A L P E R I N I T I AT I V E F O R W A S H I N G T O N A R T
A L P E R I N I T I AT I V E F O R W A S H I N G T O N A R T
APRIL 2 – MAY 29, 2016
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM
AT THE KATZEN ARTS CENTER
WASHINGTON, DC
Remains of Root Boy Slim’s trombone
Kevin MacDonald, UVATAC (Urban Verbs at the Atlantis Club), 1978. Graphite and color pencil, 15 x 22 in. Private Collection. Left: Kevin MacDonald, Club Light, 1994.
Color pencil drawing, 10 x 10 in. Estate of Kevin MacDonald. Courtesy of Adamson Gallery.
FOREWORD
Twisted Teenage Plot is the second exhibition presented by the Alper Initiative for
Washington Art in the American University
Museum. The Initiative was created by
philanthropist and artist Carolyn Alper to
promote an understanding and appreciation of Washington regional art and artists,
both from our past and present. It is an
exhibition space and, most importantly,
a meeting place for people and ideas. Twisted Teenage Plot runs concurrently
with a related exhibition, Kevin MacDonald:
The Tension of a Suspended Moment, and
provides a look at Washington art history
through the lens of artists, like MacDonald,
who made forays into the world of performance in the period roughly between 1975
and 1985. It is not a history of punk music
or go-go or performance art in Washington,
but rather a look at the post-punk phenomenon of fine artists who started forming
and performing in groups in the receptive
discipline-bending climate that existed for a
short time in downtown Washington.
In the late 70s and early 80s the contemporary art world was centered in downtown
Washington between14th and 7th Streets,
NW, and between G and E Streets, NW.
Low rents and vacant spaces left in the
wake of the ’68 riots made it possible for
non-profit arts venues like The Museum of
Temporary Art and the Washington Project
for the Arts to open on G Street in 1974 and
1975, respectively. They joined a neighborhood where there were already museums
(National Collection of Fine Arts, National
Portrait Gallery) and affordable spaces for
artists’ studios (the Atlas and LeDroit buildings). With the opening of Metro Center
and Gallery Place subway stations on the
Red Line in 1976, performance venues also
moved in. In 1977, d.c. space opened on
the corner of 7th and E Streets, NW, and
The Atlantis Club opened on F Street, NW,
(which closed in 1979 and become the
9:30 Club in 1980). Liz Lerman’s Dance
Exchange and other non-profit performing
arts groups moved into the Lansburgh
Building beginning in 1980. For the first
time, artists and performers were starting to
rub up against each other in Washington.
When commercial art galleries on P Street,
NW, also moved down to 7th Street in 1980,
the rush was on. It could be argued that the
redevelopment of downtown promoted
by the Pennsylvania Avenue Development
Corporation began in earnest when Diane
Brown Gallery, Nancy Drysdale Gallery, B. R.
Kornblatt Gallery, Lunn Gallery, and Osuna
Gallery did major renovations on their
7th Street building. Of course, their very
success meant their days downtown were
numbered. By the time Jock Reynolds and
the Washington Project for the Arts went
into crippling debt rebuilding the corner of
7th and D Streets, NW, for their new space
in 1988, the era of affordable downtown
spaces was over. By the end of the decade,
downtown was largely emptied of the arts
and commercial galleries mostly regrouped
in the Dupont Circle area. But for a while, in
the late 70s and early 80s, downtown was
the place to be.
All of the artists whose work is represented
in Twisted Teenage Plot contributed to a
community that we benefit from today.
They broke down—or maybe just ignored—
traditional disciplinary boundaries. While
members of the Washington Color School
had favored jazz, the new artistic cohort in
downtown Washington came of age in the
hippie/bohemian 60s and by the mid-70s
were favoring punk and new wave music.
And they weren’t content with just listening.
For the exhibition, I selected work by artists
who played in at least one of the following
bands, if only briefly: The Examiners (J.W.
Mahoney, Michael Reidy, Robin Rose), (the)
Razz (Michael Reidy), Root Boy Slim (Root
Boy Slim, Dick Bangham), The Slickee Boys
(Kim Kane), Tiny Desk Unit (Michael Baron),
Twisted Teenage Plot (Joe White, Kevin
MacDonald, Michael Clark, Judith Watkins, Robin Rose, Jay Burch, Steve Ludlum,
Michael McCall, J.W. Mahoney), and Urban
Verbs (Robin Rose). I asked each of the
artists to write about working and living in
Washington at this time, and about the role
music played in the making of their art.
I want to thank Yue Li and all the American
University Museum staff for their work
on the Alper Initiative for Washington Art
and on Twisted Teenage Plot, The Wolpoff
Family Foundation for their support of this
catalogue, Carolyn Alper for her beautiful
gift to our community, and all the artists
who make the Washington region such an
interesting place to live, work, and play.
Jack Rasmussen
Director and Curator
American University Museum
at the Katzen Arts Center
Washington, DC
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CLARK FOX
I dressed up in a Twisted Teenage Plot T-shirt and I
poured all the drinks at a Washington Project for the
Arts opening and they made more money that night
because Joseph Hirshhorn came in and I got everybody really sloshed. I just kept pouring. You know
Joe was a champagne guy, and everybody just came
back to the bar, and Carroll Sockwell almost got
punched out by this judge, because he got so drunk,
and he was coming on to this judge’s wife because
she looked like Lena Horne. It was a crazy night, and
they added a thank you thing—a photo of me—in the
Washington Review.
Kevin MacDonald and I had a funny thing going
with the number six. We were both born in 1946, we
met at the Corcoran School of Art in 1966, we both
married women born in 1966 (my wife at the time
and I actually went on Kevin’s honeymoon to Oaxaca,
Mexico), Kevin died in 2006, and this art /music scene
exhibition is happening in 2016. In the 60s, Mac
and I went to many rock and roll shows together.
The Washington Color School artists were all jazz
enthusiasts, listening and talking about music all the
time, but our generation not only liked music but also
wanted to make music as well as art. Joe White and I
had lived together in Washington in the 60s and New
York City in the 70s. Joe made his own instruments
and was influenced by music from India and the East,
and liked avant-guarde music like La Monte Young
and obscure West Coast modern composers. In the
many years I knew Joe, he played music by himself
for an hour or two a day. He never played anything
that sounded to me like western music or rock and
roll. His music sounded like outer space music to me,
but I always thought it sounded cool but a bit bizarre.
He did know a lot about West Coast psychedelic
music that went along well with his abstract paintings
from the 60s. Joe had been in two Whitney biennials,
so in San Francisco and New York City he was considered a famous artist with a solid reputation.
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I think that the advent of punk and performance art
made it all happen for us. I then met Robin Rose in
the 70s and spent a lot of time hanging around and
doing stuff with his band Urban Verbs. It was a great
period to be in DC, as you could get by on almost
nothing and spend most of your time painting or
doing music stuff. I knew Root Boy Slim from the
mid-60s, when he was known as “Ken” to everybody.
