Original subtitles

- [Voiceover] Okay, that's Even Worse.

Downloaded from YTS.MX

We're gonna take just about a ten minute break

and bring up Millions of Dead Cops

we're running late.

We're also gonna show the movie right now.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

It's gonna be on the wall.

If you're looking at the stage it'll be

on the left on the wall.

Stage left. (laughter)

Give it a second.

(hardcore music starting up)

- [Lou] This is where this shit started.

On the inside of my first album there's

a photograph of the wall of death taken here

in 1987 at the Superbowl.

This is where it started.

Ladies and gentlemen on the floor and in

the balcony, Craig side.

Make some noise!

(cheering)

When the music starts I need you to go that way.

Can you do it?

Ladies and gentlemen on the floor,

and in the balcony on Pete's Side.

Make some noise!

(cheering)

When the music starts I need you to go that way.

Can you do it?

(cheering)

(screaming)

Craig side are you ready?

(cheering)

Pete side are you ready?

(cheering)

Is everybody ready?

Shhh, now nobody sue us if you get hurt alright?

- [voiceover] Counter Attack, the show that tries

to expose the alternative point of view.

This week's topic, Alternative Music.

With our special guest promoter, Randy Now.

And now, here's your host, Tom Schweck.

- Hello and welcome to another edition

of Counter Attack.

Our special guest this week is promoter,

Mr. Randy Now.

Hi, Randy thanks for being here.

- Tom, how are you tonight?

- I'm alright. - [Randy] Great.

- Randy, for the people that don't know,

could you explain exactly what a promoter does?

- Okay, a promoter is the person who

will call the agency in New York or Los Angeles

that represents the band that you may want

that you know who's coming over from England

or wherever they're from.

And you set up the show, you set up the

guarantee, you make your promise of what

you can pay the band, and you see to it that

everything is fulfilled that's per their contract.

You make sure that the band has the right sound,

the right riders, right advertising,

and you just hope that you can get enough

people to pay the admission to pay the band

and all the other expenses.

- Could you explain like, the type of music

that you book at the shows you do?

- [Randy] Okay a lot of people like to call the

music that I book "alternative music",

mostly 'cause it's only played

on college radio stations.

Bands that I book you won't hear on the

50,000 watt stations, the WMMR's or

the WPST's, it's alternative music.

It's also, we do hardcore, or reggae,

or new wave, all aspects of the underground

movement is covered with our booking policy.

- Why do you feel it's ("Furniture" by FUGAZI)

important to book this type of band?

- To rid ourselves of dinosaur rock

like Led Zeppelin.

A lot of people, you can't believe how many people,

17-year-old kids that still think Led Zeppelin

rules and the first album came out and

they were three years old.

Ya know, it's kinda like me listening

to 50's music and saying like you know,

"Yeah, yeah, yeah that's the real music."

- Do you feel that promoting is

a good business to get into?

- Not at all, nope.

Not at all, not one bit.

I don't know why I do it.

🎜 Fugazi - 'Furniture' music plays 🎜

I must be insane.

🎜 Nobody can hear the missing 🎜

🎜 They just look at my mouth and look in my mouth 🎜

🎜 and look in my mouth and say hey man 🎜

🎜 I know where you're comin' from 🎜

🎜 Yeah bullshit 🎜

- One thing's interesting about my world

is that with a lot of the venues,

because I was in the band and we would load

in early, I actually never went to the front door.

I never went through the lobby if there was one.

I just don't know it, I only would know...

I know most venues by the backdoor.

Usually we'd get there at say, one o'clock

in the afternoon, front doors are locked.

So, my relationship with most clubs has not...

I don't have any idea of, you know,

what their popcorn stand looks like

if they even have popcorn stand.

What I think about is just like,

the dressing room, and the stage area.

And as I remember, and I could be wrong,

I seem to think, was the dressing floor was on

the second floor, was there a second floor

for the dressing room?

It was a really filthy club.

- One night we were playing and the drummer,

we go out to put the drums in the car to leave

at like two o'clock in the morning,

and his car was stolen.

That was like, devastating to me but that was

not uncommon in that environment,

and I know plenty of bands that got

their equipment stolen out of that parking lot.

But you know, that was the environment.

That's what it...(laughs)

That's what it was.

In fact, we were real proactive that night

we all jumped in my other guitar player's car

and we drove around until we found the guy.

We actually saw him driving up Calhoun Street

in my friend's Galaxy that he had gotten stolen,

and he was some kind of a druggie that had like,

hemorrhoids or piles or something.

He had all these diapers in the car.

He didn't really want that car back.

- So at one point there was probably maybe

400 people in the place, and I would say

at least 75 to 100 are involved in this fight

where everyone is basically throwing chairs.

And they had these little plastic chairs that

you would almost see in grade schools.

Like, the little plastic chairs and chairs

were flying everywhere.

The band is playing for about 45 seconds still,

while we're all running around grabbing

people and throwin' 'em out.

Then they just stopped and watched.

So it was...

- [Director's voice] The band did?

- The band did, yeah.

- I know who the fuck you are!

You're the guy who fuckin' showed up

eight hours late, and didn't fuckin' call

'cause you were too busy doing coke

in New York last night after your fuckin' show,

and you're also the fuckin' guy who's gonna get

the fuck of my stage so that I can get the

opening band on, get all your stupid fans in here,

and get this fuckin' show over with.

- What was the band, The Exploited

we were talking about, the guy came out.

You know, they were maybe band two

out of five one night.

Song starts, grabs his mic of the stand,

sings the first verse, "blah blah blah blah

"blah blah blah blah blah", guitar interlude

he swings his mic around on the stand and

smacks it in the I-beam, pulls it down

it doesn't work.

Grabs this mic over here,

second verse.

Swings the mic into the I-beam,

that one doesn't work.

There's third mic over here, he grabs that one.

Same thing, swings that in the I-beam

that one breaks.

I have to run back to the office,

"Hey Tut, I need to get some more mics

"I need to get under the stage to unlock

"the thing to get more mics out",

'cause we would set up for five bands

and you'd set up two guitars, bass, drum,

three vocals across the front,

maybe a drummer vocal, that's it lock

everything else up 'cause you don't know

what's going on backstage with bands

coming on and off.

"Tut, I need to get more mics out,

"the band just broke."

"Why what happened?"

"The band just broke three vocal mics."

- Every time that we played City Gardens,

that was a time when my stage fright,

which I carried everywhere we went,

was at it's most intense.

And I don't think there was a single time

that we played there that I didn't throw up

right before going on stage.

Just out of sheer nervousness.

The funny thing is that, the crowds there were

probably more into what we doing than

any place else we ever played.

I think maybe it just came down to

the people who came to City Gardens

were people that you really wanted to please,

because they were so

willing to take a chance on a band.

They just loved the idea that someone was

gonna go up on that stage and try to

give them a good time.

("Old School" by The Bouncing Souls)

- [Randy] How's everybody doing tonight?

(cheering)

(guitar strum) (applause)

Now welcome to the Record Collector,

and happy Fez Day.

I need to say a couple things before

we get rollin' here.

Tomorrow night, Raymond the Amish Comic

will be here in the house. (applause and cheering)

Listen to that applause for

Raymond the Amish Comic.

He's damn funny, let me tell ya.

If you're not doin' anything tomorrow night,

he'll be delivering his Good Friday sermon.

Tomorrow night, Raymond the Amish Comic.

No cameras, please, no cameras

for Raymond the Amish Comic.

Nobody gets that joke.

I had an uncle who's passed now

he said, back in like '63, '64 we had the old

RCA Victor 45 RPM player,

you only played 45's you'd stack 'em.

He says I'd have a stack of 45's and I could

just like, pick by the label.

Maybe even at younger than '63, to the age where

I wasn't even old enough to read,

and I was just pickin', you know, this red label

meant that it was you know whatever, Johnny Cash

or Buddy Holly, and I would put 'em on this

record player and play the records.

We had a comedy record, it was kind of like

a real risque double entendre record,

and they were called "Cornbread and Biscuits".

And my brother and I would reenact this routine

it was called The Great...

What was it called?

I forget what it was called.

I have a copy of it, The Great Bartender

or something, but the two guys speaking

were Cornbread and Biscuits,

and once again, we mimicked this whole...

You know, back and forth in a bar of these

two guys, never realizing they were talking

about sticking needles in their arms

and smokin' pot.

And I also remember probably in my

early teens, sponsoring a bike race.

Behind our house was a blacktop and a park,

and the blacktop had a couple basketball courts.

It was just a rim and none of the string

was ever left, everybody stole it all the time.

But we would have bicycle races this one summer,

and we started just innocently, you know,

have four or five kids on their Schwinn Stingray

bikes at that time.

Kids on bikes would just collide into each other

and really wreck their bikes and their spokes,

and broken arms and broken necks.

I can remember ambulances coming down through

our yard actually pickin' up kids and takin'

'em away and you know if we were to do

that now we'd probably get arrested,

and sewed, but I was only about 12 years old.

I guess that's probably one of my earliest

promotion things other than having cool-aid stands.

This was probably around 1988.

Course a lot of punk bands started stealing

the Converse Chuck Taylor logo,

but I betcha I was the first to do that.

This is the coolest one here.

This is my company Other Side Productions,

'84 to '88, and then on the back of the shirt

I had all the bands listed on here that

played in '84 to '88.

- [Tom] How I met Randy was

quite by accident.

A friend of mine from school told me that there

was this guy, DJ'ing at this club way out

in New Egypt, New Jersey which is completely

rural and not a rock and roll destination

by any stretch.

Me and like, two other friends we went out there

probably for three months, I think it was

Thursday nights that he was doin' it,

and the bar was called The Central House.

- And it was just like blue collar, rednecks,

the guys from the New Egypt Speedway would

come out there and drink their beers and stuff.

And we're out there playing like,

Ian Dury and the Blockheads,

Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll,

and Graham Parker, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello

and maybe even throw in like a Dirty Water

by the Standells.

And they hated us.

I had bought these Klipsch speakers by then,

these huge, monster, La Scala speakers.

I was probably the greatest sounding DJ

playing to them, the shittiest music in the world,

but to me it was the greatest music in the world.

