Crime (band)
Encyclopedia
Crime was an early American punk
band from San Francisco. The band was formed in 1976 by Johnny Strike
(vocals, guitar), Frankie Fix (vocals, guitar), Ron "The Ripper" Greco (bass; ex-Flamin' Groovies), and Ricky Tractor (Ricky Williams
) (drums). Their debut, the self-financed double A-side, "Hot Wire My Heart" and "Baby You're So Repulsive", appeared at the end of 1976, and is the first single released by a U.S. punk act from the West Coast
.
The band's sound was characterized by simple rock-and-roll arrangements played at intensely high volumes. Michael Goldberg, critic for New York Rocker
magazine, wrote in 1978: "Crime play loud. So loud that the plate glass window at the opposite end of the club shakes, tables tremble and people hang onto their drinks. Loudness may be Crime's only musical raison d'etre. This band is a literal translation of the concept 'minimal.' Drummer Hank Rank thumps out a simple Bo Diddley
beat that is only adequate in the context of the rest of the band. Bassist Ron the Ripper coaxes a thick rumble from his amp that reminds one of the thunder of a bulldozer rolling over rugged terrain. And the guitar playing of [Johnny] Strike and Frankie Fix make you feel like you've been forcefully held underwater for the full 25 minutes of the set."
Ricky Tractor
was fired (later appearing in groups such as Flipper
, Toiling Midgets
and The Sleepers) and was succeeded by Brittley Black (Larry Black) in 1977. After releasing one single, another double A-side, "Frustration" and "Murder by Guitar", Black was replaced by Hank Rank (Henry Rosenthal) that same year. In 1979, Greco left the band and was replaced by Joey D'Kaye (Joey Swails) on bass, who had been the band's sound engineer.
Greco and Black both returned for Crime's last release, the single "Maserati/Gangster Funk" in 1981, while D'Kaye moved to synthesizers and produced the recording.
The band split up the following year. Strike and D'Kaye briefly formed a synthpunk
duo called Vector Commande, while Fix attempted to start a solo career. Neither produced any record releases.
Ricky Tractor died in 1992, Frankie Fix in 1996, and Brittley Black in 2004.
San Francisco's Doomed
, a collection of studio recordings and rehearsal tapes, was released with the approval of the band members by Solar Lodge in the United Kingdom
in 1991 on vinyl and CD. Fix, Strike and Rank played on all the songs, with Greco playing bass on side one of the LP, and D'Kaye on side two. The album was re-released as San Francisco's Still Doomed (with added tracks and remastering) in 2004 by Swami Records
.
In 1979 San Francisco video company Target Video
produced Crime: Live in San Quentin Prison, a documentary of a live performance by the band at San Quentin State Penitentiary in California, where they played for the prisoners wearing exact copies of the uniforms worn by the prison guards.
Sonic Youth
featured a cover of "Hot Wire My Heart" on their 1987 release Sister
.
In January 2010, a book of Crime's early photographs and posters, The Band Crime: Punk '77 Revisited by James Stark, was published by Last Gasp Books
.
. Soon the city was covered in posters by the band, and by the next day they were canceled by the club, their records were yanked from the one store that carried them, and they were banned from the Mabuhay Gardens. Even some other punk bands felt they had crossed a line, but the prank overnight made them infamous. The band were informed that Bill Graham
had announced to his staff that they would never play one of his venues. Graham’s parents had been in a concentration camp, thus likely explaining his swift action. Strike had worn a police uniform to a photo shoot and afterwards convinced the others to join him in this new look. So the band, in full San Francisco Police Department
uniforms, went to Graham's office and demanded a meeting. Graham refused to see them, but sent out an apparently nervous spokesman. The band explained to him that it was an art prank, and was to be the first of many war criminals emblazoned on posters and yes, other Nazis. The spokesman promised to explain it all to Graham.
After a few months they were allowed back at the Mabuhay to support the English punk outfit The Damned
. Crime accepted the show but decided since it was their turf, and since they could fill the club on their own, they should be the headliner. They did another poster with individual pictures of themselves, and their name at the top, but with The Damned lettering the same size below. Club manager Dirk Dirksen
took them off the bill for the stunt, but it didn’t stop the band from attending the show wearing the police uniforms that they’d taken to wearing offstage as well. Next, word came to them that a San Francisco police officer had told San Francisco Chronicle
columnist Herb Caen
that if Crime were spotted on the street in uniform they would be arrested. Acting as spokesman, Johnny Strike openly challenged the police, and Caen wrote about it in his column, but nothing ever came of it.
in Rolling Stone included Crime along with them, Devo
and Muddy Waters
as the best dressers in rock. Swami Records reissued and re-mastered the 1991 Solar Lodge LP San Francisco’s Doomed, calling it San Francisco’s Still Doomed, including two alternative tracks from the first single’s recording session. Spirit Records reissued the first single with liner notes by Thurston Moore
. The record was included in Mojo magazine’s list of the best punk rock singles of all time. K-Swiss
sneakers negotiated a deal to use Gangster Funk in their EU and Japanese TV ads finally giving the remaining original band members a righteous paycheck.
