DO-IT-YOURSELF
The Rise of Hardcore
Punk in Corpus Christi
Part I: 1978-1986

By Richard Guerrero
losguerreros@grandecom.net

Punk rock finally arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1986. At the year's outset, there was no local scene to speak of, save a few lost souls banging away on cheap equipment in utter isolation. But by year's end, the city's fledgling scene had hosted two national hardcore acts - Die Kreuzen and M.D.C., two bands blazing very different trails across the national music scene. More importantly, Corpus now boasted a flagship hardcore act named after an early 12th century temple built for King Suryavarman II of Cambodia. Angkor Wat was a powerful hardcore quintet that would soon set the standard for an emerging music scene the band had mostly put together itself.

As with most punk scenes, there was more than music in the mix. Over in Alice, Texas A&I University student Tim Stegall was busy publishing a cut-and-paste fanzine that focused on first-wave punk bands, a photocopy job he called Noise, Noise, Noise after a Damned song from their 1979 LP, Machine Gun Etiquette. In the city, punk fans Kenny Harrison and Richard Kepp had started a fanzine of their own -- a hardcore punk zine that contained bits of irreverent humor and caustic commentary. The pair called it AM/PM and packed it with band interviews as well as record and demo tape reviews, much in the same way Tim Stegall was doing Noise, Noise, Noise 50 miles away in Alice.

Admittedly, it wasn't much -- a couple of fledgling hardcore bands just starting out, a few more in the works, a few fanzines and maybe two hundred fans spread across the city. But one fact was now plainly clear: hardcore punk rock had at long last arrived in Corpus Christi, and from the looks of things, it was here to stay.

* * *

First-wave punk bypasses the
"Sparkling City by the Sea"

Punk rock. In the Coastal Bend of the early '80s, those two words might as well have been Latin to a community more accustomed to accordions and pedal steel. While punk's initial fever infected a select few in America's largest cities during the late '70s, its meaner, nastier early '80s incarnation spread far and wide across the nation, building influential music scenes that would eventually shape popular music in the '90s and beyond. But how did it get to Corpus? And what took it so long to arrive? The answers aren't as obvious as they might seem.

If you were a punk rock fan living in the city of Corpus Christi in the early 1980s, your role was most likely that of a consumer. While the city's record stores could be counted on to stock the occasional punk LP or single in the import bin (a classification which translated into higher prices), there was simply no place for a punk band -- local or otherwise -- to play.

That Corpus Christi lacked any sort of a punk rock music scene in the early '80s should hardly come as a surprise to anyone who has spent more than a few months in the city. A port city on Texas' Gulf Coast two hours from any major city, location has always been a major factor leading to the delayed dissemination of culture in the state's eighth largest city.

But there were other factors. For all its proud heritage as an iconoclastic firebrand mix of independent spirit and bedrock traditional values, Texas had managed to cough up a couple of small but thriving punk-rock music scenes in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. Austin -- whose scene was led by the now legendary Big Boys, Dicks and Stains (who changed their name to Millions of Dead Cops and relocated to San Francisco a few years later) --- and Houston -- whose scene included the criminally-underrated Really Red and later, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles -- both enjoyed a fair amount of coverage in national punk publications such as Maximum Rock & Roll and Flipside.

But in Corpus Christi, punk was a momentary blip on the cultural radar -- an offensive threat which failed to reach critical mass. And not without good reason. The city's bumper-sticker tagline -- "Sparkling City by the Sea" -- masked a sleepy conservatism that never failed to rear its head when matters of morality were afoot. To be fair, the city's conservative bent mirrored the state of the nation -- Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan beat Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter in November 1980, as part of a conservative ticket that promised a return to traditional family values, lower taxes and a smaller federal government. And as the Reagan Administration began to assert itself with regard to organized labor, and environmental and civil rights, the burgeoning hardcore punk scenes in the suburbs of the nation's larger urban centers now had an ideal target to help foment their vitriolic bursts of kinetic rage: the nation's 40th president.

While punk rock's first wave had largely bypassed Corpus Christi, there was the occasional flash-in-the-pan. In 1978, New Jersey punk poet Patti Smith played the now defunct Ritz Theater on Water Street in downtown Corpus. A riveting performer, Smith was at the top of her game at the time of the concert. "Because the Night," a tune she penned with Bruce Springsteen, was a Top 20 hit that year -- a fact that was likely not lost on the show's promoters. In Alice, a precocious tween named Timothy Stegall lived near a neighbor who surely was the hippest soul in town. Stegall's neighbor invited the youth to the Patti Smith Group concert at the Ritz and, remarkably, he was given permission to attend. While the concert would prove pivotal for the youth, Stegall couldn't yet grasp the whole essence of Smith's music. "She was cool, but I could not appreciate the hippie/poetry of Patti as I could later," Stegall said in an e-mail interview he completed for this series. "Still, my 12-year-old mind did think she rocked."

