The

Controllers

band history

In January of 1978, Charlie and Danny left the band. It was the usual greasy musician shit. A lame power grab on the part of the rhythm section and Spike and I were left as a couple of guitar players without a band. We did a couple of shows, including The Whiskey and the legendary "Masque Benefit' with punk pick up players Paul Roessler [from the Screamers] playing drums and Bruce Barf [future 'Wall of VooDoo' founding member] filling in on bass, but nothing gelled. We needed a full-time bass player...and a drummer.

We tossed a coin, I lost, so I switched to bass. Now we needed a drummer.

Enter Maddog.

It was March or April of '78 and I was living in The Masque, having been evicted from my apartment. The masque shows had by necessity become more underground,but the place was still open 24 hr. a day with rehearsals and jams going on constantly.

I spotted Maddog at a jam session kicking ass on a borrowed drum set. I immediately offered her the job. I don't think she believed me, but she showed up at practice with a set of drums and we twisted both her arms until she said 'yes'.

The new and final line-up [from the 'old days'!] was: Kid Spike- guitar and vocal, Johnny Stingray-bass and vocal, and Maddog- drums. This is the band on the 'Siamese' single and the 'Tooth and Nail' sessions. If anyone claims to have fond memories of seeing us play live, it was probably this line up. Most punk drummers were simple and stuck to that 'om-pah, om-pah' polka beat, but Maddog was the Gene Krupa of punk- far from basic. She filled up what we lost when we went to one guitar. Once we had a couple of shows under our belt, we were a tight little 3 piece.

It was easy for us to work together and it was a hell of a lot of fun. Spike had become a prolific songwriter and the main 'voice' of the band, even though we still shared vocals. He was already a better guitar player than me and getting better every day.

And I've never claimed to be a hotshot bass player, but at least I understood the sound we were aiming for. By this point we were getting regular gigs and enjoyed a measure of popularity. We were veterans of the scene and were often invited to play whatever the hot venue of the month was.