He was taking classes at the Corcoran, too. The mid
60s on was like one big party, probably from all the
Vietnam War money floating around DC and New
York City. Lavish parties were happening all the time.
The atmosphere was like everybody was high on life.
It was pretty exciting but kind of dangerous at the
same time. Crime was on the rise so I always felt like
you had to watch your back all the time. Joe and I in
the 70s and 80s kind of went back and forth between
New York City and DC, although I spent a lot of time
in Paris and San Francisco.
Joe, Kevin, and I were kind of neo Beatnik types,
always looking for “kicks,” which were pretty easy to
find in those days. I always loved being on the road,
looking for inspiration for my art and life. We started
out with a band called The Red Starr Band after the
red star in the Republic of North Vietnam flag. Then,
one day when I was at the Caffe Trieste coffee house
in North Beach San Francisco reading the San Francisco Chronicle, I was reading an article about two
boys who killed their parents, took all their parents
dough, and headed for Las Vegas to gets some
kicks… it was a “twisted teenage plot,” according to
the writer. I went nuts laughing! Eureka! That’s the
new name for the band! Back in DC everybody liked
the new name and that was it. They liked the name
partly because you have to be a twisted teenager to
become an artist because it is such a crazy profession. Judith Watkins was in The Red Starr Band
and Twisted Teenage Plot. All the dates on how we
pulled the music together are kind of fuzzy, we would
Clark Fox, Portrait of Pamela Webster, 1979-1982. Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in. Courtesy of the Artist.
TWISTED TEENAGE PLOT
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practice about once a week or so at Joe’s garage, so
we had a number of people that came to the practice
space and people begged to play with us. We had a
small but loyal following, but most people just didn’t
get our sound. My big idea was to create a sound
that made everybody go crazy [anarchistic] and
when we were on, people did go nuts! Which I loved,
sometimes people hurled coins at us… pretty hard, I
might add, but it was better than spit! We had kind of
a rock beat going. But after that it was totally spaced
out sound. I guess our high point was playing at
Lafayette Park in front of the White House with punk
masters Fugazi when Ron Ray-gunn was president.
The secret service requested that we turn the volume
down. I made t-shirts of the TTP band members
including Robert Goldstein from the Urban Verbs).
So TTP was a “punk performance social-political art”
band… I got Kevin and Joe White into Harry Lunn
Gallery, you know, that goes way back. Kevin MacDonald had his own art gallery for about 10 minutes,
at Washington Circle. He went in with a partner, this
guy, and as soon as they rented this building, I think
it’s a hotel now, the guy split, and Kevin got stuck
with having to pay the rent, so they had one show. It’s
kind of wild. And Kevin was working at The Phillips
Collection, so he was actually doing his drawings at
The Phillips, and so was Joe White. I had dinner with
Joe, he was looking for a place, and he blew me
off so bad ‘cause he was this Beatnik snob. He was
telling me to quit art school, so I was like, look, I am
kind of busy, but if you cannot find anybody else,
give me a call. Twenty minutes later, Joe came over
and he stayed there six weeks. And so then I moved
to New York, me and my girlfriend split up, but we all
ended up going to New York. But we couldn’t afford
living together anymore, so I moved in with Joe,
on Canal St, in Jackie Winsor’s building. I ended up
having to come up with the rent, so I became Joe’s
art dealer. I turned him on to Walter Hopps, and got
him a show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art. And he was doing abstract when we were living
together, and I gave him a painting from my “window
period,“ and he switched to architecture, and so did
Kevin MacDonald and John Grazier. Three of the best
guys started to do architecture, cause I was doing
architecture. That’s a whole little movement right
right there called the “Washington Somnambulists,”
and all of a sudden it just went in another direction,
and architecture became unpopular.
CLARK FOX A.K.A. MICHAEL CLARK (b. 1946, Austin, Texas) is the last of the
Washington Color School painters. He studied and worked with Tom Downing
at the Corcoran School of Art and worked on the Giveaway project for Gene
Davis. He was in two Corcoran Biennials. He also started his own alternative
museum called MOCA DC for 14 years that showed over 3,000 artists, and a
gallery called FLAT in New York City that both received national and local press.
His iconic paintings are in numerous collections, including the National Gallery
of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Phillips Collection, Smithsonian American
Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design
Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Palm Springs Art
Museum, George Washington University Museum, High Museum of Art,
Delaware Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Denver Museum of Art,
Everson Museum of Art, and Bass Museum of Art. WWW.CLARKFOX.COM
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Clark Fox, 1936 Ford on Galveston Island, Texas, 1979-1985. Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in. Courtesy of the artist.
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JOE WHITE
I had a big party in my old studio that DCAC eventually took over for its theater. The photography dealer
Harry Lunn and Jane Livingston, curator for the
Corcoran Gallery of Art, danced together that night.
The band was the Twisted Teenage Plot with me,
Michael Clark, Kevin MacDonald, Judith Watkins, and
Robin Rose and others sat in. We were into the same
thing. We were an “art band”—improvisational. We
started with nothing—no key, no nothing. It was fun,
but not good for your hearing. Before this, since I was
selling a lot of realist paintings with Middendorf/Lane
Gallery, I had extra money to buy guitars, amplifiers
and a drum set. It was fun to be larger than life!
Twisted Teenage Plot played in a gallery in Georgetown during an event where Andrea Pollan worked
as an assistant. I didn’t bother to tune my guitar; I was
too pissed at everybody (laughter).
I was given a guitar in 1967. I never had music
lessons. I don’t know where Clark learned to play
the drums, but he just could play the drums and he
also named the bands (The Red Star Band and TTP).
Judith just made everything up—she made up French
words, and sang in French. Robin played his synthesizer and guitar. He had a lot of experience with other
bands and was very good at using the synthesizer.
Kevin played the bass. He was the only person who
could write a real song and actually sing it.
I think playing music was a social thing. And also,
when you play inside a band as opposed to when
you are outside listening, it’s night and day. When
you are inside a band, you had a real experience.
When you are outside, you have to really work hard
to experience the music.
One day I just sat at the piano and played “Abstract
Expressionism” and I was off. After playing AE on it,
I had to ask twenty people before anybody could
explain to me what a key was. But I did read Helmholtz, the most important music theorist, who wrote
in the late 19th century.
JOSEPH WHITE (b.1938, San Mateo, CA) received his BA from San Francisco State University in 1963
before moving to New York in 1968 and then to Washington, DC, in 1976. He has been exhibiting
continuously since 1969, in solo exhibitions at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY, Corcoran Gallery of
Art, Washington, DC, and San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA. White’s work appeared three
times in the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and was represented in Washington, DC,
by Middendorf Gallery, Middendorf/Lane Gallery, Baumgartner Galleries Inc., and Osuna Art. White’s
work is also represented in museum collections, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, and in Washington, DC at the National Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center.