- He also DJ'ed at other places,

he would be a guest DJ at Emerald City.

He DJ'ed for Alice Cooper.

Emerald City was a beautiful club, beautiful.

It was the old Latin casino.

(🎜 music plays 🎜)

- [Tom] Not only was he playin' all this

current stuff, but he was also playin' a lot

of British invasion, some soul like Shirley Ellis.

- [Trish] He'd be up there flippin'

through 'em as fast as possible, just thinkin'

like, you know, I don't know how he thought

about it, but he'd be able to pick

the right songs.

- [Tom] All these different records but it was,

all makin' sense, like it all worked.

- [Randy] There was a kid in Trenton named

Tony Nini, he was like a disco DJ.

Of course he played all the hits and

he was popular, and he actually invited me

to a dance on his turf or territory.

I went in there and I, once again I'm breakin'

out my Plastic Bertrand, Ca Plane Pour Moi,

or The Stranglers.

The Dead Kennedys at that time,

and I got spit on I remember being spit on

by some kid, "You suck [SPIT]".

- He said, "Hey I got this new gig,

"it's at this place in Trenton.

"Do you wanna go?"

- [Randy] I finally saw an ad for this

bar in Trenton, and it was called City Gardens,

it was called King Tut's City Gardens,

got the number called them up, "Hey, how ya

"doin', my name's Randy", and I was still

Randy Ellis not Randy Now yet at that point.

And I said, "I'm a new wave DJ", and he said,

"A new what?"

- And we went to this place, City Gardens,

and I was never to Trenton before and it was

kind of a culture shock.

- We had a blast even though it was on

Calhoun Street in Trenton.

It was an area I'd probably never even been

to before.

- And that was the very first night

of City Gardens.

(🎜 House of Others - "Memento Mori" plays 🎜)

- [Johnny] It was very modest in the beginning,

there was just Randy, a handful of people.

The venue City Gardens was this enormous

commercial space, but they were only using

a very small portion of it in the back.

- [Randy] On top was a US One Motors neon,

was still up there, but it was so old

and hadn't been used for years it was just

fallin' off, when the wind blew pieces of it

were fallin' off and they were fallin'

right down where the doors were right below you.

- [Trish] City Gardens had two rooms.

One at the back bar, and the front bar.

In the beginning, the front bar was not open

it was just the back bar.

- It's like this, this big empty space here,

there was just a big empty space,

and the club was in the back.

- [Randy] And when I started DJ'ing there

on that Sunday, that was probably pretty much

when I said, "Hey you know, I got a couple of

"friends that are in bands. Let me see

"if I can bring a couple of bands in here",

that did original music, not the whole

cover thing.

(cheering)

Tonight we have two bands,

we have Plainfield Slim & The Groundhogs,

and we have from Germany,

their first night performing in America

right here at the Record Collector.

Please welcome Space Rangers.

From Germany. (applause and cheering)

(🎜 Space Rangers - 'Cold Blooded' music plays 🎜)

- [Jack & George] So, hi I'm Jack and...

- I'm Gorgeous George Messina.

- From The Shades.

We started at City Gardens in 1979.

We think we're the first rock band to play there,

and Randy brought us over from a little club

called "Brothers" in Mercerville

where we were packin' the house twice a week.

- [Johnny] Brothers was this suburban

very safe, Top 40 Disco Room.

And on the weekends they would have some

national acts and they would have all their

A-List bands, and they gave all of us the

off nights, they would give us

Wednesdays, Thursdays.

One of the bands I worked with, The Shades,

had a lot of original material and they had

bigger plans, they wanted to open for people

and they wanted to tour.

Randy Ellis, Randy Now, was a drummer in

a band called Rock Slide, and he also played

there, but he also was DJ'ing.

- When we got started there were no clubs.

There's was nothing, it was the beginning

of that sort of new wave thing.

And then after about a year or so,

clubs started opening up.

- Yeah at first we were just playing private

parties, trying to play something at

- the university. - Right.

- [Johnny] And then he opened up this room

in the city limits, in the city of Trenton

on Calhoun Street, this placed called

King Tut's City Gardens.

- [Jack] And we jumped at it,

I think Scott went there first, our bass player.

Took a look at the room, and it wasn't the

room that it ended up being it was

the room on a left.

Smaller stage, and I can't even remember if

we brought our own sound system

in, we probably - I think we did.

- brought our own sound system.

- And somewhere in the midst of that,

- Yeah. - Clubs started opening

in New Jersey and City Gardens was one of them,

and they were like, "Oh man, this is great,

there's actually something right in our backyard

and it's big and it's good

- and all that sort of stuff. - Because there was also the

issue of the New Jersey scene was filled

with clubs but they were all cover

- band clubs. - Right.

- We had a sound company in Trenton

Joe's Sound & Salami Company,

City Gardens approached us to help them with

their sound, and we good at helping people

get the most sound out of their dollar

and not getting ripped off really by showing

people how to buy top notch pro gear

on the used market and stuff.

So they had a world class sound system

that they basically picked up at a bargain.

So around '82 I went in there.

My first show I think was Thompson Twins.

Or The Members for USA Hotspots.

- [Female Voice] Good evening, and welcome

to USA Hot Spots.

Tonight we take you to one of the larger

clubs we've been to so far.

City Garden in Trenton, New Jersey.

Two four six eight - 🎜 N.Y. Citizens 'Rude Girls' - music plays 🎜

- [Johnny] Once we started going over to City Gardens

and Randy you know, he built it up with the DJ

thing and then he started booking his friends

over there, it was different.

Calhoun street, for those who don't know,

Calhoun Street, Trenton was an incredibly

dangerous place, not unlike CBGB's in the Bowery.

It was not some place that you went out

of your way to go to.

- If you've never been to the club,

going there your first time...

You get lost.

- [Milo] Gah, I just remember it being

hard to get in Trenton too. (laughs)

I don't know if was they way the turnpike

was laid out then or anything like that,

but we'd get lost a few times just getting

in to Trenton.

- [Karl] It was probably about an hour

from our house once we actually learned

how to get there the right way.

- It's confusing, it's a hard place to find

if you don't know where you're going.

- [Harley] Every gig outside of New York

was usually just a van ride in to some ghetto,

somewhere, because hardcore shows for the

most part were always in shitty neighborhoods

or run down areas, so it was never like...

You were never pulling up to some nice you know,

up to a good neighborhood and a nice club

with a good PA and nice monitors (laughs),

and friendly fuckin', "Hey, alright!"

- [Rob] It was really nothing that

showed you what it was except for the little

tag with City Gardens up on the upper corner

of the building.

Wasn't any big murals or any giant music

notes or anything like, "Hey, check out

"our cool fancy club."

It was just a big, giant, crazy warehouse

surrounded by a soccer field and woods.

- [Jon Stewart] You know, it was surrounded by

like, half a chain link fence.

There was like, there'd be two panels, then there'd

be like a break, be a couple more panels

and a break, and a hole, and another panel.

I think if you went there and you drank

and danced long enough, they just assumed

you worked there.

- The club had the nickname of Shitty Gardens,

but to us, it wasn't a club.

That was the area around it.

I don't know how it really was, but we were

driving through there, "Man this place is such a shithole".

(laughter)

- [Rob] And once you went inside it had

the checkerboard floor, a big bar,

and these weird little statues hanging

from the walls and stuff, and you're like,

"Okay. I'm in a club."

- In some ways it was kind of a unique culture

experience, New Jersey compared to New York

and The Big Apple and whatnot.

It was a big ole warehouse.

Big kind of barn painted black inside.

Punk, and rock 'n' roller proof.

- [Ian] I kind remember like,

the stage being covered with pieces of tape.

It never got cleaned.

Probably was a bathroom in the backstage area,

which I think deeply,

actually I know was deeply appreciated.

There's nothing worse than having to go

to the bathroom in the general bathroom.

Especially if you have to take a shit

and people are talkin' to you and they're like,

"Oh my God, dude I love your band." Great.

(laughter)

- [Henry] And then if you walked off stage left,

along the venue there was another dressing room

up a flight of stairs, way down the venue.

That's the one I was always in.

- I'm short and those,

couple of the urinals when you first stepped

in were kinda high up and it was like,

I don't want my junk to touch that urinal,

so you kinda had to arc it,

and stand back, and it was just not

good for me at all, that bathroom.

It was disgusting any way, but it was really bad.

- I'd never seen so many Trans Ams.

- The shape it was in was like the shape

that would survive.

- The first time I actually went to the club

I was in high school, and it was only

the back room, the front room wasn't open at all.

There was a band called Bricks Mortar

playing there I think.

And then I guess I came back in high school

when they had moved the stage to

the front, sorta the building, it was like

long ways facing across the room.

And that was 999.

- I brought in 999 from England.

What happened was, they were supposed to play

a club in Passaic called Hitsville,

which was doin' 999, they were doin'

Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Squeeze,

and probably even Elvis Costello very early

like '79 or so.

And they closed down, so there was 999 sittin'

lookin' for a gig somewhere.

So I found out who to call.

It was an agency called Frontier Booking, FBI,

and was run by Ian Copeland.

- That was Randy's big achievement that he

booked this band, and it was packed.

- [Randy] We probably paid $2,000 for 999,

we probably paid too much but we didn't know

a thing, we didn't know how much, who was what.

They said, "We need $2,000", and we said, "OK."

And 999 played to probably 600 people,

it was probably a $5 door.

It was 18 years old to drink back then,

and believe me that mean that you were

15 in there drinking.

Ya know, it just didn't matter back then.

- [Tom] Probably five to 600 people,

and that's when it was like, "Oh man we

"can really do this. We can really actually

"pull this off."

- [George] We always had this feeling,

I liken it to The Little Rascals, our gang

putting on the show with the...

He had this vision of what he wanted

and how the show should run,

and he emceed it, and ran it well.

🎜 Kevin Seconds - 'City Gardens Bound' music plays 🎜

🎜 Pittsburgh and Delaware 🎜

- [Randy] After the success of 999 through

Ian Copeland, he gave me Wall of Voodoo,

and Joan Jett, and REM was another one.

I remember paying REM $500,

and I remember the contract rider was

a 6-pack of beer, and four towels.

