The Atlanta scene goes way back before my time. Hell, the Sex Pistols first U.S. date was in Atlanta at the Great South Music Hall in January of 1979. Back in 1980, before I was old enough to get into clubs, I'd sit on Spring St., drinking beer and watching the punks walk back and forth between the 688 Club and the Bistro on Friday and Saturday nights. 688 was the first punk club in Atlanta and when Iggy Pop played there he painted his set list on the wall. It became sort of a shrine. They repainted the graffiti covered walls in the club a few times, but they always painted around the song list. Sometime in the late 80s, when the owners blew all their money on coke and couldn’t pay the electric bill, new management took over, painted over the set list and turned the place into a gay club. All the old punks had a fit. The Agora Ballroom and Hedgen's were other clubs of yore.
  Also at the time all the original Atlanta punks lived, at one time or another in the legendary Pershing Point Apts (now the site of the IBM building). I moved out of Atlanta in `81 and missed a good bit of that early scene. Bands like Freddy Vomit, Teens in Heat, and the Restraints whose lead singer, Chris Woods, a diabetic would shoot up insulin on stage and then stick the syringes into his bald head. His girlfriend was killed in a mysterious shooting incident and Chris went to jail for it. He eventually died in prison from complications from his diabetes.
  I spent the summer of `85 down in Florida, and deciding to move back, traveled to Atlanta in August to look for a place to live. At the time Little 5 Points was where everyone hung out, so I found an apartment near there. L5P, like (big) 5 Points downtown, is at the intersection of 5 roads, hence the name. Now L5P was been taken over by yuppies and new hippies, back in `85 L5P's was the domain of the Atlanta counter culture. Punks, skins, bums, runaways, ex 60s hippies and the occasional rich folks slumming it and trying to take pictures of kids with mohawks. The square was lined with used clothes and furniture shops, a pawn shop, a record store (Wax and Facts), a grocery store, a pizza place (Mellow Mushroom), a cool dive bar (The Point), an abandoned high school, a movie theater that showed art films, a lesbian book store and a liquor store. It was where everyone went to hang out when there wasn't anything else going on. You could brown bag it and the cops didn't give a shit. Now, the Point has closed, the high school has been converted into expensive loft apartments, the grocery store is now the MTV superstore and the square is full of bongo playing hippies and drug dealers. At least the liquor store is still there.
  Lets get back to `85. Apartment shopping successfully concluded, it was time to finally check out the Atlanta scene. That weekend I made my first trip to the Metroplex. The `Plex was hands down, no contest, the greatest club in the American punk scene from `85 to `97. The original `Plex was on Lucky St., but by the time I got to Atlanta it had moved to a warehouse on Marietta St. Across the street from the club was another warehouse owned by some punk chick’s mother. A bunch of the punks and skins lived on the second floor. I remember an old, beat up car parked out front with Agnostic Front spray-painted on the side of it. I don't remember who played the `Plex that night, but I'll never forget standing outside between sets with my brother and all the other skins and punks waiting around, when out of a second story window of the warehouse across the street, somebody started playing the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange. You know, the theme music at the beginning of the film, the opening scene a close up of Alex's face in the Milk Bar. Surreal.
  I went back to Florida for a month and moved all my shit to Atlanta in September. I got a job in a warehouse that imported toys and every weekend I'd hit the clubs. The `Plex was an all ages club and since the last MARTA train left the Omni station around midnight, all the shows began around 9:00. That was fine with me. I'd hit the `Plex early, everyone would hang out and drink in the parking lot before and between bands, then after the show I'd head over to the 688 to catch the last band. When that club closed at 4am, a bunch of people usually went to the Majestic, a white trash diner. Pretty funny scene. A bunch of punks and rednecks eating in the same place, everyone drunk.
