Mission Mission

Let’s just dive right in. Here’s the intro to an interview I did with The Troublemakers for a garage music zine in 1998 (around the same time I did that interview with the Tiki Men):

In the vein of The Sonics and, more recently, the Mummies and such, The Troublemakers play garage punk in its purest form. They take the stage in their famous zebra-striped vests, pegged pants, and beatle boots, and rock the house with loud and snotty 60′s styled tunes and Back From The Grave covers brimming with treble and a fierce 90′s punch. “The house” usually being Sacramento, California’s famous ‘Old Ironsides’ neighborhood tavern, where, this past November, The Troublemakers released their first LP on Germany’s Screaming Apple Records. This record is easily one of the best garage records of the 90′s… so get it.

They only play about once a year these days, and today is that day. Problem is, once again, they’re playing at Old I in Sacramento. But it’ll be worth the trip, I’m sure. These Troublemakers are a rowdy bunch.

Read the whole interview after the jump:

“One of us will have to die before this thing ends.”
THE TROUBLEMAKERS

NEW LP “The Great Lost Troublemakers Album”
OUT NOW ON SCREAMING APPLE RECORDS

Interview by Allan Hough Dec. 1998 Sac, Cal

In the vein of The Sonics and, more recently, the Mummies and such, The Troublemakers play garage punk in its purest
form. They take the stage in their famous zebra-striped vests, pegged pants, and beatle boots, and rock the house with loud and
snotty 60′s styled tunes and Back From The Grave covers brimming with treble and a fierce 90′s punch. “The house” usually
being Sacramento, California’s famous ‘Old Ironsides’ neighborhood tavern, where, this past November, The Troublemakers
released their first LP on Germany’s Screaming Apple Records. This record is easily one of the best garage records of the 90′s…
so get it.

Feared by club owners because of a tendency to assault the audience with spit, beer, and curses�and the now-legendary
Press Club performance where they hurled a 10- pound bag of flour into the fray, blanketing the entire club in white powder; and
being limited to only a handful of shows per year, because of band members living in opposite corners of the country�the
Troublemakers are verging on obscurity. But that doesn’t make them any less rockin�, and it doesn’t make their record any less
essential.

AH: Allan Hough – not Noisejunkie
TF: Tim Foster – Vocals
RC: Rodney Cornelius – Guitar
ST: Stanley Tindall – Bass
BM: Brian Machado – Drums

AH: How about telling the story of how and why The Troublemakers came to be?

BM: The Rock’n'Roll gods were ashamed and afraid of the monsters they had created so they chose us to bail them out.

TF: Stan and I had tried to start a band for about five years… but neither of us could play or even tune an instrument. That didn’t
stop us from writing songs and buying old gear… and we kept working at it. I worked with Rod, and when we got to talking about
bands, I realized he’d be perfect. It took some convincing, but once he realized what we wanted to do (cover obscure garage
tunes while aping the Mummies, Primates and Loved Ones) he was into it. Brian was a “musician” we knew from high
school�he hadn’t played in years, so he was desperate enough to hook up with losers like us.

ST: Tim and I had gone to the same high school as Brian and after graduating we had this art studio and Brian�s band at the time
would hang out there. A few years later, while trying to form The Troublemakers, we had gone through a couple of flakey
drummers. Then one night I had this dream where The Troublemakers were actually playing and Brian was behind the drumkit.
The next day I told Tim about it and he said, �No way!! I just thought of asking Brian to join!!� So we called Brian up (not sure if
he would want to play with �squares� like us, and not having played in five years) and he said, �Hell yeah!� So The
Troublemakers sound was complete.

RC: Tim and I worked at the same Tower Records. One day, Tim was playing one of the �Pebbles� discs. We started talking
and Tim said he and his roommate (Stan) were into garage stuff. They really wanted to start a band, but they didn�t know how
to play any instruments. I told Tim that I could show him how to play �Louie Louie� on the guitar, then he could figure out pretty
much any of those songs. I had never played guitar in a band… only bass. So it�s perfect that I am the guitar player in The
Troublemakers.

