The Lewd

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Bob, is there a special reason why you never played in a punk band again?
Bob: As far as turning away from punk/hc I just got sick of unpleasant music. I don't mean loud and stupid, I still love that, but crappy guitarists thrashing around a screaming idiot trying to sound like Satan. I'm just not interested anymore. The same thing happened to the metalheads too.

I think the band that got me back on track was a drunken, moronic cover band called Ten Inch Gods. We played "classic rock" songs, Bowie, Stones, Humble Pie, stuff like that. Playing with them reminded me of why I was a guitar player, music not stardom (which has eluded me anyway) but having fun with music, playing what I like whether I'm sitting on my bed, or at some club. It doesn't matter. Now I live for the "magic musical moment" and I don't give a shit about much else.

I play with my 19 year old son as much as possible. We are both in a band called Chicken Pussy Queen that is fairly close in spirit to punk rock although we don't care enough to try to get a show. I love playing with my son, he used to fall asleep on the stage at the Mabuhay Gardens when he was still wrapped in blankets.

What about Olga and Sats? After such a great band I am wondering why both singers never formed another band?
Olga: I got tired of playing with Satanists, Neo-Nazis and lazy bums.
Sats: I needed to take a break. I wanted to stand back and observe the whole thing from afar. As for jumping into another band, that would have been quite a challenge for me. It would have been a lot easier for me if the Lewd was just a so-so band, but we were hot. It would have been an awesome undertaking to top the last one. Besides, I had been dabbling with other artistic expressions ... i.e. film, theatre, directing and acting. I also wanted to relax in the shoes of the consumer for awhile, as opposed to being on the delivery end.

Did you go any further into that, I mean, acting or directing etc.?
Sats: While the group was going most of my experience was in front of the camera, i.e. Lewd footage. I played a sex-crazed bell bottomed rapist in Justice For Jennifer. Right after the break-up I put a lot of time into directing. We filmed a remake of Sunset Boulevard with Laura Lorda in the Norma Desmond part. It was hysterical, with her accent slaughtering all those lines. It was also one of the last films that featured the Sluts a Go-Go. It was never totally finished but we did enough that it could be released.

How many have been pressed of the original 7", the LP and the Vs 7"?
Sats: I don't know ...
Olga: Don't know. The LP ... 2000-4000? ... I'm not sure. The Vs 7" only 2000 ... I have a couple hundred of those. Also, there was a SF Underground EP featuring The Lewd, the Fuck-Ups, UnDead and Society's Dog...LOTS of those were pressed. There were 2 Eastern Front LPs featuring a complete international cast of bands.

Can people still buy the Vs 7" from you?
Olga: Yes, they can buy it from me, plus I have half a dozen unopened Lewd Albums for $100 each. The Vs 7" = $25.00. Send requests to devolga@hotmail.com.

Did Vs ever record more than the tracks on the Magnetic Heart 7"?
Olga: No, not really, but there are some songs that Mike Fox's Sauna Studios recorded, which will come out on the CD they're making in Seattle.

What are the lyrics to Magnetic Heart about?
Olga: Well, it's personal...due to my magnetic personality.

A guy I know has been searching for a lewd video called Loud and Lewd for many years. Does it even exist?
Bob: YES it exists and we are hoping to someday see it again!!!!
Olga: It's not a video, it's a movie...a 16mm movie produced by Karl Heinz and Sideshow Productions, who also produced several other movies that featured the Lewd, including Justice for Jennifer, Congo Confidential and Go to Hell in Hollywood. Target Video made uncountable numbers of videos from our live shows and never paid us a dime. This company, owned by Big Daddy Joe, did this to all the SF bands and made enough money to buy a ranch in northern California, a Rolls-Royce, a big cigar and snakeskin cowboy boots - probably silver tipped with spurs! He sent us all a video of himself with this cowboy-booted foot propped up on the Rolls, smoking a cigar, thanking all the punks in SF for making him so rich.
Sats: Yes it does. Somewhere... We just recently got word on the whereabouts of the film maker (he has been missing for years) and so we hope to get our hands on it and somehow get it released in video format. As I remember, it's very raw and was done on film. Even today it would be disturbing to most. I remember the shoot, but not the content. The opening credits were our roadie, Deeogee, carving the title, Loud-N-Lewd into his chest with a razor blade. It got pretty bloody by the last word! Watch for it on MTV!

Is he the guy on the lyric sheet for the LP?
Olga: Yes.
Sats: Dee-o-gee was our ever faithful roadie and the best friend the band ever had. I can't speak high enough of this person but, unfortunately, he died much too young a few years back. It's truly too sad to even think about ...
Bob: These CDs are absolutely dedicated to Dee, we love and miss him very much.

Is that Loud & Lewd movie a real movie, I mean, with a story, or more a documentary?
Olga: I don't know...it has a plot...but I forgot!
Sats: I don't really remember. I believe it was live footage from the Mabuhay. We worked a lot with this filmmaker, Karl Heinz. We did several projects with him.

What are the other films about?
Olga: Justice for Jennifer - Listen to the Metallica album And Justice for All. Congo Confidential - Don't let your pet gorillas kill your landlord. Go to Hell in Hollywood - Ask Sats, he was the main star.
Sats: Bob did the soundtrack/background music for Justice For Jennifer. As far as Congo Confidential, all that comes to my polluted brain is a memory of a choreographed dance number where we got a bunch of punks and bums to get in total blackface body make-up with bones in their hair. They danced this production number while Laura Lorda was the Queen of the Jungle. It was so funny we had a hard time finishing the shoot. Go to Hell in Hollywood is like a MTV type short film of LA set to one of our songs.

Did Target ever release a Lewd tape, or were Lewd tracks only included on compilation videos?
Olga: He has so many tapes of our complete shows - then he splices and dices them to sell to European video bars - who knows? We've never seen 'em. I just don't know...we never got to see ourselves.
Bob: As far as I know, we are only on one released Target video, the song "Fight" is included in the one that I found. However, in the stack of tapes I have, is some very weird format video tape that I have no idea how to view. It is an old Sony format that is unused these days. It has to be early footage of the Seattle lineup but there is only one way to be sure. Perhaps if we find Karl Heinz and get the films transferred to video we can find a way to include this one too.

I noticed some mystic references on the LP sleeve, have you been in touch with Doug Moody? I'm asking because a lot of bands seem to be on war terms with mystic.
Bob: Wow, Doug Moody? As I recall he was a very friendly old studio owner who came down the hall a few times to hear us and tell us rock'n'roll stories. He told us about Led Zeppelin recording some of Whole Lotta Love at Mystic Sound because they had a killer old style echo chamber built under the studio. We talked about the Bobby Fuller Four, and many of the other music gods that he had worked with. If we are the only band that doesn't hate him, good. We never cared what the other bands did.

Why was the LP divided in live & studio parts? I mean, it's more common to have a full live or a full studio LP?
Sats: I think at the time we weren't sure if there would be a second LP, so we used what we had.
Olga: Because we wanted our fans to be able to hear us playing live with no overdubs. We had the opportunity to record at Mystic Sound - a gift from God and Clem Fisher - we wouldn't be ANYWHERE without Clem. He is directly responsible for producing us and deserves all the credit....at least much more than anyone has given him.
Bob: Sats and Olga are close, but the reason was really financial. We met Clem Fisher through LAs Wasted Youth, and he didn't have enough cash to do a full LP. He wanted us to come down to LA, record side one, then do the rest after he had sold some WY LPs. We suggested using the Target tapes because it was already done, and he agreed.   (continued ..)

LEWD contact: thelewd@hotmail.com

Copyright © 1998 Burkhard Jaerisch