DIY – Punks in Peoria and Our Misfit Family
This episode includes some foul language along with descriptions of self-destructive and anti-social behaviors, and as such may not be suitable for some audiences.
This is Middle America.
Chips Patroll “Sick of the 60s”
14A
Before coming to Peoria, Illinois, the Stepe brothers had lived in Willow Springs, a western suburb of Chicago. They were part of the burgeoning straight-edge, or drug- and alcohol-free, hardcore music scene there. Brothers Chopper and Barry played bass and guitar in the rowdy Negative Element and oldest brother Steve played bass in the humorous Rights of the Accused. Even though the boys were only in their early teens, both of these bands were historic influences in the development of hardcore punk in Chicago, as can be seen in the documentary You Weren’t There: A History of Chicago Punk, released in 2007.
In fact, the Cubby Bear show featuring Naked Raygun that turned a thirteen-year-old Dave Grohl onto punk rock also featured Rights of the Accused as an opener. Dave Grohl, later known for his work in Nirvana and Foo Fighters has been quoted as saying, “That night changed everything I knew about music. It just turned my world upside down.”
Meanwhile, Negative Element opened for now legendary hardcore acts like Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat.
But, in 1983 the Stepe brothers were forced to leave their beloved all-ages hardcore scene in Chicago for a city three-hours-drive south, surrounded by corn and soybean fields. Their father had taken an engineering job at Caterpillar and relocated the family to East Peoria, Illinois.
Bored and rebellious, Chopper, Barry, and Steve quickly created a family band called Electric Cool-Aid that relentlessly mocked their new hometown while playing the hardcore punk that they had developed in Chicago. Chopper, who had previously been playing bass in Negative Element, switched to drums out of necessity. Steve took on bass, and Barry took on guitar and vocals. Songs by the band included “Cow Tippin’” and “Livin’ in Peoria,” both of which jokingly introed with exaggerated references to farm life.
But, something was missing. The brothers had enjoyed having engaging frontmen for their respective Chicago acts and decided that was what their new Peoria act needed as well. Upon discovering Bill Love’s and Jay Goldberg’s Co-op Records and Tapes, the Stepe brothers headed out with their skateboards and posted up a flyer seeking a vocalist for their hardcore band.
Only one individual responded, and it was a young, aggressive, substance-loving rocker who had given himself the stage name of Bloody F. Mess, a reference to a lyric from the Sex Pistols’ song “Bodies.”
The four together made the band Chips Patroll.
The punk act would play their first performances as house shows just as Co-op Records was going out of business in the summer of 1984. In fact, the band’s first show would be a going away party for a former record store employee. Reagan’s “war on drugs” was putting many record stores doubling as head shops out of business.
Seeking connection with their previous big-city punk scene, the Stepe brothers took Bloody Mess and Chips Patroll out on the road following these house shows. The band played in Chicago as well as other performance dates around the Midwest.
But, the drug-free, skateboarding, hardcore kids that were the Stepe brothers always had somewhat of an uneasy alliance with the drinking and drugging rocker that was Bloody F. Mess.
When a Massachusetts punk band called The Not needed a last-minute show in the area, the Stepe brothers put something together in just a couple days with Chips Patroll, recently renamed to The Unaccepted, as an opener. This would be one of Bloody Mess’s last shows with the band.
But, other than the deterioration of the band, the show went off rather well. It was held in the Stepe’s backyard on the half-pipe skate ramp that the Stepe’s parents had built to atone for the Peoria move. Around twenty-five kids turned up as an audience along with the police, who responding to numerous noise complaints. The police found the kids were under parental supervision and well-behaved other than some slam dancing, so they put on a show of reprimanding the Stepe parents, while telling them quietly that what they were doing was just fine.
Following the performance many of the punks, along with the touring band, headed downtown to skate. In the words of Barry Stepe, “It was the beginnings of a punk rock scene in Peoria… But that was it for punk rock on our ramp.”
After The Unaccepted’s next gig with M.I.A. in Champaign-Urbana, Bloody Mess would be out on his own creatively.
And, it wouldn’t be long before Barry, Chopper, and two friends would be back up and running with a new straight-edge hardcore band called Caustic Defiance.
