Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.BZ

Well, there... - Cover songs.

There's bands that wanna do...

There's bands that are are very successful

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.BZ

economically, and they get popular appeal by

learning how to sound like what people want to hear,

what they expect to hear when they go to hear a band,

and they get good at that.

And they go a long way some of them, and, uh,

we've... that hasn't ever sat well with us.

First of all, we wouldn't have had the ability to do it.

We couldn't have started that.

We couldn't have formed a group to sound like anybody

because we didn't have the technique.

- Yeah.

We pretty much all learned how to play together.

- We never wanted to sound like anybody else

or copy styles or anything.

It was mostly wanting to do something original.

- [Announcer] Fantasy Island.

- [Man] Amazing.

- It's pure boneless breast.

(ominous orchestral music)

- They're like huge seed pods.

- We're gonna find out.

(audience applauding)

- Now, there's nothing I enjoy more

than a little country humor.

One of the great things about having you here is that

I get to tell a farm joke.

Now, first I need a setting, but

Rick, you're from Kansas, right?

- [Rick] You bet.

- OK, this takes place in Kansas.

♪ Where troubles melt like lemon drops ♪

(rock music)

♪ I felt ridiculous ♪

♪ It was destructive ♪

♪ Disco dance steps ♪

♪ Made so instructive ♪

♪ I learned to freestyle ♪

♪ 'Til I was dizzy, disco dance steps ♪

♪ Made so easy ♪

♪ I tried them out on the patterned dance floor, and got- ♪

(door slam)

(insect noises)

- The Embarrassment rose out of nowhere,

like a tall, beautiful sunflower

in the great state of Kansas, OK?

They came from corn, wheat, and

shitty, fucking parking lots

in the middle of nowhere in Wichita.

(light orchestral music)

- [Announcer] Wichita, Kansas,

Center City USA.

People who live in Wichita are in the center of things,

practically the geographic center of the United States.

- We were of the age where,

we wanted to be able to go out

and enjoy live music in Wichita.

There was nowhere that we could go to hear

anything that we liked,

unless we learned how to do it ourselves.

- In order to have something exciting,

we had to create it.

If it were a community of painters, we created that,

created a building called the Flatiron Building,

and The Embarrassment moved in

and rehearsed on the first floor.

And we all had studios upstairs where we could paint.

- It had previously been a bank,

actually had a walk in vault

where we would put all the equipment,

and we'd just roll it in and roll it out.

The train tracks ran right along the back of the building,

so it was actually big enough

that we could party or whatever.

And so if we felt like it, we could play there for people.

- [Man] I love you Wichita.

(punk music)

♪ What he does is really good, nuance, seance ♪

♪ His fiancée, easy for you to say ♪

♪ Doctor, what do you think this is ♪

♪ An artistic party ♪

♪ Narcissistic party ♪

♪ Artistic party ♪

(laughing)

♪ She has a book on the subject a beer in her hand ♪

♪ I believe I've walked into a party ♪

- The Embarrassment,

I don't think they fit into any kind of category.

There weren't any other bands

that sounded anything like them.

They had their own thing going and they did it perfectly.

They had a very clear view of what they were trying to do.

You could hear it in their music.

There was something not quite,

not totally normal punk about them.

It was more like fun, satirical, like a little smarter.

♪ Excuse me, is this the Age of Reason ♪

♪ Well he's in a matted frame of mind ♪

♪ Don't look at his work, watch his head swell ♪

♪ Artistic party ♪

- The inventiveness of it, and the comedy.

What kind of music is it, even?

It's not country, is it?

- It's like propulsive, danceable, janky, angular,

goof rock, I don't know.

What do you say?

Some of their stuff really does seem almost like

deconstructionist music, you know what I mean?

Like it's all been taken apart and reassembled.

- What the Embos did kind of was take this art punk thing

that had happened in England and New York,

not adopt the accents,

not adopt any of that kinda jazz.

They just did it like they were Kansans.

♪ I believe I'm at a party ♪

♪ Artistic party ♪

- I mean, they're so much better than R.E.M., you know,

or just other bands that went on to bigger fame.

They were so much better than Hüsker Dü.

- We were in parts of the country

that were not perceived at all to be culturally significant.

The Embarrassment was more in the center of the country.

Which way do you go when you're in the center?

- I don't know what God was thinking

when he got the four of those guys together,

but I'm really glad that he did.

♪ There goes Don Ameche ♪

And still to this day,

I can't really believe that this was happening

in that time, and in that place.

♪ What a party! ♪

♪ Don Ameche! ♪

- My one relic, my one relic from The Embarrassment.

I think I have, well, anyhow, what this is is,

this is the ticket to their reunion show

on New Year's Eve, would've been 1985.

Kept this in a drawer in my bedroom all these years.

I just found it.

For us, The Embarrassment

was a really, really, really big part of who we were

and how we thought about the world.

That seems like a crazy thing to say now.

I mean, it's just a rock band, right?

- Issued union number, you poseur.

♪ Look out ♪

- What happened in America in the early 1980s,

it was this incredible flowering.

And it was the flowering for my generation.

When I think about avant gardes, and I think of, you know,

about why people care about music and stuff like that,

I always think of that moment.

It was incredibly meaningful for us

who were sort of the fans,

the consumers, the followers, of these bands.

♪ Got to feel it now ♪

♪ Got to feel it now ♪

- The kind of thing that, it doesn't happen very often.

(lyrics muffled)

But it did happen, and we were all there

and we saw it happen.

And what allowed it to happen

was that smashing down of the barriers

that punk rock made possible.

So Kansas is statistically very average.

Test marketers love Kansas.

They're forever introducing new products here,

because we're supposed to be

the most average people in America.

It's like all the cultural runoff of the decades,

of all the pop culture of recent decades,

it flows downhill to the center of the country, Wichita,

and then it just collects there

and it never really evaporates.

And we're just sort of bathing in it here at all times.

We consume, we don't produce.

We sit in front of our TVs, and we absorb.

I don't think The Embarrassment

could have happened in any other way.

I think about this all the time.

Their music is about this experience of living in Kansas

and being on the receiving end of culture,

and watching it go by.

These sort of brilliant songs

about ordinary life in a place like Wichita.

(light orchestral music)

(crowd talking)

- Here's some stuff for you people

who weren't here earlier this evening.

(crowd talking)

(drumming)

- What was that? - Death Travels West.

- [Interviewer] Awesome.

Go man, go.

- Go man, go.

- [Interviewer] That was awesome, all right.

- I think that was it.

- [Interviewer] All right.

Well, can you play Sex Drive?

Can you even play Sex Drive?

- Can I even play Sex Drive?

(interviewer laughing)

I don't know, man. How was that? Was it...

I don't know man, I don't know how it goes.

- Nice place you got here.

- Thanks. It's OK?

- Yeah, I like this.

- So this is your new music room, huh?

- This is my family room.

- It's not really a basement.

- Bill Goffrier, he's my oldest friend in the world.

We met in a sandbox in my backyard.

I was six, he was seven.

(acoustic guitar music)

- Third graders and a second grader.

I don't know what sort of conversation

might have taken place then.

I think one of us had a plastic mummy

that looked just like the mummy

from the old Universal movies

one arm up and very realistic.

And we wanted to bury him in the sandbox

and then have him come to life, just like in the movies.

- [Brent] So I got right into that,

because I was a huge classic monster fan.

And then he invited us into his house,

to kind show off some things.

