DO-IT-YOURSELF
The rise of hardcore punk in Corpus Christi
Part III: 1988-1989

By Richard Guerrero
losguerreros@grandecom.net

This is the third installment in a series examining the rise of hardcore punk rock in Corpus Christi in the late '80s. More than 50 participants were contacted for this series in the form of a survey, and many responded with comments. What follows is a personal account of some of the stories and events that helped shaped 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.

If you were a punk-rock fan living in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1988 -- well, things were definitely starting to get interesting. Shows were starting to go down regularly and many featured touring acts. Slowly but surely, word got out and some regional and national bands decided to put the city on their various tour itineraries. This was a golden age for Double C underground music fans -- Desperate Minds, All, Cryptic Slaughter, Tyrranicide, Vomit Spots, Verbal Assault, Screeching Weasel, Cro-Mags, The Crumbsuckers and Dead Horse were just some of the bands that came to town.

1988: Scene continues to grow

It must be emphasized time and again that Corpus Christi's burgeoning punk scene in the late 1980s lacked a club where bands could perform. The fact that the scene was beginning to blow up in a major way was unmistakable -- many shows in those days attracted more than a hundred paying fans and yet no club existed to provide any semblance of consistency. And so, bands had little choice but to rent halls across the city to stage their shows.

Hall rental was something of a tricky proposition -- it required an organized effort and significant resources. Would-be renters had to contend with a sizable deposit, the flat hall fee, clean-up fees and in some cases, insurance and security fees. There was also the issue of sound system rental -- usually several hundred dollars a night. For bands that often lacked money to repair broken amplifiers, scraping together enough money to put on a show was no small undertaking. But Corpus Christi bands were plucky and resourceful -- and more importantly, they saw the merits of cooperation -- something many fellow Texan bands could scarcely fathom.

Just a few weeks into 1988, Poetic Noize and the Krayons (see Part II) got an impromptu opportunity to gig together again when Angkor Wat's Adam Grossman contacted the bands about playing at a downtown art space across from the Greyhound Bus Terminal on Chaparral Street. For the Krayons, it represented the debut of guitarist Corey Moore, a blues-influenced player who had joined the band in December. The band also hawked its first demo tape, a crude four-track recording called "Rancid Roadside Mutts" that was made by fellow King student Eric Faires a few weeks before. The show, which also included art-noise rockers Abby Normal, was a one-off gig at which only a few punk fans were present. While the bands' sets were politely received by a small crowd of mostly puzzled art patrons, the real significance of the gig was to mend the fence between the two acts, still brooding over a falling out after the Dec. 4 show at the K.C. Hall over money and broken equipment. The pair would once again team up for a second K.C. Hall show in May -- this time in the Bingo Parlor -- and invited Brutal Poverty's alter ego, Bald Midgets on Welfare -- along with hardcore newcomers, Aggravated Assault, to join the fun.

Building on the success of the previous year, Angkor Wat stayed busy headlining numerous gigs in the city and beyond, performing new, more complex material that wasn't always well received. One memorable show was the Angkor Wat/Hershey Squirts/EKU show at the Galvan Ballroom. Austin's EKU had booked a return gig following their initial Corpus Christi appearance with Syranax and Anialator at the Elk's Lodge in the spring of 1987.

The Galvan Ballroom slot was one of the first pairings between Angkor Wat and the Squirts, whose drummer Chris Chapa had been a former stickman for the venerable hardcore quintet. The year before, Chapa's dismissal had played out through nasty back-and-forth exchanges in the pages of fanzines in the city and across the state. But despite whatever animosity may have existed between Chapa and his former band-mates, the gig passed into history without incident, and it was Chris Chapa's first as a promoter.

Meanwhile, a separate network of West side metal and crossover bands was busy gigging and recording demos for a growing base of diehard metal supporters. Among them was a new project called Brewish -- a side band for members of Anialator, Mucous Membranes and Mercenary. Veteran bassist Marc Salas, whose first band, Rukus, began playing shows in 1985, says the idea of forming a side band began in 1987 with a touring act whose main claim to fame was a family connection to Slayer's Jeff Hanneman. "Mark Olivo and Alonzo Garcia were in Anialator and they were on tour with Blood***," Salas remembered. "They gave Mark and Alonzo the idea to start a 'heavy' side band-- heavy riffs with funny lyrics."

Mucous Membranes was the opener for a killer all-local thrash bill featuring Devastation and Anialator at the Boys Club that spring. It was a show that Todd Fjerstad, longtime drummer for indie rockers Right Turn Clyde, remembers well. "I was 14 or 15. Somehow a flier showed up at Haas Junior High and me and Dustin Bonds got his mom to drop us off and pick us up," he said in his questionnaire. "We got there early thinking it would start on time. We didn't know anyone else there and were actually pretty scared."