WWW.JOEWHITEARTIST.COM
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Joe White, From top: Lissa, 1976. Oil on linen, 28 x 22 in.; Jessica, 1976. Oil on linen, 28 x 22 in. All courtesy of
Jessica White.
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JUDITH WATKINS TARTT
My father was Chief Counsel at the National Gallery
of Art, so we went down there most Sundays, always
looking at the pictures. I was really interested in how
such things were made. I took Saturday morning
children’s classes at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. I went
to George Washington University and took a studio
class taught by Bill Woodward. I copied many master
paintings.
In 1973, I went to the National Gallery and showed
curator Lester Cooke my portfolio of copies. He said
I should be a painting conservator. I thought, “this is
cool, this might be what I want to do….” That evening
in late November, I took a taxi to H.H. S. Treviranus’
conservation lab in Georgetown, on 34th Street. I
knocked on the door. The door opened and I heard
classical music and saw people working on paintings
lying on huge tables, paintings on easels, brushes
and chemicals. I thought, “That’s it. I am doing this.”
I went back to school to George Washington University and took courses in chemistry. In 1973-74, I
went to Florence, where I studied conservation at the
Fortezza da Basso. When I returned to Washington, I
started an apprenticeship at H. H. Stewart Treviranus
in Georgetown. I stayed there seven years. Then I
started my own studio.
I began to get a sense of the contemporary art scene
in Washington. I had known of Alice Denney, who
had rented a building downtown for one dollar a year
and started the Washington Project for the Arts. My
parents knew Alice. She lived in our neighborhood
just beyond where I was allowed to ride my bike.
In l976, I met Joe White at a friend’s house and
a whole new experience began. I could not stop
looking at Joe’s paintings. The space in his paintings
appeared elastic. His paintings vibrated with energy.
A Northern Californian, Joe had just moved to Washington from New York and soon started making paintings of Washington buildings. He had an exhibition at
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Middendorf/Lane Gallery in 1977 and I met Michael
Clark at the opening. Michael was hilarious. He was
going back and forth from Washington to Manhattan
so much that people started to wonder whether he
was a Washington artist or a New York artist. As an
answer he painted portraits of George Washington.
Michael and Joe had been roommates in New York
and when Michael was in town the three of us hung
out a lot. The best times were when we went to the
National Gallery. We looked at art, and we talked
about art. I thought Michael and Joe knew everything.
Once we all went to the opening of a Kevin MacDonald exhibition at Montgomery College. That is where
I met Kevin. His smile could stop traffic. He was the
lead. When Kevin said yes, the gig was on.
Out of the blue, I don’t know why, one day, Joe White
announced that he wanted to buy equipment for a
band. I had a station wagon and they didn’t drive.
That’s probably why I became a band member. Anyway, we bought Peavey and Marshall amps, Yamaha
speakers, and Les Paul guitars. I bought a Moog
Source and later a Prophet synthesizer.
The first time we played together was at an opening
at Diane Brown’s new gallery. In those days we called
ourselves The Red Starr Band. Christopher Hines was
in it, and Joe, me, Michael, and Kevin. We did not
know what we were doing. I could admit it, but they
wouldn’t. It was cool to say that you were in a band…
but the cool kind of fell apart once we started to play.
We said our sound wasn’t for the squeamish. It was
relentless.
Half a year later we had become the Twisted Teenage
Plot. We didn’t care about the “key,” but we had
unlimited lyrics and fabulous rèsumès. We all wrote
lyrics but Joe and I wrote most of them. Michael was
the drummer with his own sense of rhythm. Joe was
channeling Ravi Shankar. I was supposed to play the
tune, good luck, and Kevin stuck close to solid consistent bass rhythm.
Judith Watkins Tartt, Chinese Woman, 1985. Mixed media, 25.25 x 29 in. Courtesy of the artist.
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When the Urban Verbs folded, Michael invited Robin
Rose to play with us. Robin brought Robert Goldstein
into the band. Steve Ludlum played with us and
Michael McCall played with us a little bit. Steve was
with us when we appeared at d.c. space. He came
up behind me while we were jamming and said: ”it’s
time to end the song.” So I started singing “it’s time to
end the song.”
We played at Herb White’s restaurant. We played in
the empty swimming pool in front of his restaurant
because of the reverb. We played at the Landsburgh
Building, and we played at d.c. space a few times.
We played at a ballroom on 16th Street after Renee
Butler’s opening. We played at Lafayette Square with
Fugazi. This was at a demonstration against teenage
pregnancy. Michael Clark was the drummer and kind
of the MC, and he went up to the microphone and
said: “Teenage pregnancy, we are all for it.”
We had a song called “Emotional Blackmail,” and
we were paranoid that the audience would think we
were singing “Emotional Black Male.”
We cut a record, a 45. Kevin’s song, “Elephants
Stomping on my Head” and my song, “Oil in the Soil.”
Michael made T-shirts with our photos on both the
front and the back. He also made the record cover.
At night he and I would drive around to radio stations
trying to get them to play our record. Robin built a
stage in my studio on Connecticut Avenue. We had a
Kidney Party for Goldstein after his successful kidney
transplant and we handed out kidney fans. Michael
Clark planned the gigs. Once when we were practicing Robin stopped us—screaming—“What key are
we in?” Michael, Joe, and I said: “Key?” Michael said:
“What do you think this is? Crosby Stills and Nash?”
JUDITH WATKINS TARTT (b. 1949 Washington, DC) received her BA in Art History from The
George Washington University, and began a seven-year apprenticeship in painting conservation with H.H. Stewart Treviranus. She opened her own practice in 1975. She has conserved
paintings for the General Services Administration, the Department of State’s Art and Embassy
Program, and the United State Treasury. She was the contract conservator for the Hong Kong
Museum in 1984–1985 and again in 1992–1993. She was the Contract Conservator in Asia
for Sotheby’s 1992–1995. In 2004 she was one of two painting conservators to be awarded
the contract to restore the Turkish Embassy, in Washington, DC. She has been the painting
conservator at the Kreeger Museum, in Washington, DC since l980. Ms. Tartt is the Director and
Founder of ART-CARE.com. WWW. ART-CARE.COM
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From the Washington Review, June/July 1985. Photo by Mary Swift. Twisted Teenage Plot from left to right: Kevin MacDonald, Robin Rose, Robert Goldberg,
Joe White, Judith Watkins Tartt and Clark Fox.
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STEVE LUDLUM
In 1977 I took the first of a series of studios downtown; a room in a dilapidated three-story brick shack
across from the old WPA on G Street. I was unaware
the block had been slated for development; a few
months later, my studio was rubble. I landed at
the 100-year-old Ledroit Building across from the
National Portrait Gallery. This and the Atlas Building
down the block were unheated ‘artist lofts;’ way-stations for individuals looking to gain some exposure
before moving to New York.
