Foustland

It all began a few years back, when I was clicking around Myspace (yes, Myspace) when I came across a cool little discussion board called the Flint Freaks.  It was the whole squad from the Flint punk scene sharing stories, passing on reports, exchanging links and pictures.   Well, one of those links that was shared was for the Flint Underground Music Archive.  The URL for the site, takenoprisoners.info is a nod to the groundbreaking radio and television show in Flint called Take No Prisoners (which was the first place I ever heard punk broadcast over the radio, of course I also listened to Phill Hines' show Anarchy and the other more New Wave program that were all broadcast from WFBE when it was a public broadcasting radio station at Flint Central.)

Well, the Archive site which is run by Aaron Stengel, and he has connected with many of the people who, over the years, couldn't find a reason to get rid of old stuff like photos, cassette tapes, flyers, even videos - remnants of the Flint punk scene of the 1980s and '90s (and beyond).  They have entrusted him with this archival material, and he has been steadily digitizing and making public all of these items through the website.  It's a really nice thing!

Well, I have been hooked on the stuff on there since, and that got me to thinking that it would be cool to take from the best footage of the Archive, and mix it with some recent interviews from people who were involved in the scene.  I happened to be in Michigan during the 2009 summer, and tracked down a number of people and interviewed them.

I am still looking for people to interview.  If you have some stories to tell about the Flint Punk scene of the 1980s (the main timeframe I am concentrating on for the documentary) I would like to hear from you.  Just drop a line at hallshowdocumentary at gmail dot com.

I am happy to say that I have started editing the Hall Show Documentary.  I know that I have just scratched the surface with uncovering the story behind the 1980s Flint Punk Rock scene, but I also know that I need to start cutting the story together so I can better get a sense for what I have, and what I would like to have to tell this story.  I am making new contacts on a regular basis of folks who were part of the scene and have artifacts that will be great pieces within the documentary, photos, stories, flyers, interviews, video.

So that brings me to the editing.  Why start now, when everything isn't necessarily in place?  Well, I have been kind of keeping this part quiet, but I want to start generating some buzz to help the progress of the whole project along.  I am cutting a short teaser doc out of what I currently have - kind of an extended trailer if you will.  The plan is to premier the trailer at the 2010 Earp Fest in December.  This will be a worldwide premier, and where better to do it than at a reunion of the Hall Show crowd, in honor of Doug Earp! (and others we have lost along the way, of course).

This film is really my gift to the scene, and it isn't possible without the help and support of people who were, and still are, part of the Flint scene.  I am always looking for people to interview, and for artifacts to layer into the film.  So any support that you, the readers of this site, can offer is totally appreciated.  hall.show.documentary (at) gmail (dot com) is a good place to touch base with me.

My partner in crime for many of the years I was involved actively in the Flint punk rock scene was Mark Ojeda.  It all started in the late 1970s when Mark's Mom moved into the pink house next door to my parents house.  We hit it off right away and became the best of friends.  Mark and I were big into skateboarding and always looking for places to ride.  Skateboarding's premier rag was (and still arguably is) Thrasher.  Mark and I read every word of every Thrasher that we bought and shared with each other.  We found out about the skate rock scene through the pages of Thrasher, and soon started listening to a lot of stuff, most notably JFA.  Jodi Foster's Army (JFA, duh) featured this sound that was so totally different from most of the hardcore punk we were also listening to at the time.  I can describe it as a sort of surf rock guitar sound (reverb all up in there) with unintelligible vocals, a ripping bass line and a drummer that wasn't afraid to change things up a bit.  It was a sound that went with every ollie, manual, bert slide and boneless that we were doing.  To this day I can't come up with a band I would want to hear more while skateboarding than JFA.  So, needless to say, Mark and I were skaters that read Thrasher and jammed to JFA, yippee!  But what I was getting to was that Mark and I were also practically inseparable, especially on weekends (Mark ended up living with his Dad in Flint while I stayed put in Grand Blanc).  We started going to OLOL Dances, messing with people and skating around the parking lot.  At some point Mark went to this little record store near his house caled Wyatt Earp's, and he was getting some choice cuts from there, so I went in there with him, (first time, mind you) and was just blown away that this little 250 square foot (if that) record store could have such a density of incredible music!  From there, we started learning about these Hall Shows since Wyatt Earp's had flyers posted for upcoming shows.  Wow, what a great experience it was to go to something in Flint where there were people who you could totally relate with (and the other way around), that was cool, all ages, and so accessible.

