Below is a note (unedited) from Eric Bolash about the band and the times that was submitted on 9.17.2008.

Boone Punk Rock

I recently watched a documentary that chronicled the emergence of punk in the late 70s and early 80s. Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders described the atmosphere: "…That was the beauty of that scene, everyone got a band together."
Boone felt a little like that in the 80s. Those of us who were into joyfully experimental, funny, angry, ugly, fuzzy, ridiculous music felt like if you wanted to, you could start a band and be in a band or think about being in a band or think about going to see a band or think about where you'd get the money to buy the next record from one of these bands. We had unapologetically one-track minds.

New bands and live music broke out all over the place. For a couple of bucks, you could go see friends making loud music on stage most weekends. I remember watching No Reason Why at the Pub with an equal measure of awe and relaxed laughter between friends watching the show. Like any other warm-blooded person, I freaked out watching Wendy and the guys scorch through Immigrant Song. With fascinated interest, I watched Chris concentrate on pulling extraterrestrial sounds out of his guitar. I watched the Outer Limits and Fear & Loathing and Life After Lunch and Discord with the same fascination.

If there wasn't music around campus, we got into somebody's car and rolled down 321 to the Milestone or the 1313 or the Pterodactyl in Charlotte to be steam-rolled by bands like Sonic Youth, the Chili Peppers, Flaming Lips, fIREHOSE, Das Damen, Fishbone, Pressure Boys, the Exploited, the Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr., Royal Crescent Mob and on and on. I remember thinking this music was so good that I hoped the rest of the world wouldn't find out about it and spoil the joy of seeing and hearing and feeling it so up-close.

People did find out, though. It's become cool to call this music punk rock. We would have laughed if you said that in the late 80s. But it's a reclaimed term. I like it better than Alternative for some reason. I guess it's because the term makes fun of itself, which is a fairly punk way to look at things.

I didn't play guitar. I didn't play drums or bass. So, I casually mentioned I could sing if Jamie and Scott needed somebody for the Dead Wives, but I was honestly really hoping they would say yes.

Listening to the recording of "Good Guys Don't Wear White," I can hear the smiles on our faces. I can see Jamie and Scott pounding their aged, beat-up hollow-body guitars, which fed back with a beautifully terrible moan between songs while we practiced. I remember catching a ride from them out of Boone to the house where we practiced. On the way to practice, we rode through cold, quiet, foggy, snow-dusted mountain roads. I remember trying to scream above the distortion into the mic with song lyrics taped to a weight-bearing pole in the basement where we practiced. I remember my throat aching in the most awesome way from screaming into the mic. I remember wearing the most absurd clothing I could devise and not caring. I remember not really knowing if we were going to play live anywhere, but not really caring about that much either. I remember my ears ringing when we exited into the cold, quiet night to get into Scott's pickup.

The Dead Wives never played live. So, you could say we weren't really a band. That's pretty much true. Then again, making some inventive loud music just because it made you smile had its own kind of value.

Archivist note - The documentary film Eric is reffering to is Punk:Attitude the 2005 documentary by Don Letts. The film is well worth watcing. There's a Wikipedia article on it here

Send an e-mail to the archivist