INTERVIEW: N.O.T.A PT I
Formed in Tulsa, Oklahoma during the late 1970s, None of the Above (N.O.T.A) was one of the first bands to gain recognition on the American Hardcore scene once the attention shifted away from the country’s coasts or major Midwestern cities like Chicago or Detroit. With their widely distributed 1983 demo tape recorded live at local punk haunt The Crystal Pistol, they became the flagship band for the area while also bringing in out-of-town bands and encouraging others to be a part of something interesting going on in their hunk of the states. During their on-again-off-again existence which petered out somewhere in the year 2000, the band released three seven-inch EPs and three full-lengths with the best being the Moscow and Toy Soldiers EP’s released in 1984 alongside their debut LP released a year later.
Like a complete dork, I tracked down longtime N.O.T.A bass player Bruce Hendrickson on social media and asked if he wouldn’t mind answering some questions about the band and the early Tulsa punk scene. Luckily, he was up for it and due to the length of his answers, it looks like I’ll be doing this interview in installments much like the Chris Thomson one I’m in the midst of right now. For this first part, Bruce tells us about the origins of both the Tulsa punk scene and N.O.T.A
No Idols: How did the members of N.O.T.A get to know each other and start to make music?
Bruce Hendrickson: Actually, Jeff Klein (vocalist) moved down here from upstate New York in 1974; he had been in a few bands in high school. By late 1975 Jeff and I were both working at Burger Chef and met there. I’d been hearing about this guy from New York with a slightly abrasive east coast personality who was some kind of Rocker. He was this tall striking figure who looked like a frontman; we started talking and realized we were kindred spirits. Like myself, he was an avid reader of the Rock magazines of the day, Creem and Rolling Stone mainly. I grew up living overseas, but was here in high school at the time; we were both independently following the emerging New York City scene at CBGB. We were reading about artists like Patti Smith and the Ramones; of course, none of this was being played on the radio - so there was a disconnect, reading about something new happening but not knowing what it sounded like. Glam/Glitter was morphing into punk and it started to get interesting. Jeff and I were jamming and trying to form a band by the time all the controversy over the Sex Pistols erupted in the UK - and suddenly they were coming to Tulsa.
The Sex Pistols at Cain’s Ballroom marked the beginning of punk rock in Tulsa. The Godfathers of local punk were people like ‘Crazy’ Dave Hatfield, David Holland, Mike Lykins, Greg Sewell, and Roger Scott; they were all at the show and the next day started forming bands. From a primordial soup of early bands in 1978-79, two emerged that stood out above the rest: the Automatic Fathers and Los Reactors. Both were trailblazers and had a significant influence on us; perhaps most importantly they were writing exciting original material. We realized we needed to up our game.
Throughout 1978-1979 Jeff and I went through a revolving door of drummers and singers. Finally, in the late summer of 1979, Bob Purdom responded to a bulletin board ad we had posted in a local music shop. Things finally began to gel. Bob actually suggested the name None of the Above based on a newspaper article on the forthcoming US presidential election. We were rejecting both sides in a display of punk nihilism - very much a reflection of Bob’s influence. An artist, he designed our original Mod/New Wave logo and eventually the logo people know today. He also said we needed to fire the singer we had. Which we did. Jeff became the vocalist by default - a fact he is always quick to point out.
1979 saw the developing punk versus new wave schism taking shape here locally as everywhere else. We were behind the curve relative to our peers, and our identity as a band was still very much a work in progress. Jeff and I had both been keen on Mod as kids. I had seen Mods as a young boy living in Europe and the look, the Vespas, and the mini-skirts made a lasting impression. The early albums by the Jam provided us with an early template. The problem was we didn’t have anybody who could sing like Paul Weller. We had to shape the music to fit the talent - or lack thereof. Bob and I were both relative beginners on our instruments; we were learning to play by learning the songs Jeff was writing - and initially, we were pretty dreadful. By the end of every rehearsal, Jeff would be holding his head in his hands in despair. Inevitably, the next day he would call ready to have another go at it.
What was the early N.O.T.A material like?
During this developing process, Jeff was writing a lot of songs - I would give him lyrics and he would come up with music. He was writing great lyrics and clearly showed a knack for coming up with memorable guitar riffs. That we were a three-piece shaped our sound as well as visually - Jeff looked like Paul Weller but sounded more like Joe Strummer or John Lydon. At that point we were much more post-punk than we realized - the term hadn’t been invented yet. We definitely self-identified as punk - just as everyone was proclaiming themselves New Wave. We were listening to a lot of PiL at this point. Keith Levine had a big influence on Jeff’s slash and burn guitar playing. I was very much influenced by Bruce Foxton of the Jam and Paul Simonon of the Clash - as well as Jah Wobble’s bottom-heavy dub bass. The songs we were writing showed a spark that kept us going.
What was the reaction to your first gigs?
The Tulsa scene really began to take off in April of 1980 when Brian Plummer of the Jacks stumbled onto a downtown dive called the Bleu Grotto, complete with plaster stalactites hanging from the ceiling over the stage. Brian told Shelby the owner he could fill the club. On a Saturday night, a couple of weeks later None of the Above took the stage opening for power pop band the Jacks playing to a packed club of the Jacks fans who hated our band. A guy named Joe Linhart aka Joe Danger talked his way into becoming the Bleu Grotto’s promoter and the place quickly became a regional hub for bands like the Nerve Breakers (Dallas), the Ralphs (Ft Worth), the Embarrassment (Wichita), the Fensics (OKC), among many others.
Unfortunately, Bleu Grotto attracted too much local media attention. Joe’s penchant for agitprop promotion upset the local political power structure. Joe was quoted in a local daily newspaper that “Punk is dead nationally, but it is still hanging on here,” while touting the more artistically experimental edgy New Wave had replaced it. It didn’t matter. The Tulsa PD public relations officer was quoted in the same newspaper saying, “Tulsa doesn’t need a New Wave.”
The manager of a neighboring apartment building began calling in noise complaints and the police started raiding the club and shutting down shows - which led to violent confrontations with the police that escalated into melees and numerous arrests. Crowds began to dwindle. Joe came up with the idea of asking us to open for out-of-town bands - which we agreed to do.
Towards the end of the Bleu Grotto era, Joe booked a band from Kansas City called Hitler Youth and asked us to open. I went to his apartment to meet the band and they had a copy of Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown ep on cassette that they played over and over. It took me some time to adjust my ears as I had no frame of reference for what I was hearing. The Hitler Youth people seemed to be up on what was happening in LA and going on about how contrived record label New Wave was dead and that Hardcore Punk was taking punk rock to a whole new level of intensity. A light went off - this was the moment we had been waiting for. As it turned out bands across the country were developing along similar lines.
I have to say here that Hitler Youth was a group of Kansas City art school types who saw the whole thing as a performance art experience designed to shock. I have no idea what became of them. At that time there was an attempt by experimental artists to appropriate Nazi symbols and imagery to critique modern western civilization - think Sid walking around Paris wearing a swastika, or Throbbing Gristle’s Zyklon B. It was a bad idea that backfired; those symbols are so imbued with evil that they cannot be appropriated without that evil rubbing off on everything it touches. The show with Hitler Youth triggered a police riot that proved the death knell of the Bleu Grotto. Hitler Youth vanished into the mist of history, Hardcore Punk would have a more lasting impact as a genuine grassroots cultural revolution.