✠

AH: Things have slowed down lately, what’s the story?

BM: Well, we wanted to go out on top, in tune and on the right note. Rod had to move�too many fans were harassing him!

TF: Rod moved to Milwaukee and we refuse to replace him. I hate those “revolving door” bands�what the hell is that?

RC: It�s a bit of a problem getting together when one of the band members lives 2,000 miles away! I moved to Milwaukee for a
job. But we seem to keep this thing going for some reason!

ST: Tim�s planning a possible future tour out to Rodney�s neck of the woods and maybe Chicago.

✠

AH: But you managed to get an amazing record out on Screaming Apple this month, how do you like
it?

BM: I like it a lot… it’s raw and live sounding!

ST: I like the fact that it�s finally finished and in our hands. It�s been a long wait.

TF: I think it’s pretty good; it’s a good record for people who like this kind of music… I’m happy with all the originals, and the
covers sound as good as they can with us playing them!

RC: The record�s fine, but Tim spent way too much time on it. Thank goodness he doesn�t know a thing about recording: it could
have ended up being an over-produced piece of shit. But it sounds pretty much like the band: just your garden-variety piece of
shit.

✠

AH: Do you guys like making records? Do you think you’ll make any more?

BM: Hopefully… it’s fun because we play live just like a show.

RC: I think everyone enjoyed it. I did. But Tim, relax… don�t worry over it so much!!

TF: Making a record is really hard. We’ve always focused on being a live band, so doing stuff in the studio is a big challenge.
We were lucky to find Chris Woodhouse [engineer on the LP] because he “gets” it. The other folks working at the studio would
just plug their ears while we were mixing… but Chris was always game when I said, “Nah, that ain’t distorted enough.” We’ve
still got a lot of good songs that didn’t quite turn out this time… if we get a chance we’d like to work on some of those.

ST: We have plans to remix some of the songs not included on the album for possible single releases.

✠

AH: How about touring… You obviously love playing live, how have you fared away from home?

BM: We’ve always fared well playing around.

ST: It�s always fun playing to new faces.

RC: We�ll have to see how the record will do. I�d be into doing some touring�if I can avoid having to sleep on people�s floors.

TF: We’ve always done well anywhere we’ve played. Sometimes there are almost no people at out-of-town gigs because we’re
not well known, but when we’ve played the same spot a second time it’s packed. I love the “away” shows because there is always
a new challenge any time you’ve never played a place before.

✠

AH: Most memorable performances?

BM: Our first show… Santa Cruz… Tuscaloosa… lots of �Old I� gigs.

RC: I�ve liked different shows for different reasons, so I can�t pick one or two shows. Sometimes we played great and the
audience couldn�t have cared less. And sometimes we played just okay and the audience was going nuts. Go figure.

TF: When we played at the Chukker in Tuscaloosa, Alabama I was SOOOO sick. I was trying to sleep on a piece of cardboard
in the parking lot before the show, just getting worse and worse. We had to do two sets that night, too… so I crawl onstage just
dreading this, and POW… we play one of the best shows ever�I suddenly felt fine. Things were just coming unglued, but we
couldn’t screw up… just a perfect show.
The first halloween show we ever played we came as the Mummies and Phantom Surfers… 2 of each… that was a totally
great show. We eventually released a tape our friend made on an old reel-to-reel at that show as “Live at Old Ironsides”.
There are too many shows that were memorable to even scratch the surface. We’ve been playing for nearly six years, so
that’s a lot of memories… no wonder I forget the lyrics.

ST: I still remember the early days of The Troublemakers when I had the best natural fuzz sound. Being known as �the cheapest
man in rock and roll�, I had this 3-stringed German hollowbody bass�that I permanently borrowed from somebody�and I would
run the cord through a Vox Essex bass amp and a blown 10-inch Silvertone guitar amp. There was no better sound than that
Silvertone�s �vibrato�d BRAP�. Eventually the Silvertone fizzled out and completely ended its life as a pile of splinters on stage.