- [Bill] He had a pink elephant stuffed toy

that was in the room.

- [Brent] He grabbed my grandmother's ukulele,

and we wrote our first song called, My Pink Elephant.

- We looked at that and thought, OK,

there's a lot of potential there.

Pink elephant, you got different layers of meaning.

You know, what does the pink elephant symbolize?

His bedroom, he shared with his older brother,

he had a multi-piece drum set set up in the bedroom.

Very prominently displayed on the drum head

was this painted alien monster character.

And then the name of the band,

like a logo was The Moon Children.

- I was always there when my brother played the drums.

I would hold his bass drum in place,

'cause he was a hard-kickin' drummer.

So I learned a lot from watching him play.

When he would leave the house,

I would go jump on his drum set,

never realizing the drum set

was actually set up backwards, left handed.

So, I realized years later

that I was playing those drums backwards.

(schmaltzy guitar music)

- Well, my dad had been raised in a family

that was very musical.

He played Hawaiian guitar.

I discovered his Gibson guitar in its case when I was a kid

before I ever had my own guitar.

And I just thought it was this

beautiful, mysterious instrument,

the smell of it in this old case that you'd open up

with the velvet lining and these really heavy slide bars.

And I would pretend to know how to play it.

So I could say, yeah,

my dad had this Gibson electric guitar,

but he never showed me anything about playing it.

- [Announcer] Wichita has a proud past,

a heritage of stability and solid values.

- The Goffriers ended up moving into an apartment complex.

All the apartments would surround a courtyard.

And it turns out Brent

lived right across the courtyard then.

- Bill and I were living in this apartment complex,

and the new kid showed up, and it was John.

- Going to school with Bill and Brent.

We all had good passing grades.

And I just remember a really happy time as a kid.

I really enjoyed my childhood.

- [Bill] He showed up with his, like carrying around

this queer little plastic trumpet case or something.

- [Brent] That's right.

We made fun of him.

- He wore his horn rimmed glasses.

- [Brent] Who's the new kid with the horn?

- [Bill] Who's this guy? - [Brent] Let's beat him up.

- He's learning to play the trumpet.

- It was just the perfect match.

We were all geeky guys looking for something to do.

♪ I take my neck and twist it ♪

♪ I'm frightened by the sound of wasps ♪

♪ I guess I got stung once ♪

♪ It's an ever present danger ♪

(audience cheering)

(static)

- Roots?

- Roots.

- Soul records, Black soul.

Good authentic stuff.

- We have a hard time when somebody

wants us to describe the music.

We avoid it by telling 'em well,

we wrote it and it doesn't sound like much anything else,

'cause if we tell 'em what bands we think we sound like,

they're bands that most people haven't heard of.

(rock music)

- We had a big open field to go explore

and wander around and get into trouble, shoot BB guns.

And after school we could go hang out

at John Nichols' apartment,

'cause we had all the freedom then.

We could go, just the three of us,

hang out over there with no adult supervision whatsoever.

And we had this nice space to just put on records.

(rock music)

- My brother,

he turned us on to some pretty cool music.

He was kind of an upset guy

and he actually blew his brains out

with a shotgun,

not a good thing.

And he left us one hell of a record collection.

(rock music)

I remember he used to say never touch my records, man.

Well, after he was gone, Bill and I went crazy,

and we discovered like Bowie, Bob Dylan,

and Mott the Hoople.

- Actually, it was your brother

that knew about Alice Cooper.

(rock music)

That turned out to be my first real rock concert.

It was amazing.

I wanted to start learning to play Alice Cooper

songs on guitar then,

just trying to learn that whole riff to I'm Eighteen.

♪ I'm 18, I gotta get away ♪

- Did you come down to my basement,

see all the flashing lights hooked up to the speakers?

So you'd have this psychedelic light show

and black light posters of Alice Cooper.

You'd just, man...

I didn't even need drugs for it.

It was just the music just took me away.

That was my escape.

(rock music)

- As things got more refined with my taste,

in high school, got interested in The Velvet Underground.

And you know, I had that White Light/White Heat album.

It was really raw.

I found some correlation with

Jonathan Richmond and Modern Lovers,

was coming out about then.

♪ I'm a little airplane, yow yow, waggity wag, waggity wag ♪

♪ I'm a little airplane, yow ♪

- And I think that really piqued my interest in,

hey, I think I could do this.

(rock music)

- It was in high school

that we finally got to go see

David Bowie together in St. Louis.

♪ Up every evening 'bout ♪

♪ Half eight or nine ♪

♪ I give my complete attention ♪

♪ To a very good friend of mine ♪

♪ He's quadraphonic ♪

♪ He's got more channels ♪

(car horns honking)

- [Man in car] What's goin' on?

- [Reporter] You guys dragging Douglas?

- You bet we're dragging Douglas.

(classic rock music)

- There is a strip in Sex Drive avenue in Wichita, Kansas.

It's called Douglas.

(screaming)

The main drag.

And on a Friday or Saturday night, if you had a car,

you drive up and down.

- [Bill] You just sit in the traffic.

- You just sit in traffic and look at each other.

That's what people do on on Friday or Saturday night.

- [Reporter] Why do you guys like to do this?

- No, we don't.

- There's not anything else to do.

- It's boring in Wichita.

- You know, at the time,

if I ever heard the song Stairway to Heaven,

I would go berserk,

'cause that was the classic rock song

that was pushed down our throats.

You know, Boston,

REO Speedwagon,

over and over and over, and the same damn song.

- [Announcer] Most of the people who live in Wichita

were born here.

Wichita is their town.

They feel very much a part of it.

- We grew up in this really conservative

Christian kind of cowboy thing,

where

if you didn't look and walk like them, then,

you'd have to be careful 'cause they'd come after you.

I mean the trauma of seeing people driving down the street

in these pickup trucks with 10 gallon cowboy hats

and cowboy boots and gun racks in the back of their car,

it was an awful and frightening kind of environment for me.

I lost my eyebrow to a cowboy.

Had to have my face stitched back up.

I think I grew up in fear,

fear that everyone I knew was gonna grow up,

graduate from high school

and go work for an aircraft company.

And it was just something that I couldn't do.

And I think that's why I really embraced

and really appreciated my friends Bill and John,

is because that was not gonna happen to us.

♪ The hammer of the gods ♪

♪ Will drive our ships to new lands ♪

♪ To fight the horde, singing and crying ♪

♪ Valhalla, I am coming! ♪

♪ On we sweep with threshing oar ♪

♪ Our only goal will be the western shore ♪

♪ Ah, ah ♪

(audience hooting)

- It is a song. (feedback)

about a song, the Immigrant Song.

- [Audience Member] How 'bout some feedback?

(wind blowing)

- Well, there was a snowstorm underway,

so it was dangerous driving,

but we were crawling down the interstate in blinding snow,

in fear for our lives.

But we were determined to make it,

because we were gonna see the sex pistols.

We needed that injection of real punk rock.

(foreboding music)

We were the only ones in front of Cain's Ballroom

when the Anarchy bus pulled up

and they one by one piled out of the bus.

Sid Vicious

with the spiky hair, he was like a superhero character.

Johnny Rotten didn't want to have anything to do with us,

sneering at us and going inside the club,

and oh, OK, well that's punk rock, that's fine.

(shouting)

The noise level of it, the rawness, to witness it like that,

to see the power of it on stage,

we were more determined than ever after that

to play whatever music we could play.