After a year and a half of discontent, I shifted to a
storefront on 14th Street, an epicenter of the 1968
riots. By the late 1970s it was awash with addicts and
criminals. Ironically, the building itself turned out to
be the most functional studio I ever had. Less than a
year later; the building was sold, goodbye workspace. I wound up taking residence over a shoe store
on F Street, around the corner from Ford’s Theater.
During that period, downtown was free of the
high-powered commercial enterprises that make up
the area today. There were a handful of office and
retail holdouts but large areas were abandoned,
including blocks with big, obsolete department
stores. Partially filling the vacuum were wig shops,
rent-by-the-minute hotels, stinky gay bathhouses,
X-rated theaters, and cut rate liquor stores besieged
by derelicts. There were also actors, architects,
dancers, animators, musicians, painters, and photographers. At the heart was the Bowers’ Atlantic
Building across the street from my studio. The 9:30
Club occupied the ground floor; d.c. space run by
Bill Warrell opened three blocks away, and upstairs
was The Olshonsky Gallery. Further down 7th Street,
the WPA had taken over the abandoned W.T. Grand
dime store, later to be followed by a number of other
galleries: Harry Lunn, McIntosh, David Adamson,
Zenith; I was showing with Middendorf at the time
and he had space in a building with the others.
Twisted Teenage Plot was more of a science
experiment run amok than a band. Joe White had a
windowless studio in the alley behind a restaurant on
18th Street in Adams Morgan. One day he got a brain
wave and bought a bunch of guitars, amplifiers and
other music gear. He didn’t know how to play… none
of his friends knew, either! People showed up at the
studio to make noise. Regulars were Clark, Joe, Kevin
MacDonald, Judith Watkins, and myself; there was
also a revolving cast of characters who participated at
other times. The idea was, “what is the weirdest thing
we can do now?” The best that could be said for the
project was that it was good humored.
In 1981 I moved to New York and the band became
a kind of side-project for Urban Verbs members. It
was during that period when TTP had a real gig. The
Verbs were the house band for the 9:30 Club, they
had a repertoire… and a recording contract with a
major label.
STEVE LUDLUM (b.1950, St. Louis, MO) moved with his family to DC in 1955. His father worked for the Federal government. He was rebellious
as a youngster and dropped out of school when he was 18, left home, and became a petty criminal. When he was about 20, Ludlum decided on
an art career as an alternative to becoming a gangster. He sometimes believes he should have stuck with gangster. He would have wound up
in banking. Ludlum hated the idea of college, believing it to be a form of incarceration: his education is limited to some painting classes at the
Corcoran College of Art in the early to mid 1970s. Early on he was a studio assistant to Ed McGowin and Gene Davis.
As a painter, sculptor and photographer, Ludlum had been in numerous shows in Washington and elsewhere. In 2002, he earned a Pulitzer Prize
for breaking news photography. When not ‘arting’ he writes a blog about macroeconomics. WWW.ECONOMIC-UNDERTOW.COM
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Steve Ludlum, Untitled, 1979. Acrylic on canvas, 78 x 53 in. Courtesy of William Hill.
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MICHAEL MCCALL
The Atlantic Building on F Street, NW was where I
landed. It was 1978 and the Atlantis Club had been in
business, if you want to call it that, for over a year. Bill
Warrell’s d.c. space was two blocks away, where I had
the rare chance to witness Yousef Lateef two years
before, during a short visit to the city. I had always
felt the music of DC was rooted in jazz and funk, but
when I arrived the new wave/punk scene was beginning to blossom. The Atlantis Club presented such
acts as The Cramps, Bad Brains, and a new wave
art band, the Urban Verbs, practiced there. They
eventually became the darlings of the downtown art
scene, playing in every venue from d.c. space to the
WPA, the 9:30 Club to the Corcoran Gallery of Art,
where they played with the B-52s. Arriving from an
early retirement in Key West, I was interested in island
music, Cuban rhythms, reggae, and one night at the
Blues Alley, even got to see Mongo Santamaria, the
“Watermelon Man,” perform. To keep the tropical
feeling alive, I opened my own private-membership
speak-easy, called The Tentacle Room, on the 5th
floor of the Atlantic Building, creating a social club
of artists, curators, and fringe-art people who liked
music, and liked to drink. But, it was the 9:30 Club
downstairs that rocked the scene, bringing in such
acts as X, The Bangles, Root Boy Slim, The Police,
Buster Poindexter, Grandmaster Flash, the Butthole
Surfers, and even Steel Pulse on the night of Bob
Marley’s funeral. The art scene introduced such
acts as Terry Allen, Joe Ely, Phillip Glass and Laurie
Anderson. A few post-new wave bands like Twisted
Teenage Plot and Tiny Desk Unit were created to
entertain the art scene. I practiced something called
bass with Twisted at Joe White’s studio, but never
made it to the stage. I just wasn’t good enough. Most
music events I would run into my artists friends, we
partied, we danced, we drank… it was a hell of a
good time.
MICHAEL MCCALL (b. 1949, Hickory, North Carolina), a mid-career artist working for over 30 years in Los Angeles, works in a number of
mediums. Although schooled as a painter, his work extends beyond painterly boundaries into areas of photography, performance, sculpture,
and conceptual art.
A trend throughout four decades of his art-making centers around an acute interest in what he calls “the development of communication from
gesture to icon.” McCall’s blend of primal forces and concepts, archetypal symbols, and mysticism appear at times very painterly, and at other
times cool and minimal. The painting, Wedge Wheel, created in 1980 during his time in DC, is a piece of lyrical abstraction. It is musical, the
forms and marks dance across the surface, barely touching the ground. WWW.MICHAELMCCALL.ORG
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Michael McCall, Wedge Wheel, 1980. Acrylic on Acrylic on Dacron Sailcloth, 36 x 36 in. Courtesy of the artist.
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JAY BURCH
My surreal viewpoint was formed by my Irish family,
which included a grandmother who painted, an
uncle who analyzed handwriting for a living, a clairvoyant mother who was in the past or future as much
as she was in the present, and TV comic Ernie Kovacs,
a distant relative whose live, inventive surreal TV show
I was allowed to stay up and watch at age five. The
cartoon show Rocky and Bullwinkle, which was written with double meanings and symbolic inside jokes,
was another influence on my young artist’s surrealistic
viewpoint about communicating visually and telling
stories. As a teenager, Surrealism was topped off by
seeing friends drafted into the Vietnam War, seeing
Kennedy shot on TV, and growing up in the South
and seeing and feeling southern racism at its worst. I
was drawn to Andy Warhol on TV, beatniks, and then
hippies. I dropped out and fell into the DC art scene
around 1969. Fifteen years later, I would meet Andy
Warhol and many of the Kennedys through my art
dealer in the 80s, Chris Murray at Govinda Gallery.