- [Jack] To me, City Gardens was the

immediate vanguard of what began in the 80's.

Things we just getting going.

The thing about New York is they had

a history already.

They had the Velvet Underground

obviously in the 60's.

The Stooges, and the MC5 came to New York often

and played at Max's Kansas City

and some of the other venues,

and had done famous things here like

when Iggy Pop tore up his chest at

Max's Kansas City I think in 1973.

The New York Dolls.

They were extremely popular throughout

the mid 70's.

So by the time the CBGB scene began

circa 1974, it wasn't completely

out of the blue.

All it needed was a regular venue

and the right guy running it who could

tolerate all kinds of weirdness happening.

And once you had Patty Smith and

The Talking Heads, and The Ramones,

and Richard Hell and all those people.

Television.

It became like this great dumping ground for

people from everywhere to come to New York

and become part of that 'cause that's

the scene they were looking for.

For us to come from places like Cleveland and

play there was just how we ended up with

The Dead Boys moving to New York.

By the time you get to the 80's now there

are scenes pretty much in about 20 cities.

This little touring scene that starts up

becomes an actual way for independent rock bands

to make a very small go of it.

- What do you feel is the high point

of your career as a promoter?

- After this interview with you, Tom,

well there's a lot of things.

A lot of bands I really take pride in that I booked.

The Thompson Twins first show in America,

Flock of Seagulls, even stuff like Billy Idol,

Dead Kennedys, I'm the only person to have

booked them seven times in the last six years

every year and not get closed down by the police

doing a Dead Kennedys show.

Lot of bands, lot of things.

Mostly I guess the British bands, The Public Images,

The Thompson Twins, the Billy Idols,

the Duran Durans even, booked them

and nobody wanted 'em.

- [Jello] People who take the underground,

and punk, and Indie rock scenes for

granted today sometimes have no idea

what it took to build those scenes.

When punk started it was a very

visceral reaction against the sheer

stupidity of the 70's, you know.

We didn't want adult rock, soft rock, Eagles,

Hotel California, let alone disco.

And punk brought back the spirit of rock and roll

in a way that was a really good way to shock

people we wanted to make uncomfortable.

- The farther the top 40 bands moved in

that kind of a dance direction and everything

getting thinner, and losing any kind of a

root of rock and roll, the farther we

moved in the other direction.

- [Randy] So this is downtown Cranberry.

This used to be like maybe three businesses

and an old deli up the street there.

But now there's a pizza place,

the other's a shoe repair.

This is actually a little weepy here

because I worked here.

I guess about ten years, nine, ten years.

(🎜 Luscious Jackson - "Did you forget me?" music plays 🎜)

All those years of bands and DJ'ing

in clubs 'til two in the morning,

I was a mailman.

- [Amy] It did shock me that Randy was

a mailman because I thought, "Well where

"does he have the time. I thought he was

"at City Gardens all the time.

"How is he delivering mail and doing

"this at the same time?"

And I was shocked that he didn't make enough

money to live on doing what he did at City Gardens

that he had to also have a regular day job.

I remember kind of being really sad for him

that that wasn't, that he was doing the coolest

job in the world and still it wasn't enough to

sustain him, he had to have a real job.

- So he was like the living embodiment of

Bukowski, who needed a day job, but what

he really lived for was his art.

- [Randy] It's funny, if I'd never quit

the Post Office I could probably be retiring

now with what, 30 years in?

I'd probably be happy in that regard,

like, "Oh I have a pension".

But I never woulda been able to have kept

doin' what I was doin'.

I did leave the Post Office.

And actually I'll tell you the story right here.

I was just down the street and it was a

snowy February day and I just had a successful

show with, I seem to think

it was a Dead Kennedys show,

and it was Monday morning, I was walking

in the snow and it was bitter cold,

five, six degrees.

And it was so cold, and was so tired

'cause I had walked about, who knows,

three, four, five miles with mail on my back.

And it was so windy and it was snow,

but I was just like, "Why am I doing this?

"Why am I getting up at six or 6:15

"and be here at 6:30, seven in the morning?"

I was just probably out 'til one, two, three

in the morning, I just had a successful show.

I was making enough money there where I could

live off that money, and I was like,

"Why am I doing this?"

All my friends are like, in the music business

are home, you know, Jello Biafra

and the Dead Kennedys just left town

they went to New York or Philly or DC, wherever.

Why am I getting up and doing this?

I just said that's it.

And I thought about it for

probably not even more than a few days

and I betcha that Monday I probably

said on Friday or Saturday to my Postmaster here,

"I'm resigning in two weeks, I'm gonna

"pursue the club."

Funny thing, that's when I had the Motorhead show,

and Motorhead canceled.

- So we're just hangin' out in line drinkin' beers,

and Randy gets on top of this car hood

with a little portable PA, and I had my

tape recorder, and I used to tape shows back then,

I used to trade tapes all over the world.

And I told my friend Brian I said, "What,

"I'll turn on my recorder. See what he's

"probably gonna announce some upcoming shows."

- [Randy] Okay. (people talking)

Please, can you listen for a second?

Motorhead has decided not to play.

(audience fussing and booing)

- We're sorry... - [Male Voice] Holy shit.

- [Randy] We've done everything for 'em.

They've decided not to play.

- [Male Voice] Fuckin' ripoff!

(booing)

- Oh my God, I just quit a career in the

Post Office to do this punk rock music DJ

bullshit, and the first show I do is Motorhead

and they cancel on me.

And I can remember saying at the show,

"But don't worry, next week (mumbles)

"is gonna be here", and everybody's like,

"You suck", and "Fuck you".

Aw man in my head I'm just like,

what did I do?

I just lost a career, my benefits,

my retirement.

It was pretty scary to do that.

- The mailman, the other job his nine to five

wasn't ever who I thought of him as.

- A mailman?

But then he was still bookin' all these shows.

You know, I'm a nice guy.

Like, doin' business with me is generally

pretty pleasant, I can't imagine what he

was up against with some of the people

because there are a lot of fuckers

on the road, man.

There are a lot of people who are not cool at all.

A lot of band management people are just

not nice at all.

- [Al Jourgensen] It's funny, like, we have a

nickname for Randy, we used to call him

"Goofy Grape".

Because he had this like,

big ole smile on his face while the owner

was always yelling at him,

and Randy was having to deal with like,

so many egos.

That sort of roster like, just one week that

you printed Circle Jerks, Black Flag,

and all that, I can't even imagine.

(laughs) He was in over his head.

(🎜 Bigger Thomas - "Super Moon" music plays 🎜)

- Hey everybody, 91.3 FM WTSR,

Trenton, New Jersey.

Randy Now's Capitol Garage Radio Program.

Oh, yeah, ah!

- [Mickey] I moved up to New Hope,

Pennsylvania from Yardley, Pennsylvania

in, I wanna say 1982 or '80...

It was about '82, '83.

It also coincided with the same period

I was really getting into music.

I was getting into weird music too,

I started with my parents' record collection

like most people.

I met Scott Lowe, was one of the first guys

I met in like, sixth grade.

And he had like,

The Never Mind the Bollocks Sex Pistols record,

and I had some Devo records,

and we were both into The Beatles.

- I've known Mickey since elementary school and,

we got into a lot of the same music together.

A lot of the same kind of underground music

of the day.

Everything from Adam and the Ants,

to the Dead Kennedys.

- [Mickey] Which wasn't normal sixth graders

and seventh graders, most kids were into

like, BMX bikes and stuff like that.

Then started

listening to the radio.

- [Radio Announcer] And now for more of today's

top hits, it's Randy Now!

- [Randy] Music from Toxic Reasons.

Once again they're gonna be coming to City Gardens

sometime in late May, probably on a Wednesday

night, the song is called Power Craze from

their new LP called "Killed by Remote

"Control" I think.

Who cares? Anyway, before that GD Job and

Color Me Impressed, live music from

The Replacements, recorded live at City Gardens.

And we heard about 80 or 90 songs from

Dirty Rotten Imbeciles first LP,

and I'm not even gonna name the songs

'cause I didn't have a chance to write 'em

down and I don't even care.

You know what I mean?

- Randy had a show called, "The Other Side".

The beautiful thing about it was that it was comedy.

It was like, punk rock and comedy.

- [Randy] I am the Riot Reverend Right on Brown

here, yes, that's right.

You might know my brother.

He's the godfather of soul, James Brown.

That's my brother, super.

Everybody say "amen". (people saying "amen")

Say "yeah", hah!

- [Jeff] Randy absolutely believed at this time

that Howard Stern totally stole his show.

- You know, when I was like 17 years old,

my friend and I used to go down when he was

on the air, and we would hang out in the lobby

and just listen to the show.

- [Randy] Okay, Flipper's on the east coast,

you're playing tonight at City Gardens,

WTSR party.

This is your third time to City Gardens.

- [Male Voice] Yep.

- [Randy] You like the room or not?

- [Male Voice] The first time Ted got smashed,

the second time the truck got smashed.

- We knew that he was affiliated with the club,

so we imagined that he was the ambassador

of all this music that we were just discovering,

and getting really interested in.

So we would just hang out in the lobby

and listen to whatever he was playing.

- [Mickey] So we started tapin' music of their

shows, started calling in to like, Randy's show.

And I think he thought it was really funny that

these little 12, 13 year olds with high,

squeaky voices were callin' in,

and he asked where we're from.

- [Randy] Hi, you're on the air.

(dial tone) No you're not.

Hi.

- [Mickey] Hi, Randy?

- [Randy] Hi, how ya doin'?

- [Mickey] Hi, this is Mickey.

- [Randy] Mickey, how you doin'?

- [Mickey] I'm fine.

- [Randy] Mickey the Dickie.

- [Mickey] That's me.

- One day, this little kid who I don't know,

maybe he was like 13 starts showin' up,

and his name is Mickey the Dickie.

He's this kid who is obsessed with punk rock,

and he loved my radio show and just starts

hangin' out, ends up on the air with me

all the time and he's spinnin' records with me.

And the reason he's Mickey the Dickie is

because he's obsessed with the band The Dickies.

And who could blame him?

And I remember one day, he shows up and he's like,

"I started a band and here's my first cassette.

"We're called 🎜Ween🎜".

