The Old Days

Today I heard of the death this past weekend of a man I knew in the old days. Torr Skoog was the vocalist, songwriter, and driving creative influence behind Boston band The Kings of Nuthin'. I wouldn't describe him as a close friend, but he was a guy I knew, who was friends with other guys I knew back when my life centered around the punk rock scene in Boston. His death, and the memories of my young life that it has brought to bear, has me feeling rattled enough the talk about it here. I'll try not to get too maudlin about it, because maudlin definitely ain't very punk.

I drew this poster for a show we played back in 1999. I was the drummer in the Speed Devils, the rockabilly outfit you may remember me mentioning before. Mr. Airplane Man was a killing duo of girls, drums and guitar, playing blues the likes of which any band named after a Howlin' Wolf song should. The drummer went on to marry another good friend. The Konks were a favorite of mine, a band that was "garage" to the core yet somehow managed to maintain an originality that no one could touch. The Boston Bootleggers were the new guys at the time, and our man Torr was the frontman. They went on to become The Kings of Nuthin', local legends to those who cared, and in plenty far flung places too. This show was one of the best I ever attended. To have been a part of it was, in retrospect, a real honor. In true punk fashion, it resulted in all of us being banned from The Lizard Lounge forever. Someday I might get into the details, but I remember stepping across a bed of broken beer bottles to my seat behind the drum set when it was our turn to play.

We went on to play with the Kings of Nuthin' quite a lot over the next few years. They always brought a level of fire and energy to the show that could only make you smile. To call them the living essence of punk rock would be a disservice to them. For one thing, they weren't really what I'd call a punk band. There were seven of them, or eight, and their music was based in the black rhythm and blues style rock 'n roll of the late fifties. A big band by the standards of any of the rest of us at the time, the line up included drums, piano (always a real acoustic upright, hopelessly out of tune, that they took to every show. Heroic), upright bass, guitar, horns, and this crazy dude called Necro running around playing a washboard. They dressed in matching black suits and ties, which were constantly filthy, but they were sharp by the general standards of the scene. None of this silly studded belt and funny haircut crap, leave that to me and my friends.What made them the darlings of the punk crowd was the sheer release of energy that came blasting out of these dudes, every f*cking time. It was thrilling to see, and it never, ever got boring. A lot of that had to do with Torr. He couldn't really sing, but he wasn't exactly screaming either. What he was doing was performing in a compelling way that held the attention of each and every soul in the room each and every second of each and every set they played. His lyrics had the anthemic quality of old hard core about them, which really got the kids riled, but he was much more of a writer than that, because his lyrics were actually good too.

That's the poster for our own CD release gig (damn, why didn't I say record release?). The Kings had set them up good, and everybody was in full swing by the time we took the stage. About halfway through the set, I see this giant flame come blasting out of an air conditioning vent. Startled, I looked up while playing to see it happen again. There in the vent was Torr, breathing fire. Seriously, I'm not making this up. When I confronted him about it after the show, he merely shrugged, smiled, and put a finger to his lips. What could I say? That was Torr for you. 

I do remember him as being a somewhat enigmatic fellow. I know plenty of you think my tattoos and rock scene past are a little rough, but believe me I was nothing but a puppy in this crowd. These dudes were for real, and Torr was the realest. Sometimes homeless, sometimes living on a garage or some such crazy place, always working on some 1940s hot rod or other that was never really done, and covered in real, homemade crazy tattoos. Trust me, my shtick was downright pedestrian next to him. But for all that, you really couldn't find a nicer, more polite guy. He was disarming in his politeness in fact. It always caught me off guard a little. Once, I ran into him in The Model Cafe, then the high holy watering hole for real degenerates and wanna-be degenerates like myself, and he proceeded get us both drunk on beer and shots of Galliano, of all things. Weird.

I had just run into him, randomly, on the sidewalk in front of my job, only a few weeks ago. It was the first time I'd seen him in years, but he was just as friendly as ever. When I heard about his death this morning, it shook me up a little. He was a young man, probably not yet forty. I spent the whole day remembering those times, the people I knew and the person I was. It's funny, I often talk about all that stuff I was into, all those punk bands and silly shows, as a learning experience best outgrown when adulthood kicks in. But many of the friendships remain strong and the memories fond, and I don't regret a minute of it. It's a big part of the man I am today, even if most people might never guess it at first. Torr Skoog was one of the more dynamic personalities I encountered then, a truly memorable person. He may not have been a close friend personally, but he stands in my memory as a representative of a formative part of my life, my own version of the "good old days". 

R.I.P. Torr.

-Joey from Somerville

 The Speed Devils

Book Review: 100 Years of Menswear

A few weeks ago, the kind folks at Laurence King Publishing sent me a copy of one of their new books, 100 Years of Menswear, by Cally Blackman, with the request that I review it here. Since  books are my favorite kind of blog-related free swag to pick up, I of course said yes. Forgive me if I'm a little late to the party with this one. I realize that reviews of this book have been popping up all over in the last few weeks. 

I think this is a fun book. Mostly, it's a photo book with very little text at the front end of each section. That's fine with me, given that it doesn't seem to be intended as a definitive tome on the social ramifications of menswear, but rather a compendium of photos spanning a little of everything men have worn in the last 100 years.What strikes me most about it is the diversity of styles the author sees fit to include. If you're looking for (yet another) sycophantic pin-up book about the long lost splendor of the 1930s, this book isn't for you. If however you realize that the sharp elegance of the magic old days is but one piece in a much vaster puzzle, than you may find something to like here.

Of course, we have the requisite illustrations of the 1930s which the menswear blogs have deemed we are now required to drool over...

and late nineteenth century photos and illustrations of men in morning dress, or playing tennis in white flannel suits, or hunting in tweed three piece suits with plus fours. Like so many other menswear bloggers, I love that stuff, but as someone who also has a checkered past in rock n roll, I realize that these things are far from the full story, and so apparently does Ms. Blackman. She managed to amass in a relatively small book lots of great examples of artistic sub-cultural clothing, every bit as much "menswear" as a top hat and tails.

We have original 1960s Jamaican rude boys, in sharkskin suits, skinny ties, and baggy military surplus coats.

Crazy space aged stuff from the 1970s.

And every form of music related dress code, including androgynous glam, zoot suits, and punk rockers like the ones pictured here.

So much of what we read these days on the topic of such an ambiguous term as "menswear" tends to be rather narrow minded. We like to hone in on our own particular point of interest while failing to even acknowledge that anything else existed. We get hung up on particular moments in the past, and paint them romantically to suit our own ideal of it. We create rigid sets of rules which may or may not have actually existed. This book isn't called "A Guide to Ivy League Fashion", or "Best of Laurence Fellows", because those things are not the whole story in menswear, and as such this book attempts to cover it all. You may not like everything you see in this book, and you don't have to. Personally, I find there to be as many things that I find silly as there are things that inspire me here. But that's the point. Men have worn everything in this book at one time or another. Hippies, punks, businessmen, soldiers, coal miners, artists, and athletes all wore something we can call "meswear".  Knowing the full history of any given topic is always more useful than a rose colored and edited version, and Ms. Blackman has given us a concise set of thumbnails that embraces the full story. I like that.

Hey, Daddy-Oh

So, I was gonna write something about dressing gowns and black tie, and how to fake it if you're a cheap b*stard, but the I stumbled across this, quite by mistake...


...and it reminded me of the good old days.

A punk rock outlook and a yearning for black tie need not be mutually exclusive, daddy-oh.