(shouting)

- We were determined to play music and be artists

in a town where there just wasn't a whole lot of that.

(tires squealing)

- There was a record store here in town

called Poverty Records.

It was a used record store.

I was in there one day and on their bulletin board

they had a little card for looking for band members,

and said, influences were Bowie, Stooges, Velvets,

Sex Pistols like, oh, what's this?

- And Jim Rosencutter answered the ad.

♪ White light ♪

And he was into things like the Dictators,

and like the New York Dolls.

- Started as The Mainliners.

Jim Rosencutter was the singer at that time.

I played bass.

♪ White light ♪

Bill was guitar.

Brent was drumming.

- I had no idea what mainlining even meant at the time.

It's funny, because now I'm a drug and alcohol counselor.

But for some reason it kind of fizzled out.

(rock music)

- We'd gone to the zoo in St. Louis

as something to do during the day.

(Lemurs shrieking)

They had this huge lemur exhibit.

It was the loudest thing at the zoo.

They were, you know, screaming.

And then we read the little plaque and it's like,

this is the lowest order of monkeys.

And we thought, oh, well that's cool, let's be The Lemurs.

(punk music)

(lyrics muffled)

- I guess I saw a poster hanging around the art department,

The Lemurs, and I was starting to hear about punk rock,

you know, reading and stuff.

So I thought I'd go see The Lemurs, right?

They're down in a little room

in the student union at the university.

(punk music)

It was pretty cool, man.

They rocked hard.

Bart Ewonus was the singer, total punk,

you know, just rude as could be.

(lyrics muffled)

I guess I still had kinda long hair and stuff, you know?

So he starts working on me.

Eventually I throw a pitcher of beer at him

and start a whole fight down there.

And wasn't like a full out brawl,

but it kind of triggered everybody,

and it got pretty wild.

Bart really liked that.

(screaming, lyrics muffled)

- Well, Bart really couldn't sing.

- Bart was of course interested in music as much as we were.

And he would've been a great rapper,

but he couldn't sing for nothing.

The Lemurs was the perfect name.

He was just screaming away.

(lyrics muffled)

- I loved Bart dearly, but he just,

he didn't have what we were looking for.

And so we kind of had to let it go.

- We were just a trio.

♪ Now I wanna be your dog ♪

♪ Now I wanna be your dog ♪

♪ Now I wanna be your dog ♪

- And I think that that's when I met Ron.

- So I think, you know,

the next day or two Brent was in my class.

- [Brent] I was in a pottery class, I was spinning a pot.

- Was talking to him about his band,

how I thought it was all pretty cool and stuff.

- And someone said, hey man,

I heard you guys were playing around town, and I said.

- He's like, yeah, that's all done.

The Lemurs broke up, you know,

but we're working on a new band,

but we need a bass player.

- Voice from across the room, said.

- Hey, you know, I play bass.

- And it was like, well, what are you doing tonight?

(slow rock music)

- I'm from Iowa,

town of five hundred out in the middle of the corn fields.

One school in town.

So everybody was together from first grade to twelfth grade.

So you knew everybody really well.

(harmonica music)

I was a wild kid, I was a bad seed, you know.

I just couldn't wait to break out of my small town

and get out.

I'd taken bass lessons in high school, you know,

on the upright bass.

In junior college took my bass with me

and nothing happened, you know.

After two years of junior college,

just like this isn't for me right now.

I gotta go do something.

So me and a friend of mine

took off traveling around the country.

(classic rock music)

We went out to Arizona and New Mexico and looked around.

Then that was in like '75, but there just wasn't any work.

It was kind of a recession going on then.

And we came back to Wichita, this is the Air Capital.

And the aircraft business seemed to be stable,

so came back here and got a job.

After a while I decided I'd go back to college,

so I started going to Wichita State,

and then discovered ceramics

out there at the ceramics department.

Throwing clay and stuff just really came naturally to me.

I was making art, but really using my hands.

- I think Bill and Brent wanted to do something without me,

playing bass, at any rate, 'cause I was really horrible.

Ron, he was invited by Bill and Brent

to be part of The Spontanes.

(punk music)

(lyrics muffled)

- It was just as much hanging out as it was practicing.

- We wrote a lot of songs as The Spontanes.

John was outta the picture.

This reached a point where we could no longer grow,

and we couldn't express our music as a trio anymore.

We needed someone else just to sing,

and I would go back to just playing guitar.

Meanwhile, people had picked up on John

singing in the shower.

People coming and going in his apartment

had all sort of shared this common experience

that they'd heard him singing to himself.

And he sounded good.

(electric guitar tuning, feedback)

- We got together and played and wrote a bunch of songs,

and we had to do a radio show

and we had to come up with a name.

The whole rehearsal was built around playing songs

and then stopping a song and saying,

what are we gonna call ourselves?

- I think it actually came down to two, neck and neck,

one of these two names,

either The Elastic Waistband,

and oh, what, just what if we had gone with that,

or The Embarrassment?

(fast-paced punk music)

- The expectation is there.

- If they think we horrible, you just say, hey,

we're The Embarrassment.

♪ I got a souvenir (indistinct) ♪

♪ Yes I did, I bought in a bookstore ♪

(lyrics muffled)

♪ But the pictures I have are in color ♪

♪ But the pictures I have are in color ♪

- We were all learning how to play

while we were writing songs.

I think that is punk rock

is you didn't have to be a talented musician to write songs.

You could knock it out with two chords.

You could write something relevant to yourselves,

as long as you could keep up the beat and hit the changes.

You know, you had a song.

- At the time, we thought everything's gotta be

pounding.

♪ Oh, people, people, people ♪

♪ You don't know how much I hurt, two three four ♪

♪ Valerie works in the old folks home, yeah ♪

♪ But wishes she was anywhere but Oklahoma ♪

- Didn't feel bad about having all the right moves

as a frontman.

Just, I'm gonna do my best.

- John, who was this shy, glasses-wearing guy,

you would never pick out of a crowd,

suddenly had this charisma.

And it was from this like complete transformation.

He would step onto the stage and he was focused.

And you know,

the songs that they wrote as a group

suddenly were like funny and had these twists on things.

It was so amazing.

- Song for Val was about friend of ours

working in a retirement home in Oklahoma.

That was called Song for Val.

- The musical ideas came about through constant jamming.

- Lots of analysis on how we put these songs together,

as things progressed for us as a band.

- I could do something more with the bass

and still keep it in context of the song.

Just didn't have to continually hammer out on one note,

sixteenth notes, you know.

- The drums needed to lay the foundation,

and only the foundation.

But you know, I always had Goffrier

telling me to play more, play more, play more.

- [Jonathan] Bill was always, I thought of him

as kind of the architect of their sound.

He was doing these amazing things with a guitar.

We made fun of him for being sort of very serious about it.

And he looked like one of these guys from Kraftwerk,

and he was like the German scientist.

- It's extraordinary, it's amazing

what he was able to do with the guitar.

(punk music) (lyrics muffled)

The sort of tension and release,

the tension and then the resolution.

(punk music)

That's how music is supposed to work, right?

That's Wagner, right?

That's what it's supposed to do.

- John was pretty much always the word man.

You know, I think the music was always collaborative.

If he had an idea, me and Bill would take off with it

and John's lyrics were always something, hilarious stuff.

- Never, never had written anything,

but trying to draw upon what was happening

with me at the time,

and what I thought would be relative to other people too.

