EJ 49 CD
released Sept 2002
Eleven-years-in-the-making compilation of the best songs by Texas' finest (and sadly under-documented) punk rock bands. Lead singer Bobby Soxx is no longer with us but lived through being shot and stabbed and could have buried clowns like GG Allin with one scowl. SPDTS includes multi-track live songs, studio recordings, crappy live cassette recordings, and everything in between, and the fancy package includes many essays, song by song analysis, and dozens of photos. Evil, surly, snarling like a hungover Irishman...this may be the one to nudge Tipper back into activism. Crack a beer, slap a dick and learn to hate the 80s all over again. 23 songs, 76 minutes.
"Screeching, yowling, beer-bottle-throwing underground club scene punk. Recorded live on cheap equipment, this album conveys the urgent, hellish, hostile chaos of a Stick Men with Ray Guns show. WARNING: This music WILL provoke a response! RIYL: Butthole Surfers, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys." -Dave C., KSCU Radio
One night in January, 1981, while Bag of Wire was playing at the famous Dallas punk club, DJ's, Bobby Soxx approached Clarke and said that they should start a band together. Clarke didn't think much about it at the time but things change.
Clarke left the disintegrating Bag Of Wire a month or so later and put the word out on the street for Bobby to call him. Bobby showed up at his back door within days. Soon they began to put together the band that would eventually become Stick Men With Ray Guns.
Bobby and Clarke asked Clarke's old friend Scott Elam to play drums and they went looking for a bass player. First on the list was Valerie Bowles*, one-time bassist for Bobby's earlier band, The Teenage Queers.
There were a few rehearsals but nothing clicked. Then, Quad Pi bassist Mark Ridlin stepped in an played the first few show on a temporary basis until a full-time bass player could be found.
Stick Men With Ray Guns opened for Black Flag at Zero's in Fort Worth in the late spring of 1981. Also on the bill was a two-person noise band, Hole. Maybe they should sue Courtney. Maybe we all should.
Hole bassist Bob Beeman was to join Stick Men With Ray Guns soon after. With the permanent lineup complete, the rest is history. Earlier that year Bob was the producer of the (now very rare) Bobby Soxx single.
Finally, not only did Bobby have a band that could hold its own with him on stage, but presented him with a deafening sonic palette of unbelievable power, violence and hostility. Something like putting your head in a threshing machine.
It was a marriage made in heaven.
That same fateful night in January 1981 while Bag of Wire was playing DJ's, Clarke was there with Vicky Bowles (Valerie's sister) on their first date. Bobby presented Vicky with a copy of his handmade tract "The Flaming Gavel". On it he gallantly proclaimed Vicky to "be exempt" from the human carnage. Bobby always was a romantic.