Stegall was further inspired by the radical cultural revolution taking place in England, an explosion of visceral imagery, glaring shock-value behavior and provocative attitudes that was spearheaded by London's Sex Pistols. Stegall was fascinated by the small bits and pieces of the story that somehow managed to penetrate the American media's filter of general disapproval. Even after all this time, Stegall's first impressions remain clear and distinct. "Seeing the Sex Pistols on Walter Cronkite when they came to America, reading a story on The Clash in Time Magazine, and seeing photos of Stiv Bators (of the Dead Boys) hoisting a mic above his head and licking the blood flowing from fresh razor cuts down his arms ..." were some of Stegall's earliest recollections.

For Tim Stegall, punk rock had become the way of things -- a musical obsession that still holds true to this day. "The energy and rage and passion in my head had suddenly been given a voice that mainstream rock like Ted Nugent and Rush could not provide," he said, adding: "And I could hear that this was like Chuck Berry with a cranked-up amp and a headful of speed. It was exciting! It was colorful! It was everything Barry Manilow wasn't. And thank God!"

Some hope for alternative music briefly materialized in Corpus when a nightclub named "Mars" opened its doors sometime in the early '80s. While the club's run was short-lived, the club managed to book two notable acts during its run: Iggy Pop, the infamous godfather of punk who was nearing the bottom of his career slide in support of 1982's "Zombie Birdhouse" album, and the Surrey, England new-wave unit, the Members, in town to support its 1982 album, "Uprhythm, Downbeat." Unfortunately, the club was unsuccessful and eventually shut its doors.

Corpus Christi's embryonic alternative music community was now without a home -- as it would be for many years to come -- but the music and the message were hard to kill.

Skate or Die: Skate culture enters the mix

By 1983, punk music had morphed into a louder, faster, uglier permutation. The new style was called hardcore -- a brutally primal sound that reduced punk rock to its core elements: simplicity, speed and directness. It was the sound of youth gnashing its teeth against the culturally-dead suburban world their parents had bestowed them. And it was the perfect soundtrack for a generation rolling fast on four wheels across city sidewalks, backyard ramps and swimming pools.

Across the city, skateboarding had become a way of life for boys ranging in age from prepubescent up to early college. In the early '80s, city-sanctioned skate parks were strictly a West Coast phenomenon and even then, something that was only seen in the most progressive of cities. To that end, skaters in Corpus Christi had little choice but to seek out ideal spots for skating sessions or build a ramp of their own.

At the time, skateboarding was misunderstood by large pockets of the community and many regarded surging groups of skaters as a general nuisance. Run-ins with police and authority figures were more common than not. Even so, gangs of skaters would band together for cross-city treks to famed spots such as the Cullen Dam or the massive Nell Street half-pipe ramp to name just a couple spots. Hardcore -- with its blistering tempos and twin emphasis on power and fury -- found an eager fan base in the hordes of young skaters who studied local greats such as Phillip Harvey and Billy Jones.

BMX trick riders Mike Titsworth and Phillip Kelso and others like them were also on the scene, honing their skills to the breakneck beat of the Circle Jerks, Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys. As the early '80s rolled on, new records by Fear, Jodie Foster's Army and the Suicidal Tendencies boosted hardcore's popularity to new heights -- a fact which was not lost on the tuned-in record clerks at the Record Bar in Sunrise Mall and Craig's Record Factory.

In the days before the ridiculous convenience of the Internet, fans of niche-based music genres were often hard-pressed to find copies of records that they had read about. In Corpus Christi, where punk rock and hardcore enjoyed virtually no radio support and no mainstream media coverage, fans were limited to ordering titles from the microscopic labels themselves via U.S. mail, or special-ordering records from stores such as the Record Bar.

The Record Bar was located near Sears on the first floor of the Sunrise Mall, and during its salad days, stocked many independent titles in its import section. Tim Stegall recalled that the store became a meeting ground for fans who shared similar tastes in music. "I seem to remember a period of about a year when you'd one-at-a-time see someone else's hand reaching for the same DOA album you were coveting at the Record Bar, and you'd of course talk to them," he said.