But, and some of it was just really crap.

(punk music)

(singing in foreign language)

- Berliner's Night Out was one of the early songs

and it was just a grasping for straws with that one.

It was all just conversational German.

(singing in foreign language)

(fast-paced punk music)

(tires screeching)

There was this funny liquor rule in Wichita.

When you were 18, you could drink beer,

so there were bars that just served just beer,

but it was 3.2, it was watered down.

And this place called the Cedar Lounge,

I think it's called the Cedar Tavern now,

was where they hung out.

And our friend Alice worked there as a bartender.

- Just a lot of dancing and drinking and smoking

and having fun.

- And I think soon after she started working there,

The Embarrassment started playing there,

just sort of in the front window. (audience chatting)

(punk music)

♪ We can double your lifespan ♪

- When they first started,

there were maybe fifty hipster kids in the whole damn town,

and we all knew each other by name,

and we'd all fit into the Cedar Lounge.

And that was the only place really that you could go.

- When we knew they were gonna play at the Cedar,

it was like the greatest thing ever.

I think we all felt so lucky to have them around.

♪ All other hobbies, ignore them ♪

♪ It's all that we do ♪

(flashbulb sounds)

- I was there the night that Ron Klaus wrecked his house.

(flashbulb sound)

(punk music, glass breaking)

Ron found out that he was getting kicked out of this house,

this old Victorian.

- His landlord comes to him and says, well, Ron,

you're gonna have to move,

because I'm gonna tear this house down

and put in a parking lot.

- I wasn't aware of any problem.

Of course, well, we were practicing in there.

I'd been at a house-wrecking party back in Iowa, you know,

a farmhouse has to come down

to make room for more crops or whatever.

- The word was out, don't miss this one.

There's gonna be three bands and plenty of beer,

and bring a sledgehammer.

(punk music)

- Started spreading the word,

we're gonna have a house-wrecking party.

- We're just gonna like kick the shit out of this house.

- [Alice] We're gonna have a party

and we're gonna wreck the house.

And we're like doing him a favor.

- And man people showed up. (laughing)

(glass breaking)

(furniture breaking)

- People were showing up with tools and stuff like that,

people we didn't even know.

- Some of 'em were professional salvagers and others were

hell-bent on destruction.

(laughing)

The walls were spray painted, the plaster was broken.

- Glass shattering.

- Please don't set the basement on fire anymore!

- All right!

When they started the fire in the basement,

that's when we left.

It was like, oh, we're getting outta here.

(rock music)

- [Bud] The music that was playing

was perfect for the occasion.

We got this loud thumping bass noisy music.

- [Ron] There was like holes upstairs,

right through where you could just walk through the wall

out onto the roof of the porch.

People would be throwing shit out,

and then they'd go get it again,

so they could just throw it out again.

(punk music)

- This imagery of, well,

some people were taking the doors off

and throwing them out the windows upstairs,

and then other people were removing the windows

and throwing them out the doors.

- And while it's going on

you'll hear a big crash and that's the porch coming down.

- [Man] I'll take that door!

- [Man] That hit me in the arm!

- [Jim] So I'm standing there with a cigarette

and a beer.

These two cops in a cop car pull up.

And they're like, well what's going on here?

- I'm like, oh, it's cool.

They got permission to do this, and they're like OK,

and drive off.

- I didn't do anything, OK?

I was only playing music.

Actually. I remember swinging a sledgehammer.

It wasn't as much fun as I hoped it would be.

(punk music)

- [Alice] The next morning on the front page of the paper,

there's a picture of the house.

And then the headline is about

that they had no idea who had done this.

- The tenant was, you know,

on the lam and they couldn't find Ron.

And I guess apparently he went to turn himself in,

and they're expecting this big biker dude.

And it was just Ronnie.

- I'm hanging out down the police station.

It was like, can I help you?

Yeah, I'm the guy, I'm the house wrecker.

(punk music)

- [Ron] The landlord was making up stories.

How he was gonna improve the property

and bring in real good tenants

and all that, and it was like, bullshit.

You told me you wanted me out so you could tear it down

and put it in a parking lot.

- [Bud] You know, kids say, oh yeah, at a party last night,

we tore the house down.

And I always tell 'em, nah.

I went to a party where we tore the house down.

(flashbulb sound)

- There was a pounding on my door.

I opened it, there's John Nichols.

He's got a contract from Bomp for a record,

a compilation of garage bands.

I lived across the street from John

and I worked in a law firm,

and somebody told John I was a lawyer, which I wasn't,

but I nevertheless rendered

an amateur legal opinion on the contract with Bomp.

So he asked me to look at it, tell him what it means.

It means that the band is going to surrender

one of their songs to Bomp records for the rest of its life.

They might see a little money, but not much,

but it's great exposure, quote-unquote, exposure.

And that's how I got involved with the band.

♪ About the things that you say ♪

- I liked John right away.

He was funny and had a wry sense of humor,

and was interesting to talk to,

and had a little whiff of sarcasm about him

that resonated with me.

They were all amusing and creative.

And what was I doing at the time?

I'd been doing as little as was humanly possible.

And I was unemployed, largely, self-employed.

I'd do painting, carpentry, odds and ends.

Sell pot.

You know, your standard

pursuits.

No, I'd never managed a band. (laughing)

But I asked 'em what they wanted to do.

And they said, well,

we wanna be rock and roll guys.

We want to have a band that goes out and plays,

and plays someplace besides Wichita.

And make some records, we've got this music.

And so I said, well, let's see what we can do.

It was my idea to be a do-it-yourself band,

that they could in fact do a lot of these things themselves.

I'm not sure they really wanted to escape Wichita

as much as they wanted to escape a dull life.

- I was back from Nashville,

and I was looking for anybody who would let me record them.

My recollection is that this quirky little band

called The Embarrassment was at the vanguard,

they were on the cutting edge, taking a lot of risks.

So they trusted me to take them in the recording studio

and throw up a few mics, and the red light went on

and they just started, they just went.

(punk music)

It was actually quite surprising,

the amount of raw energy that just came through

those microphones and onto the tape.

(punk music)

- Embarrassment didn't overdub, what they did was perform.

(punk music)

- This sort of all time, great song, Sex Drive.

It's so good.

And then, what are the first words?

"Scott's Trans Am has the windows down." (laughing)

It's about a guy driving in his car.

♪ Scott's Trans Am had the windows down ♪

♪ But he's in a jam when the girls around ♪

♪ He yells hey, get outta my way ♪

♪ I haven't had any sex all day ♪

- And the whole thing is a joke on this phrase, sex drive,

which is it's about like, no,

it's about like guys driving in their cars, you know,

thinking about sex.

(punk music)

♪ Stops at the curb and he opens the hood ♪

- [John] Sex Drive, I did the lyrics on that one.

Did they tell you what,

how we ripped off the melody on that?

It was from

Jesus Christ Superstar.

I Don't Know How to Love Him.

♪ I don't know how to love him ♪

♪ I'm goin' on a sex drive ♪

♪ I'm goin' on a sex drive ♪

♪ Sex drive ♪

♪ Sex drive ♪

(punk music)

- The thing that really interested me the most

was its originality,

and its sort of intense, obtuse take on life

and on the world as it was in Wichita,

but they were outside that, and they knew that,

and they wanted to be outside of it.

And they were strenuous in their efforts

to remain outside of it,

and to comment on it in humorous ways.

