Photographer Irish Willis Peele‘s thing was shooting punk band Frontline (and others) in Virginia, and his archive includes the above pic of students moshing at a Dead Kennedys show. According to Peele, the man in the center is none other than The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart, who was a student at William & Mary at the time.
OK, yeah, whatever, Jon Stewart, cool. More importantly—isn’t that Cliff Farrar right in front of him?
(source: stereogum)
Edit: from thedailywhat, I have learned that this photo is from Casablanca aka Rockitz aka Empire. So yeah, that’s almost certainly Cliff.
Edit #2: That’s Pen Rollings immediately to the right of Cliff. Annnnnd disappointingly enough, “Jon Stewart” is almost certainly actually Alford Faulkner of Red Cross/The Prevaricators. Sorry everyone!
Edit #3: Further research, posted on my personal blog, here and here.
Good research! I wish Jon Stewart was cool enough to be in a band that wrote songs like “I’m So Cool” and “Sex Machine” haha.
Also, the guy in the white with his arm around Cliff is Nick from Graven Image and Sordid Doctrine. And the big guy to the left kinda doing his own thing and swinging his arms is Xavier Cenicernos, the brother of Andre who sang in FRONT LINE who played this gig. I posted a picture I took of the flyer for this gig last night, quite the line up!
EDIT: Whoops didn’t see you already posted that flyer!
Excellent! Not sure how I missed Nick Smilek—I’ve actually met him a few times. Xavier, though, I wouldn’t have known. Thanks for the info!
![Gasse 32: George Reuther, Dave Lewis, Scott Price, Crispy. Casablanca, 1982. Linda Griggs and Pen Rollings (Honor Role) dancing. Dave Lewis was also in the Mod Subs, who broke up around the time this was taken. Scott Price was in Red Cross, who played their last show with Frank Gresham on vocals the same night this picture was taken. Crispy then replaced Frank on vocals for Red Cross, who changed their name to White Cross soon after.
“Scott Price on drums—back to back sets with Red Cross to follow.” -Frank Gresham
“Gasse 32. They had a song: Benny Sucks!” -Benny Waldbauer
” I believe that was one of Crispy’s songs, go figure. This is why I became a singer: in these shots I’m always the headless torso in the back. Oh and yes Frank, it was back to back sets, you could have wrung me out like a washcloth by the time it was over.” -Scott Price
This photo was in the finished version of the book, but it was small and unexplained. It’s the one photo that didn’t get the treatment I wanted it to get in the book, and it bummed me out a bit, but it would have been way too much trouble to fix it, for a variety of reasons, so I let it stand. But the above notes provide the context I couldn’t find space for in the book, and explain why I wanted it in there in the first place. [quotes, as always, come from the “RVA Punk Scene - 70s Through 90s” facebook group.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvkgcc6ayJ1r5caito1_1280.jpg)
![The Donors: Pen Rollings, Greg Fields, Matt Morand. Their last show, at a high school graduation party, 1981. Photographer unknown, photo courtesy Dana Frostick.
My first band was called the Donors, with John Morand, who produced most of the records I play on. We covered punk-rock songs. He’s the man who opened my mind when I was a youngster, in ‘79 or something like that. I went to see Devo, and the next night, I went to see Atlanta Rhythm Section. I went to see every concert; I didn’t know any better. Devo really changed my mind about all that. I felt gypped that I bought an Atlanta Rhythm Section ticket. I saw John at the Devo concert. And I went up to him in high school and I said, “Hey.” I was a freshman, he was a senior. He was in a prog rock band that had their own tracks. And we went to his house, and his uncle was an independent record buyer. He had the “Anarchy [in the U.K.]” single on his wall, he had Residents posters on his wall, he had Devo posters. He had every single, every album. And we would hang out in his basement after school. He would be like, “Look through our records and put on anything you wanna hear. Listen to it. Have fun.” And it changed my life. John Morand had my back before I got into the big city and figured out what punk rock was.
[…]
The Donors broke up. John graduated. The bass player, who was John’s younger brother, Matt, and I slowly evolved into what Honor Role was [in 1983]. It was me and Matt Morand hanging out in high school, trying to write some tracks, realizing that we generally hated everybody around us and that they all hated us. Matt went to college, so we got another bass player. [Drummer] Steve [Schick] moved here from Indianapolis, and then we recorded [the 1984 seven-inch EP] It Bled Like a Stuck Pig, the punk-rock record. It was cool but I was a fucking idiot; I couldn’t sing. But it was punk rock. God bless it.
[…]
The first single was still us growing up. Then [vocalist] Bob [Schick], Steve’s older brother, moved here from Indianapolis. Bob sang backup on our punk-rock single. Grant [Willeford], the bass player, went to college. Bob’s roommate, Jeremy [Bunn], was a bass player. So we said, “Y’all wanna play?” I sucked as a singer; I knew that. They stepped up to the plate, and Honor Role just organically moved along. We got totally slow. But even when we were punk rock, there were a lot of songs that weren’t on our first seven-inch that were a whole different take on things.
—Pen Rollings, from an interview conducted by Chunklet Magazine. Read the whole thing.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvkfu7QuxA1r5caito1_1280.jpg)
