Here’s another helping of sonic steak Tartar, to borrow Dave Rinck’s evocative phrase: Noise 292 serving up a very raw version of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” at the Headquarters in Pacific Beach, August 26, 1983 (opening for the Pandoras and the Answers). This was the first Noise 292 lineup, and this number features Kristin Martin on bass; David Rives, guitar; Hobie Hodge, trash percussion; Joanne Norris, drums; Matthew Rothenberg, vocals and S&M tambourine (with which I raised a big hematoma on the heel of my hand every time we played this song). Leighton Koizumi (later of the Gravedigger V and the Morlocks) made his live rock-‘n’-roll debut playing electric violin on “Heroin” that evening, although Wendell Kling also took over violin duties when he replaced Hobie on percussion.
I always enjoyed how this cover threw a bunch of our noise-rock, art-rock, punk and garage influences into the Cuisinart and basically hit “purée”! (Can anyone identify the voice of the girl talking about her calculator at the beginning of the track? I keep wondering if she ever got it back.)
BTW: This track reminds me that Dave Rives was a smokin’ guitarist in a field crowded with tremendous guitar talents: Fleminger, Allen, Ellison, Wilson, Clarke, Lahman … Che Underground was like some kind of six-string Manhattan Project, and Professor Rives was certainly a rocket scientist!
I was there at this historic performance…it was the first time I saw Noise 292. This is great. The crowd sounds like they’re really digging it too.
I was just thinking about how concerned Leighton’s dad was the couple of time he’d come up to my folks’ house in Encinitas to practice … I think he was all of 15 at the time!
I’ve been trying to locate Leighton through the phone number Sergio Castillo gave me for Bobby Bones, the guitarist with the most recent Morlocks incarnation. No joy yet … Anybody have a line on our friend the bird?
I’ve got contact info for Leighton--I’ll drop him a line and tell him to join.