Seattle
In 1970 I moved into a communal house on the fringes of Seattle's University District. We were either trying to make it through college or were about to realize that college and the careers it was preparing us for were not what we wanted. As part of our attempts to avoid homework or for that manner any kind of work, we began playing around with tape recorders. We called ourselves the Fritzl Pipeworks Band, but this was really only in jest. Recordings of off-key singing, banging on pots and pans and echoey recording sessions of urination, giggling and chipmunk style vocal gibberish occupied a fair amount of our time. Some of these recording have survived to this day but were never released. Participants included Seattle artist Carl Smool, Conrad Uno (who started PopLlama Records and released Young Fresh Fellows and others), Mike Freeman, Mark Sargent and myself. The most legitimately musical of us were Conrad Uno and Mark Sargent. Eventually, the goofing around evolved into a rudimentary 50's style rock band called Arc Welder and the Car Parts. Mark became the guitar player, Conrad, the bassplayer, together they found out they could write real songs. I tried unsuccessfully to play guitar...
To see photos of life at Loon Lagoon go here...
Uncle Cookie performing live at rented hall in Seattle circa 1977
members:
(left to right) Conrad Uno-bass and vocals, Ernie Shapiro-guitar,
Max Campbell-drums, Mark Sargent-guitar, vocals
Art in background: Carl Smool
Here is Young Fred and Big Ethyl
In the mid 70's Arc Welder became Uncle Cookie, I gave up the guitar and became the sound man, This was the beginning of my life as a recording/live sound mixing engineer. Uncle Cookie toured the Northwest rural tavern circuit performing cover material that ran the gamut from Aerosmith and Led Zep to Roxy Music, Rocky Horror, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and much more. When not touring, Uncle Cookie staged concerts of their original material in rented VFW halls throughout Seattle. We were very successful at filling halls, getting favorable press and even had a radio show on Seattle's KRAB called the Original Optimist Radio Hour. Carl Smool made incredible full color silk screen posters and T-Shirts. We formed a strange entourage with made up names and wacky costumes and make-up. Part Rocky Horror part Country Gardeners. Mike Freeman,Soa Goodstitch, Lotta Hash, Janet Fly. It was a lot of great fun. Often, the self produced concerts we put together, shared the bill with the upstart punk scene and included such bands as the Feelings, Telepaths, Meyce and others. Uncle Cookie recorded one self produced single Hamburger/Kidnapped which was released on Little Orange Babies Records.
Pink Chunk live at a hall in Downtown Seattle 1978
Pictured: Mark Sargent-guitar, Mark Wheaton-Vocals
One off-shoot of the Uncle Cookie days was my own fantasy band The Pink Chunk. This band only performed once, with Uncle Cookie disguised as The Pink Chunk, and myself as the lead singer in true Joey Ramone fashion. The audience was made up of first generation Seattle punk rockers. They hated the very idea of The Pink Chunk. I was performing without glasses and when we finished and went back stage, I noticed that the rest of the band were angry and very glistening. It turns out, the audience had pummeled the band with eggs. I was not hit by a single egg and being blind did not even see the eggs! A friend had videotaped the show and the video revealed that a veritable wall of eggs had showered the stage. Regretablly, I do not have a copy of that video.
I was very into the Ramones and myself and Mike Freeman made the trek to their first Seattle Area concert at a navy club near Bremerton. We arrived early during the sound check and interviewed the entire band. This interview and concert ended up on a bootleg LP (red and black vinyl)
Years later, a Pink Chunk single was released on 45 rpm (Monster Wax Records) Pressed on Pink Chunk and clear vinyl the 1000 copies immediately sold out. Lester Bangs gave it a rave mention in a Pazz and Jop Poll in the Village Voice in the late 70's. The single was actually made up of recordings done in the early 70's by Conrad Uno and Mike Freeman, experimenting with the sound-on-sound features of my Sony tape recorder. The song Louie Louie was done chipmunk style and remains a true classic of lo fi obscurity.
By the end of the 70's Uncle Cookie had splintered and various members went on to other projects. I began working with another Seattle band on the fringes of Seattle's new punk scene, Chinas Comidas...
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