max's people speak out...

JOEY PINTER

"I know about these things.."

   

One of the first times I went to Max's, I met Alice Cooper, this is when 'Billion Dollar Babies' was the biggest record in the world. I was in a band called "Brooklyn Trash" and he seemed very amused. I do admit being there, in the middle of that wonderful time, was great. One of my fondest memories is one of the times "Fuse" or "The Knots", I don't remember which band i was in at the time, was opening up for "The Heartbreakers", we were at the sound check (that's when I actually went to those things) and was having a real hard time tuning, it was really pissing me off. So right when I was going to throw my guitar across the stage (drama in the afternoon) Johnny Thunders comes over, and tells me that my strings were installed wrong. so I take one look at this guy and think "yeah, mister fucking tuning!" At that, John tells me to remove my strings, and we sit on the edge of the stage while he shows me the correct way to string a Les Paul. I remember him saying to me in that nasal voice of his "I know about these things". He was right. It's funny how one remembers little things like that, however, I have changed strings several thousand times since that afternoon, and I still have never found a better way to do it. Thanks John.   

 

BOBBY STEELE

"MISFIT at max's.."

   

Misfit at Max's by Bobby Steele

One of my first 'Perks' after becoming a MISFIT was having access to the backstage area at MAX's KANSAS CITY - which was actually on the third floor, and was where the real action occurred.. There were three dressing rooms, and a bathroom -first class accommodations, by punk standards. This was where, during a week of HEARTBREAKERS shows that were being recorded for an upcoming Live album, I had the opportunity to meet one of my guitar heroes. A lot of people will claim to have been a friend of Johnny Thunders, but my observation was that Johnny had few friends, but lots of hangers-on who'd win their way to his heart by presenting him with bags of heroin - often when he was trying to clean himself up - and then use that as evidence of their bond with him. It was a pretty sick game over the years as his true friends would help him clean up, and then some asshole would come along - and, "for old time's sake" coerce him back to his hell. But I got my first taste of the 'other' Johnny a couple of months later when they held the record release party for the HEARTBREAKERS "Live At Max's" album. After the set, I bought a copy of the LP, and headed upstairs to the dressing rooms - to get it autographed. I handed it to Walter Lure, who signed it and handed it to Jerry Nolan, and Billy Rath, and then I went looking for Johnny. I handed him my LP, and before I knew it, he jumped up and ran downstairs with my record. When I caught up with him, in the first floor bar, he'd given it to some girl that, I guess, he was hoping to score that night. Thankfully, Walter stepped in and explained everything to her, and she handed my album back to me. This album is still one of my most prized relics of that period.

 

 

JOHN HOLMSTROM

"PUNK is Coming..."

   

By the time I began hanging out there in 1976, it was past its heyday. I remember when the upstairs turned into a disco for a short time in 1975-76, and I visited it. It was like Saturday Night Fever – upstairs at Max’s? Thankfully it didn’t last long.

It was a bit scary, since CBGB was almost the last club left in the city. Thankfully, Max’s soon reopened as a rock club again, and I think an untold story is how the rivalry between the two clubs for dominance over the rock scene from 1976-1979 really fuelled the NYC music scene as much as anything else.

My favorite night there was the time we brought Lester Bangs to see the Ramones in early 1976. Lester had seen Television and Patti Smith and was very disappointed, since he expected the NYC punk rock scene to be Stooges redux. We kept insisting that he had to see the Ramones to understand New York city punk rock, and how Patti Smith and Television weren’t really punk (anymore). Let’s face it, in 1976, there just weren’t many true punk bands in the whole world. The Ramones and Dictators were about all we had in NYC, and Lester was already acquainted with the Dics. So we took him to Max’s, got famously (too) drunk (The Aquarian wrote about us a few months later, apparently we were a spectacle), and Lester reluctantly admitted that the Ramones were “okay.” They “weren’t bad.”

Years later, I read that Lester “helped to discover” the Ramones.

Right.

Anyhow, that honor should belong to Lisa Robinson and James Wolcott. She wrote about them in Creem and he wrote about them in the Voice in 1975, which inspired me to go see them, which resulted in starting up Punk magazine. Lester never really even liked them.

 

HOWIE PYRO

"makin' history at max's.."

   

max's kansas city was the magical dreamland of my pre & early teen rock scene magazine dreams. it was everything you think & more...I knew even at that young age I was a part of making history every minute...and max's was the original eye of that tornado.

 

Now, click HERE to see the images from max's kansas city, the club that can't be named....