In the 70s I met Lou and Di Stovall and the artists
that gathered at Lou’s workshop. Lou gave me a
gift of paying for a painting class at the Corcoran if
I agreed to paint over the hippie-like pictures I had
painted on a pickup truck I parked in front of the
workshop. I agreed. In the painting class my large
painting caught the eye of Walter Hopps. My work
was included in the Corcoran Regional Show. I was
also commissioned by local concert promoter Mike
Schreibman to make images for local music concert posters for bands like Steve Miller Band, The
Guess Who, Three Dog Night and more. And I was
commissioned to paint a mural at the Museum of
African Art on Capitol Hill.
In the early 80s, I was invited by my friend, artist
Manon Cleary, to be in the Beverley Court Show.
Beverly Court at the time was an apartment building
in Adams Morgan with huge studio space and it
held the mother load of DC’s most expressive and
beloved artists, film makers, photographers, and
writers, including Manon Cleary, Gay Glading, Kristen
Moeller, Allan Bridge, Yuri Schwebler, Allen Apple,
Ascian, and the critic Paul Richard. I met like-minded
artists Joe White, Kevin MacDonald, Michael Clark,
and art restoration expert Judy Watkins, who were
attempting to form an experimental musical group.
This group became Twisted Teenage Plot. Much of
the early development of the band took place at
Joe White’s studio, also known as Joe’s Garage. An
antique 19th century brick building, the garage was
down an ally just off of 18th and Columbia Road,
the heart of Adams Morgan. It was a central, friendly
place where many artists and musicians would drop
by to jam.
I played percussion with the band at after-parties for
art exhibitions at Joe’s space, and at openings, and
at the 9:30 Club and 15 Minutes for about a year or
so. Then an opportunity came up to go on sabbatical and live in Scotland for a year, explore my Irish
and Scottish roots, and the myths and symbols that
evolved from those ancient cultures. And so I moved
to Scotland and was replaced by artist Robin Rose
and his synthesizer.
JAY BURCH (b. 1948, Fort Lauderdale, FL) began drawing and painting as a child and is a self-taught artist. She fell into the DC art scene in 1969
and has been exhibiting in group shows since. Though aware of the Washington Color School, Burch’s interest and style are rooted in visual
story telling and personal symbols and emotions conveyed through detailed surrealist imagery. She has had 5 solo shows at Govinda Gallery in
Georgetown. Her work won a Grant for Excellence in Painting from the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities in 1989. She was invited to
teach drawing and painting at the Corcoran School of Art in 1987. In 1980, she was commissioned to paint a mural for the Museum of African Art
on Capitol Hill. Her work has also been published internationally by Pomegranate Press. Burch has also been involved in designing props and
sets for plays, film, and with an experimental art music group, Twisted Teenage Plot. Burch works in pencil, watercolor, and oils and is presently
working on a series of large-scale oil paintings about her experiences with wildlife.
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Jay Burch, Wish Your Will Drink Your Fill, 1982. Watercolor on paper, 19 x 19 in. Courtesy of Zenith Gallery.
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J.W. MAHONEY
When I got to DC, I was more involved in visual arts
than music. Eventually, I started doing independent
curating, and you tend to make friends when you do
things like that. At one point Derrick Guthrie and the
New Art Examiner, which I was writing for, started to
do art auctions and it was decided that a group of us
would get together and play at these occasions, as
a grace to both the magazine and ourselves. From
DC’s Urban Verbs, Robin Rose was going to play bass
guitar, and we had Robert Goldstein, their brilliant
lead guitar player. Michael Reidy, the legendary lead
singer of (the) Razz would resume that role, and
the band included Zack Swaggert, a very deeply
respected drummer—and me as second guitar.
As The Examiners, we did very carefully selected
covers—and we played at odd times and odd places
including WPA’s Botswana Club, and Robin Rose’s
wedding.
Twisted Teenage Plot was definitely an art band.
The thing about art bands—a “cover band,” like The
Examiners—would be definitely curated, but art
bands weren’t. The Examiners weren’t jammers, we
were performers. We got in, got out, and nailed it.
It didn’t have any nuts and bolts falling out of it. We
weren’t amateurs. Robin was committed to the bass,
and the bass and the drummer and I had to be tightly
synched. All three of us were tied together, so that
Robert Goldstein and Michael Reidy could be the
geniuses they are.
The great thing about art bands, certainly with
Twisted Teenage Plot, was the idea that anything
being pulled together, coordinated and practiced
was just not to be done. It was meant to be whacked
together and fall apart, and come back together and
then fall apart again. I played with them once, and I
just merged with the magnificent chaos… What was
sweet about those particular years was nobody was
telling anybody they couldn’t do whatever they
were doing.
It seemed that there were a lot more artists being
made visible in Washington in the 80s (than now)–
and the gallery scene was tighter. It was Dupont Circle’s R Street zone, and downtown, it was 7th Street.
Those were youthful neighborhoods – places good
to hang out in after openings. The WPA was on 7th,
d.c. space was across the street, and the 9:30 Club
was not far away, so you had several powerful urban
environments very absorbed in the arts. So there
were several real arts districts.
But in all honesty, these kinds of environments
regularly dissolve, in time. And come back, of course,
in new and unexpected places. As they always do, as
they must…
J.W. MAHONEY (b. 1949, Gainsville, Florida) is a Washington, DC-based artist, writer, and independent curator, and is currently Affiliate Professor
of Visual Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He has served as Washington’s corresponding editor for Art in America, and wrote
extensively for The New Art Examiner during the 80s. Mahoney has curated over 25 shows in the Washington-Baltimore area - including Catalyst:
35 Years of the Washington Project for the Arts in 2010, at the American University Museum. He is represented by Andrea Pollan’s Curator’s Office,
and a series of his most recent artworks, The Marshes of Glynn, was shown at Artisphere in Arlington, Virginia, early this last summer.
Mahoney was educated at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked as an actively performing musician, throughout the
five years he was in the Boston area, with comrades that included Jonathan Richman, Jerry Harrison, David Robinson, Andy Paley, and John Felice.
In Washington, during the late 80s, he was second guitarist for the Examiners, which included Michael Reidy, of (the) Razz, and Robert Goldstein
and Robin Rose, of the Urban Verbs.
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J.W. Mahoney, Grailing, 1987. Xerographic reproduction on Japanese paper, 14.5 x 11.5 in. Courtesy of the artist.
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ROBIN ROSE
In 1976, I moved to Washington, DC from New York
City where I had been living in Robert Rauschenberg’s Lafayette Street studio and performance
space. My best friend, Terry Van Brunt, from my
Tallahassee days, was Bob’s major domo and studio
assistant. I had finished graduate school and of
course wanted to go to New York City. Terry offered
me a room in Bob’s loft.