For his part, Salas always managed to stay busy as a musician. Salas played with the metal band Crionics in '87, and gigged with thrash units such as Mucous Membranes, Rotting Corpse and Hypnotic State before joining Brewish in '89. At that point, Brewish was riding high on the strength of a 13-song demo it had tracked in '88 and would go on to record two additional demos. The Moody High alum continued making music in the Double C through the '90s with bands as varied as the Pantera-influenced Stone Groove as well as psychedelic pop rockers Black Milk at the end of the decade.

Touring bands land in Corpus

In April, a touring act from Vancouver, British Columbia, made its way to the city for a gig at the Hacienda Warehouse, at the corner of Staples Street and Morgan Avenue. An expansive space with room for 500 and then some, the Warehouse sits adjacent to the Hacienda Recording Studios, a business office and studio for a venerable Tejano label whose recorded history included some of the giants of the genre. Desperate Minds -- a melodic hardcore unit whose main influences included fellow Canadians SNFU as well as posicore pioneers, 7 Seconds -- had booked their Corpus Christi show through the fledgling Unified Society collective. Local hardcore units Pure Hate, the Krayons and The Insaniacs were invited to support.

Led by a charismatic bassist/vocalist named Pete Suarez, the Insaniacs was a group so new that they drafted Poetic Noize bassist Mike Alto from the audience for a bungled cover of the Social Distortion classic, "Another State of Mind." Though the first performance was rough, The Insaniacs would blossom a few months down the road when guitarist Mike Eifling, bassist Andy Anderson and Krayons drummer Roger Guerrero entered the picture.

On the first day of July, a California thrashcore unit named Cryptic Slaughter [video] blew into the city for a Warehouse gig with Angkor Wat and Victoria thrashers Acridity. The Santa Monica-based band had just wrapped up recording its third LP, "Stream of Consciousness," but rumors swirled on the eve of the show about a possible break-up. For their part, Angkor Wat played hard and lean -- kicking out staples such as "Warsaw," "Gone," "Died Young" as well as a few Black Flag covers: "Police Story" and "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme." All was going well until Richard "Brutal Rich" Hernandez accidentally collided with lead guitarist Adam Grossman. That's when things spiraled out of control, Hernandez said. "I split Adam Grossman's head while I was slamming on stage and he tried to take me out with his guitar," he recalled. "I apologized after the show and Dave Brinkman accepted."

Inspired by the movement and the energy, Cryptic Slaughter tore into a set that spanned their discography in front of an electrified crowd. Guitarist Les Evans told the fanzine "Blood and Guts" after the show that the band's gigs back home weren't nearly as impressive. When asked about the California scene, Evans replied, "Not this good ... Everything's kinda dead right now, partly due to the fact that there's not that many places to play and too many bands that play." The next day, Cryptic Slaughter and Angkor Wat hit the road for an East Coast tour -- Angkor Wat's first ever extended jaunt beyond the state line.

Ten days later, Unified Society scheduled another Warehouse show for yet another touring act from California. The band's name was All [video] -- a quirky melodic punk quartet from the Los Angeles area -- and they were touring in support of a debut LP called Allroy Sez. But the band's members were all hardcore punk veterans with years of experience behind them. All was in fact three-fourths of the Descendants featured on that band's 1987 record, "All," along with Dave Smalley, frontman for the iconic Boston straight-edge unit, DYS [video], and the voice on the first Dag Nasty LP [video].

In those days, pop punk was a rare thing as hardcore was still very much in control of the nation's underground scenes. Perhaps hoping to tilt the balance of the show bills toward a more melodic sensibility, All tapped fellow L.A. pop punks, Chemical People [MySpace], for the tour. In an unusual twist, Unified Society booked San Antonio thrash-core unit Scrotum Nosedive for the July 7th show and invited the Krayons to kick the whole thing off. The gig was a modest success -- hundreds filed through the door and paid $5 to see a mostly pop affair, a refreshing change of pace from the pummeling power-chord blast of thrash -- but the event paid for itself and proved to the members of Unified Society that the large venue could be filled.

Corpus bands gig across the state

As summer rolled on, things were beginning to really heat up on the gig front. Pure Hate and The Krayons found themselves following Angkor Wat's lead and soon began gigging across the state in venues such as The Axiom in Houston, The Oasis in San Antonio or the Palmer Pavilion in McAllen. A Palmer Pavilion show in July of that year featuring both Pure Hate and The Krayons deserves mention.

Valley Promoter Rick Magee booked the two Corpus Christi bands as openers for the San Francisco unit Fang [MySpace]. When the bands arrived in McAllen, Magee informed them that Fang had run afoul of the law just outside San Antonio and was presently in the poke. It was time to pick a new headliner, Magee told the bands. Longtime punk fan Gilbert Gomez had just joined Pure Hate after cousin Art Aguilar quit the band, leaving it without a frontman. "When Art quit, it wasn't hard to find a singer," Gomez recalled in a telephone interview with Amped Up! "I went to Pure Hate practices and I knew the songs. The thing was -- (guitarist) James Doose left at the same time so Nathan McLain and I joined as kind of a package deal."

