feb 4, 1970 - Nov 26, 2009

Drummers make the band

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:46:29 -0600

Rockin’ with Todd Jackson in Crash Course was great. He had a lot to do defining the sound with those speedy 16ths on the ride. When we got together for the Arluck Time show this year, we laughed about how fast he used to play and didn’t know if he could keep up the pace in his old age.

MORE TO COME

A Different Reason

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:53:30 -0600

I’ve been going though a lot of old video footage from the 8mm video cam to see if I can edit something together for Mat’s show on Feb. 4. There are many hidden gems and a few rotten eggs here and there, but in the end I’m really glad I have this stuff captured.

We had the video camera along on the only tour Crash Course did (if you’d even call it that), which I’ll share as soon as I edit it down. The video I posted here is from a show at Marsugi’s, downtown San Jose, in 1992. We’re doing the song, “A Different Reason” and it’s with the original Crash Course lineup with John England on bass and me just singing. There are some sweet shots of Mat getting hot face as the camera rushes his mic on the “whoa whoa’s.” Quality.

Arluck Time! Feb. 4, 2010

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:54:15 -0600

You’re probably all aware of this show, but here’s a poster for it. The photo was taken by Hot Steve. It’s kinda been the memorial photo of choice. At first, I was put off by the seriousness of it. But it is quite fitting, I suppose. In between all the ups and the downs, the funny business and the fuming, the surgeries and recoveries, there was ARLUCK TIME. This photo captures that sentiment. We’re using this similar design for the CD we’re putting out of Mat’s music for his memorial show coming up at Beat Kitchen in Chicago on February 4th. We all thought the date was fitting, as it was Mat’s birthday. The CD will have 6 unreleased songs from Crash Course. Finally, that stuff is going to see the light of day. Wish it were under better circumstances, but we’re doing it up right. Also, on the CD will be a couple tracks from the Black Flag covers Mat sang with Lynyrd’s Innards, a couple Horace Pinker tunes, Deminer songs with an unreleased live track, Closing in and Sweet Cobra with an unreleased song from their upcoming album. It plays pretty well start to finish and we’re all really excited about it.

I really can’t imagine having my musical career summed up in this manner, but this is a perfect chronological history of Mat’s recorded music. All proceeds from the sale of the CD will be divided between Grind For Life and a college fund for Mat’s nephews, Luke and Reece. In fact, all monies from the entire show will be shared between the two groups. Friends, Nate and Grant have also been working on custom skateboard decks in honor of the event. A few other friends are contributing posters, records, hats, even cupcakes for the benefit. It’s going to be a great night. Mat may be gone physically, but his life is serving as a force for good. He must have been doing something right.

As far as the show, I’ll be splitting my set with both Crash Course and Deminer. Both drummers, Todd Jackson and Dave Conrad will be flying in from San Jose. I’m sure the show will sell out. No pressure.

Mat’s memorial service with his family outside of Seattle was last weekend. A handful of us flew in from Chicago. It was great to see friends from California that I hadn’t seen in years. It was comforting. You could turn to anyone in the room and have a shoulder to cry on. Mat’s parents, Rick and Bonnie, were moved by the amount of Mat’s friends that made the trip. I don’t think they realized how many of us loved him.

Alternative Dancings

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:45:45 -0600

Beneath Mat’s hardened exterior was a freaky little puppet waiting to break free of its punk rock shell and have its strings pulled by the right tune that came calling. Sure, it may have been considered “mock” dancing, like he was making fun of it. Nevertheless, anytime I’ve seen him so inspired to move his feet, it was the way Mat danced. You were either getting goofy along side him, or laughing uncontrollably at his moves.

The picture above was taken in 1994 at Mike Honkamp’s apartment at Armitage and Oakley in Chicago (a place that me and Bob took over after Mike left). This was right before Mat left Chicago the first time to work at Plan B Skateboards in San Diego. And that’s Bob he’s getting freaky with, my good friend from El Paso. Who knows what song was playing? Mat probably thought it was fruity enough for him to add his nuts.

His style is hard to describe. It was kind of like a Footloose inspired step if Kevin Bacon were a little light in the loafers. Mat would bob his head, well, like a bobble-head and occasionally add vocals to his routine, “Alternative dancings, dancings, dancings. Alternative dancings.” There was a little Fred Schneider creeping into the gay 80s influenced melody. I wouldn’t doubt it if Mat was up there fruiting it up like a toucan on a cloud right now.

This is...Crash Course

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:37:35 -0600

When I first started singing with the band, they were formerly called Retaliation. It took a long time before we even came up with the name, Crash Course (finding out later how generic the name was, as I discovered a few other Crash Courses around the country. But fuck it, there was no Internet back in 1989, that I had access to anyway).

We started out practicing in the woodshed behind the drummer, Todd Jackson’s place in Fremont, Calif. It was across the street from the junior college he was attending at the time. I really don’t know how four dudes and a bunch of gear crammed into this 8X10 space. Well, I’m guessing the size, but it was tight.

RawwllEnnnz! (photo update)

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 12:27:17 -0600

When the subject of Henry Rollins would come up, immediately, at the top of his lungs, Mat would rip from his throat, “ERRRAAAWWWLLLENNZZZ!” He’d stretch it out for as long as he could. It was fuckin’ funny. It was such a no-brainer when Lynyrd’s Innards asked him to scream with them on Halloween for their Black Flag cover set. Justin Schwier wrote in with a great tale of the event, which was the first time he met Mat.