How many bands do you know

have written a song about a set of patio furniture?

(punk music)

♪ You had nothing to say, no, nothing to say ♪

♪ You were speechless completely and had nothing to say ♪

♪ No look in your eye ♪

♪ In your eye ♪

♪ It was our umpteenth affair ♪

♪ Our umpteenth affair, I lost count of our affairs ♪

♪ So many affairs, you and I ♪

♪ You and I ♪

♪ You were my favorite lawn chair ♪

♪ My only lawn chair ♪

♪ My favorite lawn chair ♪

♪ With those skinny legs ♪

- [Jim] They just kind of exploded.

I mean, it's like they just went

from this OK band to this,

just got incredible overnight.

- Brent Giessmann, mind-blowingly good drummer.

- [Bud] They just kept getting better.

♪ Sat in the corner like a patio set ♪

♪ A table between us, two drinks on it ♪

- [Everyone sort of realized that wow,

these guys are really good,

not just good for us.

- People got the signals and started contacting us,

from the information on the sleeve.

So you know, was trying to expand our horizons,

get more gigs, play to more people.

Now we had the record,

next step world domination, you know?

(punk music)

We started to branch out from just playing in Wichita,

playing in Lawrence, and we would play Kansas City.

And then we started venturing south,

playing Oklahoma and Texas.

- Went to see the Hodads,

and they were opening for this band we'd never heard of,

called The Embarrassment.

♪ Talked about life from outer space ♪

♪ You took out the trash, did you see his face ♪

- And within forty seconds of The Embarrassment

taking the stage,

everybody in the room is just flailing like insane,

I mean it was the most insistent injection of energy

I've ever, it was unbelievable.

♪ Pretend you don't know ♪

♪ If you want me to smile, but don't expect it ♪

- They were billed originally as a punk band,

but it rapidly became clear

that they were much more than a punk band.

They were really a very intelligent, articulate

group of guys, all of them wearing glasses.

They looked more like nerds than they did punks,

but their music had a punk attitude.

- We like to mess with poking fun at ourselves.

And that would be a way of poking

some of the artsy people too.

They'd have to try to figure out if John looked cool.

Wait, does he look ridiculous?

♪ I'm only here to spread the word ♪

- Oh my God, what is he doing?

What's that move on stage?

Is he supposed to look like,

is he really touching himself there?

(audience cheering)

- It's got the, we wrote 'em,

they're our songs,

and they sound somewhat different from the norm.

- But that's not a descriptive term.

It doesn't describe the music at all.

(punk music)

♪ Scott's Trans Am has the windows down ♪

♪ But he's in a jam when the- ♪

(explosion)

(explosion)

♪ Where can I go ♪

♪ What can I do ♪

♪ Where can I go ♪

♪ What can I do ♪

♪ Where can I go ♪

♪ What can I do ♪

♪ Where can I go ♪

♪ What can I do ♪

♪ Where can I go ♪

♪ What can I do (explosion) ♪

- We put our songs together in different fashions.

Sometimes you'd have just a little segment of a melody

or a guitar progression.

- We would play it and play it and beat it until it worked.

And some of our best stuff came out of that.

Sometimes it would be Bill and John getting together

and writing Celebrity Art Party.

♪ [Bill] What he does is really good nuance seance ♪

♪ his fiancée ♪

- [John] She has a book on the subject,

of beer in her hand.

I think I've walked into a celebrity art party.

- The articulation was not direct,

but poetic in some way.

If there was a kind of a watershed event in their recording,

it was going from a single to the EP.

(punk music)

♪ What he does is really good, nuance seance ♪

♪ His fiancée, easy for you to say doctor ♪

♪ What do you think this is ♪

♪ An artistic party ♪

♪ Narcissistic party ♪

- This guy, Mike McGee in Oklahoma City, Sooner Sound Lab.

He was an engineer there during the day, and at night

did things like record The Embarrassment.

♪ Hey, is everything all right ♪

♪ What's the matter ♪

♪ What's the matter, Mike ♪

♪ Is everything all right ♪

- [Dan] He was the first person to record them who saw

this ability to be both lyrical

and really musically powerful.

♪ She has a book on subject of beer in her hand ♪

♪ I believe I've walked into a party ♪

♪ Artistic party ♪

- When they came back from Oklahoma with the tapes

from the EP, and hearing that, I mean, it was like, wow,

it was just amazing

how big of a sound they had and how complete it was.

♪ One two three four ♪

(punk music)

♪ Everyone has ♪

♪ I fell for a girl (everyone has) ♪

♪ Became her boyfriend ♪

♪ I had her crying (everyone has) ♪

♪ For some romantic sounds ♪

- One of our instructors out at ASU

did the cover art for us.

He was an artist of some reputation.

It was fairly obscene, so that got a lot of notoriety.

What are those dicks on there or what, you know?

It's like, yeah, it's pretty phallic, you know?

♪ I'm a Don Juan ♪

♪ I'm a Don Juan ♪

♪ I'm a Don Juan ♪

♪ I'm a Don Juan ♪

♪ I'm a Don Juan ♪

♪ I fell for a girl (everyone has) ♪

♪ Became her boyfriend ♪

(birds chirping)

- All of our trips to Lawrence and Kansas City,

we'd drive through Wellsville.

And it was a little spot on the map.

♪ Driving fast down the road ♪

♪ On the highway ♪

♪ I guess so ♪

♪ We stopped just past the Flint Hills ♪

♪ There's a sign ♪

♪ It was Wellsville ♪

- I think Wellsville is the song that first showed me

what kind of writers they were,

what kind of sound they were trying to achieve.

And, it made me realize that

how plain spoken they were.

But again, their simple behavior

kind of belied

their depth.

♪ Met a country man willing to lend a hand ♪

♪ Fix the car ♪

♪ Run the land ♪

- Met a county man, lend a hand, what's he say?

Fix the car, run the land.

It's meeting this pure Kansas salt of the earth human being

in this beautiful town.

And even though The Embarrassment themselves say

we pass on by, it's a pass by life.

They're conceding that they don't have time

to necessarily get into the world of this man.

♪ Pass by life, pass it by ♪

♪ Pass by Wellsville ♪

♪ Pass by life, pass it by ♪

♪ Pass by Wellsville ♪

- Whatever we were reading, if it seemed really cool,

like, wow, this was a neat thing to discover.

Let's write a song about that.

- Dino in the Congo seems to be about

a bunch of guys hunting for a dinosaur.

♪ Red light! Prehistoric world! ♪

- Bill was quite a writer.

Bill probably thought that John did a lot of the lyrics,

but Bill wrote Elizabeth Montgomery's Face

after a dream he had.

♪ And when I slept it was there ♪

♪ I could feel it in the sheets ♪

♪ It was there ♪

♪ They say it's going to fall off ♪

♪ It's her last week on TV ♪

♪ In just ten years, she fell from grace ♪

♪ It's Elizabeth Montgomery's face ♪

♪ Elizabeth Montgomery's face ♪

♪ Elizabeth Montgomery's face ♪

- The songs were written in a way that invite revisitation.

It tends to build up like a three-act or a five-act play.

There are these old twists, both musically and lyrically.

Sometimes there's like a story under a couple layers.

- Who's writing punk songs about Godfrey Harold Hardy?

♪ I'm Godfrey Harold Hardy ♪

- Take your history and like it.

- I was attending school at Wichita State University

and I was in the mathematics building.