Caustic Defiance “One Million Stares”
14B
The famous degenerate punk singer GG Allin was born at Weeks Memorial Hospital in Lancaster, New Hampshire on August 29, 1956. He was then raised in a log cabin with no running water or electricity as the son of an abusive religious fanatic. GG’s birth name was, in fact, Jesus Christ, as his father felt that he had received a vision from Jesus before GG’s arrival. Jesus Allin became “GG” as it’s how his older brother would pronounce the name when they were children.
G.G. Allin died at the age of 36 of a heroin overdose in New York City in the early morning hours of June 28, 1993. Allin and his band had performed a few songs the night before at a bare bones punk venue in Manhattan called the Gas Station. The band’s set had been cut short due to violence that was routinely part of GG Allin’s act. During the course of the few songs that were performed, GG stripped naked, cut himself, defecated, and kissed, molested, and attacked audience members. GG then roamed the streets in search of a party and drugs while a crowd of fans followed.
When GG Allin was buried five days after his overdose, his bloated unpreserved corpse was put on display in a casket wearing his trademark jockstrap and a leather jacket with a bottle Jim Beam alongside, per instructions included in his song “When I Die.” In recent years, his tombstone was removed due to an abundance of fans desecrating his grave with urine, feces, cigarette butts, and alcohol.
Eight years before GG’s death, when Allin had yet to carve out his punk rock infamy, a small magazine or ‘zine based out of Peoria received a GG Allin 7” single. The ‘zine was called Primitive Noise, and it’s creator was Barry Stepe of Caustic Defiance, Chips Patroll, and Electric Cool-Aid. Not caring much for the single himself, Barry passed the record along to Bloody Mess, who instantly found a connection to the anti-social anthems.
Bloody Mess began trading correspondence with GG and eventually arranged for GG Allin to come to Illinois and perform. The punks in Peoria were riding a little bit of a high as they prepared for their upcoming gig at the rented out VFW Hall in Creve Coeur, Illinois. The day before the gig, Barry and Chopper’s band Caustic Defiance had landed on the cover of Peoria’s Journal Star, with discussion of the band’s hardcore music and straight-edge lifestyle.
However, the Creve Coeur VFW gig turned out to be a demonstration of the opposing sides of the punk rock coin. While Caustic Defiance appealed to the skateboarding, straight-edge side of the crowd, the Stepes also took the stage as Bloody Mess and Hate, drawing on the substance-loving hedonism and nihilism of punk with songs like “Spit On My Face.”
Meanwhile the traveling GG Allin stalked about the room in a jockstrap. For this performance, the first date on his first US tour, he took the stage with a handheld stereo playing instrumentals. The anti-social nihilist vibe of the show peaked when GG Allin defecated on stage for the first - but far from the last - time in his career.
Veterans sitting in the bar of the hall rushed into the room in order to remove GG, but unsurprisingly no one wanted to touch a nearly naked 28-year-old man covered in and throwing his own excrement. GG Allin fled and headed for Texas before the police arrived, soon winding up in the hospital for blood poisoning.
The Stepe brothers would eventually leave their inconvenient home in Peoria to live in Bloomington-Normal and Chicago, starting more bands like The Outbreaks, Naked Hippy, and Regress.
Meanwhile, Bloody Mess and GG Allin remained friends and performed on the “Hated in the Nation” tour together the following year. GG Allin’s 1987 album You Give Love a Bad Name includes liner notes from Bloody Mess along with a partial writer’s credit on one song.
Through all of this, to the chagrin of many conservative Peorians, Bloody Mess was a shock rocker in his own right, performing in women’s underwear, setting his pubic hair on fire, burning the American flag, and urinating from the stage while continuing to tour and put out albums with many backing bands including The Skabs in Peoria, and later on in Oregon, The Vaynes, New Disease, Transfusions, Bloody Mess Rock Circus, and Divine Dirt.
Bloody Mess & Hate “Spit On My Face”
14C
When I came on the scene in 1994, I had never heard of the Stepe brothers. It would be years before I would hear my punk elders mention the name of Bloody Mess. The scene that I found in the mid-1990s was led by Jonathan Wright, co-author of Punks in Peoria, and now editor of Peoria Magazine. At the time, Jonathan had a promotions group that he called Naked Bums.
