This is a music video of United States punk band the Dead Boys, playing Sonic Reducer at CBGB´s in New York City.
On Hilly Krystal of CBGB´s, see here.
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Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Wow. Brilliant.
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Hi Jon, have you seen the Dead Boys play live?
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No, I had friends in New York back then. They hung out at CBGB’s. I was listening almost exclusively to country music in the seventies. That’s when I was a Spart. I didn’t have much time for music. Got very interested in punk when I quit the Sparts. I think that was around 1978. I was involved in punk in Indiana back then. We had very little contact with New York. The Ramones came through and played a club in my little town. That was really exciting! Mostly, we were involved in our little scene. Our watchword was, “We don’t give a fuck how they do it in New York/LA/London”. Of course we did listen to records from the urban centers, but we wanted to start our own bands, play our own music. The most famous local band was The Zero Boys. They are more popular now than when they were together.
musicalfamilytree.com is a website devoted to bands from Indiana. You can download free songs by hundreds of bands. Early local punks were The Gizmos, Dancing Cigarettes, Special Guests, Walking Ruins, John Terrill, The Zero Boys… Those are some of the bands available on Musical Family Tree. There were hundreds of other bands that existed briefly, never recorded, or their recordings are no longer available. The early scene crashed, mostly because the local economy crashed. Unemployment was 24% in Bloomington, where I lived. Several leading musicians couldn’t play because they were under “weekend arrest” for stealing food. The scene revived later, but I had to leave town looking for work.
Oops, I’m rambling with nothing said about the Dead Boys. Dead Boys were from Cleveland/Akron, not too far from Indiana. That same little scene produced Rocket From The Tomb, and Pere Ubu.
In some ways, the midwest was a great place to be a punk. There was no pressure to succeed, or even make a name. We were all poor, no one cared what we did, so sometimes we could make fabulous grand gestures that were funny, but not the sort of thing that gets you a contract with Sire Records. Also, because we were in such a conservative part of the country, it was easy to shock the squares. A lot of fun to get dressed in thrift store clothes and literally stop traffic on our way to a little show that might draw 30 people, all of the punks for a hundred miles.
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PS. If you go to musical family tree, check out the download of the Master Tape compilation. Tons of early midwest punk bands. Also, check out Gulcher Records, the first Indiana punk label. I worked there briefly. And, absolutely, listen to The Panics. High School students who had been playing for a week when they did their first show. They are now in their forties. Young punks talked them into doing a reunion show recently. I still hear from John Barge, the lead singer. He said the show was a lot of fun.
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Hi Jon, thanks for this interesting reaction! I think that from Rocket From The Tombs, about half later became the Dead Boys, and the other half Pere Ubu, more or less. See here. And here.
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