Terry managed Smitty’s Club twenty miles north of
Tallahassee, a mixed race juke joint in 1972. I was a
member of Smitty’s Band, the house band for the
club. We played blues and rock in the style of early
Fleetwood Mac and Free, The Allman Brothers Band
dueling guitars, etc. Terry and I went way back, so all
was cool except I was out of my water in New York
City. At the time, Terry and Rauschenberg were in
Captiva and I was surrounded by the most bizarre
scene imaginable. As Bob Dylan once said, “One
should never be where one does not belong.” No
truer words were ever spoken. Or, as Kenny Rodgers
said, “You got to know when to walk away, know
when to run.” I didn’t know much, but I knew when
to run.
I ended up in Georgetown in a huge house owned
by a childhood friend of my mother’s. She offered me
an entire floor just above hers. There was plenty of
room for a studio space. Her son, a Green Beret Captain, lived above me. He was still bivouacking at night
on the roof. I realized why I had been given such
prime quarters once I was asked to go on maneuvers
at 4:30 am.
One day, walking over to Dupont Circle to go up to
visit Leon Berkowitz, I met Michael Clark (Clark Fox).
We started talking and I realized he knew everyone
in town. I then met Berkowitz and Joseph (Joe White)
and Kevin MacDonald. Michael introduced me to
Carroll Sockwell and Judith Watkins, among others.
Before I knew it, I was embedded in the DC art world.
Since I always played music and did art, I crossed
over between those worlds. I met Robert Goldstein
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at Henri Gallery. He was hanging art. He had just
graduated from Georgetown with a degree from
their School of Foreign Service. Robert was putting
together a band. He had Roddy Frantz, a conceptual poet, as lead singer, and the incredible Danny
Frankel as the drummer. Since I played guitar, we saw
the potential and since my girlfriend Linda France, an
incredible artist who studied at Rhode Island School
of Design, also played classical guitar, we figured she
could play bass and indeed she could. The Urban
Verbs were born.
Our first gig was at Mark Clark’s studio (brother of
Michael Clark). The crowd was a who’s who of the
DC art world. We played seven originals and two
cover songs. Within one year we would record with
Brian Eno live at CBGB and have a Warner Brothers
recording contract.
I had my first New York one person exhibit at the Elise
Meyer Gallery in Soho. The opening was at the same
time that we were recording Urban Verbs, our first
album produced by Mike Thorne at Media Sound on
57th Street. “Intense” would be an understatement
and until we started touring it was a match made in
heaven. You can’t paint on a bus. All my art friends
were watching to see if I would self-destruct, but the
band beat me to it. Shortly after that, I was basically
out to lunch.
Michael suggested that we go see Joe and see if
he’d want to play some music. Judith Watkins was
his art assistant. Joe had decided music needed
a new direction, so he took a vise grip to his 1965
Fender Stratocaster, removed all the frets, and played
in open tuning using sitar finger picks. Indeed it
was a new direction! Michael came up with Twisted
Teenage Plot as a name for said band. I still believe
TTP is one of the finest names ever given to a band, a
metaphor of an aberrant design.
Since Judith said she could play piano, we got her
a synthesizer and of course we never did anything
without the Mac (Kevin MacDonald), so he played
Robin Rose, Wound, 1982. Encaustic on linen on alucobond panel, 72 x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist.
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bass and we started practicing in Joe’s studio behind
the Commie bookstore in Adam’s Morgan. Since
Joe’s patron Herb White had given Joe the space for
painting portraits of his parents, we were made. We
could play loud at all times of the night and could
store our equipment.
The only problem with this story was that TTP was
plagued with psychological problems, many which
demanded self-medication. Focus was a major hurdle, and since memory was no longer required, we
approached the music more like a color, an approximate form.
I suggested we bring the Master, Robert Goldstein,
into the fray to whip the miasma into a passable musical shape. Within a couple of days we had content
and form laced with neurotic intention. Twisted
Teenage Plot had realized its potential as a viable
band. We rocked enough for Herb White to offer us
a first gig at his new hotel. We played in his empty
swimming pool.
It was an incredible performance. We preformed
“Oil In The Soil,” “Brief Case Bomb on the Pentagon
Lawn,” “Elephants Stomping On My Head,” and a few
other pieces of sonic anomaly. I was told that it was
so loud that people on the 4th floor were complaining, of course we couldn’t hear a thing because the
walls of the pool were reverberating and everything
sounded like it was filtered through H2O. Friends
who had ventured out to see the debacle admitted
to the band that they had never heard anything like
what we were playing. That was an understatement.
Everyone got as far away from the pool as possible. I
believe that was a testament to our unknown nature.
Remember, these were people that cared about us!
The next project would be a Goldstein-produced 45
rpm, with an original George Washington psychedelic record sleeve by Michael Clark. The songs were
“Oil in the Soil” and “Elephants Stomping on My
Head.” We show up at the studio on time, but were
unprepared for an environment where the time has a
value and the tape is running. Judith and Joe were so
stoned that Michael had to be a shrink and sweet-talk
them into the building. All I personally remember
was walking out of the building. It was incredible. It
felt just like painting. Usually when I finish a painting
I don’t remember doing most of it. The Plot was like
that for all of us. It was a real ART BAND and true
friends on a mission to find the lost chord and to
keep it hidden.
ROBIN ROSE (b. 1946, Ocala, Florida) played in bands since he was 16, the first being The Wombats,
then Common Ground the legendary communal psychedelic band out of Tallahassee, Florida. After
that he played with Smitty’s Band, a blues rock house band for the famous roadhouse, juke joint
Smitty’s Club, 20 miles from the Georgia border.
He moved to Washington, DC, in 1976 and joined the seminal Washington, DC new wave band Urban
Verbs, Warner Brothers Recording artists. He has also made soundtracks for silent films, dance and
theater companies. Robin has painted since he was 12 and continues to do so today. His first one-man
show was at the age of 19. WWW.ROBINROSEART.COM
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Robin Rose, From left to right: Reliquary No. 5, 1982. Encaustic on linen, aluminum laminate; Reliquary No. 20, 1984. Encaustic on
aluminum panel; Reliquary No. 1, 1982. Encaustic on wood panel. All 9 x 13 in. Courtesy of the artist.
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KIM KANE
The DC area music scene was a creative blast,
started by pockets of people tired of the bad wimpy
music on the radio and at bars. It began with record
collectors, Yesterday and Today Records, (the) Razz,
Joe Lee, and the hip DJs from WGTB at Georgetown
University. It was the era of real DIY. DIY recording,
musical ability, record distribution, finding little
grungy bars that might allow the new music a place
to play (such as The Keg), and the chance to do
one’s own art for the records, including folding and
gluing them!
At the very beginning in mid 1976, there were essentially three live bands playing: (the) Razz, The Slickee
Boys, and Overkill. Many of us were doing garage/
punk music we loved, and throwing in bits of rockabilly, psychedelia, and avant-garde too. It was back
to raw, fun rock. It was a great time to be part of the
beginning of the US and UK punk revivals also. One
could see The Ramones at the Childe Harold (a folk
club). U2, Eddie & the Hot Rods, The Tourists (preEurythmics), and others at the Bayou. How about The
Police’s first tour at the Atlantis?!