For Naked Bums bookings, Jon would rent out American Legion or VFW Halls in the area and then promote the performances he was hosting by way of photocopied hand-drawn flyers taped up in the windows of Acme Comics, Airwaves Skateshop, and the re-emerged Co-op Records.
While I have never quite been the collector of bands that I feel some of my peers are, as a member of the Peoria original music scene, I have seen more than my fair share of live concerts, or as we call them: “shows.” Most of my experiences revolve around the often sparsely attended DIY scene. And by the DIY scene, I mean young people renting out rooms to host music performances in unconventional performance spaces like veterans halls, churches, community centers, and homes.
This is the scene that was born out of that first disgusting GG Allin show in Creve Coeur. This show and the national underground rock scene that provided its blueprint, would be a model for how to create an all-ages original music scene in a city where bars and cover bands were the established norm.
The first underground band that I followed was called Fast Food Revolution. They had a sound influenced by bands like Beck, The Flaming Lips, and Sebadoh. By checking for flyers at Co-op Records, my friends and I would find shows where they were playing and then attend with the assumption that we would also enjoy the other acts. That’s how I also found the nerd-rock act Ham, the indie rock group The Bugs, and the snotty pop punk of Planet Fiasco.
Photocopied flyers led me to many American Legion and VFW Halls in the 90s. Often times, like in Creve Coeur, a hall would only host one show before deciding they wanted nothing to do with the punk scene. Fights were common, and I know of more than one bathroom sink ripped from a venue’s wall.
But, the kids were relentless. Somehow, when one venue would shutter its access to punk promoters, another would arise.
One important venue in the late 90s was a punk rock record store in Bradley University’s campus town called Tiamat Records. Tiamat Records was a sparse room with concrete floors, graffitied walls, and support posts spread throughout the room. Even as a college student playing underground rock music, the clear demographic for Tiamat, I found the long, dark room intimidating. That’s not to mention how frightening the crusty, punk rock regulars were.
But, it was here that I saw bands like the gritty, hometown-boys-done-good Planes Mistaken for Stars and future indie emo darlings Bright Eyes among many, many others. Owner Leanna Sweetland along with members of the hardcore band Died at Birth who volunteered at the shop booked shows in the record store nearly every weekend, providing stability to an otherwise inconsistent music scene.
With the store’s continued support of the underground music scene, Tiamat Records developed a small but incredibly loyal following.
So in the fall of 1999, when word got out that the building holding Tiamat’s lease had been bought out, fans were devastated. The neighboring Jimmy John’s restaurant had grown tired of the lingering crowd of smelly, cheap, and anti-social punk rockers. The restaurant’s remedy was to simply buy Tiamat’s home out from under them and flatten it into additional parking for the restaurant.
Tiamat supporters spent days at sit-ins protesting the sale of the property, but to no avail. Once again, punk culture had been deemed too fringe for Peoria, and the punks were back out on the streets.
Jared Grabb “Jimmy Paid the Price”
14D
The most recent home of consistent all-ages punk rock shows in Peoria was a dingy bar on Farmington Road, just down the hill from Bradley University, called Rail II. Rail II had evolved from the Brass Rail, a smaller 21-and-up bar that had existed further down Farmington Road, past the Peoria Speedway. The Brass Rail had been a sometimes home to metal and punk rock in town since 2010 when Derek Troxell took over booking for the bar. This first smaller bar held performances from acts like Dying Fetus, Minsk, Bloody Mess & the HollowBodys, Bam Margera, Mushroomhead, The Faceless, and Planes Mistaken for Stars.
In 2014, Troxell moved up Farmington Road to a larger space, opening up further possibilities. The larger venue of Rail II was little more than a shell, with the kitchen left abandoned and beer taps left unworking, but the venue’s openness to music genres unwanted by the rest of the Peoria community again created a loyal following. Fans of punk, metal, indie rock, hip hop, and electronic music all adopted Rail II as their venue of choice.
The performance hall of Rail II, like most underground venues in Peoria was less than ideal. The walls and ceiling were covered in sheet metal, creating a difficult situation for obtaining quality sound. The wall behind the stage was covered in unpainted dry wall. The floor was covered in filthy tiles that were never mopped as far as I could tell.
