"What was unique about the Nuns
is that we weren't a band. We didn't start out as a band, so we never were
in that band mold. Alejandro Escovedro and I were doing a film about a loser.
He was like a leading character, and a total fuckup, a total loser. We decided
to be the band for him since we didn't have the money to pay anybody else
to be the band. We wrote some songs, you know, like, 'Decadent Jew,' and
stuff like that. We decided, hey, this is pretty good."
Jeff Olener
"I heard that Blondie was playing the Mabuhay
so I went to see them. Crime was the opening band. I went there to see this
Crime thing because I read about them in Rock Scene magazine. I thought
they looked real cool and they were different, so we went to the Mabuhay.
I could not believe what I saw. I mean, here was this band trashing shit,
out of tune, they were horrible. Me and John were laughing but they were
popular with the crowd. It was this new realm of lets-be-trashy-and-obnoxious-and-get-away-with-it."
Brittley Black
1977 was a year with a lot of activity on the local scene. The
Mabuhay was hot and bands were coming from all over to play there. Blondie,
the Damned, Ramones, and Devo, among others. New bands were being formed all
the time: The place was packed almost every night with people coming to see
what all the excitement was about. Punk and the Mabuhay became overnight sensations.
"Me and Tim Mooney used to see Ricky Williams walking up and
down University Avenue in Palo Alto. He was out of place there. He always
looked like a singer to me, so one day I asked him if he would be interested
in getting together with Tim and I to sing. He just flat said, 'No, I'm a
drummer.' A month or so later I ran into him and he wanted me to come and
play with him over at Paul Draper's house. He had not only been playing with
Crime at the time, but he had been jamming with Paul, who played bass. So
I went over to their apartment and we played. The cops came over and tried
to bust us because we were playing in this apartment in Redwood City. I thought
what they were doing was kind of interesting. I really wanted to get Tim Mooney
involved and I wanted to convince Ricky to sing. He decided to give it a shot
but he was so nervous about singing he had to take a lot of Quaalludes and
get drunk in order to sing. He sounded really bad. Tim and I got fed up and
we quit trying to do anything with him. A couple of months later he called
and said, 'Let's try doing it again.' This time, we rented some time in a
rehearsal studio in San Jose. Things just clicked right away and we didn't
have the problems we had before. Ricky stopped getting really fucked up and
we just started writing songs. We were able to write a lot of material in
a few months.
"I remember Ricky playing me a record that he did with Crime.
It was the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. I thought, if these guys
could make a record, then we're ready to play in the City. We came up and
got booked at the Mabuhay Christmas night, 1977, and that was our first gig."
Michael Belfer
PUNK HOME
The Nuns and Crime were formed before the word punk denoted
a particular type of music. When people saw them in the early days, may realized
that there was something different about them, and that a fresh energy had
been infused into the dying musical expression know as rock 'n roll. It was
the beginning of the rebirth of the club scene. The Nuns and Crime represented
an older group of people who were bored with the status quo represented by
the established order. The Avengers and other bands that followed were presented
with a opportunity to express their ideas through punk. They were the first
of many bands who thought of themselves as punks and part of a new generation
of rebellious youth.