I came across Albert Einstein's brain.

Albert Einstein's brain ended up in Wichita, Kansas.

It was smuggled there in a beer keg cooler,

not well kept, not well preserved.

And so I saw this enormous brain

sitting in a jar and it kind of spiked my interest

and took me off into some reading.

And I read about Godfrey Harold Hardy.

You know, the lyrics just kind of popped right out.

I don't think I got all the facts right.

♪ What to think of these fantastic men ♪

♪ Counting up to the powers of ten ♪

♪ What to think of these fantastic men ♪

- [Band Member] Yeah!

- [Band Member] Yeah.

- [Band Members] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah! (laughing)

- [Band Members] What'll we have today? What's today?

- [Band Member] Lawrence.

- We decided that we're on a crusade.

Somebody hand me the Percodan. (laughing)

♪ Snakes in the kitchen ♪

♪ Snakes in the garden ♪

- Lawrence is a real culturally aware place.

It's pretty liberal in its lifestyle.

It's real diverse in its people.

Every kind of person you can imagine is in Lawrence

which is strage for Kansas, you know.

♪ Tammy's not the same girl she used to be ♪

- I know Wichita is the birthplace,

and I know they'll forever be known as a Wichita band,

but Lawrence, Kansas, is where The Embarrassment thrived.

It all happened here in Lawrence.

♪ Boys in the bedroom ♪

♪ It's her house ♪

- Here we are in the middle of Kansas,

and I know that we're probably, you know, we're rubes,

but there was an extremely vibrant little scene.

It certainly wasn't like this anywhere else in Kansas.

Trust me.

I think we had everything going on here that was going on,

on both coasts.

There was a place called Off the Wall Hall,

which is where The Bottleneck is now.

Then there was the Opera House,

and we used to walk back and forth

between the two to see bands.

- The Embarrassment usually they'd play

like Friday and Saturday night back to back.

They'd come up here for a weekend,

and Off the Wall Hall back then, you know,

you could even still see, it used to be a YMCA or something.

You could even still see the basketball lines

painted on the floor.

There were a lot of really exciting bands

that came through there.

(punk music)

♪ Action and reaction, they walk in pairs ♪

And really there was this sort of this Midwestern swelling

in Kansas City and Lincoln, Nebraska,

and Columbia, Missouri, Boulder.

But it was all strongest here,

because not only for radio station KJHK,

a really strong, supportive local record store,

which was Love Records originally,

they changed to Exile Records,

but there was also Kief's,

which brought in a lot of import albums.

People started fanzines and magazines.

By the late '70s, I mean,

we were learning all the time.

There's always these new bands coming out and new music.

And then it reached a point where

we decided, a couple of us guys,

we were just gonna put out a fanzine

that was called Talk Talk.

We did that in like '79 and '80,

wanted to get more involved in music.

So we put flexi disks in the issues of Talk Talk.

(punk music)

♪ I didn't like money ♪

- One time, there was an article in the local newspaper

that called me a

local rock critic.

And I realized that I didn't want to be known as someone

that was criticizing music,

and I wanted to be more involved with making it happen.

And so I got the idea to put out

some cassette tape compilations.

Somehow we came up with these four bands

to be on the first compilation.

♪ In the dark, take me by the hand ♪

♪ And lead me to another land ♪

- Here you've got The Embarrassment and The YardApes

and Get Smart, and then us.

(punk music)

- Sub Pop, I think, had put out

their first cassette compilation right then.

Well, it suddenly was evident that nobody

was taking a cassette release as a real product.

So that inspired us to begin a record label,

an independent record label,

which I started called Fresh Sounds.

- [Speaker 1] Fresh Sounds

- [Speaker 2] Fresh Sounds.

- Hey we've got an album out called,

The Beast That Devoured Itself on Fresh Sounds.

(static)

- There's this whole idea out in the general public,

or the people who know about The Embarrassment,

that they were from Lawrence, Kansas.

And it's like, no, no, no!

They couldn't have known.

No band that cool could ever come from Lawrence.

I'm sorry.

It's not gonna happen.

I mean, like I say, nothing personal Lawrence, but

Wichita is the genuine article, and Lawrence is the,

Lawrence is the box set.

It's the package deal.

You know what I mean?

- Starting a band in a vacuum is great.

And it's pretty much of a vacuum out there.

When you're out here on the East Coast,

there are a lot more distractions.

So, you know, that's on the plus side

for The Embarrassment out in Wichita.

- I think just the town name of Wichita

says so much to people in other parts of the country.

Maybe people think of the Glen Campbell song.

♪ I am a lineman for the county ♪

(audience applauding)

- There are certain towns in the Midwest

that just paint this picture of like

desolate people counting the cracks in the sidewalk

in order to have entertainment and such and such.

And maybe in the places where you have to play

in order to make that next step.

Maybe the package that said from Wichita,

maybe that was an impediment.

- Their music was the attraction.

And so what it really took was someone

who had the time in the law office to

mail out cassettes and

mail out flyers, and mail out posters.

And once the material got out there,

it made its own audience.

So I was really big on,

own your own intellectual property, own your copyright.

- Dan Rouser really made a lot of things happen for us.

- [Dan] They opened for John Cale

in Tulsa at Cain's Ballroom.

(punk music)

- I mean, there's a cult following here

for the Velvet Underground, and

- And he expressed high regard for the band

to some people in New York, including Jim Fouratt,

a promoter at Danceteria.

And when they played in Chicago, Jonathan Demme was there.

(new wave music)

♪ Goodbye, horses ♪

♪ Rock music ♪

♪ Drop me in the water ♪

- And so Demme also talked to Fouratt.

So when I called Fouratt, he was like, oh yeah.

And Demme tried to get 'em a deal

with Gil Friesen of A and M records

and Friesen turned him down.

But the stuff in New York was shaping up.

- Dan Rouser located this bus for us to rent,

seemed like a great idea, it was in nice shape.

It was a vacation bus for some family.

And so we started using that to tour in,

and swear to God every time I got out from behind the wheel

and went to the back to sleep or get some rest,

the thing would quit running.

So it's always under the hood fixing something.

So then we finally bought a station wagon

and pulled a little trailer.

Then it was pretty much trouble free after that.

(punk music)

♪ There's a river, it's the scream of peace ♪

♪ And it's filled when the sky is released ♪

♪ Painted water, but it's not abstract ♪

♪ It's color gives what other rivers lack ♪

- [Ron] We did Chicago and some college towns,

worked our way to New York.

- They came and stayed with me,

and I lived over here at Ninth Street and Avenue C,

and they came and slept on my floor for the weekend

that they played CBGB's.

And that for me was so cool.

Suddenly The Embarrassment was playing at CBGB's,

the home of Talking Heads and Television and Blondie.

♪ Smooth ♪

♪ Americans ♪

- When they played in New York,

they got these big fawning articles in the New York Rocker.

Is John too sexy for the Danceteria?

♪ What to think when I walk into town ♪

♪ I see the drugs moving around ♪

♪ That's when I feel the sting of LSD ♪

♪ The woods of love is where I wanna be ♪

- We had our road maps and we never really thought too much

about where we were and what we were doing.

We just forged ahead, you know, we found the club,

we set up, we sound checked.

We grouped in the dressing room

and we went out and knocked it out.

I always had stage fright,

so I kind of always had tunnel vision.

Brent was my guy.

I tried not to think about what was going on out there,

I just thought about what I had to do.