✠

AH: Your stage antics are somewhat infamous; I’d like to cite the flour incident, spitting, fighting,
falling out of wheelchairs, smuggling teenagers into bars in Troublemaker vests…. which of your
antics do you hold most dear?

ST: I have a vase from the Ming Dynasty and a telescope from the Columbus days.

BM: The flour incident was classic– Tim being slapped HARD by a fan at a Halloween show– Tim’s dive into a lake that turned
out to be only two feet deep�if that�at a college outdoor festival.

RC: The wheelchair was funny �cause I really had screwed up my knee pretty badly.

TF: Probably the most naive one we ever tried was having a video drummer. We were guests on a local nightclub show.. two
songs and interview… but Brian couldn’t come! So I get the right idea to borrow a video camera and film him playing the songs
for the show, and the rest of us will play along. We bring the tv set and all to the show and mic it for our performance… and of
course no one can hear the drums at all! But, there’s Brian on tv, playing at least twice as fast as the rest of us…. and yeah, we
had some friends that were only 20, so they couldn’t get into any of the bars we played until we hit on the bright idea of getting
them to put on the zebra vests and carry equipment in! The door guys could never tell the difference between one guy with a
Beatle haircut and another… As soon as one was in we’d smuggle the vest out and put it on somebody else! we’d bring in two
bass amps, three guitars… whatever it took to get everybody in!

✠

AH: What other bands do you think have good stage antics?

RC: There�s only one band that matters when it comes to this stuff… pre-1970 WHO!!

ST: The Archies!!

TF: The Mummies and the Phantom Surfers were the guys who blew me away before we got the band going. They just had it DIALED, and nobody was doing anything like them at the time. The Untamed Youth were great, too… I love that “Pabst Blue Ribbon pledge”.

BM: Magnolia Thunderfinger has the best onstage banter of any band in town thanks to frontman Skid Jones.

✠

AH: Tim, in the sleeve of your Swingline 7″, you say you like smart women… who are your favorite
smart women?

TF: Just like that song by the Endd, “I dig your mind”… I love folks who THINK… since I’m a straight guy, that applies
ESPECIALLY to girls! My girl, KP (who helped with the design of the LP) is trying to get into CalTech, and does 4-digit
multiplication in her head for kicks! Now that’s smart!

✠

AH: So what keeps you occupied during your time apart? New bands? Careers? Hobbies? Plans
for the future?

BM: Prozac. I’m also a member of a power pop band called The Decibels. As far as The Troublemakers’ future, hopefully a
European tour.

RC: I�m very into knitting… really.

TF: I’m getting back to doing art these days–I was always “the art guy” before starting the band… I’m also glad to have time to
work on keeping my Crosley autos on the road… no small feat, believe me.

ST: I�m currently living in Oakland, California and playing with The Flakes�with former members of the Count Backwards and
Russell Quan from The Mummies�and occasionally with Sacramento�s The Shruggs when we�re not broken up. You can
check out photos of these two bands at www.bitey.com. I�ve also gotten together with a few people and we�re trying to build a
website for Sean Bonniwell of The Music Machine. Other than that I spend the rest of my free time on internet auction lines
looking for antics.

✠

A: Final thoughts?

BM: Thanks for the kind words on our record!

ST: I can�t think of any final thoughts… Tim, make up some final thoughts for me.

TF: I wanna thank Ritchie from Screaming Apple for bugging us to do the record for him. He was great about it… especially
since it took two years or so. When we win that Grammy we’ll give it to him!!

RC: One of us will have to die before this thing ends.

Screaming Apple Records
Dustemichstr. 14 50939 Koln
Germany
ScreamApp@aol.com

http://www.punkrawk.com/soundflat

Old Ironsides Neighborhood Tavern
10th & S st. Sacramento

http://rcip.com/ironsides

 

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