- He'd make a recording of himself playing drums,

and then bass, with all these boom boxes

he would make these really crude recordings,

and then he'd play guitar on top of that

and record it and have his friend sing.

- [Scott] Those first couple of performances

were with tape.

They had bass and drums on a tape,

and then Mick would have a guitar live,

and then Aaron would just be singing.

He wasn't playing guitar yet.

- [Jonathan] They'd put out one cassette after

another cassette, I had piles of cassettes.

And I wouldn't even listen to it I was like,

this is the most horrible crap garbage.

And just was like, this guy's such a weirdo.

I liked him but I thought he was a real weirdo.

- [Simeon] I mean, Ween had this ability to fill

a room as an opening act, mind you, of people

who absolutely hated them, but three years

later were buying their record.

I mean, they were really brave. (laughs)

- We opened for The Ramones.

Randy put us on the bill with Foghat.

We played with Butthole Surfers,

played with Mojo Nixon, we played with

7 Seconds, we played with Fugazi.

- I think Randy had a lot of guilty pleasures

when it came to music, and there's a lot of music

like myself being a hardcore kid,

there's things I don't want people to

know I listen to.

I think Randy had that.

- The film Yoko made called Erection,

they showed a part of on the Mike Douglas show.

(laughs) No, good guess though good try.

No, it was a building being constructed.

It was just a film like, they shot three

seconds a day over the course of a year,

and you see this building being erected.

But once again, they didn't censor

him and her when they...

- [Lon] Well they couldn't because

it was about a building.

- Exactly, and remember John performed

"Woman is the Nigger of the World".

- and Mike Douglas... - That was 19...

before 1980 right?

- [Randy] Oh my gosh, it better have been.

- I would say like '69, '70. - Late 70's?

No, it was when he was solo,

so it wasn't that early.

- [Randy] You talk and I can look it up.

- Why don't you talk and I'll look it up?

(Randy laughs)

- He's the original iPod Shuffle, ya know.

(laughs) He just did it with actual bands.

- (laughs) It's hot in here, damn it!

- [Henry] In 1986, I'm forgetting the

exact month, maybe April.

April or May of 1986, Black Flag was

doing it's last ever tour.

We didn't know that we were breaking up yet.

That was to happen a few months later,

but we were on the east coast and I think

we were circulating around the Hoboken,

Jersey area, and we got a call from Randy

and he said, "I see on your itinerary

"you guys have a day off coming up",

and we said, "Yeah", and he said,

"Well, how would you like to make some money?"

"Well, what are you proposing?"

- I really needed a lot of sound rental,

and Black Flag was on the road with this

absolutely amazing, freakin' wall of

you know, power.

- [Henry] "So it will be Overkill, Black Flag,

"Venom. We'll pay you to play,

"and we'll pay you for your PA."

Which is so much better than a day off for us.

You know, we need to pay for that PA,

the truck, et cetera.

So, we ended up spontaneously going to

City Gardens in this middle band slot.

- So I had a chance to put together this

Venom, and Black Flag together.

Venom was just, they were so full of themselves.

The typical heavy metal.

You know, Black Flag and Henry was the vocalist

and walked around, "Hey man how ya doin'?",

Cronos and Venom, they were in a dressing room

and I had to have a security guard

walk 'em to the stage.

- We played and I remember asking the audience

"Is Satan here tonight?

"Did Satan show up? Anyone.

"Satan. No one, Satan? Okay."

- These guys took it so so seriously,

and you know they're like trying to actually

be this ultra Satanic kind of like, entity.

At the end of the day, they're these

European guys wearing leg warmers

and red boots and stuff, who just kinda

just didn't get it.

- Well Henry, drew with a magic marker on

his hand the Satanic pentagram, I guess it's

called, and he would hold it up.

Well he would walk up to you like this,

he'd go, and I don't know if he did the Spock

thing or not like that, but he'd go,

"Hail Satan". (laughs)

- Venom, in 1981 releasing Welcome to Hell,

did something so extreme that no one else

had ever even come close to doing,

they went as far into the corner with

the Satanic stuff as possible.

- Combining Black Flag with Overkill

and Venom, I mean that just complete insanity.

- Venom gets on stage and you know their doing

their thing, and the crowd is completely into it.

Jersey metal maniacs are just die hard!

- And they screamed and hollered at me,

"I walked through the crowd and I didn't

"have a security guard with me". (laughs)

Like, fuck you.

- And they sucked!

They sucked really really bad,

they couldn't play, the didn't know what

to say in between songs.

(laughs) And it was just horrible.

Our sound man, Dave, Rat of Rat's Sound

put a cassette in to the board we had,

we had a cassette deck and the board to

make recordings.

- [Randy] Dave Rat recorded every Black Flag show,

so he's doin' the sound for Venom,

so he records the whole show.

- And we played the tape later,

and it became legendary to us.

- The tape was duped, and given to other bands.

One of them we made a copy for Thurston Moore,

of Sonic Youth.

He immediately made...

He edited all the raps from the between song

banter of Cronus and made a seven inch.

- They cut out all the actual music and

just put out a seven inch of all the banter.

It's crazy because to listen to that,

I would never think I would get to hear that

stuff ever again.

To hear it again and just laugh at it,

and people to really be like, "You were

"there for that?", and I'm like, "Yeah I was."

- [Randy] From that show, a lot of metal heads

were there for Venom were like, "Holy shit,

"this Black Flag band is fuckin' powerful."

And I kept yackin' on the microphone,

"Hey, Black Flag's back here in two weeks."

Maybe we started the whole mixing of the metal

and punk right there at that show.

(phone ringing)

- [Female Recording] Hey, you've reached

King Tut's City Gardens, leave a message for

Frank or Randy after the beep. (beep)

- [Jeff] Listen, my name's Jeff.

The Bad Brains are playing there I see,

and listen, you don't have to pay us.

I said, "I'll pay you to let us play".

Please, please get back to me.

Randy called me back in like, an hour and half

two hours later and was like, "Yeah.

"You guys want it?"

- Another GWAR legend, the walk of shame.

This is the first time I ever heard

the phrase walk of shame, now later it went to

become the walk of shame is obviously

when you're walking home from your boyfriend's

apartment or whatever, and you couldn't find

one of your shoes.

But for us it was a show we played.

We'd been playing at City Gardens a lot,

probably too much, and we played a show.

The turnout wasn't all that great, and it was

a show where we hadn't really rehearsed very well,

and for some reason I was trying a new mask

out that night, and just for some reason

we came off as really flat and the performance

just didn't have any pizzazz to it.

- [Bob] And it was New Year's Eve.

- [Dave] And it was like New Year's Eve

as well to make it even worse.

And then so after the show was over with

we had to walk back to the dressing room for

that one it was like...

Usually we were up above the stage in

that weird little cubby hole,

but for some reason it was way at the back

of the club this time.

So we had to like, walk after this show

all the way back through the crowd.

And I remember people saying stuff to me like,

"Yeah, not very good this time."

(laughter)

"Didn't do a very good job this time."

- We were cleaning up the stage,

Ween was supposed to open for us that night,

and they were already over us and they

had a party at their house, - [Dave] Yeah!

- [Bob] and people went to their house for free

and didn't come to see us.

We were cleaning up the stage, - Thanks, Ween.

- We were cleaning up the stage and I remember

a couple of guy at the front row were standing

there against the barricade and they were

thinkin' there was gonna be something else.

They were like, "That's it?"

And we were like, "Oh, damn."

- [Chuck] Randy put on reggae shows,

he put on ska shows,

he put on funk shows, and anybody that

would come in and play, Living Color played

some of their first shows there.

Talking about ground breaking bands that

went on to do something outside of punk rock.

- We opened up for Henry Rollins there

in like, '92 or '93.

I guess later someone told

us he had written about us in one of

- his books. - Randy told us.

- I think it was '91 or two '92. - Yeah, Randy told us.

- And like he wrote...

Whatever like, November eighth, 1991.

City Gardens, opening band was so bad

that it inspired me to like, really rock,

really, really hard.

- He kinda dissed us in it. - Yeah.

- But, we were kinda dicks though too.

- We were little pricks that day.

- Little snot nosed kids.

-🎜 Bigger Thomas - 'Telling Time' music plays 🎜

- You guys owe me ten minutes alright.

Randy was like the dad, he'd tell you,

"Hey, that was okay", or "That set was okay,

"here's what I would change",

and he really wanted you to get better.

So I felt like it was gonna fun,

it'd be a lot of people, we're gonna have to

bring our A game, and Randy, whatever Randy

didn't like, Randy's gonna tell us.

But not in a way like, "You guys suck",

but like, "Next time you might wanna think about

"doing this and doing that."

City Gardens was, that was my

performing arts school.

(🎜 Bing Satellites - 'Motif Four' music plays 🎜)

- [Randy] This is where I lived in

I guess the mid-late '80's.

And we were paying like only, $100 a month.

And this is where a lot of bands stayed

and where I made a lot of friends with bands.

Mojo Nixon stayed here, he stayed here quite

a few times and he had these

little firecrackers he tied to the two

drawers of my desk drawer, so if I opened

one or the other one they snapped.

Right in my freakin' hand.

(clucking)

(🎜 gentle music plays 🎜)

This was here when I was here.

George made this refrigerator and so I guess

there's a keg probably inside,

and that was the tap and all the

bands would drink.

Well it's not hooked up anymore.

There's still a lot of beer in here though.

This is probably a 250 year old house,

300 year old house.

I remember The Dickies staying overnight.

Leonard had some girl with him and they

were up on the third floor.

Did you see from the outside?

This is the way it was, no steps here.

- [Peter] He loved the music so much,

he wanted to spread word around,

he wanted to help out kids who were making music,

he wanted to help out bands that were coming

through, and he thought, well the only way

he could do this is if he just takes it on

and does it himself.

- This is the desk I did all my

calls, ya know, on it and did all my work.

This is the desk that booked a million shows.

- And to have someone who was so clearly

enthusiastic and so clearly compassionate to

these kids, who otherwise wouldn't have

had a chance.

People were just...

Their minds were blown by that.

(🎜 gentle music plays 🎜)

- Hey, it was really cool livin' here,

and just workin' with all the bands and stuff.

