Popular books on punk history tend to focus on the most famous groups in the big city scene, like London, New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, but banned from living in cities where the companions of the big cities could not. Thanks to the people, the number of punks has increased rapidly. Find on the map – they can also hear something about themselves reflected in strange contradictory sounds.

Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett’s new book, Peorian Punk: Make a scene in Heartland, USAHelp show how popular early punk was. Published last month in University Press of Illinois, Peoria punk Comes with a compilation of soundtracks released on the archival Chicago label, Alona’s Dream. This soundtrack contains songs from bands such as Bloody Mess & Skabs and my favorite Constant Vomit, which represent a contempt for the general public by name. On September 5, the Casa de Arte in Peoria celebrates the book with an all-day open-air concert. Peoria fest punk..

Deeply sought after Peoria punk Learn about the growth of a scene in a city in central Illinois that was not a sanctuary for destroyers. In the following excerpt, Wright and Barrett show how punk seeds were first planted in Peoria. The passage begins with concert promoters Bill Love and Jay Goldberg, who also owned a local chain called Co-Op Tapes and Records.

• Compilation of companions Peoria punkReleased on Chicago archival label Alona’s Dream

The hometowns of Bill Love and Jay Goldberg, 10 miles south of Peoria across the river, did not appear to be a hotbed of musical activity. Despite having a population of less than a third of its sister cities, Beijing has its own record store, main store, cafe, folk singer and rock band, a conservative base and 1960s counterculture. Indicates intrusion. From the beginnings of rock and roll to the punk era, so many local musicians have found their roots in Beijing. In the 1970s, Beijing hosted performances such as Kiss, Blue Oyster Cult, Runaways, Rush, and Journey (the then-unknown opening by Tom Petty). Perhaps more importantly, Beijing was home to the Golden Voice Recording Company. It’s Illinois’ best recording studio outside of Chicago.

Surrounded by cornfields at the southern end of town, Golden Voice is best known for helping Dan Fogelberg and REO Speedwagon get off to a good start in the music industry. Styx and Head East recorded there, and one of the music industry’s most successful engineers began his career in the studio. “Reason for Nirvana’s album it does not matter Partly because Golden Voice influenced Andy Wallace, “Pekin Duck’s Chris Gilbert is reissuing the score for the Golden Voice recording, which was almost forgotten on his dream record Arona. I am responsible for doing it. Twenty years later, perhaps longer, Golden Voice has played that role. ”

From the 1960s to the 1970s, Golden Voice provided musicians in central Illinois with a unique opportunity to make high-quality professional recordings at affordable prices. Featured bands in almost every part of Peorian have recorded there. Among them was Beijing’s response to the Beatles and Jet, one of the Midwest’s most successful community events of the 1970s. Riding a wave of hype fueled by local radio stations, the group is smaller, but crowded with their first Peoria and Beijing shows, unlike what The Beatles themselves did 10 years ago. Attracted raving fans. Although stylistically more power pop than proto-punk, the band is unsurprisingly considered a local pioneer of punk thought and attitude in central Illinois.

In early 1974, Jets broke some members’ obsession with David Bowie. From the ashes, Jets, the first Gram group of the Peoria area, was born. For singer-guitarist Graham Walker, Bowie was a musical and cultural representation of rock’n’roll’s next logical extension in the post-Beatles era, involving the form of punk in the future. / glam clothes. I dyed my hair orange and shaved my eyebrows [as Bowie had famously done].. We were just teenagers running around Peoria and Beijing. .. .. .. To walk down the main street of Peoria without the eyebrows, I dyed my hair bright orange and wore a sequined shirt in the 70s. .. .. People wanted to kill us! You couldn’t leave. No one understood what we were doing. It was like coming from space. ”

On Friday May 24, 1974, Walker and his Jets / Jetz bandmate Gregg Clemons went to Co-Op Records to get a brand new Bowie. Diamond dogs LP. “We bought the record at noon and at 12:30 pm it was on our turntable,” he recalls. “We had a guitar and we played together. The main song was ‘Rebel Rebel’. At 2:00 or 2:30, the first pass occurred. said the group. I played it that night. It was an important moment that Walker later described as “Introduction to Peoria Punk”.

