“Kimberly” by Patti Smith (1975)
Of course, it was the advent of punk rock that really enabled The Welders to come to life. Raw, defiant and rockin’ – the punk movement railed against corporate rock, endless noodling guitar solos and hippies. This was right up our alley. With just-acquired second hand instruments that we were learning to play, we dove right into playing music together in my family’s basement.
The band were Stephanie on vocals, Rusty on guitar, Julie on guitar, Caroline on bass and me on drums. The first time we coalesced as a band for a few bars of “Kimberly” by Patti Smith was caught on cassette tape. We were so impressed with ourselves we called up the DJ of a local radio station KSHE and played the tape over the phone to him. Needless to say, he was less than impressed.
The Welders played our first show at a teen club called the Bluberry Jam in late 1976, playing three songs while the main band Candy took a break. We played covers of “I Don’t Want to Walk Around with You” by the Ramones, “I Can’t Explain” by the Who and “Wild Thing” by the Troggs.
We were pretty good at self-promotion in the way that a loud gaggle of teenage girls might be. We soon got ourselves some managers called Norman Schoenfeld and Jim Maresca who helped us get shows and encouraged us to write songs like “PERVERT” and “Debutantes in Bondage”. They set up the first St. Louis Punk Rock Festival in January of 1977 which we headlined. We were, in fact, a real band.
TOMORROW..our last song with Jane
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