening slot
on the west coast part of the tour, if only he could get a band
together on short notice. So we did it, a brief week and a half
reunion tour. It was nice playing huge rooms with real sound systems
and even dressing rooms (just let me slip into my shiny silver
spaceman suit and I'll be ready to go on stage...) but, in the end,
the whole experience only served to reaffirm all the reasons I'd
quit the business in the first place.
The following year,
Dave, Dennis and some bass player whose name I can't remember
mounted not one, but two European tours. I was asked to go,
but declined. When Dave and the bass player returned, I joined them
for one last show in San Francisco, playing as a three-piece. Now
that was fun: no travelling, no financial worries and I got to sleep
in my own bed that night.
Where are they
now?
Parties mentioned in the text and their
current
whereabouts:
Me,
Dan Cofer: Austin , TX.
Entertainment industry.
Scott
Cofer: Campbell, CA. Warehouse manager, genius.
Dave
Parasite: Livingston, NJ. Still a Parasite.
Dennis
Marmon: Somewhere in New Jersey. Handsome.
Mike Alexander:
Kansas City (?). Musician.
Brett Swain: Last seen in Oakland, CA.
Musician.
Damon Fries:
Amsterdam, Holland. Musician, recording engineer.
Jason Duncan: San
Francisco, CA. Scenester.
All others, whereabouts unknown.
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