The best band you've never heard of is now available for your listening pleasure. Da Willys came about in the musical void after punk, post-punk, new wave, and no wave, but before grunge brought punk to the suburban malls where it now thrives. They lived and played in a New York City that was still dangerous but not so much fun. Times Square grindhouses were shuttered and the Lower East Side was a pharmacy.
With Lynne Von on vocals, Leon Ross on guitar, and Willie Kerr keeping rhythm on bass with Peter Landau on drums, Da Willys played a punk blues that rocked and rolled like a jalopy missing one wheel. Lubricated by alcoholic excess and barely held together by the banshee wail of Lynne's passionate vocals married to the white-noise grind of Leon's distortion pedal, Da Willys brought raw sex back to music that had become either fragmented into alternative or mass-produced syrupy pop.
That's a lot of hyperbole, but don't take Mr. Skin's word for it. You can hear Da Willys in all their glory on the newly unearthed 1988-recorded Get Ugly (Leather Lung Records), available at CD Baby, and check out their MySpace page. That is, if you think you can handle the erotic power of Lynne Von, of which just a sample is offered below.
The band that went on before us had their microphone rudely taken away from them during their set. I was peeing not really to offend the audience, like a G.G. Allin-type scenario, it wasn't drunken urination that I couldn't control-though that's happened to me more times than I can remember. It's never happened to me on stage. This was a conscious act.
I really felt it was a protest against the club, though I have to say it was pretty tame because I peed into a grate on the floor. It was almost like a prison-bar-type grate that went down to this little room under the floor. I was wondering who or what they kept down there.
And the other thing that comes to mind is that there were at least three people crawling around on the floor to see if they could see any pink. I was very careful with my panties and I'm quite sure that no one saw anything. If anyone says they did they're lying.
Mike "Sharkey" Edison produced Get Ugly. He put a lot of care and effort into getting us to put in the best performances. It's a great sounding record. It sounds like it was recorded two weeks ago. Doesn't sound dated at all. There's more of an audience for it now than back then.
The movie was sold to Viacom, so now whenever VH1 or MTV or any channel has a bit about the Ramones, CBGBs, 1977, etc., they always show Willie. They always choose his clip. I was standing outside a club with him last year and this twenty-two-year-old girl comes up and asks, "Are you the guy from the VH1 movies?"
The term "visually striking" doesn't even begin to describe Willie. He's about six-foot-three or four, probably weighed about 120 pounds, if that, most of it hair, a cascading, strawberry-blonde afro on a very pasty-white man with a big red nose.
Even as a young man in his early thirties, Willie had a face like a hundred-year-old pilgrim. He told me that Joey Ramone once staggered up to him at CBGBs around 1977 and accused him of stealing his style. Willie was like, "Why would I want to look like this?"
Mike put so much effort into it. I thought he was brilliant. He made this amazing Tango bottle costume. I hope there are pictures of it somewhere. It was just gorgeous. He made all these cards to hold up with drawings, and the audience hated him. They booed him and threw stuff. They really wanted to watch me get mad at the guitar player.
There's also a [cult underground comic omnibus] Weirdo retrospective coming out. The guy who's writing copy for it contacted me. I told him all about the lawsuits, the comic-book store and the Supreme Court.
This was for the Peter Bagge-edited Weirdo. It was issue seventeen. It was a one-page Gilligan's Island X-rated parody called "Isle of Lust." Very sophomoric, very funny, and it was held up as an example of pure obscenity with absolutely no socially redeeming value at the trail against this poor comic-book storeowner that sold it. This went all the way to the Supreme Court.
I have been making music nonstop since Da Willys. I was the lead singer for Trick Babys. We released two albums and toured extensively during the '90s. In 1998 I formed The Carvels and started playing rhythm guitar and writing all of the songs myself-in Da Willys and Trick Babys I cowrote with the guitarists.
Forming Leather Lung Records and releasing this lost jewel-Da Willys Get Ugly-was my goal for 2007. In addition to posting my online comics gallery, I plan to spend 2008 performing for live audiences with The Vondells, which is my main passion. I play old and new originals as well as old and new cover songs, but it's those scum rock classics like "Oh Willy" that always bring down the house.
With Lynne Von on vocals, Leon Ross on guitar, and Willie Kerr keeping rhythm on bass with Peter Landau on drums, Da Willys played a punk blues that rocked and rolled like a jalopy missing one wheel. Lubricated by alcoholic excess and barely held together by the banshee wail of Lynne's passionate vocals married to the white-noise grind of Leon's distortion pedal, Da Willys brought raw sex back to music that had become either fragmented into alternative or mass-produced syrupy pop.
