The first punk club in St. Louis by Tres Vite

(I Lost My Club) Down On The Stroll

When Mort Hill told me I could do it, I believed him. He was so utterly convincing. My dad had a uninhabitable shell of a storefront in the worst part of town, and we had a dream. CBGBs on the stroll.

It happened because Mort was so damned lovable. Annie O loved him, I loved him, everyone loved him. All the art twits from Wash U loved him.

Mort had a name he liked that he spelled a variety of different ways, a name for things he liked, for cool things that were too cool to be simply called cool. Oppy, he said. So I wanted to call the club the OP-P Club, because I said it was pop spelled inside out. So I cut out the letters from the masthead of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, back when it was still a Pulitzer paper, and made a punk little logo out of it. I put some of Mort's cute little dumbbells on the side, like a real logo. Everyone loved it.

The OP-P Club business card.

Sad to say, the fun days of "Hey, kids, let's start a punk club!" ended when we decided to incorporate and I said I wanted to own 51% of the club. All the people who had spent so much time and effort, especially Mort, were aghast at my effrontery, and they all went away and told me I couldn't use Mort's beautiful logo or name anymore. It was so sad and stupid, especially since it was all about no money and nothing to gain anyway. I called it the Change Club, but everyone else still called it the OP-P Club.

After a few months of diminishing crowds and living on AAA Do-Nuts from the corner of Taylor and Olive bought for me by Don Green of the Retros and Riot Act, my dad finally told his buddy Duke to kick me out of the club.

I might not have gone, but somehow this scary guy with dreads named Benny got into the club and he told me he'd kill me if I ever came in there again and that was the real end of it; some big black guy squatting up in my club and me out on the street, peering in the windows at the spray painted walls, wishing I still was a person of substance.

I wrote this song about it.

I found love in the Change Club Bathroom
I found love, it was hard to resist
Oh, I found love, but alls I really wanted
Was to piss.

I tried to open the door for at least half an hour
I could hear moans and sighs through the keyhole
The girl I've been waiting for
Was on all fours on the floor.

I lost my club down on the stroll
It could happen to you
I lost my club down on the stroll
Now what should I do?

My Dad had a shack in the worst part of town
-Ghetto city, man!
He lived on the West Coast wasn't ever around
-We went crazy, man!
I decided to try it - for the bands and fans
-Without getting wasted, man!
Now nobody even knows my name!

We called it change, they called it OP-P
-Names don't matter, man!
We made up lots of photocopy
-Posters and platters, man!
They decided the local bands and clubs they didn't need
-The place was too sloppy, man!
Now nobody even knows my name!

Who's club was it, man?

This was recorded in the second big recording session of the Obvious which mostly had my brother Augustino playing bass, but on this cut I was lucky enough to have the greatest punk rock bass player ever to attend Roosevelt High School, Mark Sheridan of the Zanti Misfits. Alex Mutrux plays lead, I sing, Kevin Brueseke slams the skins, and Sally Barnes might have played Arp but I don't think she did.

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