Stu News and Photos

I had a psychology class in high school, my junior year (I think), maybe it was senior year. Oy, it was so long ago. Anyway, Doug Auburn was our teacher, a fantastic teacher who said "motherlovin'" quite a bit, especially when talking about Vietnam. Michael Glazier (yay!) and Carl Fiella and I were in the same class, and Mike hung out with Carl socially, and I hung out with Mike socially. One day Mike says to me, Hey, let's go see Bow Wow Wow at Great Adventure. So the three of us go to GA late one afternoon, and after a jaunt through the park, we head to the outdoor concert area (which probably is now the Northern Star Arena) and got good positions standing about 10 feet from the stage.

The first act was The Flirts, whose big hit at the time was "Jukebox (Don't Put Another Dime)", which was released in 1982. I'll check with Mike as to what year we saw this show, as it might have been earlier than summer of '84. Regardless, read the lyrics to Jukebox and then read the following.

Having The Flirts at a Bow Wow Wow show was a bad idea. The Flirts were pure plastic pop. Bow Wow Wow was a much more organic group, combining punk attitudes, African rhythms, rockabilly laced guitar, and a touch of pop songwriting. The audience at this show was comprised of suburban punks and nebbishy innocents like myself. As soon as The Flirts started singing Jukebox, several members of the audience threw dimes at the singers. While I look back at this now, and see that it was not very polite, at the time I thought that this was Genius. That single event really opened up my brain, getting me psyched to see Bow Wow Wow. The Flirts put up with the dimes, but they only played one more song and left the stage to howls.

Bow Wow Wow hit the stage and I was transfixed, slack-jawed, almost drooling. While some folks who read this might think I was staring at Annabella Lwin, the lead singer, I hardly noticed her at first. No, early-music-geek that I was, drummer David Barbarossa captured my full attention. His kit consisted of the largest toms I had ever seen. They weren't just big, they seemed to have this tube attachment that gave him a monster sound.

Next I noticed Mathew Ashman, who played an enormous white Guild electric (I think), with this proto-punk-meets-Duane Eddy sound. Fantastic. It cut right through me.

Then, and only then, did I notice that Annabella was really cute. I was attracted to women like her for quite some time afterward.

After a few songs, I noticed that some of the kids around me were dancing, but in a way that I'd never seen. They were hopping up and down in place. This was my introduction to the Pogo. Midway through the next tune, I took a risk and started to pogo. This was amazing for me, as I was not a risk-taker of any means. But this was some pure form of happiness for me. This was the moment that I fell in love with the punk culture and became a devotee. I never was a punk, but I wanted to be. Closest I got was to buy a leather jacket in the early 90s.

Lastly, a day or so later, I was in class and Brenda Gordan said "hey" to me. Brenda was a stand-out for me, as she was tough, gritty, a smoker, punkish, aggressive, and incredibly musically savvy. She was someone to be respected and feared at the same time. She predicted that "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell would be a big hit way before any of us had even heard it. Anyway, so we were in Geometry together and she said "hey, Stu", which almost caused me to pee my pants. I summoned my courage and walked over to her, whereupon she asked if it was true, had I gone to the Bow Wow Wow show? When I confirmed this, she smiled slightly, bobbed her head, and said "That's cool." This comment was enough water to my dry ego, it kept me going nigh these many years. Thanks Brenda, and thanks to Mike for inviting me.