Upchuck in Seattle

I was a stoned-out unemployed keyboard player after serving for one year in Seattle’s top favorite band The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Many thanks to them I was fortunate to possess my beloved first Arp Odyssey synthesizer, a 1957 Hammond M-3 organ with matching 147 Leslie Speaker, a Solina String Ensemble, Roland Jet Phaser and a Fender Rhodes electric piano.

I felt lucky to be hanging out at the North Seattle home of two of the downtown punk scene’s most popular, interesting and attractive young ladies, Suzy and Cindy, when they introduced me to a swishy young thing in a buzz cut wearing yes– a blue satin sailor’s suit! He was introduced to me as Chuckie and even though he looked like a little alien he was friendly yet serious, oh SO serious!

Right away he told me, “I’ve heard about you and would you like to be the musical director of my new band?”. I was pretty picky/snobby/selective about what kind of bands and musicians I wanted to play with (being an unrepentant Prog-Rocker replete with my horrendous poodle hair-do) but then he tossed in the catchy lines, “I have a sugar-daddy so he will buy us any musical equipment you want and on top of that, I have a big house with a swimming pool and you can live there for free– if you don’t mind young drag queens and hustlers”!!  How could I refuse In the state I was in? After all I had no money, no job, no band– and was back living at home with my mom!

We started his band which I named CLONE, with Jeff Gossard who was already playing guitar with Chuck (aka Upchuck, Chuckie or Chucky Butt-fucky; a few of his charming nicknames). Bassist Mike Davidson and Dave Drury our drummer were fresh from Satz’s confrontationally cool band The Lewd, and with this team we were well on our way. Chuck had just recently recorded an amazing 7-inch single called Jacuzzi Floozie b/w Afterthought with an super-talented Seattle drummer named Drake Eubanks whom I never heard anything about after that.  We worked up some original songs and threw in David Bowie’s Station to Station as an opener and a cool tune by The Runaways called Hollywood which Chuckie delivered with a startlingly sleazy and passionate vocal performance. He had a very full deep trembling voice and could really project in a powerful, emotional way.

True to his word we got to go “gear shopping” and I hilariously outfitted each member of the band with the latest musical effect (at the time), the pedal FLANGER. The result was that everyone in the band sounded like different jet-planes taking off, so overall the result was a very disorienting onslaught of buzzing noise and hiss. We also got a huge new state-of-the-art Community Sound PA system so that our little basement next to the big swimming pool was LOUD like rock-&-roll bombs detonating!

Some wild events occurred at our Palatine Avenue house that are quite fascinating to me still!
The first was the “press only” party that Chuck threw before our first show at The Bird (club). How very irate and pissed off were the rest of the punk rockers from the scene when our unknown band had a well publicized party that most were not invited to! This started a great deal of animosity towards young Mr. Chuck Gerra! But what a lavish party it was; well attended, really fun, plus– the press really did show up!

Next was the fact that there really were teenage male hustlers and drag queens in every room of that spacious 2-story house. I lived in the attic taking care of the Colombian Gold with Jeff and Mike whilst reading esoteric books about Magic & Theosophy. Also up there was a room belonging to our dear Pat who played Lesley Gore’s, “Its My Party (I Can Cry If I Want To)” every night and every morning just to set the mood. This got a wee bit old and on my nerves after a while to be honest!

THEN there was the famous fight scene between Chuckie and his sugar daddy in which Chuck threw a tantrum because the new color TV that Mr. B bought for him, “wasn’t big enough!” Upchuck then tossed the brand-new, too-small TV through the living room window. The next day, WOW!! the window was repaired and a new, larger color TV had been delivered, as well as a lovely set of plastic pink flamingos for the front yard that Chuckie had been whining about for weeks.

(Our band) Clone’s first show at The Bird was a night to remember!

First off, Chuckie made me put my hightly unfashionable long hair up into a little boat captain’s hat and then wrapped my bare chest in clear cellophane. Over that I wore a white plastic boy’s jacket from Goodwill which was way too small for me. I tied a plastic tiny bong (yes, filled with dirty bongwater) around my neck with some speaker wire, and we all piled into a huge white limousine that somehow Chuck had miraculously gotten us for the show along with the chauffeur from some shady backroom  (bathroom?) dealings at the infamous Monastery disco. Our show actually went REALLY well, for when we all entered that derelict/delicious little punk club from the stretch white limo and launched into the flanger-filled synth-noise driven version of Station to Station the crowd actually seemed to dig it! Chuckie was truly in excellent form and voice that night, again– he did have a really cool, unique aggressive marvellous voice.

One very freaky event happened when I went downtown hanging around at Pike Place Market with Upchuck. I personally never had any money and Chuckie just happened to have spent all of his cash. We had no way to get home by bus or cab. “No problem”, said Chuck “I’ll have us in a cab in no time, just wait right here!”. He then proceeded to walk to the edge of the sidewalk on Second & Pike (then known as Penney’s Corner), an infamous place for horny businessmen to pick up and pay for certain services that certain young guys were willing to sell for a price. Upchuck just did his “special walk” and looked invitingly at the potential customers in their cars driving by. Well, within minutes an expensive looking car pulled over and Chuckie winked at me saying, “I’ll be right back!”. Yes, he climbed in and that car disappeared– but then surprisingly came back around the block two minutes later. Chuckie was led out of the car and placed with legs apart, hands on the hood as he was being searched, written up and arrested by an undercover Seattle Police officer!

This crime led to a court case in which Charles Garish (another of his names) was tried for soliciting prostitution in King County. Jeff Gossard and I went along to the trial for the weird spectacle, and at Chuckie’s request Jeff filmed the day’s event with a Super 8 camera. I remember the last scene of Jeff’s final movie was a piece of paper with the word “GUILTY!” drawn on it, and as the shot pulls back you see that paper start to float gently and slowly down to the bottom of Chuck’s luxurious swimming pool. It was North Seattle Punk-Rock Surrealist comedy at its finest.

I was a bit jealous of Upchuck a few years later, for he was energetically motivated and had incredible belief in himself, his voice and his music. He achieved many great results in recordings, live gigs (opening for Siouxsie and the Banshees,hello!!) with some of our most talented musicians worked with him. None of this was easy to do in Seattle in those days, as our town was way more well known for it’s fishing and airplane making. Maintaining an original, creative band was a truly difficult battle.

I visited The Fags (Upchuck’s next band) in New York and they really had made a gigantic impression on everyone that met them. Chuckie, Paul, Barbie, Dahny and Ben Gay; they appeared to be the center of attention in Manhattan’s party/nightlife almost as soon as they landed there. No wonder Madonna picked them out to be in the main club scene for her first film, Desperately Seeking Susan.

That’s a bit of my story with Upchuck. We were friends, across-the-street neighbors, associates, rivals and helpers with each other; members of a small close knit scene in Seattle’s punk/new wave days.  I am so sorry he isn’t alive anymore to be with us. He tragically died of AIDS, one of the first people I actually knew who lost their life to that fucking epidemic. Perhaps he is somewhere among us and we just don’t recognize him. Kudos to all who remember him, his dreams, ambitions and that big strange voice,  screaming, “Poddy!!!” down the street in the middle of the night.

Upchuck And Dahny (at Apt. F and Marsha Burns Studio)

 

.                                      .      (PHOTOS BY KELLY MERCIER… used with permission, thank you!!!)

.                                         .                          Here are: Jane, Chuckie and James Carbo

Upchuck with bright orange hair ++

                                                                  Charles Garish with funny ears, onstage….

                                                   This was a poster I made for Clone’s First Show at The Bird