It was also the rebirth of the Xeroxed fanzines, flyers,
and posters. They would go up in the few record
stores, lampposts, and such. It was cool, as the bands
and their few fans would really support each other at
each other’s gigs. Ah, the days of standing on one’s
boots or paper in the hideous bathrooms to get
ready to go on stage, play, and then try to get paid
afterwards.
The Slickee Boys’ mentors were (the) Razz. We
opened the Atlantis Club in DC, which later became
the first 9:30 Club. The band played Max’s Kansas
City, CBGBs, did the first DC area European tour,
and had its first EP (along with the other new
underground records) on a cover of the British
Melody Maker newspaper in 1976. I was honored to
have produced the first recordings for Bad Brains in
the studio.
The wide range of styles was a sign, in and of itself,
as to the creativity bubbling up at that time. You had
the avant-garde noise of half-Japanese, the father,
son and neighborhood kids’ band of White Boy,
alternative experimental bands, such as the Urban
Verbs and Tiny Desk Unit; weird rock such as Root
Boy Slim and The Dootz; real rockabilly such as Tex
Rubinowitz and the Bad Boys, Evan Johns and the
H-Bombs, Billy Hancock, etc.… Even Link Wray at
times was back! Finally, the punk bands Black Market
Baby, Judie’s Fixation, Marginal Man, Government
Issue, etc. led into a completely Washington-only
original hardcore movement. Straight edge bands,
records, shows, and flyers, by bands such as The Teen
Idles, S.O.A. (State of Alert with Henry Rollins), Iron
Cross, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Fugazi, and the like.
It was a wonderful time to be part of.
KIM KANE (b. 1951, West Germany) lived most of his early life overseas. This is where he got most of his inspiration for art and music, filtered and created by this experience. He started painting and drawing in Seoul,
Korea in 1966-67. He was asked to leave geometry class and instead take the art class in high school. Kane
tried to form a band in high school, but he realized at the first meeting, that you have to know how to play at
least one instrument (which he didn’t). Living in Korea was the cultural mix in what eventually, in 1976, led
him to form the band, The Slickee Boys. This is why their album and singles’ art has a pop oriental look to it.
Kane’s label, Dacoit Records, put out the first EP and album, in the Washington, DC area in the punk/new wave
movement that was starting world wide in 1976. He made up a lot of the early DIY flyers and ads. He had
releases in England, Germany, France, and Japan. He had a small booth at the first Washington Punk Arts festival. His guitars, backdrops, drum
heads, and clothes were either painted or hand made and painted in keeping with the band’s image. Kane now does mainly space geo abstract art,
and writes and records and releases records and restores classic cars.
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Kim Kane, The Slickee Boys album cover. Collection of Robbie White.
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Michael Reidy, What are Friends For?,
28.25 x 40.25 in. Courtesy of Robin Rose.
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Michael Reidy, Portrait of Kevin MacDonald, incorporating
his drawing, Reflections, The Embassy, 1981. Pencil, color
pencil, collage, 25 x 32.5 in. Courtesy of Robin Moore.
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ROOT BOY SLIM
and DICK BANGHAM
After graduating from Yale in 1966, Ken Mackenzie
enrolled at the Corcoran, “just to learn a little drawing
and maybe get laid,“ according to his teacher Bill
Dutterer. Hanging out with friends Mark and Michael
Clark, Ken fell into the DC art crowd for a period of
time, but his inclinations were more musical than
visual. After a few harrowing psychotic episodes,
he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Merging life
experiences and a passion for the blues, he created
the character Root Boy Slim, essentially his alter
ego. Working in Florida with former Yale frat brother
and band mate Bob Greenlee, Ken began writing
and recording mostly scatological songs that would
shape “The Root.”
In February 1977, Ken meets record store owner Joe
Lee and graphic artist Dick Bangham and asks them
to “help me get famous.” Blown away by a rough
demo of three songs about lust (“You Broke My
Mood Ring”), instant gratification (“I Want it Now”),
and real life experiences (“Used to be a Radical”—
about jumping the White House fence)—Bangham
and Lee agreed to work with him.
Slim went to Florida to work on material with former
Yale classmate Bob Greenlee while Bangham
arranged studio time at Track Recorders in Silver
Spring and Lee booked the Psyche Delly where
Slim had performed earlier with local musicians the
Bethesda Sick Band. On April 1, Root Boy Slim and
Greenlee’s group, the Sex Change Band, wowed a
packed house and the next day went into the studio
to record a half dozen songs one after the other.
A slew of club bookings soon followed, allowing
the Florida players to spend time in DC to record
between gigs. Local saxophonist Ron Holloway and
backup singers the Rootettes were recruited. Outrageous costumes, props and themes were created
to develop a full out show, with a manic Root Boy
engaging audiences with Holy Roller fervor.
A freelance artist for The Washington Post, Bangham
took Slim to the paper and introduced him to style
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section editors. They were charmed by Slim’s skewed
wit and Ivy League demeanor, resulting in two
simultaneous articles just a few days later. Meanwhile,
Lee was taking studio mixes to freeform radio station
WHFS where the DJs gleefully broadcast them day
and night. Word spread and Slim’s following grew—
all the way to the Carter White House, who reserved
10 tables for a show at the Cellar Door. Over the
summer Mackenzie, Greenlee, and Florida guitar
whiz kid Ernie Lancaster, knocked out an album of
new material including the signature Root Boy song
“Boogie Til You Puke.” WHFS DJ Josh Brooks gave a
completed tape to Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen who
passed it on to their producer Gary Katz, who, after
seeing the show live, immediately signed the act
to Warner Bros. for two albums. By November they
were recording in Miami with Katz, Fagen and Steely
Dan partner Walter Becker.
Working with Slim, Bangham designed the cover
and press package, which included promo “ROOT”
glasses and puke bags. Offered a job in the Warner
Bros. art department, Bangham declined and instead
joined the band to replace a Rootette who called it
quits. Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band with
the Rootettes was released in the spring of 1978,
coinciding with a sold out concert at DC’s Warner
Theater, simulcasted by WHFS. Warner Bros. also
budgeted video gear for Bangham to record live
shows. He edited a short video with performance
highlights, TV clips of puzzled critics’ commentary,
and an introduction by Slim addressed personally to
Saturday Night Live (SNL) producer Lorne Michaels.
SNL head writer and cast member Michael O’Donahue contracted them to perform “Boogie” for the
upcoming SNL Special “Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video.”
The national music press, including Crawdaddy and
Rolling Stone, are giddy describing Slim’s raunchy
vocals and stage presence. Rolling Stone gives the
album a rave review. Slim, Bangham, Lee and Brooks
are invited to the White House by Appointments
Secretary Tim Kraft, while Carter was away.
Dick Bangham, Mr. Cool, 1978. Airbrush illustration. Sleeve art for Root Boy Slim single “Christmas at K-Mart,” Joe-Tel Records.