Crime was re-formed in 2007 to headline the Road to Ruins punk festival in Rome
. Original members Strike and Rank were joined by: Mickey Tractor on bass, and Pat 'Monsignor' Ryan (formerly of The Nuns
) on guitar. In 2008, Crime recorded a new album of rare, older material entitled Exalted Masters, available on LP
only, after Ryan was replaced by Count Fink (Brett Stillo of The Flakes) on guitar. They played a half dozen shows in 2008 to support their new album, and recently collaborated with the Moroccan group the Gnawa Express.
In an interview Johnny Strike claimed a boxed set of Crime recordings would possibly be released in 2009. A new EP
is due out in Jan-Feb 2010 from F.Y.B.S. Records, featuring two new songs along with a featured collaboration with Gnawa Express.
The current members of Crime have also performed in San Francisco under the band name "Remote Viewers".
Strike has published two works of fiction in recent years: Ports of Hell, and A Loud Humming Sound Came from Above. Rank has produced numerous films (under his real name, Henry Rosenthal) including the hit The Devil and Daniel Johnston
. D'Kaye (under his real name, Joey Swails) continued to work as a Bay Area recording engineer and producer.
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band from San Francisco. The band was formed in 1976 by Johnny Strike
Johnny Strike
Johnny Strike is an American writer, mostly known as songwriter, guitarist and singer for the proto-punk band Crime based in San Francisco.-Songwriter and Musician:...
(vocals, guitar), Frankie Fix (vocals, guitar), Ron "The Ripper" Greco (bass; ex-Flamin' Groovies), and Ricky Tractor (Ricky Williams
Ricky Williams (musician)
Ricky Williams , also known as Ricky Tractor, was an American musician based in San Francisco. He is best known as a vocalist and lyricist, but also played drums and guitar. He was the original drummer for Crime , the original singer for Flipper and The Sleepers , and vocalist for Toiling Midgets...
) (drums). Their debut, the self-financed double A-side, "Hot Wire My Heart" and "Baby You're So Repulsive", appeared at the end of 1976, and is the first single released by a U.S. punk act from the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
.
The band's sound was characterized by simple rock-and-roll arrangements played at intensely high volumes. Michael Goldberg, critic for New York Rocker
New York Rocker
New York Rocker was a punk rock new wave magazine founded by Alan Betrock in 1976. Betrock left the magazine in 1978, and Andy Schwartz took over as editor until 1982. In 1979, it had a circulation of 20,000....
magazine, wrote in 1978: "Crime play loud. So loud that the plate glass window at the opposite end of the club shakes, tables tremble and people hang onto their drinks. Loudness may be Crime's only musical raison d'etre. This band is a literal translation of the concept 'minimal.' Drummer Hank Rank thumps out a simple Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
beat that is only adequate in the context of the rest of the band. Bassist Ron the Ripper coaxes a thick rumble from his amp that reminds one of the thunder of a bulldozer rolling over rugged terrain. And the guitar playing of [Johnny] Strike and Frankie Fix make you feel like you've been forcefully held underwater for the full 25 minutes of the set."
Line-ups
In the following years Crime changed their line-up several times.Ricky Tractor
Ricky Williams (musician)
Ricky Williams , also known as Ricky Tractor, was an American musician based in San Francisco. He is best known as a vocalist and lyricist, but also played drums and guitar. He was the original drummer for Crime , the original singer for Flipper and The Sleepers , and vocalist for Toiling Midgets...
was fired (later appearing in groups such as Flipper
Flipper (band)
Flipper is a punk band formed in San Francisco, California in 1979, continuing in often erratic fashion until the mid-1990s, then reuniting in 2005. The band influenced a number of grunge,, punk rock and noise rock bands...
, Toiling Midgets
Toiling Midgets
Toiling Midgets is an influential rock band from San Francisco, California with "roots in seminal San Francisco punk acts the Sleepers and Negative Trend1." They were "one of the first West Coast punk bands to experiment with dub and post-punk elements1", and have been active on-and-off since 1979...
and The Sleepers) and was succeeded by Brittley Black (Larry Black) in 1977. After releasing one single, another double A-side, "Frustration" and "Murder by Guitar", Black was replaced by Hank Rank (Henry Rosenthal) that same year. In 1979, Greco left the band and was replaced by Joey D'Kaye (Joey Swails) on bass, who had been the band's sound engineer.