It wasn't like we were there to socialize

and become part of the scene.

We were there to be The Embarrassment

and knock these tunes out and make an impression.

♪ Cambodia ♪

♪ Americans ♪

♪ In Panama, Americans ♪

- Get to your first gig at four or five in the afternoon.

You'd sound check.

You wouldn't play till midnight,

4:00 a.m. when you're trying to break everything down

and haul it off and get on the road again.

♪ American barbarians ♪

♪ There's no such thing ♪

- Jim and I, we'd end up drinking beer and taking speed.

It started out being way too much fun,

and it doesn't take long for it to

catch up with you and you start crashing,

and just, you know, your body crashes.

It's getting hard to maintain the pace.

♪ That's what I think ♪

♪ That's what I think ♪

♪ That's what I think ♪

(tires screeching)

(cars crashing)

- We didn't exactly send stuff to Columbia, you know,

but we'd send stuff to Factory, Rough Trade.

- We had a meeting with John Cale.

We met him at the White Horse Tavern.

Of course, first thing he asked is like, you got any blow?

(laughing)

He made an offer to do like an EP

for ten grand or something like that,

which it was, you know, a lot of money,

money we didn't have, but I was like,

I was for it.

I was like, I think it's worth borrowing the money

to get John Cale's name on the record.

But at that point they were looking more to

hopefully to get somebody else,

a label and get somebody else to put the money up

for recording rather than going into debt more.

- You could always determine that there was some progress.

There was more material,

there was greater recognition around the country,

better reviews, more reviews.

At the time we were self-promoting.

Everything we would earn,

we would turn back into recording time.

We were always looking for the record deal, you know?

So weren't having to take it

out of our own pocket all the time.

It was a relief to have someone come along and say,

hey, I'll bankroll, you know,

your next

recording session, and get the record

out there.

- [Radio Host] We're at the half point

of our second After Midnight Live,

And with me now in our little studio over here

are The Embarrassment.

What's the name of the new label you're on?

Is it Lawrence Sounds or is that the name?

- [Band Member] Fresh Sounds.

- [Host] Fresh Sounds.

- [Band Member] Fresh Sounds is based in Lawrence.

- [Host] Oh, OK, OK.

They have quite a history themselves.

- Tried to convince them to have a release on my label

more than they were trying to find me.

But I do know that they had

desires for some label to take care of them.

- [Host] Let's talk about the new album.

Where did you come up with the name Death Travels West?

- [Band Member] That had to come from John.

- [John] Oh it came off a newspaper headline.

A whole lot of people had died over the weekend,

and it just kind of spread across the state, you know.

- [Band Member] Westward.

(tires screeching)

- Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello

- Hello, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

(punk music)

♪ A self-proclaimed master for my education ♪

♪ You said it was for my own good ♪

♪ Then lit up the matches I gave you ♪

♪ And aimed at the ground where I stood ♪

♪ A sense of confusion ♪

♪ The stench of burnt sulfur ♪

♪ A rose makes me cough and careen ♪

- Death Travels West, like what an incredible record.

I mean, my friends and I would just listen to it

over and over and over again.

- It was meant to be an LP.

And we just realized that

it didn't have that many songs on it,

but it also had some longer, longer songs.

We at least had it in our head that these songs

have some sort of cohesiveness.

We didn't know what it was.

- Yeah, I think we ended up calling it a mini LP,

'cause it really was pretty short.

That was the budget.

- [Interviewer] What's Careen about?

- That was about Bill's fascination with

these old Mexican horror movies.

That was the idea that started the song.

And then the song became about a friend

that was outta control.

- There's no doubt about it, my friend's a monster.

Anyhow, my wife loves to quote that line.

- I didn't know if it was about me or about somebody else.

♪ I wasn't your student, I thought you were crazy ♪

(crowd cheering)

- It had to pass his test, too.

Like, I don't wanna sing that.

I think he had that reaction on a few songs.

Maybe that's why I ended up

doing more of Lewis and Clark, actually.

It was like, what?

I don't wanna sing this song.

Well that's OK John, I'll sing it.

I don't know anything about Lewis and Clark, really.

♪ We were famous ♪

♪ You don't remember us ♪

♪ Famous, famous adventurers ♪

(tires screeching)

(punk music)

♪ Boy on a cycle ♪

- Death Travels West, that song actually maybe

represented like a whole new phase for The Embarrassment,

where we were getting into being more of a serious band.

(punk music)

♪ Death Travels West ♪

(punk music)

- And it's really a shame, because that might have actually,

you know, been a window into where

the future of where we were going.

It showed an awful lot of promise.

(punk music)

- [Announcer] He knows it was a tip.

(static)

♪ Pass the Dutchie 'pon the left hand side ♪

♪ Pass the Dutchie 'pon the left hand side ♪

- [Announcer] Discover MTV.

The first video music channel.

(pop new wave music)

- The trendy, in thing at that point in time

was new wave bands and, you know,

having the right look,

and we just weren't those things at all.

We would get nice, good, critical acclaim.

But labels were looking for polish, you know,

couldn't see beyond what our appearance was.

I can't say that we ever really had

anybody really interested in us.

- It did seem like they were just kind of right there

on the cusp of the next step, but it just wasn't happening.

They were still sending the records out to different labels

and stuff like that, and there was no bites.

- By that time it was becoming clear

that this DIY thing could only take you so far.

I remember one time in a state of frustration,

John Nichols said, well, goddamn it, I'm ready to sell out.

John didn't mean sell out the music.

He meant, OK, let's try and find a label

that will give us the exposure.

And you know, that whole thing was part of a system.

(punk music)

There was some gig in Cleveland, Ohio

that was gonna be a drive to Cleveland,

play the gig and come back. (laughing)

And there was a huge snowstorm.

And I think Ron said, I'm not going,

I'm not going, I'm not playing that fuckin' gig.

(laughing)

And I think maybe I said something like,

well then, goddamn it, I'm not gonna be your manager.

- Yeah, kind of, yeah.

Well it wasn't the end for them.

They went out and hit the road another time.

(engine revving)

(punk music)

All of this awaits you.

(punk music)

- You'll face challenges.

(punk music)

So much each generation as it comes of age.

(punk music)

♪ There's cameras on the spaceship ♪

♪ They're goin' on a long trip ♪

♪ Higher than the birds sing ♪

♪ They're goin' to the D-rings ♪

- But you need only be true to the values

that made this nation great.

Faith, family, hard work, and freedom,

and you too will know greatness.

♪ We know of A, B, C-rings, anyone knows those things ♪

♪ But look a little closer, don't be such a grocer ♪

(punk music)

♪ They won't be coming back ♪

♪ They won't be coming back ♪

♪ They won't be coming back ♪

- Well, me personally, I was just tired.

I had a real job when I was home with the sound company,

and you know,

I had to work every day and practice three nights a week

and play weekends, then go tour.

And I was just really burned out.

I wanted to just take six months off and stay home.

I don't think anybody would've noticed.

(foreboding music)

- [Dan] It almost seems like they just ran outta gas.

They were exhausted, they were tired,

they didn't see the end game.

They didn't see why this should continue.

- Kind of a difficult time that summer,

because we had been slogging it like dogs, you know,

for five years or more,

to come to a realization

that we're not getting anywhere with it, and,

let's put it to rest.

- I just felt so frustrated.

Man, we had been at it for years.