Courtesy of the artist.
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Then things went south. When a disappointing US
promo tour was cut short, Greenlee, Mackenzie, and
Lancaster submitted new material to Warner Bros.
but they soured and backed out of the second album
option, paying the band $40K to go away. After viewing “Mondo Video” NBC President Fred Silverman
said it would air “over my dead body.”
(Police’s manager) Miles Copeland’s New Wave label
Illegal Records, and later in the US on his IRS label
when the band returned home. “Mondo Video” is
released as a theatrical film and the band performed
at the Time Square premiere cast party, attended by
Andy Warhol, SNL cast members, and other counterculture luminaries.
Using WB’s money, the band regrouped and
returned to the studio to record the new material on
their own, while playing to enthusiastic crowds up
and down the East Coast. In spring 1979 England’s
Ian Dury invited the band to open for his UK summer
tour. Slim is well received by Dury fans and the UK
musical press. ZOOM was released in the UK by
Early in 1980, Slim fires the entire band to go it on
his own. In the years to come, he would assemble
DC based bands of first rate musicians, renew his
writing partnership with Greenlee and Lancaster,
and continue his collaboration with Bangham for
covers, videos, posters, and merchandise until his
passing in 1993.
KEN MACKENZIE AKA ROOT BOY SLIM (b. 1945, Asheville, NC) was raised in DC. When he attended
Yale, he formed Young Prince La La and the Midnight Creepers with DKE brother Bob Greenlee. After
graduating in 1966, fellow ‘Deke’ George W. Bush banned them from the fraternity. 10 years pass, he
drives a cab, enrolls in arts programs at the Corcoran School of Art, American University, and University
of Florida. He climbs over the White House fence and lands in St. Elizabeth’s for observation. This and
other bizarre episodes become songwriting material. December, 1976, sitting in at the Psyche Delly
with the Bethesda Sick Band (including WHFS DJ John Hall and future Urban Verb Danny Frankel), he
debuts as Root Boy Slim. The following April he returns with Greenlee’s red hot Florida group dubbed
the Sex Change Band, taking DC by storm—packing every venue in town. Within six months they are
signed to Warner Brothers Records by Steely Dan producer Gary Katz, launching one of the strangest
acts in Rock and Roll history. Rolling Stone called him “the hippest thing to happen to DC since Nixon resigned.” Six albums and fifteen hardpartying years later he died in his sleep, at age 47. In a moment of reflection he once said “lame ladies and paregoric made my demise meteoric.”
DICK BANGHAM (b. 1949, Washington, DC) was earning money as an artist in his early teens and
developing as a musician and filmmaker. Inspired by California artists Stanley Mouse and Charles
White III, Bangham added airbrush to his toolset. Studying architecture at University of Maryland he
formed the band Beverly Pureheart with Maryland Lt. Governor’s son Joe Lee. They recorded an EP for
Adelphi Records, with cover art by Bangham, but disbanded before its 1971 release. Adelphi commissioned him for more album covers before leaving college and moving to New York - earning design
credits for Country Music Magazine and NORML, and publishing artwork in Broadcast Magazine,
Architectural Digest, AFI Journal and Screw Magazine. Returning to DC in 1973, he established himself
with work featured in The Washington Post, Washingtonian, Unicorn Times and children’s books for
Scholastic Publications. He became integral to the DC music scene creating album covers for acts
including the Nighthawks, Rosslyn Mountain Boys, Tex Rubinowitz, Root Boy Slim (who he also performed with), Little Feat, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nils Lofgren, the Fugs, and hundreds more. Film/TV credits include “The Bayou: DC’s Killer Joint,” “Nils Lofgren: The Art of Adapting,” “Of Flesh
and Blood,” Discovery series “Neat Stuff,” and music videos. Bangham is currently working on documentaries about WHFS and Root Boy Slim.
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Dick Bangham, Boogie Til
You Puke, motion sickness
bag,1978. Warner Bros.
Records promotional item.
Courtesy of the artist
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DAVID MICHAEL BARRON
The music scene was riddled with drugs and alcohol
in those days, much as it is now, I’m sure. My addiction got the better of me, and the result was art and
music went out the window. I was homeless for a brief
period, living in friends’ rehearsal spaces or sleeping
on random couches, things got pretty bleak. I moved
to New York City in 1986 and got clean and sober in
1987. I have continued to play music and make art,
though as avenues of expression, not professionally.
DAVID MICHAEL BARRON (b. 1958, Frankfurt, Germany). My family
moved a lot. My dad was in the Army Corps of Engineers until I was in
7th grade, when we settled in the DC area. I went to the Corcoran School
of Art from 1975-1979. I was in group shows at the Corcoran Gallery
of Art in 1976, Madams Organ Gallery in 1978 and Hard Art Gallery in
1980. My favorite music was the stuff being done by other art school
types, Brian Eno, The Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, to mention the
most influential. I performed with Laurie Anderson in 1978, playing
guitar when she did a performance piece in the loft at d.c. space. Laurie
performed with Tiny Desk Unit at the Pension Building in 1980.
Tiny Desk Unit, with encouragement from my friend Bill Warrell of d.c. space, was formed in the summer of 1979. Our first show was in early
September of that year. The original members were Susan Mumford (vocals), Bob Boilen (synth), Joe Menacher (bass), Chris Thompson (drums),
and me on guitar. I wrote the music and some of the lyrics for our first dozen or so numbers, then song writing got to be a more collaborative
effort. Joe and Chris were replaced respectively by Terry Baker and Lorenzo “Pee Wee” Jones in 1980.
44
| TWISTED TEENAGE PLOT
Michael Barron, Susan at the Exit, 1980. Liquid paper and Sharpie on paper bag, 17 x 12 in.
Courtesy of the artist.
Michael Barron, Bill Dreaming of Pizza, 1979. Acrylic on
wood, 14 x 16. in. Courtesy of Bill Warrell.
TWISTED TEENAGE PLOT
| 45
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| TWISTED TEENAGE PLOT
FOR BAND MUSIC AND�
MORE PHOTOS, VISIT: WWW.AMERICAN.EDU/MUSEUMTWISTED
ALPER INITIATIVE
First published in conjunction
with the exhibition Twisted Teenage Plot
April 2–May 29, 2016
Alper Initiative for Washington Art
American University Museum
at the Katzen Arts Center
Washington, DC
Curated by Jack Rasmussen, Ph.D
Design by Lloyd Greenberg Design, LLC
© The American University Museum
ISBN: 978-0-9964172-6-6
Right: Kim Kane (The Slickee Boys)
hand painted guitar with the artist’s hair.
FOR WASHINGTON ART
MISSION STATEMENT
The Alper Initiative for Washington Art
promotes an understanding and appreciation
of the art and artists of the Washington
Metropolitan Area. We provide and staff a
dedicated space located within the American
University Museum, to present exhibitions,
programs, and resources for the study and
encouragement of our creative community.