That's one of those things that nobody really

even knows about, the bands used to stay

at my house instead of a band going

to a hotel for whatever, 40 bucks a night.

You know, two rooms or three rooms.

They would stay here.

It was all free for the bands.

(horn honking)

Bye.

The farmhouse was so big I could accommodate

GWAR, 14 people, and you know, Dag Nasty

stayed over, and Suicidal.

And when I moved to New Hope, Fugazi stayed

over a couple of nights.

Fugazi, when they came over I don't even know

how I got into it, I just started showin' 'em

Ernie Kovacs videos, who I don't think they

were familiar with, and then we started showing

Spike Jones videos.

(drum beating)

They'd never heard of this guy before.

- I'd never heard of Spike Jones.

You have musician, but then you have a guy who

just played like shooting a gun in the air.

Just like very, jacked up and

strangely punk in it's own way.

I really, really appreciated him.

We just watched, we couldn't believe it.

We were watching it, and then he just gave me...

I have the video tape still, he just gave

me a Spike Jones video tape.

- He had a fascination with things,

everything musical, but he had a fascination

with things outside of music too.

And he was always so willing to share.

Unfortunately for me, one of the things that

he shared was the video tape that

he had managed to procure from I guess

a friend who worked at a TV station.

- [Peter] He gave me my first experience of

watching someone die on TV.

- [Randy] But I remember like The Mentors,

El Duce was like, "Oh fuck man, I got a video

"of a guy sticking his head in an

"elephant asshole, I'll let you have that

"if you let me have a copy of Budd Dwyer",

I was like, "What?" (laughs)

I was not a collector, believe me,

I wasn't a collector, I just happened

to have it.

Have you ever seen it?

- [Jello] Some of the promoters were clearly

clinically insane, and if they didn't start

out that way, the stress of trying to put

punk shows on would make them that way.

Some how Randy never got quite that far,

but he had to have a few screws loose

or he wouldn't be doing this in the first place.

Especially not year after year after year,

and inviting the likes of Dead Kennedys

back into his club again and again.

- We might have like had three motel

rooms in our nine year career or something,

while we were on tour we like slept on floors

next to like, dirty cat litter boxes.

And when we were in Europe we stayed in

squats that had no heat and hot water,

and we were just freezing in the middle

of Europe in the middle of winter.

The warmest thing in there was like a dog

that you're like wrapped around the dog,

like, "Pass the dog".

- City Gardens really for me, you know,

at that point define Trenton.

But I don't know the city that well.

Or at all really.

We'd show up at the club and then here we

are in Trenton, and didn't really have any

feeling and need to go out and

see the city or anything like that.

Part of it's what you hear cause you roll

into town and...

Someone would get some crazy wild hair

up their ass to go and have dinner somewhere

and I don't know if it was Randy,

but someone would always be like,

"I don't know about that.

"We can just give you some food here.

"We'll give you the food, you don't need to

"go out and get it."

So it gives you this feeling of

"Just stay here!" (laughs)

- [Doug] When you grow up in the

suburbs around Trenton, there are a couple

of stories about Trenton that you hear.

One is the story that you hear when you

go on the capitol tour

as a fourth grader and they show you

the Governor's offices and the big gold dome.

A lot of state workers work in Trenton,

that's one story.

But then there's this story that you hear

from relatives and older people who've

lived in the area a long time.

And that's a sadder story.

And that story goes along the lines of,

Trenton used to be this great town.

Trenton used to be this wonderful place,

and now it's not.

That you were taking a risk by going there.

Now, granted when you say that to an

adolescent, that makes it attractive.

(laughs) That makes it adventurous.

- Trenton was one of those towns that was

founded by a Philadelphia man.

William Trent was a well known merchant,

business man in Philadelphia,

who basically came here to summer.

He had purchased the land from the original

founders of the area, they were Quakers who

had come here in the late 1600's.

Trenton started to grow as Trent took over.

He started laying out streets,

he named the place Trent's Town,

but as the country began to grow so did the city.

And when the American Revolution takes off

the powder keg, or really the defining moment

occurs right here in the city of Trenton.

(musket shots)

There's two battles that are fought here

within a week of each other.

The first battle of Trenton is the first

victory for American troops at that point.

They've been going through defeat after

defeat after defeat, and prior to the battle

of Trenton that summer is when the

Declaration of Independence is signed,

the book Common Sense comes out.

People are starting to rally behind the whole idea,

and Washington's troops make their way through

New Jersey from upstate New York and other places,

and then it's Washington's crossing,

the famous crossing of the Delaware River.

And then the surprise attack on the

Hessian troops here on Christmas of 1776.

The city hasn't changed much since William Trent

laid out the streets here.

It's a convergence of a lot of major

arteries that work their way from Pennsylvania,

New Jersey that all converge on Trenton.

Most of those streets are US and state highways

that bring you into the city,

and along those streets and along those roads

started to settle specific groups.

Early on it was religious types,

it was Quakers in one neighborhood,

Presbyterians in another, the Catholics,

the Jews, all settled in certain areas.

In fact, one of the Jewish neighborhoods

was actually called Jew Town.

That's what they referred to it because

it was all Jewish, that's where the synagogue

was that's where the kosher meat market was.

It wasn't that people were bigoted or

prejudice, it was they just simply

surrounded themselves by people the knew

and understood.

There was a language barrier even in Trenton,

so when you settled in Trenton,

you settled in a neighborhood with people

from the same area that you came from.

Literally anything and everything you could

think of had some root in Trenton.

Whether it was the wire that was holding up the

Brooklyn Bridge or the wire that was going

into building the Golden Gate Bridge later on,

or some little porcelain insulator that was

going into an electrical motor or..

It didn't really matter, something had

something to do with Trenton, and pretty

much anything and everything that was being

made and distributed around the world.

- [Voiceover] Trenton, New Jersey.

The state capitol where government is

big business, but far from the only one.

Like most cities in this wondrous area,

Trenton is proud of it's past,

but prouder yet, of it's future.

- [Charles] Most people think of the

United States as going on a boom,

after World War II.

And the boom did occur around the country,

but World War II sort of is a defining moment

in Trenton, when we start to see the decline.

Decline in the city's population,

in the city's industry, people were starting

to move out of the city into the suburbs,

people were starting to move out of the state

into other places.

Most of the industry that was in Trenton,

was sort of mom and pop places.

Mr. and Mrs. Scammell owned Scammell Pottery.

Mr. and Mrs. Roebling and the brothers

and the sons and everybody else ran

the Roebling company.

After World War II we started creating these

big corporations that turned into

these huge conglomerates.

These companies had no investment whatsoever

in the city of Trenton, they were worried

about the bottom line.

And it continued, and continued, and continued,

until the late 1960's in 1968 when

the riot occurred in Trenton.

- [Voiceover] Negro leaders publicly deplore

at this looting and violence.

Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the

National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People.

- It discourages me, and dismays me,

and disheartens me is that in the reports

so far coming in, we have reports of looting.

Not anger, not violent outbreaks,

not an expression of their sorrow

and resentment at the killing of Dr. King.

But the utilizing this as an opportunity

to steal things.

I think Martin's memory is desecrated by

this kind of action.

- The riots in Trenton were broken up

along racial lines.

Now, the powder keg of the 1968 riot is

really fueled by the assassination of

Martin Luther King.

King is assassinated, a few days later

riot breaks out in the city of Trenton,

one man Harlan Joseph is killed.

A dozens of police officers, firemen,

the city is completely burned.

That was the death of the city.

State government was taking off,

so state government was buying up huge

neighborhoods like Jew Town.

Bought up the entire neighborhood,

demolished it, and wanted to put up urban renewal.

State buildings, so you get these huge

state complexes being built surrounded by

huge parking lots.

But the people move out after that.

The people who live here, the people who

grew up here, who immigrated here,

who were really invested in the city of Trenton,

their confidence was shaken.

No longer was this a great place to live,

no longer was this a great place to enjoy

yourself, this was a place to run from.

(hip hop music plays)

- [Doug] None of what I had learned

explained Calhoun Street.

Because the story I had heard was that,

to put it bluntly black people took over Trenton.

That's the narrative.

So this narrative of black people took over

Trenton and so we had to move out.

That's the story that a lot of white

suburban kids around Trenton grew up with.

But really that's not the story.

The story is that these other opportunities

became available to some people but not

to others, and so there was a large underclass

that was trapped in Trenton.

For me, going to City Gardens,

what it did was it made Trenton

a place that I had to pay attention to.

This is a real place, with real people,

and it's part of real community.

(fast paced polka music plays)

- Welcome to the house of Now.

Ooh, he said "meow" I think.

This is supposed to be the dining room.

All CD's on the walls.

Met John Lennon, in 1975 in Philadelphia,

but I had a chance to meet him.

I was drumming in my band and we actually

did Twist n' Shout.

This is the basement but I had a whole

bunch of bobble heads.

Lot of people collect baseball bobble heads.

Actually there's one here where his head fell off.

Here's "Have a Jewish Christmas".

Of course, Pac Man Christmas.

Everybody needs a Pac Man Christmas album.

Look at this Christmas in Brazil,

Santa Claus of the top of that car there.

This is a really rare Skatalites album.

When I tour managed the Skatalites.

Skavoovie.

Most of the guys were still alive then,

they're all dead now I believe.

Christmas with the Colonel Sanders,

there's a couple of them.

Here's a Desmond Decker album from the '60's.

Fitness records, burlesque records.

How to belly dance for your husband,

How to strip for your husband.

Easy instructions.

Stop smoking on vinyl.

Yeah that's really gonna work.

Maternity to Motherhood, common sense

guide to pregnancy and childbirth.

Why did I buy this?

What did I pay for it?

Did I pay a dollar?

Sitar, these are all records with

sitars on 'em.

This is the funny, it's a great section.

Cajun Truckers Rock-a-billy.

Sousa and Circus.

Kinda went hand and hand I though.

- [Mike] A lot of the original punks in general

were real characters.

They were real natural entertainers or weirdos.

Creative weirdos, not like the people

you try to avoid when you come across

them in the street.

And so the vibe was always fun.

The creative weirdo is the guy who always

livens up the dull party if you go to one.

The guy with the lampshade on his head.