Greco and Black both returned for Crime's last release, the single "Maserati/Gangster Funk" in 1981, while D'Kaye moved to synthesizers and produced the recording.
The band split up the following year. Strike and D'Kaye briefly formed a synthpunk
Synthpunk
Synthpunk is a music genre combining elements of electronic music and punk rock. The term was coined by Damian Ramsey in 1999 as an attempt to retroactively identify a small sub-genre of punk music from 1977 to 1984 that involved musicians playing synthesizers in place of electric...
duo called Vector Commande, while Fix attempted to start a solo career. Neither produced any record releases.
Ricky Tractor died in 1992, Frankie Fix in 1996, and Brittley Black in 2004.
Recordings and media
Over the course of their career in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Crime officially only released three 7" vinyl records. But many bootleg recordings of the band's live performances and demo tapes were sporadically produced throughout the 1980s.San Francisco's Doomed
San Francisco's Doomed
San Francisco's Doomed is an LP album by San Francisco band Crime.Side one of the album consists of tracks from a demo recording made in March of 1978 at His Master's Wheels studio in San Francisco, and was produced by Elliot Maser...
, a collection of studio recordings and rehearsal tapes, was released with the approval of the band members by Solar Lodge in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1991 on vinyl and CD. Fix, Strike and Rank played on all the songs, with Greco playing bass on side one of the LP, and D'Kaye on side two. The album was re-released as San Francisco's Still Doomed (with added tracks and remastering) in 2004 by Swami Records
Swami Records
Swami Records is a San Diego based independent record label specializing in punk rock, indie rock and garage rock that was founded in 2000 by John Reis...
.
In 1979 San Francisco video company Target Video
Target Video
Target Video is a San Francisco-based studio, founded by artist Joe Rees, who collaborating with Jackie Sharp, Jill Hoffman, Sam Edwards and others, archived early art performance, punk and hardcore bands on video and film. Performers and artists as diverse as the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys,...
produced Crime: Live in San Quentin Prison, a documentary of a live performance by the band at San Quentin State Penitentiary in California, where they played for the prisoners wearing exact copies of the uniforms worn by the prison guards.
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
featured a cover of "Hot Wire My Heart" on their 1987 release Sister
Sister (Sonic Youth album)
Sister is the fourth album by alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released in 1987 on SST Records. It was re-released in late 1994 on DGC.The album furthers the band's move away from noise rock towards more traditional pop structures, while maintaining an aggressively experimental approach. It...
.
In January 2010, a book of Crime's early photographs and posters, The Band Crime: Punk '77 Revisited by James Stark, was published by Last Gasp Books
Last Gasp
Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...
.
Controversy
In 1977, Strike booked the band into a leather bar called The Stud and decided to create their own poster. The idea was to do a series of war criminals, choosing a photograph of Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. Soon the city was covered in posters by the band, and by the next day they were canceled by the club, their records were yanked from the one store that carried them, and they were banned from the Mabuhay Gardens. Even some other punk bands felt they had crossed a line, but the prank overnight made them infamous. The band were informed that Bill Graham
Bill Graham (promoter)
Bill Graham was an American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death.-Early life:...
had announced to his staff that they would never play one of his venues. Graham’s parents had been in a concentration camp, thus likely explaining his swift action. Strike had worn a police uniform to a photo shoot and afterwards convinced the others to join him in this new look. So the band, in full San Francisco Police Department
San Francisco Police Department
The San Francisco Police Department, also known as the SFPD and San Francisco Department Of Police, is the police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California...
uniforms, went to Graham's office and demanded a meeting. Graham refused to see them, but sent out an apparently nervous spokesman. The band explained to him that it was an art prank, and was to be the first of many war criminals emblazoned on posters and yes, other Nazis. The spokesman promised to explain it all to Graham.
After a few months they were allowed back at the Mabuhay to support the English punk outfit The Damned
The Damned
The Damned are an English gothic punk band formed in London in 1976. They were the first punk rock band from the United Kingdom to release a single , an album , to have a record on the UK music charts, and to tour the United States...
. Crime accepted the show but decided since it was their turf, and since they could fill the club on their own, they should be the headliner. They did another poster with individual pictures of themselves, and their name at the top, but with The Damned lettering the same size below. Club manager Dirk Dirksen
Dirk Dirksen
Dirk Dirksen was a music promoter and emcee of the San Francisco punk rock clubs Mabuhay Gardens and On Broadway in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dirksen was nicknamed the "Pope of Punk"....
took them off the bill for the stunt, but it didn’t stop the band from attending the show wearing the police uniforms that they’d taken to wearing offstage as well. Next, word came to them that a San Francisco police officer had told San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
columnist Herb Caen
Herb Caen
Herbert Eugene Caen was a Pulitzer Prize-winning San Francisco journalistwhose daily column of local goings-on, social and political happenings,...
that if Crime were spotted on the street in uniform they would be arrested. Acting as spokesman, Johnny Strike openly challenged the police, and Caen wrote about it in his column, but nothing ever came of it.
