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Greg: Man, this band reminds me of Arkanon's album just before 96.73, remember Platzygotica, the second disk? They've even got the same line up, 'cept the chick was a drummer. That whole prog rock gets funky, and no one knew if they were goofing or not. Though from my view, they were heavy into the irony thing, or at least the lead singer was as he's now a professor at Bowling Green....

Jason: You remember that big concept show they had at Metro in '81? The entire club was lit with 10,000 red candles and there was a giant AT&T globe filled with helium bouncing off the ceiling. They did that 42-minute version of "Monopoly Blues (Don't take my Phone)" that just fucking rocked. And then the guitarist set his axe on fire and threw it into the audience, knocking the candles over and prompting the complete reconstruction of the Metro. Man, whadda show.

Greg: You know, I had a date with the drummer...

Jason: Oh boy. Yeah? How was that? I've got five words for you. "Tommy, can you hear me?"

Greg: It's what leads me to believe that only the lead singer is clued into the irony thing, cause I said something about tongue in cheek and she took it as some innuendo about how sexy her playing was. True the club was really loud, but still, we just weren't connecting. That actually has become the greatest subtext for me, cause here are these guys from Paw Paw, Indiana, who all really really believe they are an updated, even better Jethro Tull or something, and the lead singer is milking it with what you can't tell is contempt or just a reluctance to tell his high school friends different. But the date - so we're at the Lizard Lounge on industrial night, and it's just one "So anyway..." exchange after another, at the top of our lungs over "GUNS GUNS HELL HELL" thunk-A-WOMP zzzt thunk-A-WOMP zzzt. But it's okay 'cause in an attempt to hear me she keeps leaning in and pressing against me and she's wearing this bustier/vest thing and though she's 8 years older her breasts are gravity defying-god knows if they were real-and pressing up against me and then gone as she leaned back to take a drag off her cig...but nothing happened. Stiffy Walters set us up, you know.

Jason: Oh yeah, Stiffy. I went out drinking with Stiffy, did you ever know that? Yeah, we started at "Batteries Not Included" (which, of course, at the time was open and in its heyday). We had 16 Guinnesses apiece there, and then for some reason Joan Jett was in town and was hanging out, and if you remember correctly, Stiffy was the executive producer of her first album, which really went nowhere but anyway, she owed him one. So we hung out with Joan for awhile, and actually Stiffy started talking about "Crimson and Clover" that night, except as he envisioned it, the song would be called "Maroon and Maple." Anyway. Then we ended up at Exit, the old one on Lincoln, and we ran into some guys from Kraftwerk. Yeah, I don't know, there were just a bunch of bands in town that weekend. But, you know, Stiffy never did get along with Kraftwerk, the whole thing about that lawsuit in '79 and that whole bar fight they got into in Berlin. You know, Stiffy would always show everyone the scar from that fight on his ass every time he got drunk. Anyway. So things got a little ugly that night, and really it was that night that Exit decided to construct that big cage over their dancefloor (long story. Ooh.). So then things get a little hazy after that, but I do remember at a certain point in the evening we broke into the Billy Goat downtown and pissed on the goat because Stiffy thought it was going to break the curse, whatever, you know, for a progressive eastern-europe art student, Stiffy was really into the Cubs. And the next day I woke up and I had a tattoo behind my left knee that said "I Love Rock-N-Roll," which I still have to this day.

Greg: It's always was amazing that Stiffy wanted to hang out with kids like us, considering we weren't even close to being useful for his projects, except, of course, as his connection to what "the street" was thinking. Which I think was the one dead giveaway that Stiffy was not from America. I still feel guilty that his career might have been change by us telling him that Depeche Mode sucked and he shouldn't return their calls. But back to Arkanon - I think the greatest tension between irony and blind rockin' stupid has to be 96.73 - I mean a whole rock opera about a guy with a less than normal body temperature...don't you think the other members figured it out? Of course, I'll bet you could do a thick book annotating all the bizarre references in that one.

Jason: Well, don't you remember that kid from Stanford who did his thesis on 96.73? He was coming up with references the band didn't even know was in there. Like the whole subtext of Jonnie standing metaphorically about the emotional impotence of America after the botched Iran hostage rescue attempt? How Jonnie was always wearing yellow socks? And always eating peanuts? I know, it seems so obvious now, but it was such a shock to everyone when this kid first pointed it out. I don't know, I kinda liked 96.73. Man, those were heady days. We were but simple punk street kids, hanging out at Belmont and Clark bumming change and doing heroin, and suddenly we were being whisked off to elaborate cocktail parties with Liza Minelli and Jackie O... Remember when the band asked us to dance nude in go-go cages at their CBGB show?

