The
Name
Mike and I use to hang out at his house and listen to all
of his punk rock records. We tried to come up with good band
names. I said No FX after a band who had put out one record
and broken up called Negative FX. Mike agreed that it was
the best one so far. There seemed to be a lot of gimmicky
bands around at the time. We like to think that our name meant
we were against that shit. In 1983 three of the four members
were into the straight edge movement following Minor Threat's
first single, but we were never a straight edge band, OK?
First
Gig There was a club on Selma and Argyle in
Hollywood called Cathay de Grande. Some of the bands we would
go see there were D.R.I., the Stains, Reagan Youth, Minor
Threat, Black Flag before Henry, the Bangs who later became
the Bangles, and Social Distortion. On Tuesday nights new
bands would play and it was one dollar to get in. Some friends
of ours from Pomona had a band called Justice League. They
were having their first gig one Tuesday and we asked them
if we could use their gear and play after them. We were all
there, except for Steve. We played all 4 songs we knew. For
years after, those Justice League kids swore that was our
best show ever. When Steve found out that we had played without
him, he quit the band that he was never really in.
So
we were a 3-piece. Mike and I were going to trade off singing,
but I could barely even play guitar, let alone sing at the
same time, and that's how Mike became our singer.
First
Demo It was time to record our songs and put
out a tape. By some freak act of destiny, Don Bolles, of Germs
fame said he would produce our demo for us if we filled up
his car with gas. We made flyers advertising our Demo release
and placed an ad in Flipside to send your own cassette and
a self addressed stamped envelope and we would copy it for
you and send it back.
