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Top ten Black Randy anecdotes from Marc Spitz & Brendan Mullen’s book, “We Got The Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk”.
Finished reading this book a few weeks ago, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of punk and hardcore not only because of the crazy stories but because the things that happened during the late 70’s in southern California influenced music scenes all over America and around the world. Black Randy & The Metrosquad were a unique band that could have only existed in this time and place. Their 1979 LP, “Pass The Dust, I Think I’m Bowie” is a disco-trash, post-punk masterpiece and a true work of American art.
Randy also pioneered the concept of the independent record label, learning things the hard way as a co-owner of one of the greatest punk record labels ever, Dangerhouse Records. Their approach to releasing records in rapid secession, each one brilliantly recorded and beautifully designed, has influenced countless other people to start their own record labels like SST, Dischord, Frontier and Posh Boy just to name a few. Rumors about Randy still exist, one of the strangest that I’ve heard goes something like this: After a drug fueled weekend of partying in 1985, Randy loaned Guns n’ Roses thousands of dollars to record their first demo. I can’t verify if that is true or not, but if you like stories like this you will love the book, because they get deep into early TSOL, Darby Crash, The Gun Club, Black Flag, Positive Force, The Adolescents, Circle Jerks, etc. Anyway.
In the book Randy describes meeting his father, Morphine Jack, a “Junkie…a well known petty thief, creep and dope dealer” who lived with Lenny Bruce in the 1950’s. At one point in the book, Hal Negro chimes in about Randy’s mythos, “The legend was that he was this white kid raised by black people in a black neighborhood in Long Beach…Randy was a bigger-than-life figure.”
Geza X (Black Flag engineer, Germs producer, Geza X & The Mommymen, The Deadbeats, sound man at The Masque)
“Black Randy and I spent a good year raging on speed. It was one of the most colorful, interesting, creepy, brilliantly bizarre periods of my whole life. Randy was one of the most intelligent but borderline dangerous people I’ve ever known. I met his dad, who was this battered old hot-rod biker, and I eyeballed him shooting his son up with Morphine. He had these spectacles with this little chain around his neck and Randy was blubbering like a baby, something he would do every single time he shot up without fail. It was the most bizarre, ritualistic reenactment of some deep psychological thing.”
DJ Bonebrake (X)
“One day I got a jury notice in the mail, so I asked Black Randy for advice. I must have been crazy, I said “What do I do about this? I got jury duty. I don’t want jury duty. And Randy says “Well, here’s what you do. You get a big, black felt pen and you write in big letters across the front of the form VIVA LA ANGEL DUST and you send it back in. They’ll never bug you again.” So I did that and sent it in. I didn’t get another jury notice for ten years.
Black Randy on partying
My drummer Joe Nanini told me, “The first time I ever saw you, you were with your best friend John Doe, drinking beer…John was passed out drunk in the dressing room and you were pissing on him.” I said, “Listen up man…everybody knows it’s not cool to crash out at a punk party”.
John Doe (X)
“Black Randy was a precursor to punk rap. He was all about an ironic take on Iceberg Slim, Donald Goines, Dolemite, blaxplotation movies, black pulp literature, the whole pimp culture underworld…He was a great writer who wasn’t afraid to be funny. Writing a song about Idi Amin, who was obviously a monster was an example of the extremely dark humor that Randy loved. He loved the sheer preposterousness of someone eating part of their enemy to make a point.” Idi Amin became president of Uganda after executing a coup. Some people believe that he was a cannibal, that he drank blood and ate his victims entrails. BTW, the song John is talking about is called Idi Amin. It was released as a 7” EP in April of 1978 on Dangerhouse, and also appears on the 2nd Dangerhouse compilation, Give Me A Little Pain. Randy was, “A compulsive liar with a sort of Don Rickles type of insulting humor, who was constantly cutting people down, but he would always have everyone in stitches laughing.”
Black Randy on New York & the 70’s
I worked in New York doing these corporate training video films with some friends who were in underground theater – Warhol-type people…I videotaped the Ramones third show and became really good friends with them…so when I came back to the west coast in 1974 I already had a nihilistic philosophy, actually more ironic than nihilistic. I already felt that something was going to take place at the end of the decade. Like everybody else in the mid-70’s, I was wishing that something would happen that would shake us free of the legacy of the hippies and that there would be something new…with excitement again instead of disillusionment and apathy.”
KK Barrett (The Screamers, The Metrosquad)
“Black Randy was the original prankster. If he thought something was boring, he’d call the cops and say, “There’s somebody here with a gun”. His other big thing was he’d go to a party and if a girl had her purse down, he’d take a crap in it.”
Black Randy on his career as a telemarketer
“I was a natural for lying over the phone because I was good at convincing people things, and I like talking on the phone. I tell the truth even when I lie…phone sales are just this side of dope peddling or something..just this side of acceptable white collar crime…we’re a nuisance…it can’t be stamped out. There’s no law against what we do. We’re just thieves, and that’s what I do for a living.”
Hal Negro (Hal Negro & The Satin Tones)
“Randy was very charismatic and intimidating with that street thug thing. His band The Metrosquad was like tight rhythm and blues punk rock, and Randy would do these sick-out raps like, “Loner with a Boner”, “Beershit”…he even had a tune called “I Tell Lies Everyday” set to some Sly Stone rip-off. Randy always had scams going. He’d steal neon signs from old buildings and sell them to antique dealers.” Side note about The Metrosquad: They are listed on IMDB for their cameo in the 1982 film ??Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains”, which can be seen here
Black Randy on punk
“Everything I was doing at that time was a calcuated type of behavior. I was a very rowdy, frustrated guy. I was big and fat, and I was very frustrated by this culture that I felt excluded from that had grown up in the 70’s, the disco culture and the hippie culture. I was drunk and rowdy, I tried to steal the cash register at the door on my way out from a Slash benefit. This was my way of social gesture. It was a calculated move in the sense of, ‘I’m a punk and this is what punks do’. The punks certainly responded to me in the right way, because it made everybody talk about me immediately.”
Kittra Allen (manager, The Go-Go’s)
Black Randy was a total deviant…he liked to shock people. He was very vulgar. And coming from me, that’s quite a statement. I remember going to a party at his house and he’d made all these home movies of himself blowing up a plastic sex doll and shitting into its mouth. Randy was also a blustering bully. Brilliant but sick.”