However, Jetz lasted less than a year. Towards the end of the decade, the resurrected power-pop incarnation of the Jets (including Walker) will release a single on twin / tone record from Minneapolis, a leading indie label in the growing post-punk underground. did. The group recorded the number one hit in Minneapolis, where young Prince Rogers Nelson is said to have attended a record release night, and once opened for the Ramones, further linking the group to the emergence of punk rock.

For 16-year-old Douglas McComms, who grew up in Peoria and Beijing, the important “Aha” moment came during Devo’s performance in 1978. Saturday Night Live.. “Until then, I had little interest in music,” recalls the co-founder of the experimental rock group Tortoise. “Over the next two years I tried to find some context for how Devo existed, connecting the dots and closing the gap. “:

I’ve been crazy about skateboarding since about 1972, but it had nothing to do with rock and roll. When I discovered Devo, I started to notice it [skateboarders] Jay Adams and Tony Alva no longer wear Ted Nugent T-shirts in the magazine and have shorter hair. Interesting development. Eventually, I realized that there were people in my town who were as interested in me as they were me.

I searched the Co-Op Records cutout bins in Beijing and Peoria for something strange, but without any information I found TV, Peruve, Wire, X, Crumps, Stranglers, Buzzcocks and more. There were also records of some unexploded ordnance.

I go to this gay bar in Peoria because they never gave us a card and played a great record. From there, I discovered Iggy Pop and Lou Reed (I didn’t know anything about the Stooges or Velvet until later) and the Chicago Wax Tracks. I took a trip to Chicago to buy skateboard records and parts.

For 16-year-old Jon Ginoli, punk was exotic and intangible, and only existed on the pages of magazines such as: Circus, Hit parade,and cream.. “I’ve heard of punk rock, but I didn’t know what it sounded like,” says a former Peorian. “Everything was used a lot. None of them were on the radio here.

“In Peoria, the world seemed to unfold elsewhere,” he adds. “I didn’t have much to do except buy records. So when the Ramones’ debut album hit Ginori’s ears in the spring of 1976, it came as a revelation. That fall, it was the same for the Sex Pistols’ debut single, “British Anarchy”. “I was able to order a copy from a record store in New York,” he explains. “I remember hearing it once. Go to “Hmm …”. Listen twice and go to “interesting…”. And I heard it for the third time. I heard about it! ”

Turns out, the mark Ramones left on Ginori won’t go away. Fifteen years later, leaving the world in San Francisco, he established himself as the founder and leader of the Pansy Division. They are “the first all-gay rock band we all know.” The Pansy Division’s face-to-face approach to queer sexuality was very radical at the time, but almost unimaginable for the young self of Ginori, an alienated teenager who grew up on the culturally oppressive prairie of Illinois. has been. Nevertheless, he forged himself there via punk rock: a ticket for him to accept his outsiders. “I haven’t been out yet and I wasn’t really sure about my sexuality,” Ginori explains. “I was very frustrated, and punk rock is very good at communicating those frustrations.”

But beyond some LPs in the Co-Op rack, punk rock may not have existed in Peoria. With the exception of his one MC5 show, Jetz’s Bowieism, and a visit to British pub rockers Eddie and the Hot Rods in 1979, there is little evidence of a distant Pioria “punk” in the 1970s. The classic DIY punk scene show for all ages was unheard of.

“I went to the bar when I wanted to see a rock show, but I definitely couldn’t,” says Ginori. But he was able to buy the record. And that’s not the only aspect of the punk movement that inspired him. “I read people posting zines … and I was able to order some by mail order, so I thought.”Make Run the fanzine. ”

In 1977, while in the third year of Richwoods High School, Ginori Houpla, Peoria’s first punk rock fanzine, its 16 xerox pages were full of messages written by punk culture typewriters. However, few Peorians know or care about it. Almost entirely distributed by mail. “”Trouser press There was a section where I could place a short ad, so Houpla When you’re there, people will mail it off, ”Ginori explains. I couldn’t really find anyone involved in Peoria other than a few. “ v

From Peoria’s Punk: Make a scene in American Heartland by Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett. Used with permission from University Press of Illinois. Copyright 2021 by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.