That's a lot of hyperbole, but don't take Mr. Skin's word for it. You can hear Da Willys in all their glory on the newly unearthed 1988-recorded Get Ugly (Leather Lung Records), available at CD Baby, and check out their MySpace page. That is, if you think you can handle the erotic power of Lynne Von, of which just a sample is offered below.
Da Willys were part of the same scum-rock scene as the Lunachicks. Did the two bands ever get scummy together?
None of the males in the band were capable of doing much at the time, at least as far as Leon and Willie go. But Leon probably did get scummy with someone from the Lunachicks in one drunken encounter or another. I know Peter, the drummer, wanted to with Sindi. That never came to any fruition. Probably in some bathroom somewhere Leon got to feel one of them up. Although, I can't say I know for sure.How about you?
No. I was like a big-sister figure to them. That's only in a guy's horny fantasy.The most beautiful girls in New York City seemed to congregate at the front of the stage at Da Willys shows-
Those women were the Lunachicks before they were the Lunachicks and their friends. There were a lot of really young-very, very young, like fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds-very gorgeous, nubile women that would come see us. But first and foremost, they were future rock stars. They were there for the rock and roll. I think a lot of the guys who came to see us were there for the audience, but I think most people were there for both . . . and the alcohol. We had something for everyone.On Get Ugly there are a few live clips of an illegal party Da Willys played at in 1988 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and the cameraman spends much of his time focusing on a braless bouncing beauty.
There's lots of braless bouncing going on. There's lots of bad hair and even worse dancing. But it all comes together beautifully.Da Willys were known for their explosive gigs. Didn't you once take a piss onstage?
That was at the Limelight, and it was later. I do want to say first that most of our early gigs were in illegal clubs. No one would give us a gig in a legal club, we were considered too uncivilized.When Da Willys played with Redd Kross one of the McDonald brothers asked if the band could please try not to spill beer on their vintage equipment, because they heard the libations flowed quite freely during your performances.
But that's how we got that sound. Everything was soaked in beer.Well lubricated-
Absolutely, but back to the pee, that was after we were playing in regular clubs, and this one was at the Limelight, which wasn't a rock club but had a whole bunch of rock bands playing, including the Lunachicks.The band that went on before us had their microphone rudely taken away from them during their set. I was peeing not really to offend the audience, like a G.G. Allin-type scenario, it wasn't drunken urination that I couldn't control-though that's happened to me more times than I can remember. It's never happened to me on stage. This was a conscious act.
I really felt it was a protest against the club, though I have to say it was pretty tame because I peed into a grate on the floor. It was almost like a prison-bar-type grate that went down to this little room under the floor. I was wondering who or what they kept down there.
And the other thing that comes to mind is that there were at least three people crawling around on the floor to see if they could see any pink. I was very careful with my panties and I'm quite sure that no one saw anything. If anyone says they did they're lying.
The guitarist Leon Ross was also a volatile individual; it was not unusual for him to fall off the stage during a show.
I met him at the [hardcore club] A7. I believe we were hanging out on the tour bus of one of the hardcore bands. Back then there were a lot of straight-edge hardcore kids, so we bonded right away because we were drinking. We were friends ever since. The poor boy, his brains were scrambled by a bad car accident earlier in his life. He was always a little bit off.He was working as a bank teller at that time, wasn't he?
Yeah, I guess he was. That didn't really jive with the rock-and-roll lifestyle that we all started living. I have to say, I live so bourgeois now; when I think how my bed used to be a mattress in a sea of beer cans I have to laugh.Get Ugly is not the first official record Da Willys released, there was a German record called Saturday Nite Palsy.
This album that's out now, originally three songs were released on a seven inch on a very small indie label. That's out of print. This is the whole session from that recording, the original lineup, and we re-mastered it with the original engineer, Wharton Tiers, who's pretty well known now.Mike "Sharkey" Edison produced Get Ugly. He put a lot of care and effort into getting us to put in the best performances. It's a great sounding record. It sounds like it was recorded two weeks ago. Doesn't sound dated at all. There's more of an audience for it now than back then.
After Da Willys finally got it together to record a full-length album, the band broke up.