But there just wasn't enough time to properly break Gomez in for the McAllen date. Given Gomez's situation, Pure Hate elected to let the Krayons headline. "I didn't know all of the words yet and I told the audience that," Gomez remembered. Thrust in the unfamiliar role of headliner, the Krayons managed to pull off the best set of its short career thus far -- selling multiple copies of the "Rancid Roadside Mutts" tape and t-shirts to young punk fans seeking autographs afterward. Other Corpus Christi bands such as Angkor Wat, Anialator and later bands such as Decomposed all reported similar experiences with enthusiastic Rio Grande Valley punk rock fans.

In August, Unified Society teamed up for yet another Warehouse gig for yet another road band. Vomit Spots [MySpace], a spunky punk-metal quartet from Mobile, Alabama, headlined the Aug. 11 show bill that included McAllen's Disgust, the Krayons, Poetic Noize and DMZ, a spry hardcore unit that included former Angkor Wat bassist Mike Trevino and former Mercenary guitarist Larry Gutierrez. DMZ and the Vomit Spots were already acquainted -- the bands gigged together the night before at the Axiom club in Houston alongside the Hershey Squirts and Pure Hate. The Spots apparently enjoyed playing Corpus Christi -- they would visit the city again at least two more times before calling it quits.

DMZ -- short for Demoralized -- was a crowd favorite that leaned toward breakneck hardcore along the lines of The Stupids or Christ on a Crutch. A lone exception to that rule was "Denise," a rockin' pop-punk number complete with catchy choruses and lots of melody. Although the band's days were numbered, DMZ managed to record a demo. "We got Raul (Garza) to play bass on the demo," Guiterrez recalled. "We got the guitarist from Subversion (Jason Glover) to record it for us because we knew he could do it after listening to his band's demo."

New punk zines appear

It wasn't all music in 1988. Inspired by local fanzine AM/PM and national punk zines such as Maximum Rock 'n' Roll, two next-generation cut-and-paste photocopy jobs began making the rounds that year: "Unified Society" and "Blood and Guts." The latter, known as "B.A.G.," was the tag-team work of Krayons lead singer Gerald Alvarez and Insaniacs frontman Pete Suarez, whose father ran Alameda Printing and Copy Center. The pair collaborated for a pair of issues in which they interviewed national acts via mail and on-the-spot interviews (Desperate Minds) and featured local bands such as the relatively new thrash unit Decomposed, Mucous Membranes and hardcore maniacs The Willies.

In his band's "B.A.G." feature, Willies drummer Chris Chapa disclosed the band's instability early on which led to the ouster of vocalist (and Unified Society member) Aaron Gonzalez and the departure of bassist Mike Titsworth, another Unified Society member. "I separated my shoulder stage-diving at the Rotting Corpse/Devastation show," he told the zine. "We went through several guitarists before we got Nathan (McLain). After Summer Slam Session II, Mike went on to play for Angkor Wat and Aaron left us because of personal problems."

A regular AM/PM contributor, Chapa also detailed a curious incident at the Sunrise Mall that resulted in the zine's rather abrupt decision to cease publication. "There were some offensive things in the zine that offended a member of the Jewish Community Council. Basically, he saw it at the Record Bar and brought it to the attention of the Sunrise Mall officials. So, we took it off the shelf at the Record Bar and then they threatened to sue the Record Bar, the Sunrise Mall and us! So eventually we stopped selling them and we just stopped doing it," Chapa told B.A.G.

At roughly the same time, Ray High School student Mike Fuentes began publishing a digest-sized fanzine that took its name from the music promotion collective he belonged to -- "Unified Society." The zine reflected Fuentes' interest in the straightedge movement -- a powerful hardcore style that revolved around a moral code emphasizing abstinence from alcohol, recreational drugs and casual sex. "Unified Society" featured more record reviews and more features on national bands than "B.A.G." The two fanzines also took different editorial approaches: While "U.S." more or less played it straight and focused on music, "B.A.G." experimented with humor and courted controversy as its writers spoke out on scene issues and issued political statements. To the fans of the city's music scene, the zines helped to spread the word on local acts and regional bands that were just starting to break out. However, the zines had little impact beyond the musical message and struggled to break even despite all-volunteer staffs; not surprisingly, both zines were history by 1990. Limited in terms of design and hampered by journalistic inexperience, "Unified Society" and "B.A.G." nonetheless provided valuable print forums for the city's underground music scene that was either ignored or unknown to the city's primary media outlets.

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Read the first installment of Do-It-Yourself: The Rise of Hardcore Punk in Corpus Christi in CITIZINE #2 (May 2008).

Read the second installment of Do-It-Yourself: The Rise of Hardcore Punk in Corpus Christi in CITIZINE #3 (July 2008).