- For young and old, Ex-Lax, the chocolate,

chocolated laxative.

There's a word you don't use too often

in the English language, a choc...

Choc-o-lated?

What do you think?

- Often very big people, ya know,

kind of physically imposing and don't

care what you think about 'em.

What are you gonna do?

Punch him?

You don't like what they're doin', you know.

Randy was kind of an imposing character.

(cheering)

(🎜 The Meatmen -'Mr. Tapeworm' music plays 🎜)

- I take my son to shows now and he won't

go anywhere near the front of the stage.

And I'm like, it's weird because I'm pulling

him to the front of the stage and he

doesn't want anything to do with it.

So yeah, I can understand how people

were scared, and actually I do remember

a time when I was scared is

The Butthole Surfers show.

Because he was trying to light us on fire.

(laughs) So, that's the only time

I was scared.

(🎜 Butthole Surfers -'Too Parter' music plays 🎜)

- [Mickey] They were probably the best live

band in the world for maybe like 10

or 12 years, at least.

- We'd been listening to the Buttholes a lot

actually, and to us we imagined them as not

even human beings we thought they were just

psychopaths like five or six psychopaths

that just did acid all the time.

Which really wasn't that far from

the truth actually.

To look at them, they were the weirdest looking

band in the whole fuckin' world.

Gibby had that long stringy hair and there was

shit stuck in it, like clothes pins and dolls

hangin' out of it and whatever, trash.

When they came on it was like being in hell.

It was like literally being in hell.

It was like, specifically designed to fuck with you.

- There was a time when City Gardens couldn't

do all age shows.

- [Johnny] During the course of City Garden's life,

the drinking age changed.

And when the drinking age changed

the shows changed a lot.

- Then it was like, 19 then it was 20

to drink and get in.

They wouldn't let all ages in.

(whistle)

- Hello, skinhead, are you hungry?

Looking for a City Gardens treat?

Well hold on 'til I absorb some heat.

Some added tang might please you too.

I'll slide into a stale bun,

and I'm ready for your eating fun.

- And then I almost got a restaurant license

literally by having a hot dog maker machine,

fattening the building become a restaurant

where it could open up to all ages.

- [Randy] I knew they had nude dance,

topless dancer, I knew that and I said,

"Look, this is an all ages show.

"Can you do me a favor and not have

"the nude dancer on stage?"

He was like, "Well yeah we won't do it,

"but you know, there's gonna be a screen

"of like these Signal 30 films

"of car accidents and people's bodies

"all burned in car wrecks playing

"in the background, the projector going

"through her figure."

"okay we won't do it."

First fuckin' song her fuckin' top comes off.

- [Scott] This was the first time that actually

got like, a majority of people from our

high school to come out.

So they came out to see Ween and that was

a good show and that was a lot of fun.

And then the Butthole Surfers comes on,

and all of our high school friends are watching

this naked girl go-go dance.

You gotta remember, these are preppy

high school kids.

- [Mickey] When you saw them you got a sense

that anything was possible, that anything could

happen, everything was in play,

somebody could get killed.

Ya know, you were gonna see them fuck on stage.

- [Randy] I had worked with them so many times

I had no problem with them, and then that night

just like, all hell broke loose.

- [Mickey] Gibby would set his arms on fire

with rubbing alcohol, and it was just

so much to look at.

- [Randy] The lighter fluid on the symbol

and lighting them and Gibby striking

it with a mallet.

(wooshing sound)

- [Randy] You fuck with the Buttholes

and they're not gonna back down.

- Flames were shootin' up into the ceiling.

- It would go up, it would hit the ceiling

and then it would go horizontal like,

creep across.

And City Gardens had all the wiring exposed

and insulation hanging down.

You could see the ends curl up,

and burn up, and sizzle.

It would like, have red coals on it.

It was like, "Fuck, these guys are gonna

"burn this club down to the grown.

"1,200 people are gonna die and it's

"gonna be amazing, ya know. No one's gonna

"move when it happens."

- [Randy] I think that's what started it all

because we're afraid of fire.

- And I think he wasn't expecting it to do that.

Because the look on his face was,

"Holy shit."

- [Jon Stewart] For some reason so many of us

thought it was a good idea to incorporate fire

into their show, one of the upper curtains

caught on fire.

Yeah they were for some reason there

was like a pyromaniac thing with them.

- And he just kept drumming and playing,

and he had a bullhorn so that was very loud.

As loud as the PA.

- [Don] Gibby turned the cymbal upside down

and started hitting it and flames started

shooting in the air, and Tut was standing

next to me and he went running off like,

"That's it!" (laughs)

"None of that!"

- Frank, came to a couple of us

and told us to go stop it.

- So I took a picture of beer and I just

poured it on the cymbal.

I remember Gibby looking at me, and he took

the bottle of alcohol, walked towards me

Threw it on my shirt and just totally doused me.

He lit the lighter, and was walking towards me

with this psycho look in his eyes.

And I was coming back ready to hit him,

and he turned around and he looked at me,

he put his hand out so I just shook his hand

I wasn't gonna hit him then.

- [Scott] Toward the end when they wanted to

close the club, the band wouldn't leave.

- [Randy] We pulled the power I guess somewhere.

It had to be an hour and a half into

the show though.

- Black Flag played there many times,

Rollins band played there many times.

And when I would be living around here

we'd go see shows there.

So we'd see the Bad Brains, The Pixies, Ween.

- They booked everything.

Sinead O'Connor.

- It was her very first show ever

in the United States.

- UB40.

- Jane's Addiction.

- Geeze, I seen The Wailers there

a ton of times, that was always great.

- Husker Du, Dickies, Ramones, Violent Femmes.

- Green Day played there?

Ya know, Nirvana played there?

I gotta go on YouTube to remember that

Nirvana played there.

- De La Soul was like, the crowing, you know,

that was like the crown jewel show.

- Circle Jerks were always great.

Bad Brains were always amazing,

one of the loudest bands I've ever worked with.

- Like, I saw Ministry there.

When Ministry was new wave.

I have pictures, great pictures,

Al Jourgensen dressed pretty much like a girl.

- I would go see anything at City Gardens

for a while because I knew it was gonna be

completely outside the realm of the hair metal

or the crappy dance music that popular

with the kids of my school that I didn't relate to.

- Voivod, Faith No More, Soundgarden show.

And Voivod was actually the headliner.

- GWAR shows. (laughs)

GWAR shows, where on Earth did that come from

and how cool is GWAR?

- Shit, the Chili Peppers.

Ya know it's real easy to laugh now

about the Chili Peppers and say like,

"Oh, but that band was the best."

And they were like, the first to do it

and that was everybody's favorite band.

And this is before hits and radio and success

and whatever, they were playing places

like City Garden, and they played there a lot.

- It made all the difference to music

in New Jersey, I mean, if it wasn't there

you'd be going to Philadelphia,

you'd be going to CB's.

It was really important.

It was really important.

- [Dave] (muffled) for me homie.

Lou Koller, come on.

Tim Shaw?

What's up?

(🎜 Vision - 'Falling Apart' music plays 🎜)

🎜 Never thought of the consequences You never thought at all 🎜

🎜 Never thought you'd be the one To ever take a fall 🎜

- Randy Now called my mom's house phone,

ya know, cause I was in high school still.

And he said, "Hey, it's Randy.

"Would you guys like to open up

"for The Exploited?", and I was like,

"Fuck yeah!"

(🎜 The Scandals - 'Four Seventeen' music plays 🎜)

- [Bryan] That Exploited show for sure

goes down in infamy.

- [Peter] The first time that I played

at City Gardens, my band's called Vision.

(🎜 Vision - 'No Mistake' music plays 🎜)

We had a show there in early January

in 1987 and we were booked to open a show

that included headliners The Exploited,

and supporting them, The Pagan Babies,

and The Uprise.

(🎜 Bouncing Souls - 'Baptized' music plays 🎜)

- The guy that played bass in my band

at the time, was banned from the club

for beating people up.

The night of the show

we went there and I went there with so much

anxiety, 'cause I knew that I was gonna have

to talk to Randy and be like,

"This is my bass player, but he's banned

"from the club for fightin' people."

- [Randy] I know he was barred I guess.

If you get barred you had to have

done something stupid.

We just didn't say, "Hey, kick that guy

"out because he's a nice guy", ya know.

And I wasn't kickin' 'em out,

it was security guards.

They would tell me and then I'd say,

"You gotta stay out."

- Randy did not know that he was

playing in our band until we showed up

at that time.

- We walked through the club.

They had no idea I was in the band,

and we knew something was gonna happen.

We knew that we were walking into this...

It would erupt at some point.

- [Peter] As the words left Dave's mouth

Randy lost his mind.

- Ah, what the fuck?

- [Peter] "What's he doin' here?

"Blah blah blah", he's freakin' out.

- [Dave] Randy screamed at me.

He screamed at me so loud he was

spitting in my face.

I don't even think my mother and father

ever yelled at me the way that he

yelled at me that night.

- "How could you do this to me?

"You fucked us, you screwed me.

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

(uptempo music plays)

- [Dave] I said, "Listen man."

(laughs) I said, "I can't help the fact

"that the guy's in my band, ya know.

"But we wanna play the show regardless."

He goes, "Fuck you!".

(laughs) He was like, "Fuck you,

"you fucked me!"

Before that, Vision had only played like

basements and a couple little odds and ins shows.

This is our biggest break, we're gonna play

in front of 1,100 people opening

up for The Exploited.

- "You're gone. You can't play."

- "Absolutely not gonna fuckin' play here.

"Get the fuck out."

- [Dave] Wattie from The Exploited

comes walkin' over with his manager

and he says, "What's the problem?",

and I say, "We're not gonna be able to play

"because my bass player's not

"allowed in the venue."

And he goes, "Did you come from a far distance?"

And I go, "Not as far as you." (laughs)

"40 minutes away" and he goes, "That's

"far enough", and he walked to Randy and goes,

"If Vision doesn't play, The Exploited

"don't play."

The Uprise did the exact same thing,

The Pagan Babies did the exact same thing.

- Almost everybody in every band...

around Randy.

Like one guy, and twenty people around him

just hassling him, "Come on, let us play,

"let him play, let him play."