Of Note
Various bootlegs have appeared over the years, and a number of Crime tunes have been covered by other bands besides Sonic Youth. Clinic featured a photo of Hank Rank in a collage on their first release. Noise punks the Hot Wires who merged into Black Time acknowledged their debt. Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist of The HivesThe Hives
The Hives are a Swedish garage rock band that first garnered attention in the early 2000s as a prominent group of the garage rock revival. Their mainstream success came with the release of the "greatest hits" album Your New Favourite Band, featuring their most well-known song "Hate to Say I Told...
in Rolling Stone included Crime along with them, Devo
Devo
Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...
and Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
as the best dressers in rock. Swami Records reissued and re-mastered the 1991 Solar Lodge LP San Francisco’s Doomed, calling it San Francisco’s Still Doomed, including two alternative tracks from the first single’s recording session. Spirit Records reissued the first single with liner notes by Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...
. The record was included in Mojo magazine’s list of the best punk rock singles of all time. K-Swiss
K-Swiss
K-Swiss, Inc. is an American footwear company based in Westlake Village, California. The company designs, develops, and markets a range of athletic shoes under the K-Swiss brand.- History :...
sneakers negotiated a deal to use Gangster Funk in their EU and Japanese TV ads finally giving the remaining original band members a righteous paycheck.
Reformation
In 2001, Strike formed a new band, The Johnsons, with Jimmy Crucifix (bass/vocals) and Biff O'Hara (drums). They changed their name later that year to The Venus Hunters and eventually shortened it to TVH. In 2002 they released the album Night Raid on Lisbon Street on Flapping Jet Records. The unofficial Crime fan site, San Francisco's FIRST and ONLY Rock & Roll Band, reported that Hank Rank had joined TVH in late 2002, replacing O'Hara on drums.Crime was re-formed in 2007 to headline the Road to Ruins punk festival in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. Original members Strike and Rank were joined by: Mickey Tractor on bass, and Pat 'Monsignor' Ryan (formerly of The Nuns
The Nuns
The Nuns were a punk rock/new wave band in San Francisco in the late 1970s. The band has periodically reformed and played to the present day. The band formed in 1975, and were the among the first punk bands in California. In January 1978, together with The Avengers they opened for the Sex Pistols...
) on guitar. In 2008, Crime recorded a new album of rare, older material entitled Exalted Masters, available on LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
only, after Ryan was replaced by Count Fink (Brett Stillo of The Flakes) on guitar. They played a half dozen shows in 2008 to support their new album, and recently collaborated with the Moroccan group the Gnawa Express.
In an interview Johnny Strike claimed a boxed set of Crime recordings would possibly be released in 2009. A new EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
is due out in Jan-Feb 2010 from F.Y.B.S. Records, featuring two new songs along with a featured collaboration with Gnawa Express.
The current members of Crime have also performed in San Francisco under the band name "Remote Viewers".
Strike has published two works of fiction in recent years: Ports of Hell, and A Loud Humming Sound Came from Above. Rank has produced numerous films (under his real name, Henry Rosenthal) including the hit The Devil and Daniel Johnston
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a 2006 documentary film about the noted American artist Daniel Johnston. It chronicles Johnston's life from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his experiences with bipolar disorder, and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession. The film was...
. D'Kaye (under his real name, Joey Swails) continued to work as a Bay Area recording engineer and producer.
Discography
- 1976 (7") "Hot Wire My Heart" / "Baby You're So Repulsive"
- 1977 (7") "Murder by Guitar" / "Frustration"
- 1980 (7") "Maserati" / "Gangster Funk"
- 1991 (CD/LP) San Francisco's DoomedSan Francisco's DoomedSan Francisco's Doomed is an LP album by San Francisco band Crime.Side one of the album consists of tracks from a demo recording made in March of 1978 at His Master's Wheels studio in San Francisco, and was produced by Elliot Maser...
- 1993 (LP) Terminal Boredom (live bootleg)
- 1994 (LP) Hate Us or Love Us, We Don't Give a Fuck (legitimate reissue of live bootleg)
- 2003 (CDR) Cadillac Faggot (legtimate release of live bootleg) 100 numbered copies
- 2004 (CD/LP) San Francisco's Still Doomed (reissue with bonus, alternate takes of both songs from the 1976 single)
- 2007 (LP) Exalted Masters
- 2010 (7") "Extortion" / "Crazy Beat"