We didn't get an actual label to sponsor an album until we were just about ready to break up. It wasn't the original lineup. Willie had left the band. Basically it all fell apart because of alcohol and drugs. And that's why it all came together, so it didn't make sense to fight it. It was a natural birth and death.Willie was replaced by a bombshell almost equal to you, Jenna McGrath. With your lungs and her bosom, Da Willys were almost like an old-fashioned jug band.
I have to say something about Willie, first. He's like an icon now. Willie was in the original punk documentary Punking Out that was made in 1978 in CBGBs.The movie was sold to Viacom, so now whenever VH1 or MTV or any channel has a bit about the Ramones, CBGBs, 1977, etc., they always show Willie. They always choose his clip. I was standing outside a club with him last year and this twenty-two-year-old girl comes up and asks, "Are you the guy from the VH1 movies?"
The term "visually striking" doesn't even begin to describe Willie. He's about six-foot-three or four, probably weighed about 120 pounds, if that, most of it hair, a cascading, strawberry-blonde afro on a very pasty-white man with a big red nose.
Even as a young man in his early thirties, Willie had a face like a hundred-year-old pilgrim. He told me that Joey Ramone once staggered up to him at CBGBs around 1977 and accused him of stealing his style. Willie was like, "Why would I want to look like this?"
Describe Willie's replacement on bass, Jenna.
It was like night and day. We figured we couldn't get another funny-looking guy because the drunken audience would think that we were trying to pull one over on them. We just wanted a crowd-pleaser. We got a stunning girl. But the most important thing was that we traded a bitter, old, angry drunk who used to go on crabby tirades for a fun-loving party chick who told really great jokes and could drive. And she could play the shit out of that bass.You are one of the sexiest singers ever to grace a stage. How many groupies did you have trying to give you their willies?
I didn't find out about all of my groupies until about fifteen years later. Everyone was terrified of me, though I could have thrown up or urinated on them so it wasn't unwise if they didn't get too close. But I actually had a few boyfriends. I was the very romantic type, not the type to have a lot of groupies. That was then, when I was young and idealistic. If the groupies want to find me now that's OK.Da Willys used to have a mascot who'd dress up and do shtick to introduce the band. He's now the editorial director of Mr. Skin. What was Mike "Selwyn Harris" McPadden like back then?
It wasn't that early in our career, if you remember. Jenna had already joined the band. It was an attempt to make the band more professional. As Leon got more and more wasted, we'd have these long gaps between songs during our set when he'd be tuning the same string over and over again or trying to light a cigarette. I used to resent it. I didn't feel it was my job to entertain the audience while he fucked around. So I said, "Why not hire an MC?"Mike put so much effort into it. I thought he was brilliant. He made this amazing Tango bottle costume. I hope there are pictures of it somewhere. It was just gorgeous. He made all these cards to hold up with drawings, and the audience hated him. They booed him and threw stuff. They really wanted to watch me get mad at the guitar player.
What have you been doing since the band?
I have been doing cartoons for a long time. My next project is a website/blog called smartassnyc.com, which will be a gallery of past and present work. I have two pieces in The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU [the legendary freeform radio station out of New Jersey].There's also a [cult underground comic omnibus] Weirdo retrospective coming out. The guy who's writing copy for it contacted me. I told him all about the lawsuits, the comic-book store and the Supreme Court.
This was for the Peter Bagge-edited Weirdo. It was issue seventeen. It was a one-page Gilligan's Island X-rated parody called "Isle of Lust." Very sophomoric, very funny, and it was held up as an example of pure obscenity with absolutely no socially redeeming value at the trail against this poor comic-book storeowner that sold it. This went all the way to the Supreme Court.
Were you vindicated?
I don't believe that he won the suit, but in the transcript from the trial it notes that the court stenographer was laughing trying to type about Gilligan fucking a giant cave spider and saying, "My ass hurts."I have been making music nonstop since Da Willys. I was the lead singer for Trick Babys. We released two albums and toured extensively during the '90s. In 1998 I formed The Carvels and started playing rhythm guitar and writing all of the songs myself-in Da Willys and Trick Babys I cowrote with the guitarists.
Forming Leather Lung Records and releasing this lost jewel-Da Willys Get Ugly-was my goal for 2007. In addition to posting my online comics gallery, I plan to spend 2008 performing for live audiences with The Vondells, which is my main passion. I play old and new originals as well as old and new cover songs, but it's those scum rock classics like "Oh Willy" that always bring down the house.