Justin writes:

One of my favorite memories of Mat is my first memory of him.
Halloween weekend 1999. All weekend was spent at Off the Alley in Homewood, IL (a now long defunct club that hosted suburban Chicagoland shows for years, Jawbreaker played there once, which I guess would be the major claim to fame of sorts). All three days featured the best that Chicago's punk rock scene had at the time, Mary Tyler Morphine, Lando's 45, the Mushuganas, Ambition Mission, the Letterbombs, the first Winepress reunion show, A lot of bands had been dressing up all weekend, occasionally throwing in a cover song to their set, but no one did a full on cover set: enter Lynyrd's Innards. Shortly before they played, I hear of this plan to do an all Black Flag covers set, which the idea was pretty confusing...as L.I., if you've never heard them are a heart on your sleeve hyperactive pop punk band, but not this fearsome angry monster that Black Flag conjures in your brain.

So I don't remember who it was, maybe Scott Thomson, somebody came up to me and asked if I remembered what Henry Rollins' tattoos looked like and where they were at...so I said yeah, being that i was, and still am for that matter, a big Rollins fan. I walk into this back room and there's this dude with a shaved head wearing black shorts and nothing else and a bunch of people standing around him with black Sharpie markers, so we all start discussing how far we want to take this, as Rollins has a lot of tattoos... and one by one we start drawing fake tattoos on this guy, ha, a hell of a way to meet somebody. So I'm drawing something on this guy and he's like, "Oh Hey, by the way, I'm Mat". We have a good laugh at how ridiculous this situation is and eventually we decide to stop as the markers were dying from the get go and hey...we put a good dent into the ones we could remember.

Now, I never saw Black Flag, but I don't think I'd ever have wanted to see them play in reality, because I don't think they would have been this good. They hit the stage like a fucking bomb, and I'd never seen such a big circle pit until that night. Mat was like a caged animal let loose, I'm sure living out some dream of singing Black Flag songs live on stage. Yeah they were amazing, they recorded a studio version of the covers and released a one sided LP on Scott Thomson's label Harmless Records, goddamn do I wish they'd recorded that show though.

Anyway, there's a certain bond that you share with someone when you spend a half hour frantically drawing on them with markers, ha! ...and from that day on, every single time I saw Mat in the last 10 years, he treated me like a brother.

***
Man, I wish someone had some photos from this show. If you do, please send them to mat@dmnr.com.

***
I found these photos of Mat doing the set with Lynyrd’s Innards at the Underdog Loft the same weekend Justin was talking about. Mat wasn’t into getting dressed up and going out that night but we convinced him to dig something out of his closet and he came out wearing grey sweats and a head band. He really liked head/sweat bands. It wasn’t planned for him to do the Blag Flag set that night, so it was extra special.

Teri Who?

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:28:13 -0600

All that time spent in the van, we had to entertain ourselves somehow. Of course, we had the stereo. Driver’s choice was the rule. But then, there were all the jokes and the shit-talking. On one particular trip to L.A., and I’m not really sure how it came up, but Mat and Karl (I forget his last name) were going back and forth with one another coming up with funny names and the corresponding voices. It was 1989, and I could be wrong, but this was the first time I noticed Mat’s obsession with coming up with ridiculous sounding names of people. He had a definite affinity towards the name Teri. If Mat ever had a kid and named him/her Teri I think I would lose my shit anytime I’d be in the same room as the child. Child? Speaking of which, Chicken-child. “Child” was up there on Mat’s list of favorite words. I’m glad this is making me smile right now. If you remember any names Mat had when you were around him, please don’t hold back. Email mat@dmnr.com and share the wealth.

1988: An Introduction

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:02:44 -0600

I was a sophomore at Santa Clara University and had just met one of the obvious punks of the school. The school wasn’t that big so it was easy to spot Joe Sib’s bleached toe head in the crowd. Plus, I had just gone to see his band, Frontline, play in the student union building. I got to know Joe and found that we liked many of the same bands. I was really happy to know someone who was out there playing in a band, touring, being a part of the scene. It was the reason I wanted to go to school in California after growing up in El Paso. A lot of my favorite bands were from there—Dead Kennedys, Adolescents, Social Distortion, Descendents. There were also all the skate rock bands that happened to be from the Bay Area where I was going to school, like Los Olvidados and the The Faction.

You can’t imagine my excitement when one weekend Joe asked me to jump in the van with Frontline on a road trip down south. And who do you think was also invited along for the ride? Some dude they called, “Matallica.”

He had one of those names that people liked saying the first and last name together—Mat Arluck. His hair was kinda long and greasy, like a Beatle bob combed down with a stick of Land O’ Lakes. I felt sorry for his pillowcase. He came across as more of a metalist than a punk. He had a snide attitude mixed with that wry, but goofy sense of humor we’ve all come to love about him. For me, he was the kinda guy that you really weren’t too sure if he liked you or not. And he wasn’t going to show you his cards any time soon.

Mat and I did a few of these roadie trips together and also started bonding over the bands we liked. I was a DJ at the college radio station, KSCU, so I had access to a lot of music. I remember times when Mat would call me from the San Jose Skatepark with Corey O’brien to request music they could blast while grinding it up. Occasionally, I had Mat come down to the station during my shift with some of his records. He was way into collecting stuff, as most of you know. There was a period where he was bent on having everything in the Misfits catalog. It didn’t last very long because he had found everything pretty quick. We spent a lot of time going to Streetlight Records and got especially giddy over the KFJC record swaps. I remember Mat practically wetting his pants over the Government Issue, Legless Bull, 7” he picked up at one of these. Me? I was quite daffy over the first Naked Raygun 7” I scored at a reasonable price.