The Curse of the Noize Boyz - or - The Band That Wouldn’t Die
Monday night, the Forty-niners were playing Candlestick and the noize Boyz were playing Sound of Music. It was a big show for them, double-billed with the Wankers. Bob Bennett, leader singer and raging alcoholic, hadn’t had a drink all day. Before the show started, he took a sip off his first beer then suddenly went into convulsions. With Bob wracked by spasms, Stacey the rhythm guitarist was promoted to singer on the spot and the show went on.
Founding member Mack claims this was the worst experience the Noize Boyz have ever endured, but it strikes me as almost typical. The band’s long and chequered career is fraught with every mishap and misadventure imaginable.
The Noize Boyz operate under a curse.
Lesser bands would have given up long ago, but the Noize Boyz know they can’t. No one leaves the band with their life, their sanity, or their hair intact.
“We’ve taken four or five deaths already,” figures Mack. “Red Ted got killed just for reading our lyrics and talking negatively about them.” Possibly the worst bummer was the death of singer Eb Shred. He got into a serious skating accident, requiring blood transfusions. This occurred before much was known about AIDS and one of the blood samples was contaminated. Eb contracted AIDS and, after trying every form of alternative healing, eventually died.
During one practice the band noticed a peculiar smell. They sent someone to go check it out. He returned, screaming, “Oh fuck, the building’s on fire!” People grabbed their equipment and split. A friend of the band’s was not so lucky. He was trapped by the fire and burned to death.
People do get out of the band alive, but in a highly altered state. Perhaps the experience is just too much for their fragile psyches, or maybe the real world is. Either way, large numbers of delirious, tweaked-out ex-members run rampant. One such soul once had an impressive inheritance. Due to the twin evils of heroin and stupidity, he now lives with his mother in a homeless shelf in Fremont.
Another, Jack Tragic, “the supreme drug fuck-up,” according to Mark, was once the best musician in the band. He now survives by hanging out with gays and ripping them off. “Homo Parade” was written in his honour and is the song Mack wants to play at his funeral.
The final victims, the hardest hit by the curse, live to see their fate and still possess the mental faculties to comprehend it. These are the people whose hair left when they left the band. “Okay, now you’re a bass-player, take away your hair from the center out,” Mack said, referring to Nosmo King. He additionally points out that you never see Matt without a bandana on.
Of Nosmo, Sean explains: “He’s a good example of the curse. He used to be a bass player of a very popular local band and now he wears shorts and plays acoustic guitar.” When Nosmo joined, he was the most competent musician of the band but gradually developed a style the rest of the band hated. Matt recalls, “He wasn’t on the same planet as us, much less the same stage.”
Matt, who recently split to Pennsylvania, is remembered for getting frustrated and throwing his guitar through the wall once and the ceiling twice. One time it stuck. Nosmo also remembers leading Matt his favourite golfing sweater and never seeing it again.
Although band members claim that the curse only affects people who leave the band, it seems the curse has permeated the band throughout. The people who have observed the grim effects o the curse for years are the founding members Mack and Sean. They have been friends since high school and started the band together in 1997, before, Mack points out significantly, they saw the Sex Pistols. “This was the full-on messenger years,” he goes on, “just a phenomenonal lack of any semblance of talent.”
The first time they played out was a house-wrecking party in the early 80s. Sean was on bass, Mack played guitar, and Dee Dee was on drums. “First time I ever heard anyone clap,” said Mack. “You should have seen the look of shock on his face,” adds Sean.
Since that first show, many others followed, giving the Noize Boyz the reputation of never being able to play the same place twice. One legend that endures is that Noize Boyz shows end when the band starts beating each other up. Sean explains that one: “The show was fizzling so… the singer went up and pushed Nosmo, the bass player. He didn’t like that, pushed him back and that went over Mack’s amp, and Mack got into it. I just kept playing while those three brawled.”
Anouther legendary show was in Reno. “We couldn’t get through a single song,” remembers Matt. “I was thoroughly embarrassed.” The main accomplishment of the whole ordeal was the lead singer managed to shoot up simultaneously to getting a blowjob.
Shows were rare but the band practiced frequently, expect when they couldn’t find speed. “Noize Boyz practices basically consisted of everyone trying to scream over reach other,” says Matt. Hostilities ran rampant, but Mack points out, “We can fucking argue and shit, but all of us care for one another.” He proved this when he ended an argument with Nosmo by kissing him.
The high point of the band’s career was when they had a studio with free beer. They rented Studio X, which was next door to a beer warehouse that had an unlocked door. “We even had to go buy a fridge,” says Sean.
Today the Noize Boyz are still going strong. “The Vince Lombardi Hall of Fame,” Mack called the band. “Four guys who walked the mirror.” Mack and Sean play guitar and drums, respectively.
Scott, known affectionately as Dumptruck, plays bass. “I was just going to do a reunion show with them…,” says Dumptruck. “When I finally realized I was in the band I didn’t want to quit. Anyway, I knew I couldn’t.”
They ditched
their most recent singer because he couldn’t keep up with their
drinking, and now Hugh is the vocalist. Earlier this year they put together
a show, but right before it was supposed to happen, Hugh got laryngitis.
Some things just don’t change. -A
Jak’s Team
By the Noize Boyz
Not a kind,
not a man
Where in the fuck do you think you stand,
Going down that pink primrose path
Used to get some cute girls,
But that was long ago,
Now you’re left all alone
Skatin’ into middle age
Not letting manhood get in your way
Teen age is where you’ll stay
Skatin’ into middle age
You fool yourselves,
Thinking everyone else would both to follow you
You think you’re such a hot shot
And the others guys, they all agree with you