Suicidal Tendencies 1983 from my Instagram

Suicidal Tendencies mid 1983 is my guess, on the side of Amery Smith's dads house. We probably made this photo one day after practice in the garage there, same place they rehearsed for a month everyday before we went in and recorded the first album (that i produced) in just two days+one day to mix it. This was a great tight band at this moment in time. Shame the success of "Institutionalized" had the ramifications it did. (I left as the manager 11 weeks into the 14 week run the video had on MTV, and actually Amery and Jon Nelson were both gone even before that) ... All a great example of the cliché rock and roll swindle. But so it goes. Live and learn, we're all old now, water under the bridge. It was an amazing hot moment, barely passing as a punk novelty in the pop world, but it was ride some are still on to this day... That first album was a killer, i cant speak for anything that followed though. #suicidaltendencies #venice #dogtown #awol #muir #louiche #frontierrecords #rodneyontheroq #newmetal #institutionalized #isawyourmommy #possessed #ishotthedevil #memoriesoftomorrow #debut

A photo posted by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Jan 20, 2016 at 8:16am PST

REALLY? Chipmunks cover Institutionalized?

from Dangerous Minds:

ALVINSTITUTIONALIZED: GOOF BAND CHIPMUNK-PUNKS SUICIDAL TENDENCIES

 

Just so it’s clear, there really was a Chipmunk Punk, a 1980 project of Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., the namesake son of the Chipmunks’ creator. It was not particularly “punk”—it contained Alvin and the Chipmunks’ cover versions of songs by opposite-of-punk artists like Billy Joel, Tom Petty, Linda Ronstadt, Queen, and for some reason THREE SONGS by the Knack. The entirety of the LP’s New Wave representation was supplied by Blondie’s “Call Me”  and the Cars’ “Let’s Go.” It was stupid as hell, but I liked it. Because I was 10 years old. Bagdasarian followed the successful cash-in with Urban Chipmunk, a collection of squeaky-voiced pop country covers, and Chipmunk Rock, which at least had a version of “Whip It” going for it, but by then, I was like 12, and much too sophisticated for such juvenilia.

And again, so it’s clear, what follows was NOT actually on Chipmunk Punk, so if you go buying that album expecting to hear it, well, something’s possibly wrong with you anyway. California’s smartassy theatrical comedy band Radioactive Chicken Heads recorded an amusing-as-far-as-this-sort-of-thing-goes Chipmunkified version of Suicidal Tendencies’ definitive song, 1983’s “Institutionalized.” I’d hope it should go without saying that the possibility of this actually being a product of anyone officially connected with the evidently deathless Chipmunks franchise is a few leagues beneath unlikely. Whether it’s better or worse than Ice-T’s recent effort at updating the song is a debate I’ll leave to others.

 

 

As a palate-cleanser, here’s the original.

INSTITUTIONALIZED covered by Ice-T's Body Count

NSFW - Don't watch if you don't have a sense of humor!



and the original that i produced :

BLACK FLAG 1983 Playing a Suicidal party during the day in a garage. (video)

Contrary to popular belief and the youTube caption, this is NOT in Mike Muir's garage, it was in the garage of the grandmother of Suicidal roadie Albert.

It turns out this was the last time Dez played in the band. The party was being thrown to get a bunch of Suicidal Tendencies fans together to shoot their hand drawn shirts for the debut album cover. I shot some great photos this day as well, although in this video i'm not taking pictures but can be seen slamming by the front.



These are just a few of the songs, about 14 minutes of video does exist, thanks to Al "FlipSide" but i could only find these two clips today.



here's a previously un published one that appears in the new MY RULES book.

All i wanted was a Pepsi . . .

So i went out tonight to some gathering in a space where i am supposed to sit for an interview for 4 or 5 minutes of air-time (I should say cable or satellite time) tomorrow for Fuel TV. I rarely if ever go out at night anymore but i thought it would be a good idea to scope out the situation for the interview the next day and meet the folks i was going to have to deal with ahead of time. Fact is i knew I'd be able to get a glass of Pepsi with ice at the party, so i went out for 10 minutes.

When i was in my 20's i was practically addicted to Pepsi, then once i became vegan and more conscious of the planet, my health, and the corporate control over our bodies i eventually cut out Pepsi, for many years i'd go without any, more recently i started having them maybe a few times a year at most. Tonight i just had the craving after some crazy BBQ seitan my wife cooked for us.

On the subject of Pepsi, when i was managing Suicidal Tendencies back in 1983 as we were working on putting together that debut album (which i produced), I asked Mike after we did the demo with Spot, to change the lyric to Pepsi instead of Coke (yup, originally it was Coke), i admit i was being selfish and silly with my brand loyalty at the time, but i also convinced Mike that this way no one will mistake it for the drug cocaine, and why not go with the underdog and the whole Pepsi generation angle anyway... Well that seemed to work out pretty well for everyone involved i guess.



Here's the ST song and the video. I have a small cameo at around the 35 second mark, i'm on the left talking to the girl as Tom Araya - from Slayer- pushes Mike. (The Girl was Tom's girlfriend actually). Other notable cameos from hot skaters of that era, "Gator", Natas and Stedam.

Funny that some 25 years later (a few weeks ago) i'd get a call from an advertising agency wanting to use some old skate images of mine of Tony Alva for a new campaign they are working on, I let them know immediately that normally i would just say no out of hand, in assisting in the promotion of any corporate products, but since it was going to make good money for Tony who i know really could use it, and due to my old former brand loyalty as a teenager and twenty something, i figured maybe i'll consider... I did some research and found out that Pepsi as a corporation certainly was not as bad as Coke, they had actually done some pretty cool things. They were boycotted last year by a bunch of ultra right wingers who were mad they "gave a total of $1,000,000 to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays", and had recently even sold off some of their uglier assets such a Burger King and some other horrible food chains. The new campaign was pretty cool and even included Bob Dylan's blessing (using a lot of old/new comparisons).
I said tell me how the image will be used, and no you can't use one of my iconic images from Fuck You Heroes for any price, but maybe another less known image from the same period, and i'll think about it. They got back to me saying any shot i think would be good they would consider, but then i found out the usage and exploitation factor of the shot... Out of sheer curiosity I asked what kind of budget they had for the photos, they said they were paying a few thousand dollars an image, I had to laugh, a major campaign in more than a dozen major cities across the US? I told them there was no way i'd do it for anything less than six figures, i thought relatively speaking this was fair (even though i had never received that much for a legal usage before - sometimes it's just fun to fuck with these advertising people - obviously i'd be giving some of the money to causes that campaign against obesity or something like that if they actually paid it). They said they had no authorization for that much and would have to ask the client, I said if you want the best you obviously have to pay for it, if it was a charity project i'd give it away, but c'mon this is one of the largest corporations on the planet, "they hired your agency, what's that cost?" (silence)... In the end, she was polite and wrote me an e-mail back after a few days, they decided to go with another image from another photographer that Tony recommended, I'm sure it was probably Wynn Miller, who was pretty much Tony's personal photographer back in 1978 and he got some great shots of Tony back then, although often a bit over produced for my taste. I sure hope he got paid better than what they told me they were offering...