So thus began our adventure into punk rock in Flint Michigan.

Mark has been a student of drumming as long as I have known him, and had a drum kit that we would often play in his basement, but a drummer needs other musicians to thrive, so eventually Mark started playing with a group called Smashed.  Jason Adsit was on vocals, John Jackson on guitar and Shawn Ellis played bass, and Mark, of course, drums.  THey incorporated a straight edge sort of style to their music, think Dag Nasty, but with John and Shawn the music reached a totally different level.  I served as a sort of stage crew and security (like that was necessary) for Smashed, which got me in for free.  I also had them perform at the 2 Foust Fest's that I threw at my parent's house when they were out of town.  In fact, Smashed's first live performance was at Foust Fest 1.

Mark later joined the near legendary Jesus Christ and the Superstars who made each show they performed as loud and annoying as humanly possible.  Eric Scott was singer in J.C. & the SS (as they were known).  My good friend, the late Chuck Taylor was guitarist and class clown.  There isn't a lot of recorded history of J.C. & the SS so I don't have much to share, but here is a cool picture that Eric Scott provided me of one of their live performances.

Mark is now tending farm in Southern California and still playing drums in a band with some co-workers.

Shannon and I went to high school together (I am older by 2 years) so I naturally bullied him in between classes, at least that is what he tells me.   We bacame close friends, sharing an interest in causing trouble, skateboarding, punk rock, and old cars.  Shannon was (and still is) a Misfits Fiend, and really got into that whole black clothes, black hair thing (although it helps that he has naturally black hair).

We met for the interview at Tom Z's Flint's Original Coney Island and quickly downed some coneys and fries.  If I haven't said this enough yet, PLEASE GO TO TOM Z'S FLINT'S ORIGINAL CONEY ISLAND, 401 W. Court St. Flint, MI 48503. 810.768.0000!!!

Anyway, where were we...

Oh, yeah, the interview.  With full bellies, and a 24 hour restaurant at our disposal, we set out to gabbing about old times, and how we used to love going to hall shows and causing trouble.  We were both always broke, so we had to get inventive with ways to get money. One time, when there was something going on at the Capitol (probably not a hall show) we stood by the parking booth of a nearby parking lot and told the  cars as they drove in that parking was 3 bucks (or something).  We made a quick $30 so we had some cash to get into more trouble.

Well, Shannon kept a good number of flyers from back then, and he came through like a trooper and brought his collection of junk from back in the day.  He kept flyers, zines, pictures, and other ephemera including a rare copy of a zine that Joel Rash published prior to it being called Edge City (although I can't recall the name right now).   In one of the zines I found a review of the second 7Seconds show in Flint, Thursday August 22, 1985 (featuring Dissonance, Godspeed, and Born w/o a Face) $5.  And in the article there were 2 photos that actually have me rocking out in the front row with all the others, what a fun show 7Seconds put on.

These photos are some of the only pictures taken at Hall Shows that I am in, and they were published in a zine to boot - how cool is that!  By the way, that's me up there with the blond hair under Kevin's mic.  See who else you might know.  Sitting on the stage with his mouth open in front of me is Mark Ojeda (Drummer in Smashed and Jesus Christ and the Superstars).  I traveled out to San Diego to talk with him, and will post those field notes soon here is the interview article.

Well back to the interview with Shannon.  We talked about our old cars, Shannon used to drive a '66 '65 Chevy Malibu (Thanks for reminding me Shane!) that had a 2 speed transmission, and I drove a '64 Ford Falcon convertible with a 2 speed transmission.  Shannon's Malibu was cooler though, because he and his step dad rebuilt it, so it was pretty dependable.  My Falcon had Fred Flinstone floorboards (you could see right through them to the road below) and other things that a rusty old convertible brought with it like torn up roof and no radio.  While Shannon kept his Malibu around, I got into other cars like my 1979 Saab 99 (which I totally loved until the shocks in the back busted through the wheel wells in the trunk), my 1973 VW Type 3 Fastback and 1974 VW Bus.  I really had a lot of cars when I was younger.

Wait a minute, this started out as a write up about Shannon, but now it has turned into me talking about some of my old cars.  It must be getting late, so I will break off right now.