  I guess the skinhead scene in Atlanta didn't begin until `84 or early `85. The skins pretty much ruled the `Plex and L5P. They had a bad rep with some of the punks and the left wing media (Creative Loafing and WRFG.) Like everywhere else they were portrayed as the rednecks of the scene. I didn't know anything about skins at the time. After hanging out with them I realized that most of what I'd heard about the Atlanta skins was bullshit and that they were into the same shit as I was. Eventually, I hung up my leather jacket and bought a bomber. I guess everyone in my generation started like that. We didn't have the luxury of walking out of high school into a flourishing skin scene. There was no skin scene in America back when I was in high school. There was no "bible" to tell you how to dress. We all started out as punks. Hell, I had the "Never Mind The Bollocks" on 8 track! (Editors note: for all those under 21 an 8 track is a large cassette tape predating the compact disk, MP3s, high definition cassettes and Beta video tapes.) But I was in the right place at the right time and managed to get into the Atlanta skin scene within it’s first year. From what I can figure, the Atlanta skins had two major influence, a bunch of guys importing the style from St. Louis, and the Anti-Heros. Two skinheads, Townsend and Alan Sullivan, later of Moonstomp, lived in St. Louis with their mother. Their father lived in Atlanta and ran the Great South Music Hall. In `84 or `85 they decided to move to Atlanta, bringing the look and music with them. Traveling with them were Gary Yoxen and Rob Bell, a black kid they picked up off the streets. By the time I met them, their close crowd included Chris Lewis, Eric Bishoff, Kira, Holly Winn, Tim Smith, Alison Anchors, Brian, Lorrie and Len Todd (RIP). There wasn't any animosity between punks and skins back then. Everyone went to the same parties and shows. Some of the other folks hanging around in the scene were Scott Schlancker, Ira, Jordan, Toni, Todd Sokul, Bert Westmoreland, Danny Mostella, Chris Edwards, Christy, Bonnie, John, Ginger (2ea), Raul, Foster, Karina, Geordie, Ginsie, Billy Asshole, Paul, Nancy, Melody, Rich, Lorelia, Kat, Staphan and Chris Mills, Tina Lund, Chicken Mary and a bunch of other people I am probably forgetting. Sorry.
  As for the Anti-Heros, they began a year or two earlier. Mark Noah had moved to Atlanta to attend college. He was already a fan of the music when one day in Piedmont Park, he saw two punks walking along. One had a mohawk and a jacket with "Anti Heros" written on the back. Mark got talking to these guys (Jay Jones and Joe Winograd) and found out they wanted to start a band. They had a name for the band but no lead singer. Mark told them he'd sing, write lyrics and find them a place to practice. They started practicing in a church on the campus of Emory University. With no permission from anyone, they'd just walk in, set up and act like they were supposed to be there.
  One of my favorite of Mark's stories comes from this time period. He was living in an apartment near Emory and his neighbor was a good friend of Amy Carter, the ex-President Jimmy Carter's daughter. On sundays, everyone would go to a bar on Spring St. called Margaritaville and hang out in the parking lot, drink and recover from the weekend. Amy Carter showed up at Mark's neighbors one Sunday and they decided to go up to Margaritaville. As they were pulling into the parking lot, Amy Carter says. "Look at those punks, what a bunch of poseurs." I guess she was the real thing.
  Jay Jones eventually left the Anti-Heros to play in a rockabilly band and was replaced by Mike Jones. Mark, Joe, Mike and Tim Lawrence moved into an apartment in an old house on Euclid Ave., stumbling distance from L5P. I don't think they ever cleaned the place, but we would have some great parties on their front porch, really annoying the upstairs neighbor, Linda Sue. She was kinda wacko. Had a bunch of plants and a couple of mannequins on her balcony. That's the kind of people L5P attracted.
  Toward the end of `85, I had seen a lot of these people at shows and parties, but hadn’t really gotten to know many of them yet, especially the skins. One night I was watching TV and writing my brother a letter, the news came on and said, “Coming up, members of local gang arrested.” Knowing that skin were the flavor of the month with the local press I wrote my brother that it was probably the Atlanta skins. After the commercial, I learned that I had guessed correctly. It was the night of the “Disco Riot.” The song is pretty self explanatory, but I learned the details a few months later from the folks who were there. The 688 club had some local bands playing and advertised that they’d have free beer. If you’re like me, you can suffer through some pretty bad music for free alcohol. On the other hand, when the beer is free, you’re not so worried about wasting it.
  Sometime during the festivities someone got up on stage and threw a beer at the band. Everyone was kicked out and a scuffle ensued. The owner of the club jumped into his van and ran into Chris Lewis, breaking his leg. An unnamed individual pulled the club owner out of his van and beat him with a metal pipe. The cops came and almost everyone took off. Joe hadn’t done anything, so he was hanging out and watching. One of the band members fingered him and he was arrested. That ol’ guilt by association thing. I believe he eventually got some probation for it. Two of the other guys, Chris and Eric jumped bail and left town never to be seen again. Todd Sokul had put up their bail money and needless to say he was pissed at them. I don’t know is he ever got his money back. December 1985 was a pretty good month for me. A new Clash album (Cut the Crap) came out. Suicidal Tendencies played to one of the biggest crowds I had ever seen at the Metroplex. I wasn't a big fan of their music, but the atmosphere in the club was great. I got a $100 Christmas bonus from the toy warehouse, went to the Big Star grocery store and bought every can of Black Label beer they had. I had to throw away some food so I could fit all the beer in my fridge. And finally, went to Nashville for New Year's.
  That pretty much serves as an introduction and covers the 4 months of `85 that I lived in Atlanta. I'm going to try and keep these stories in chronological order, so join me next time for 1986: ice, commie Rick gets kicked in the nuts and why you shouldn’t park your Mercedes in front of a skinhead warehouse party.