Half Price Books and Records was another rich vein for fans hoping to turn up some punk rock gold. Joe Allen, who attended King High School and interviewed the author's punk band the Krayons for the school's newspaper, remembers stumbling across numerous records in those bins. "I became a Clash fanatic," he remembered. "I would listen to the first album on tape and 'London Calling' on vinyl and early Elvis Costello in the family den." Craig's Record Factory was another a warehouse of music and paraphernalia and boasted an impressive stock of underground titles in addition to a wide variety of mainstream rock and country selections.

There were other glimmers of the creeping subculture quietly spreading from city to city across the nation in the mid-'80s. From 1981 to 1988, the USA cable TV network ran an influential 4-hour program called "Night Flight" which provided an outlet for independent music video and film to a widespread cult audience. Vocalist Trey Garcia, who currently sings for the Calallen street punk unit The Booked, says the program was his initial introduction to punk rock. "My dad called me in the living room one night in '83 and told me to check out a show on TV. It was "Night Flight" on the USA network and they were showing (the seminal documentary on the Youth Brigade/Social Distortion '81 tour) 'Another State of Mind.' He said, 'Look at these guys. You better never do anything like that.' However, I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I was hooked."

Many punk fans interviewed for this series reported a similar experience. Former Sweet Daddy drummer Chris Laurel, who lived in McAllen, Texas, at the time, also remembered innovative programming on television that helped shape his budding love for the new sound. "I was a fan of music programming like IRS' ''The Cutting Edge' on MTV, and 'Night Flight' on USA where I saw the cult-classic 'Repo Man,' which introduced me to the Circle Jerks, Black Flag and Iggy Pop."

In 1984, punk rock had its first breakthrough in the Coastal Bend area when its most avid fan, Tim Stegall, launched the punk-format show, "Kapital Radio One" on KTAI on the campus of Texas A&I University in the fall of that year. Stegall free-formed his shows for nearly two years spinning cuts by The Clash (whose "Capital Radio One" seved as the show's theme song), Stiff Little Fingers, Fear, Circle Jerks, Bad Brains, Husker Du, the Minutemen as well as Texas notables Big Boys and the Dicks. A year later, Stegall joined the staff of the campus newspaper, The South Texan. "I started out doing record reviews in summer 1985," Stegall recalled. "I had a column titled 'Noise, Noise, Noise.' It evolved into what might have been the first punk fanzine in Corpus Christi, which had the same name as my column and ran for two issues."

1986: The Year Punk Broke in Corpus

A journalist-in-training at Texas A&I, Stegall quickly transcended the local scene and began writing for Los Angeles-based Flipside Magazine and Alternative Press, based in Cleveland, Ohio. From time to time, Stegall contributed 'scene reports' to the Berkeley-based punk zine Maximum Rock & Roll -- considered by most to be the leading punk publication of its day on the strength of its international coverage of record releases, musical performers and the companion activist community.

Touring bands on the hunt for gigs were quick to tap scene report contributors for leads on venues. Stegall was no exception. In the summer of 1986, Tim Stegall received a phone call from a musician named Erik Tunison. The caller said he was the drummer of a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based quartet named Die Kreuzen and he inquired about a possible booking for the band's upcoming tour in support of its second album, October File on Touch and Go Records. Stegall put in a call to a few friends and a plan was hatched. "What happened was, ten of us pooled money together and rented the Galvan Ballroom for real cheap. I forget the exact figure," he recalled. "Someone convinced (Corpus Christi new-wave rock band) The Boyz to bring their P.A. and do sound. Die Kreuzen got whatever money was raised at the door. They ended up with $400 in their pockets. None of us made any money on that, except Die Kreuzen."

The show was also an opportunity to host local talent and Stegall quickly put his name into the hat. In addition to writing, Stegall was a musician, albeit one without a band. The Die Kreuzen gig offered him an opportunity to put together a band that would open for the Milwaukee act. Stegall recruited Steve Fish to play bass and Tommy Godley to play drums. Stegall called his band "The Hormones" and patterned his songs after his biggest influences - namely, first-wave punk bands. At first glance, the band's spirit-of-'77 trad punk seems a far cry from Die Kreuzen's unique brand of remarkably slow neo-metal. But in 1986, the word "punk" was an umbrella term for a wide range of styles and ideas that epitomized independent thinking. For their part, Die Kreuzen had completely divorced itself from its groundbreaking hardcore debut and was now forging a new musical trail with the complex and surreal ideas on October File. The show at the Galvan Ballroom was the one and only show for Stegall's original version of the Hormones. Years later, Stegall would re-launch the Hormones with new players in Austin and achieve a great deal more success -- but that's getting ahead of the story.