After three years in operation, Guthrie Moore, of the hardcore band Cold Grip and formerly of the metal band The Serpent Son, took over management and stepped up the functionality of the venue. Guthrie brought more consistent shows and professionalism to Rail II’s booking, promotion, and the overall cleanliness of the space.
However, after one year as the bar’s manager, family responsibilities, as well as financial and time constraints caused Moore to move on, leaving the space shuttered.
When Rail II closed its doors in the early summer of 2018, it marked the end of an era, having hosted all-ages shows for acts including Looming, Pet Symmetry, Born of Osiris, The Forecast, Shai Hulud, Ghost Key, Off With Their Heads, Primitive Man, Green Jelly, The Serpent Son, Scouts Honor, and again Minsk and Planes Mistaken for Stars.
So, where are we now?
2019 found punk and indie shows again returning to house basements and smaller audiences. Those who could perform melodic sets in stripped down acoustic arrangements found themselves performing long sets as background music in bars and restaurants alongside cover bands. Many Peoria acts began making Bloomington, Illinois’s Nightshop, 45-minutes to the east, their new hometown venue.
And, then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in 2020. All underground music went on hold. Many bands didn’t rehearse. House shows weren’t safe. Nightshop closed its doors. The remaining live music spaces were populated by those who actively chose to ignore the warnings of health officials.
As the nation reopens now in the summer of 2021, outdoor music is thriving with many following the mainstream radio and cover acts proclaiming that “music is back!” But, what about the less palatable music of the city’s and the nation’s counter culture? Outdoor music venues tend to cater to the passive music fan. In these settings, it’s often more important that a band’s set is inoffensive than innovative. For abrasive underground acts, music is not back, and it’s unclear when it will be back.
Bloomington’s Nightshop opens back up this week with outdoor concerts featuring underground acts every weekend through the summer, but the events are limited in frequency when compared to scheduling before the pandemic. In Peoria, an indoor loft space held a limited capacity show this past weekend for the Grey Slush EP release party. Pizza Works are hosting an indoor 21+ show for The Buncha Bastards this Friday. It’s looking like indoor performances will be back to normal for the fall and winter, but will there be a cost? I just want people to stay safe while keeping the flame alive.
The Peoria punk scene has been a home for me since I was an awkward teenager in the mid-90s. As I fell away from Christianity and the related community of high school friends, I became a loner. Traveling into the city of Peoria to stand in crowds of misfit teens like myself to see bands that were populated by the same, gave me a sense of belonging that I have carried with me all the way into my adult years.
Through my involvement in bands and the scene, I’ve made countless friendships and seen the entirety of the continental United States as well as several other countries. As a young introvert, I developed my social skills by meeting a new set of strangers every day while on tour and trying to win audiences over.
Even while researching this episode and watching video of GG Allin’s last gig in Manhattan, I saw not a monster but a peer. Yes, he was wild and dangerous, but he was giving the crowd what they wanted; what they had come to see. He made everyone in that room feel alive, whether through excitement, fear, or disgust. And, as he wandered the streets with strangers in the hour that followed yet another set ended early, I could see the gratitude and love in his eyes.
Scouts Honor “Where We Fit In”
14OUT
Thank you for listening to Middle America.
The featured music for this episode was “Sick of the 60s” by Chips Patroll, “One Million Stares” by Caustic Defiance, and “Spit On My Face” by Bloody Mess & Hate. All three songs are released this week on the Punks in Peoria vinyl LP released by Alona’s Dream Records out of Chicago. Everything else was created by Jared Grabb along with Brett Conlin on guitar, Chris Anderson and Ernesto Castillo on bass, and Thomas Satterfield, David Dobbs, and Neal MacCannell on drums. You can see a full listing of the music used in today’s episode on the episode’s webpage at midamericapod.buzzsprout.com.
The Punks in Peoria book, written by Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett also releases this week and was the primary source material for the first three quarters of this episode. No matter how ugly the details contained in this episode, these are my people and the content was written with love.
Editing assistance was provided by Becca Taylor.
If you enjoy the show and would like to support it, then be like lbconfusion99 and leave a 5-star review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts. You can also view transcripts and become a patron over at patreon.com/midamericapod.
Let’s make sure to carve out a space for the challenging voices.
Until next time…