- [Randy] Obviously he had power over me to say,

"If they don't play we don't play."

- But I think he had to go talk to Tut

because the man behind the curtain, ya know,

he was the guy, he was the guy who

probably hated me.

I don't think Randy really hated me,

he just had the duty to keep throwing me out.

- So we ended up getting to play the show,

we compromised with Randy and said,

"We'll play, and then Chris will leave."

(🎜 The Exploited - 'Y.O.P.' music plays 🎜)

- [Randy] I don't know what date in like,

punk rock history,

one day I would promote bands and I would

have to say, "From England" to make people

come see them.

You know, and including early Exploited shows,

"From England, The Exploited."

That brought people out.

And all of a sudden one day it was like

opposite, you put "from England, The Exploited",

and people were like, against a band.

- [Dan] We watched Vision, you know,

then we get up and did our thing.

I remember being done, and getting our gear off

stage, we were all like, "Yay. We just played,

"that's so cool."

And then we were up in that perch

on side of the stage.

- [Tim] It turned out that that they

didn't have a merch guy.

So, Randy looks to us and says,

"Hey, would you guys be interested in

"doing the merch for Exploited?",

he's like, "You know, I'll kick back

"a little money for ya, ya know."

And we were like, "Sure. Cool."

Ya know, "Whatever, yeah yeah."

- Chris had to go after we were done playing,

he had to leave.

I got elected to take him home. (laughs)

Best part about that is, after we get done

playin', load everything up into my car,

leave, Chris, "Oh I forgot a bag."

- Then The Exploited play.

And they have the record out that has

"Fuck the USA" on it.

- Back at that time, you know, '87, '88,

there was just so many skinheads, so many like,

white power skinheads back then.

- And the place goes ballistic.

- The skinheads kinda like,

took offense to a lot of Exploited stuff.

I don't understand why they paid to get in,

but maybe they paid to get to try to

abuse The Exploited, right.

- [Bryan] One of the members,

and I can't remember, I think it was the bass

player, the littler guy in The Exploited,

actually got, they tried to pull him into the crowd.

Like, actually got pulled by his feet

off the stage.

- [Tim] Holy shit are we gonna now

be involved in this 'cause we're

sellin' their merch?

Are skinheads gonna come back here and

beat the shit out of our little 13,

14-year-old asses? (laughs)

- [Peter] To see Wattie right in the faces

of the people in the front row,

with probably dozens of gabs of spit

in his Mohawk.

- [Randy] Remember actually, these big, of course

every fuckin' bad skinhead was like,

six foot, like Frankenstein six foot ten,

300 pounds.

I can remember goin' up there,

little, fat, dumpy me, 20 years older than them

sayin', "I don't care if you spit on 'em,

"just don't touch 'em."

- [Matt] Turn around, drive all the way back.

He can't go in the club 'cause he's not allowed

in the club, so I have to go get his bag.

And I was almost jaw-dropped, ya know,

walkin' back in just to see treatment

that The Exploited was getting.

I just couldn't believe it.

- (laughs) And that was just brutal.

Just so much violence at an Exploited show

that I just couldn't believe it.

And I'm kinda like goin', "Wow.

"I'm gonna stand over to the side

"I'm a little kid."

- [Larry] (laughs) And he's sittin' here

spittin' at the crowd, you know, they're

goin' back and forth, then somebody had

the bright idea like, "Hey their van's outside."

- Then they like trashed The Exploited's van.

(sirens)

- Exploited was bummed.

(sirens)

- I never considered hardcore to be a musical

sound, I always thought of it as a lifestyle,

an attitude.

- There weren't a lot of punks back then.

I mean, there was maybe two or three punks

in my high school, you know.

So, having that meeting place you saw

that there was other people you share your ideas,

you learn about other bands, exchange your

fanzines, you know all that kind of good stuff.

And it really strengthened the local scene.

First of all, it gave bands like us the chance

to get in front and get our name

out to all these areas 'cause

there was no internet.

That was our social network, City Gardens.

That was our...

Our Facebook was in the parking lot.

- [Linda] When you go there and your

friends are there, and people from the outside

come in, and they didn't belong.

And it's like, "What are you doin' here?

"It's our club, get out of my pit."

- City Gardens had a great hardcore

scene there, they would get The New York bands,

they would get the D.C. bands to come up and play.

And you could see it almost week by week,

if not month by month,

the face of the crowd's changing.

- A thousand or 1,400 kids goin' crazy

for you, and you know, it literally looks like

they're beatin' the shit out of each other

and climbin' over bouncers to get on

stage and stage dive.

And that's a fuckin' rush, man.

- These are times when people just came out

to a show and really enjoyed the show.

- Simple hardcore.

- Simple. - Boom.

- Some people perceived City Gardens

as being violent, but I wouldn't say it was

violent, it was more like mutually agreed upon,

kind of orchestrated dance.

- The pit, in the Suicidal days in '85,

it was such as unbelievably fun experience

in a physical sense.

- It made you believe

that you're invincible.

Man, when you go inside that crowd...

You didn't wanna go home.

You know what I mean?

Just stay in the club, sleep on the fuckin' floor.

It was amazing.

- From '82 to '86, you know,

we saw hardcore sort of emerge.

And what started off as really fun,

turned absolutely scary.

And there were guys and it was like,

in the braces, and the shaved heads,

and all of a sudden this was not Minor Threat

that I loved straight edge hardcore.

This was something else.

- I didn't quite realize that there was such

like, this Neo-Nazi thing going on

and for whatever reason, Pennsylvania was like

the hub, and Trenton was close enough.

- People had these really fucked up ideas

of the way that things should be,

and we didn't have that idea.

- Punks like punks.

Period.

There's different factions of skins,

white power skins, there are clean cut

American skins, Christian skins, the freakin'...

There was a shit load of skins,

but only thing that bonded 'em together,

all skins are violent, all skins like skins.

Period.

- There were people there that

would actually fuckin' murder somebody

for you, if they were your friend.

That's as close as you can come to being

related to somebody who you barely even knew.

They were just down with you because

they liked your band.

- I mean, that's actually when I quit,

when I just stopped, 'case I had a real job.

And you know, doin' this shit Sunday night

and stuff like that it like, Monday morning

I gotta go to work, and there was something

going on, some kind of thing going on.

I remember being outside and somebody yelled,

"He's got, that guy's got a gun", or something.

(laughs) Man, I'm not gettin' shot for $40.

This shit isn't worth it, I'm done with this.

- Jocks would come out and they'd try to get

in to the whole, you know, the pit

and the whole like dancing thing.

And they thought, "Hey this is fun."

And marines would come out and start

wailing on people and stuff,

and it was like, that's not what it was about.

- We would always stop and break up the fights

or if need be, we would go right in there.

Get off stage and break up fights,

and we had to do that numerous times at that club.

- It was like real shit,

these were like, real people coming from

cities and fucked up parts of the suburbs,

and rich white kids, and they were all

converging on this one place.

And you know, it was going to get real

at one point or the other.

- You'd be in the pit right?

And the band didn't even start yet.

And we're gonna rock, rock...

Just hit the chord, just hit the chord,

just touch the guitar, all you gotta do

touch the guitar, touch it, touch it once,

I'm punching this mother fucker right here.

Touch it, touch the fuckin' guitar!

Boom! (laughs)

It was beautiful and the fights would start.

- We had to do that in a way just to sort of,

you know, you invite somebody in to your house

and they start breaking shit.

You're like, "No."

- Violence was the trade off

for the club's proximity to the suburbs.

Suburban kids

don't actually have the street smarts

that they think they have.

Or I should say that if your street smarts

is formed entirely by what you've read in

a hardcore band's lyric sheet,

you are coming into things with a very

sort of idealized fantasy.

That made the violence aspect of it

actually much worse at City Gardens than it was

at clubs in the city.

And I think that's why, eventually,

towards the end of the '80's a lot of people

with kind of jock mentalities started coming

to shows, because those guys I don't think

had the, I don't think they had the ability

to decode they lyrics of what that music

had been about for a long time.

You know, themes like fear, and depression,

and self-loathing, and other kinds of

transgressive attitudes, you know.

They just heard the rage that was locked

up inside the sound of that music,

and then used it as a soundtrack to pummel

people that they felt were different or

just were smaller than them.

- Tut basically said to Randy, "Stop booking

"bands that are gonna bring skinheads out."

You know, I think Randy's reaction was,

"Those shows bring kids in and I make

"money from those shows."

So I think the first way Randy sort of tried

to bend Tut's rule was, well we're

just gonna ban Doc Martens.

Which again, I think is a great example

of Randy's big heart which was,

yeah Tut laid down this rule,

but as a business man and also as

somebody who's tryin' to do something

for the kids in this area, let's see if we

can find another solution without

actually canceling these shows.

- [Roger] You as a singer,

you had the voice, you had control of that whole...

I control that whole crowd any given moment,

if I told them to smash the place they would.

If I told them that hey, "Quit the B.S.

"this is not what it's about",

which I always did, it's about unity.

It's about being together, they'd listen.

- And I can remember at the Bad Brains show,

them actually cooperating and the fact that

it got out of hand wild, and HR and the band

would say, "We're gonna do some reggae

"for a while", and that actually calmed

people down.

(🎜 guitar strumming 🎜)

- [Randy] Of course on the last song all

hell would break loose.

You know, the last song of the show

or the encore, "I'm gonna jump off the

"fuckin' stage. What are they gonna do?

"Throw me out? The show is over."

- [Tim] That last song we'd be sitting there

and basically spending more time looking around

and checking for bouncers, making sure we had

a clear path to get up on the stage and dive.

- [Linda] They were trying to control it,

but taking slam dancing out of a punk rock

show would not make it a punk rock show.

So, being that it was punk we're rebels anyway.

So like, who's gonna read signs?

Like, we're there to have fun.

- (guitar playing) - Last night in New York,

just a handful of thugs in the crowd.

They didn't do much, but everybody else

just stood there petrified,

they didn't wanna react or show emotion

or anything.

In other words, the people we all hated

in school are back.

(audience cheering)

Aside from that, I like dancin' around.

I like jumpin' off a stage.

We don't mind it if you're cool about it,

but are you gettin' anything out of it?