I personally feel guilty that,

when I heard that John's girlfriend was pregnant

and I said, you know, well, that's it,

we should break up the band

because John needs to focus on being a father.

And I didn't give it much thought,

and I didn't even ask John how he felt about it,

and I feel badly about that,

'cause he might have wanted the band to continue on,

but I remember just saying, that's it, man,

that's the straw that broke the camel's back.

And I said, I'm leaving the band.

I had no plan, I had no clue.

I had no real,

it was just out of frustration, man.

- Somebody, I don't remember whose decision it was,

was just like, then well let's just quit.

Maybe it was Brent.

You know, Brent back then was pretty excitable.

Snap decisions.

It was like, well let's break up.

Fine, fine!

And I guess we did.

(melancholic music)

- The band ended in '83.

It was pretty sad when we were kind of losing momentum.

We didn't rise above,

'cause we didn't have that extra ingredient of

the determination to just stick with that

and sacrifice everything else.

We had kind of sacrificed all

we were willing to sacrifice at that point,

and kind of drew the line on it,

pretty much guaranteeing that we couldn't follow

in the footsteps of somebody like R.E.M.,

because we were no longer willing

to just stay on the road or go to New York.

In the long run, it did prove to be a detriment.

Staying based in Wichita as we did,

contributed a lot to our demise.

We would've had to have moved to a more centralized,

well, couldn't be any more centralized than Wichita,

but I mean to a larger market,

a bigger city,

a place where it's already proven

that you could launch a band's career from,

not from being based in Wichita.

- I just kind of walked away from things

and started looking for a day job, really.

And, uh

that's when I had started in the airline industry

that same summer, so.

- I grabbed a midnight train out of Wichita

with three hundred bucks in my pocket.

And I went to Boston, man,

and within two months I had joined the Fuegos,

and was on my way to Los Angeles to record an album.

- I could see then with the end of the band,

I was of a mind that that was gonna be

what would turn me back

toward my visual art, toward painting.

I was a misfit here in Wichita,

and without the band being kind of a support group

for being a misfit,

I felt like I was pretty much on my own, I was alone.

And so moving away from Wichita this time

seemed like the best thing to do.

I'd been afraid to leave Wichita for college originally,

because I felt like I needed to be with the people

that made me feel a little bit more like I belong somewhere.

(somber electronic music)

- The band broke up, my '57 Chevy was stolen.

My girlfriend left me.

(laughing)

It was pathetic, you know,

so, decided it was a good time to get out of town.

Pretty much gave everything away that I owned

and shipped a few boxes out to my dad's house

here in Arizona and hopped on my motorcycle and left.

(punk music)

- One of the sad days of my life,

when we in fact were driving around

hanging posters for a gig,

and found out that they had broken up

and weren't gonna be up to Lawrence to play.

It was a, excuse me, it was a very sad moment.

(punk music)

- Talk about a void, when the whole thing shut down.

I mean, it really,

it just took all the energy out of the scene in Lawrence.

- What had been a vibrant fun place to be,

all of a sudden it was like there were tumbleweeds

going down Massachusetts Street at night.

There just wasn't anything.

It was very sad, because those were the most fun times,

and it meant that they weren't gonna go forth and conquer

like we wanted 'em to,

and like we knew that they could.

- I remember running into Bill and like Bill, no, not now.

And you know, looking back,

I think they all probably wonder if maybe

if we'd stuck it out another year,

maybe it would've happened.

Maybe that luck would've kicked in at that point.

- It seemed like it was just be a matter of time

before they broke nationally

and became, say R.E.M.,

became what R.E.M. became maybe,

or maybe a better comparison would be The Replacements,

and how they made several records for

decent-size labels and became moderately well-known,

and stayed real true to what they always did.

- If they just kept going a little, just one more step.

It would've all made sense and paid off,

'cause they were fully formed and ready to go, you know?

But it just didn't happen.

I don't know what to say.

It certainly is not,

it's not a tragedy because their music lives on.

- I think success is different to everyone, you know,

like some people are happy not to sell a million records.

Some people really wanna do that.

It depends on your goals when you set out,

and sometimes it changes as you go along.

But I think success can be whatever you want it to be.

And sometimes succeeding can be

the worst thing that can happen.

I think that The Embarrassment succeeded.

They did their thing and it's unlike anyone else's,

and I always loved it, and always gives me goosebumps.

- I never cried about The Embarrassment breaking up,

until I went to see The Del Fuegos.

And on the way home, I suddenly realized Brent,

not that he was responsible for it not happening,

but that same charge wasn't there.

And I all at once realized what I'd had and what I'd lost.

And I could barely drive home from that show,

'cause I was just crying so hard.

Makes me wanna cry thinking about it.

So it's,

it's funny 'cause I didn't realize,

I mean, I thought that every band in the world

that I ever saw again was gonna be

as good as The Embarrassment,

and as fun as the Embarrassment, and as...

- I think what happened was we had a very magical time

and it changed.

- Oh! Oh my god it shocked me. (laughing)

(drumming)

- Here's a little bit of river logic for you.

♪ You know, I was wondering if we should keep on ♪

(laughing)

♪ 'Cause the force, it's got a lot of power ♪

♪ To make me feel like ♪

♪ To make me feel like ♪

(punk music)

♪ Lovely is the feelin' now ♪

♪ Fever, temperature's risin' now ♪

♪ Power, is the force, the vow ♪

♪ That makes it happen, it asks no questions why ♪

♪ So get closer, to my body now ♪

♪ I won't be complainin' ♪

♪ Oh no, just let me tell you ♪

♪ Keep on with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'til you get enough ♪

♪ Keep on with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'til you get enough ♪

♪ Keep on with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'til you get enough ♪

- It was always frustrating to me at the time,

that they never were able to bring this message

to the rest of the world.

And only later in life did I understand

that that's basically a condition of it,

that's what happens when you have

this kind of flowering that I was describing.

The other thing that happens is that you'll be forgotten,

and all of this stuff that I'm describing to you now,

it's as though the dent it left in our national,

like, cultural consciousness, is nothing.

I mean it formed someone like me.

It formed all sorts of friends of mine.

It made us who we are,

but the sort of permanent effect was zero.

Unless of course you count, like, Nirvana

and all the imitators of that later on.

♪ This is the love power ♪

♪ Keep on, with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'til you get enough ♪

- This seems to be one of the price tags of this.

You will have done this great thing,

and you will have achieved extraordinary greatness,

which The Embarrassment did,

and you will be completely forgotten.

♪ Ooh! ♪

- They were touring around.

They were playing in New York City and Boston.

They could have easily decided, oh man,

we could get big here.

Let's move up to New York, but they didn't.

They were content to go back and play

Off the Wall Hall

where there was this secret world

of, like, really cool shit going on.

And so that I really respect.

♪ This is love power ♪

♪ Keep on, with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'till you get enough ♪

♪ Keep on, with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'till you get enough ♪

♪ Keep on, with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'till you get enough ♪

♪ Keep on, with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'till you get enough ♪

♪ Keep on, with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'till you get enough ♪

♪ Keep on, with the force, don't stop ♪

♪ Don't stop 'till you get enough ♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

(audience cheering)

("Out of Town" plays)

(song ends abruptly)

- [Band member] That was fucked.

("Drive Me to the Park" plays)

- [Interviewer] Did you become the Mainliners with the four of you?

God, I'm embarrassed.

(laughs)

Truly, because I don't remember.