Die Kreuzen's one and only gig in the Coastal Bend marked a genuine breakthrough for a city more accustomed to the mascara and goofy lyrics of the glam-metal explosion then dominating the radio airwaves. The show's modest success proved that underground acts could attract an audience in Corpus Christi. The model had now been tested. Making it standard practice would require another year of trial and error.

That same summer, Corpus Christi resident Chris Chapa was busy making the most of an extended stay in Austin by haunting the Sound Exchange record store and attending every punk show he could. Chapa said while Corpus Christi's punk scene was just starting to develop, its underground metal scene was already successful. "Back then, you would get 200 people or so at a Devastation/Final Assault/Watchtower show," he recalled in a phone interview for this series. A young drummer who attended Carroll High School, Chapa had tried out at the beginning of the summer for a newly-formed hardcore band led by former Austin resident Adam Grossman on lead guitar. The unit also included vocalist David Brinkman, bassist Mike Trevino and King High School student Danny Lohner on rhythm guitar. The band reportedly liked what they heard but thought Chapa needed better equipment. "They laughed at my Power Sonic drum set, which was basically a Ludwig ripoff," he remembered. "Adam and Danny had big plans for that band. I got my first Tama set that summer and tried out again in late July."

About a month after the Die Kreuzen show at the Galvan Ballroom, local thrash-metal unit Devastation booked a showcase it called "The End of Summer Slam Session." Featuring Dallas thrash pioneers Rotting Corpse and the newly formed hardcore unit Angkor Wat, the show took place on August 29, 1986 at the Stardust Ballroom.

In dramatic contrast to today's club shows, many of those early shows were held in rented halls or ballrooms simply because most clubs could not sell alcohol, their primary revenue generator, to the predominantly under-18 crowd. A favorite with local Tejano artists of the day, the Stardust was a large-room venue on South Padre Island Drive near Kostoryz Road that was capable of holding at least 800.

Angkor Wat drummer Chris Chapa remembers his band's set in detail. "We opened with 'The Possibilities of Life's Destruction' by Discharge, "Right Brigade" by the Bad Brains and ended the set with (Black Sabbath's) "Paranoid." We did a lot of covers that night," he admitted. Mike Titsworth, a Ray High School student at the time, was in the audience that night and said in his response to the survey that the show was one of his favorite memories from that era. "It was pure," he recalled, adding: "and a hell of a lot of fun."

Unbeknownst to all but a few underground fans and bands, a small club called "TNT" opened up in a strip center on Everhart Road sometime in late summer. It was there that young metal bands such as Anialator and Intrant, which featured David Nuss on drums and the author on bass, joined more established acts such as Final Assault on TNT's roster of talent.

In October of '86, Angkor Wat guitarist Adam Grossman booked veteran San Francisco hardcore unit MDC (formerly Austin's Stains), California's Rigor Mortis, locals Mercenary, along with his own band, for a show at the small Southside club. It was well after midnight when the mighty MDC, a caustic left-wing unit that lived and breathed political punk rock as few had before it, finally exploded in a raucous fit of drunken fury, tearing through songs off its Smoke Signals album in between blasts of familiar discord from the band's legendary first LP like a bandsaw through particle board. The gig was the stuff of legend and yet, remarkably, it would take MDC nearly 20 years to return to Corpus Christi.

The gig -- while not a runaway success given the costs of hosting such a well-known act in such a small venue -- firmly secured Angkor Wat's place as the top hardcore band in the city. That the city's hardcore punk scene was still critically small was evident. The crowd itself was rabid, totally energized but small, in terms of numbers. For the veterans -- Richard Kepp, Kenny Harrison, Jason Greathouse, Gilbert Gomez, Arthur Aguilar and a few others who likely had already journeyed to San Antonio, Austin or Houston for hardcore and punk shows featuring touring acts -- the night was electric but familiar. But for a small band of wide-eyed punk fans who would each contribute to the rapid development of their city's punk/hardcore music scene in one way or another, nothing would ever be the same.

To be continued in the next CITIZINE.

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This is the first in a series examining the rise of hardcore punk rock in Corpus Christi. More than 50 participants were contacted and many responded with comments. This is a personal account of some of the stories and events that helped shape the rise of hardcore punk in Corpus Christi, supported by anecdotal recollections by respondents. In other words, this is my version of the way it went down. Comments and corrections are wholeheartedly encouraged.

Read more reviews and punk history
by Richard Guerrero online @ http://blogs.caller.com/amped_up/

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