(audience cheering)

I mean sometimes I wonder whether

so called hardcore has become just another

thrill ritual like riding a roller coaster,

skating a pipe, or a metal show,

or Duran Duran or whatever.

I think dancing's cool, as long as it isn't

a mindless reaction, you know what I mean?

Come here, get your thrills, dive off the stage,

go home, and learn nothing.

That kind of thing makes us feel like

we've totally fuckin' failed.

- [Johnny] For insurance reasons,

no stage diving, no slam dancing.

You know, you had to have a disclaimer.

In fact, I think if I'm not mistaken

there were shows where you had to sign

wavers and things like that,

so if you got hurt it was your business.

- [Lou] If you knew the backstage area,

there was the stage and there was this little

booth lookin' thing and it was a backstage

and it had this tiny little window.

It was like maybe three feet high

by two feet wide, and I remember starting

our show and the place is going crazy,

and you see Dave Vision stand up in that

little window and dive from the

backstage into the crowd.

(laughs)

See that's what City Gardens was like.

There was no stage diving, but then the most

insane action would happen on that dance floor.

- We had let the kids basically do whatever

they wanted to do.

We were the first venue in the area

doing punk rock.

You know, with Dead Kennedys and Black Flag.

If kids wanted to jump up and jump off the

stage we let 'em, if they wanted to hang

from the girder we let 'em.

We let 'em do whatever they wanted.

But then all of a sudden we'd come to

the mailbox, we'd have a little yellow slip

that says, "You have a certified letter."

- I've been in the pit.

Like I was the feisty little girl.

Ya know, I still have my first pair of Docs,

and they're all scuffed up and I would be out

there and I've got like ripped open

band shirts and stuff.

I took a couple to the chin quite

a few times.

And then he'd yell at me like, "You're gonna

"get me sewed, your grandparents are

"going to sew me!"

- You're being sewed,

this person who went to your show

broke his arm.

- They didn't care if Randy was throwing people

out or not, there were people doing flips,

like back flips off.

I mean, it was just awesome.

- And then, it would happen again

and it was gettin' a little more frequent,

a little more frequent.

- They probably got as hurt as they always did,

but they didn't react the way that they

did before that.

They were actually trying to make a payday

out of it which was really, really fucked up.

It's like, you know.

You want this club to stay open?

Do you wanna go see these bands?

There's very few people booking these bands.

- [Randy] I had to buy the policies, ya know.

A thousand dollars.

So and then once again, you're talkin' about

did we make money?

You know, a thousand people at a show for

ten or 12 dollars, ya know, ten percent of that

just went for an insurance policy.

- [Marc] There were times when Randy

would just say, "I can't. No", he would say,

"No", and he'd look all sheepish and sort of

sad about it and he'd say, "Tut basically

"said we can't."

And so, that sort of was my understanding

of how things worked.

Randy had a certain threshold that he was

allowed to go up to as long as money

was being made, but if there was pressure

being put on the club, if the cops were

snoopin' around, Tut was like, "I don't want

"any part of this, Randy. So find another way

"to make this happen, don't book those

"bands anymore."

- I'd get on the stage in front of 600 kids

and say, "We can't do it anymore,

"you're sewing us! You, I'm not sewing you,

"you are sewing me."

- The whole vibe of the place changed,

and the big thing for me was it didn't

seem to have an appreciation

for how much work it took to put these shows on.

How much work by Randy, by the bands,

by the people who worked at City Gardens.

That they just took everything for granted.

(rock music)

- [Steve] I also remember going to

buying tickets and Randy being completely

pissed off because

Johnny Rotten never showed up for a PIL show

that was sold out.

Just never came.

And he was pissed.

- [Randy] The bands were wanting more and more.

And we had a Cramps show and they wanted like,

$6,000 instead of $3,000.

And you know, tour buses, and tractor trailers,

and breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

- [Amy] Just seeing Randy

and Tut, the toll that it was taking on them.

You could just see them getting more and more...

It was just grinding them down,

they were getting burned out that it was

just harder and harder.

They could never catch a break.

- I remember back then it was really easy

to throw shit balls at a band and say like,

"Oh, this band sucks 'cause they're chargin'

"nine dollars."

You know, and Fugazi would come around

and charge four.

I would go like, "Oh this band is a ripoff

"and a sellout", and Randy would go like,

"Hey, it's not my fault the band wants

"this much money."

And then in the end ultimately Tut ended

up looking like the bad guy, or the man,

or whatever 'cause he was the man.

You know?

- [Randy] The fun is not having lawsuits.

Fun is not taking your life in your hands.

- It's just when it stops being fun it's

time to hang it up.

- [Randy] I'm tired of this, and that's when I

pretty much said, "I think we're gonna

"wrap this up."

(🎜 The Minutemen - 'Do You Want New Wave Or Do you Want The Truth' music plays 🎜)

- When Randy left there I believe Tut

was still trying to keep it going and booking

like local bands, and I did see my friend's

local band there and there was,

you know, crickets.

It was 30 or 40 people in a club that

holds 900 plus.

Whoever was booking the shows at that time

didn't have the knowledge to bring bands

in there, it was all Randy.

Randy brought all of those bands there.

(train sounds)

(screeching)

(cheering)

🎜 One, two, three 🎜

(🎜 The Doughboys - 'Black Sheep' music plays 🎜)

🎜 I came out 🎜

🎜 Feet first 🎜

🎜 Jumped down runnin' 🎜

🎜 Quenchin' thirst 🎜

🎜 I'm feelin' bad 🎜

🎜 Some self rule 🎜

🎜 How I survive cause with all attitude 🎜

🎜 I guess I arrive right on time 🎜

🎜 I'm as ripe as that fruit from the vine 🎜

🎜 Yeah Yeah 🎜

🎜 You know they call me the black sheep 🎜

🎜 I'm runnin' wild, while y'all sleep 🎜

🎜 You know they call me the black sheep 🎜

- [Jim] People give him a lot of credit

and a lot of adulation for great shows.

"Oh he put on this ska show,

"or that hardcore show",

or this Nine Inch Nails show,

or whatever.

And he gets a lot of credit for individual shows,

and he's the guy who brought this huge

band to Trenton, New Jersey.

But, I don't think that he really gets enough

credit for building the foundation of what

was to come and what could be built

on top of that.

- [Randy] But right now, from Highland Park,

New Jersey, the Grip Weeds. (cheering)

(🎜 The Grip Weeds - 'Every Minute' music plays 🎜)

- All this hard work that he put in

at this club that he loved has resulted

in having absolutely nothing but memories.

There's no retirement money there,

there's no way to really support himself,

and he's still workin' like dog,

and I think that's...

For me that's the sadness of the whole little story.

- [Director's Voice] What do these all sort of mean

to you, this whole collection?

(sighs)

- What does it mean to me?

Ya know, now at 54

and the way the economy is and

how I'm really not makin' any money,

I wish I'd never bought all these things,

I wish I had the money instead,

or I invested it.

I have no retirement, you know.

It's all gone.

- Because in the end, City Gardens was

a mom and pop organization.

The building was owned by one guy,

the shows were booked by one guy.

- You know, he loves music.

Even though it's kicked him on his ass.

(rock music)

(cheering)

- [Randy] Thank you very much.

- [Johnny] When you think of legendary venues,

CBGB's, the Troubadour in California,

even The Cavern Club in Liverpool,

City Gardens isn't like that.

You can wear a CBGB's t-shirt,

and you know what that means.

Anybody can wear one, you know immediately

what that means.

There is no City Gardens t-shirt.

There's no kind of mental picture

of what City Gardens was.

City Gardens was the people, the bands,

and it was Randy Now.

- It wasn't a hardcore club,

it wasn't a punk club,

it wasn't a ska club.

I mean, different bands different nights.

You could see The Bad Brains one night,

Killing Joke the next night,

a ska band the next night.

I loved it for that.

- You know, he had a vision for what he

wanted to do and he made it happen.

At the time, as a local band you may have

your grumbles and gripes with Randy,

but in retrospect it was pretty selfless

what he was doing.

- The will to live life on your terms

is that life-long lesson we get from this music.

- Some might look at it like, "Oh he's

"floggin' the dead horse."

But I don't look at it that way at all,

I look at every night as a new chance

to get out there and have fun and...

It's kinda the cavalcade of old hits.

It's like, I'd be playing Tooling for Anus

in the Holiday Inn in Secaucus when

I'm 80-years-old, you know.

- What motivates a person and what drives

a person to keep doing and getting better

at what they do or try to over a course

of a long time, that's something you kinda...

Ya know, if touring and all that stuff

goes with the territory it just does.

Everybody has to go and work and to keep

the machine alive so to speak,

and connect with an audience.

Now live is funny cause you know there's

so much access now to anything,

but yet live is probably the most

important part of a bands life.

- For every venue that is jammed up right

now with bands trying to get out and into

these stages, there's some empty elks lodge,

some empty Nights at Columbus Hall,

there's some empty basement somewhere

waiting for something to happen.

- No it never occurred to me that he would

ever be booking shows for venues that only

hold 50 people, but it always occurred to me

that sooner or later someone's gonna wanna

make a movie about him.

(laughs) What is the logic in that?

- I mean to be quite honest,

and it might be a little naive of me

I just never thought City Gardens would close.

I mean, I was so in the moment with that place

up until the day that somebody told me it closed,

I just assumed that I'd be in my 40's

and Randy would still be bookin' shows there.

- We have a place in New Hope called

John and Peters, and the best part of

John and Peters is the pictures on the wall.

It's not what they're doing now,

what they're doing now is nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

They're living off of some old laurel somewhere,

and it's not good.

But you look at the wall and you go,

"Chris Christopherson was here?", you know,

"When is he comin' back?"

He ain't comin' back, none of those people...

They're all either dead or they're not

coming back to that room.

City Gardens is not living off of

the pictures on the wall which is great.

- One day I really would like to walk

through there again, I don't know what would

be required, but I'd like

to turn the lights on and just kinda stand

around and just kinda eyeball it

one last time.

- The guy loves rock 'n' roll.

(🎜 House of Others - 'Memento Mori' music plays 🎜)

- Okay everybody let's go,

we gotta say goodnight.