A Band Called Death Page #6

Don Bolles, formerly of the Germs,

actually tracked her down

and got one of the dolls a while back.

Robbie The Werewolf is

sort of self-explanatory.

This is a regular old lounge guy, but...

(LAUGHS)

Somebody to haunt you in your dreams.

Anyway, so when I saw the Death record,

the single,

Politicians In My Eyes,

pop up on this one guy's list,

buried in everything else.

The "Northern Soul," as they call it,

for ridiculous amounts of money.

And there was this little record,

Politicians In My Eyes, and I thought,

"This looks interesting."

I was interviewing Jello Biafra

for a book that

some friends of mine were writing

about the history of band T-shirts.

I know that Jello's

a really huge punk collector.

And this collector friend of mine said,

"Jello supposedly has a box

of the Death single."

And I said, "What's the Death single?"

He's like, "Oh, man, it's this all-black

punk band from Detroit

"and it's super hard to find."

Das was a guy that I'd seen

coming into the record store often.

He never talked. He was always very quiet.

But he would buy really cool records.

"I got a record you might be interested in.

I'll just give you a copy.

"It's friends of mine that

I knew back when I was...

"You know, just got out of college."

So I gave him a brand-new copy

of the Death record and he just like,

"Where'd you get that?"

He says, "Hey, you know,

my friends gave me these 45s,

"and, uh, they told me to give them out

to help promote their band,

"and I never really got them out there.

"But, you know, it's never too late.

"So, you know, if you could take these home

and give these a listen...

"These guys were friends of mine."

BOBBY". Don Schwenk, we met in 1976,

when we were releasing those Death 45s.

And David had commissioned Don

to do the artwork.

And he wanted a triangle in the clouds.

But, you know, of course,

they never had the money

to follow through on any of the stuff,

so, basically, I did all

this artwork for them,

but they couldn't pay me,

so they traded me records.

That's what happened.

So now I got these clean copies

of the Death 45 from Das.

I left one on the counter here,

and Ben Blackwell took that.

So this 7-inch, it's a limited press,

it's Detroit, it's punk rock, it's hard to

find and not a lot of people know about it.

I mean, this hits all of my checklist,

you know, this is something meant for me.

So there it is,

Politicians In My Eyes,

which is the A-side,

and, uh, Keep On Knocking,

which is the B-side.

Later that night, another record collector

told me the value of the record.

He had heard of it, and

I mentioned it to him.

And he told me that, "Oh, you know,

do you know what that thing's worth?

"That's a really valuable record."

So Matt Smith puts the 7-inch on eBay

and he had it on eBay,

"Buy It Now", 800 bucks.

How I discovered the Death album was I saw

an American unknown punk compilation,

and Death was featured on Side B.

I was completely blown away

with such a great song, you know?

I was asking myself,

"Why was this band not known?"

I knew I had to find that record.

About a month after I had heard

that compilation,

I was eBaying and I noticed one for sale.

And it was for $800.

The old digs, Archer Record Pressing

in Detroit, if they knew

that something they pressed 30 years ago...

Gosh, 35 almost, selling for 800 bucks.

Why would anybody pay $800

for an old Keep On Knocking?

I mean, if I had one,

I would've gave the guy one.

BLACKWELL:
The idea of something

that's been unheard, that excited me.

This needs to come out. People need to hear this.

This is important.

I make some copies, I send them out

to people that I know

and to some people I don't know.

One of the people I made a CD-R for

was by the name of Henry Owings

and he runs Chunklet magazine in Atlanta.

And he posted them on Chunklet's website.

BOBBY JR.:
Julian moves out to California

and he is out there just, you know,

traveling, hanging out

with friends and stuff.

JULIAN:
And I had a friend,

a roommate who, uh...

She used to go to a lot of parties,

and she used to go to all these parties,

where these DJs would spin

all these collectors' classics,

and, you know, unheard of, just anomalies,

and rare hidden gems and things like that.

She came home one time, and was, like,

just ranting and raving

about all this new music

that she had heard.

And she wouldn't stop going on

about this band Death.

I did a little bit of research,

and it didn't take long before I came

across this website called Chunklet

that Ben Blackwell had posted two songs.

(POLITICIANS IN MY EYES PLAYING)

I heard that song, Politicians In My Eyes,

and I heard my dad's voice,

and it was unmistakable, unmistakably his.

(some CONTINUES)

JULIAN:
And it turns out that there were these

three black brothers in Detroit in the '70s,

by the name of Hackney.

(GIGGLES)

And I call up my dad.

(PHONE RINGING)

BOBBY:
And he called me up and he says,

"Dad, do you realize

"that they're playing your music

at underground parties here?"

And I'm like,

"Are you talking about Lambsbread?"

You know, I thought he was talking

about our current reggae band.

And he says, "No, Dad."

He says, "You were in a band in the '70s

"from Detroit called Death."

And then I just got quiet.

You know, "Dad, were you in a band

in the '70s called Death?"

He says, "Politicians In My Eyes,

Keep On Knocking?"

And when he said that, I said, "That's us."

I'm like, "Dad!

(SHOUTING) "Why didn't you tell me?"

(LAUGHS)

And then my brother would call up me

and be like,

"Bobby, you're not gonna believe this.

"Like, Dad and Uncle Dannie and Uncle Dave

were in this band called Death."

He was telling me about the music,

about how amazing it was.

It was like the best rock 'n' roll

he's ever heard.

And then I play the MP3

and my jaw drops.

MAN:
(ON RECORDING) Death!

(FREAK/N OUT PLAYING)

Like, I just couldn't believe

what I was hearing.

Like, my eyes started to tear up,

the hairs were standing up

on the back of my neck.

I started shaking.

(SONG PLAYING)

BOBBY JR.:
I just couldn't believe it

because once I heard it,

I knew, I just knew it was them.

I could feel it.

I was like,

"This is my dad and my two uncles."

(SONG PLAYING)

URIAN:
I was one of the first people

to hear the record.

And I could not believe, I like...

it was unbelievable.

(SONG PLAYING)

JULIAN:
It was raw punk,

and I did not believe it at all.

It was really a dream come true.

I was like, "I can't believe that

I know that I'm listening to

"the best rock 'n' roll

music I've ever heard,

"and I'm the only person

that knows about this.

"I need..." Like, I started

calling my friends.

Bobby calls me up and he says...

I didn't pick up, he left me a message.

He says, "I gotta talk to you.

I got some crazy news for you."

And he said, "Yeah, you know, I found out

that my dad was in kind of a protopunk band

"in, like, the early, mid-'70s."

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