Greg: Either those drugs were stronger, or you have a really rich fantasy life. What I remember was being underage and getting comps and hand me down promo records from a creepy Polish guy who knew just about everyone. And stealing shit from the Alley. And Snoozie. And crullers. Mostly Snoozie, who I'm still not sure I could call a girlfriend, but any skinhead who would go with me to Arkanon shows had to like me for some reason....

Jason: Well, pretty much the entire period between 1978 and 1983 is one big blur to me. Speed kills. And gasoline fumes will fuck you up. Take it from me. "Oh, you babooshkas are such cutie-patooties. Come up to Uncle Vanya's place and let us partake of biblishkas and drink ozo." That's what I remember about the creepy Polish guy.

Greg: Remember when Arkanon third double album hit the cut out bin and the only place they could get booked was the Thirsty Whale? And they would only play their epic tunes so it would be, like, two Ark songs and then Enuff Z'nuff would play....the only good thing about the Whale shows is that they made Stiffy uncomfortable enough that he stopped dressing like a Eastern Bloc reject from Roxy Music....we at least knew to accessorize our look with harley shirts and baseball caps covering our 'hawks...

Jason: Oh God, and then the whole "neo-country" phase the band got in? Where they were wearing the ridiculous cowboy hats and drinking tequila all night and getting in fightfights? And Al Jourgenson produced that EP? God, I'd like to forget that entire period.

Greg: As usual, almost cool too early. And the whole band was completely confused, because they still wanted to do Lamb Lies Down on Broadway covers....at least that's how I interpreted their expressions. None of them but the singer understood what was going on, and it's weird, they coulda made it. I mean at least the drummer got the fashions of the industrial crowd. God, remember how they broke up at their return gig to the Metro? I had my date with her a year after that...she said that they all confronted Brendan, said they hated the new stuff, they weren't gonna do "country speed" versions of the old stuff, they didn't get it and were so drunk that they waited until five minutes before the show for the confrontation, and then were to scared of Joe Shanahan and Al, who were both speeding and giving off a huge aura of violence to leave. Which explains the half hour version of La Grange that was their swan song. I understand La Grange can be played blind drunk...But those were the bad times, when I felt 80 at age 25....Let's remember the better times. With Punkin Donuts and Snooze and your gal, Ferdie. Ah, fuggin Ferdie, shop window smasher...those girls made us seem so tough and coool...

Jason: Oh shit, Ferdie! I had almost forgotten about her. Did I ever tell you about my first date with Ferdie? We met at the dumpster behind Punkin Donuts. We shared a chocolate cruller... Later we went to Live Bait and saw the Neo-Futurists (they let us in for free 'cause Ferdie was a regular and she told them we were both broke). They ended up selling out and we sat on blankets on the stage floor and as we were leaving Ferdie stole a 12-pack from behind the bar at the Nightcrawler. So then we popped over the wall at Graceland at this spot on Irving Park that Ferdie knew about where the barbed wire was cut. We got absolutely trashed sitting on top of Mies Van Der Rohe's grave, which Ferdie was convinced would give you this weird psychic energy if you put your ass on it, something about World War II and Nazis and the IIT, I don't know, yet more of Ferdie's weird shit. And we kept drinking Everclear mixed with Crystal Pepsi and grenadine ("The Pink Pussy," her name for it, you remember that? Ha-ha!) and she had a little bottle of rush we kept taking sniffs off of. And then she ran off into the cemetery and, sixteen and drunk as a skunk, I ran off after her. I caught her on Marshall Field's island and we ended up making love on the inside of a faux-Egyptian crypt in the northeast corner of the graveyard. And that's how I lost my virginity. Sometimes I still can't believe that Ferdie died in that bizarre accident at Avalon in '87. I miss her.

Greg: Well, considering she did try to toss me through the front window of the Guitar Center and started kicking me when I just bounced off, I don't miss her as much as notice how my life is different without people like her around us. Remember after the Arkanon concert at the Aragon - think it was the Voyage of the Fuzomes, with the really lame imitation of the Rust Never Sleeps gremlins except they all had robs of green fur - when they saved us from getting our asses kicked by those tractor pull dudes from downstate. 2 against 4 and we had to pull 'em off them. What was it that Snooze shouted just before she hit the first guy in the 'nads?

Jason: "Victory for the forces of democracy!" I think that's what she yelled.