NO USE FOR A NAME - debut 7" - 1988

OK, this isn't really the thing I'm known for, but it's part of my obscure past nonetheless. I was one of the founding members of NO USE FOR A NAME. We started rehearsing back in 1986, at drummer Rory's dad's warehouse in an industrial section of Sunnyvale. Most of the members were kids I knew since grade school... In fact, bassist Steve Papoutsis was my best friend in kindergarten and through the decades to come.  Steve, Rory, and I had been trying to start a punk band together since 1983, except Rory was the only one of us who could actually play an instrument. After a few incarnations (Angry White Boys, P.S.A.), and a couple years for me & Steve to get our shit together and figure out how to play three or four chords in a row, NUFAN was born. Original band name in consideration was No Need For A Name.
We started as a four-piece, with me on guitar.  Eventually we added a second guitarist and a second vocalist. We were this completely bizarre hybrid of punk, hardcore, suburban youthful angst, heavy Black Flag worship, and lack of coherence overall.
The only recording with the six-piece line-up was a demo recorded at Gilman. One of these days I'll post it, and really fuck up the legacy of this band.  Haha...
I joined Stikky in 1987 and continued to play with NUFAN into that year as well.  I quit NUFAN because my passion was rooted in trying to play as fast as possible, so Stikky was my main focus since the Wilder brothers were fellow speed freaks.
But within the year, NUFAN's vocalist had quit, they were a week away from a big show at Gilman with Attitude Adjustment and asked me to fill in.  So, I ended up in NUFAN a second time.  This time on vocals.  And this time captured in a real studio.

I was a lousy vocalist (previously around '85 I sang in a San Jose skate punk band called Legion Of Doom, and did a poor job of that as well), but I did my best to try sounding like a tough guy, even as a 19 year old pipsqueak from the suburbs. We recorded a few times... there's probably about 25 or so early songs recorded with me on vocals. Only 9 were released, I believe.  One song on the Lookout comp "The Thing That Ate Floyd", four on the "Let Em Out" 7" on Slap A Ham.

But the first release was this one...
Our debut 7" was released by another childhood classmate Jeff Maser, bassist for Anxiety, and head of this short-lived label Woodpecker Records.
It doesn't sound like anything that NUFAN became known for, but that makes it more fun to spin...

 

I quit the band again around '89, but fate brought me back for a third time, on second guitar. But that's another story best left for another time (or not)...

**NEW LINK: Re-upped 5. 15.13 - NUFAN 1st EP