*****

In June of 1984 I was just out of high school and working the graveyard shift in a toothpaste packaging plant in Harleysville, PA, a small farm town about thirty-five miles northwest of Philadelphia. All I'd ever wanted to do since I was ten-years-old was to play drums in a rock band and hopefully make records and tour the world. So, when my friends in The Dead Milkmen told me about a band they knew called Psychotic Norman that was in need of a drummer, I leapt at the chance.

I made contact with the band, learned the songs on their basement demo tape, auditioned, and by August I was officially a member of Psychotic Norman. My brothers in musical carnage were Tom Bates on bass, Tom Spitzwater on guitar, and singer Theodore Sgrosevelt. (I like to think they used fake names to spare their parents undue embarrassment.) I was very committed to the band, and every Tuesday and Sunday I'd make the hour-plus train/subway trip from Harleysville to Bates's duplex in Drexel Hill (where, coincidentally, my mother was raised), just southwest of the city. By November we were starting to play shows.

Though most of our gigs were with punk/hardcore bands (Suicidal Tendencies, Decry, Die Kruezen, etc.) in basements and all-ages halls, we were a bit of an oddity in that scene. Sure, we took inspiration from The Ramones, The Damned and Black Flag, but we also threw in what we could figure out from the Velvet Underground, The Who, The Fall, and James Brown. Add to that mix a singer who sounded and looked like Canned Heat's Bob "Bear" Hite and, well, I don't know what you'd call it.

What we have here are the three tracks comprising Psychotic Norman's debut seven-inch single. They were recorded in the summer of '85 at a sixteen-track studio located among a bunch of storage sheds just outside Drexel Hill. "Man Meets Fish" is a straight-up melodic punk number, while the other two songs, "Davy Jones Water Cooler" and "Cosmic Rap," show the band's more experimental side. I'd taken a month-long course at a recording school in Ohio that spring, which probably accounts for the semi-produced sound of the finished product.

The single took months to go into production due to a sleeve artist who was both unreliable and worked at the speed of geology. This snag was just one of a number of things that were starting to frustrate me about the band. Morale and enthusiasm were low, gigs were hard to come by, and our newly purchased van died on the way to what would be our final show (a party at a University of Pennsylvania frat house). The final straw for me came one Sunday in January of '86 when our gifted but temperamental bassist didn't show up for rehearsal...at his own house. When my brother, who was attending college at Wake Forest University, called that evening with news that a local up-and-coming roots rock band called The Right Profile was looking for a drummer I decided to give it a shot. I flew down to Winston-Salem, NC, a couple days later and tried out.

I ended up passing the audition and moving to North Carolina a week or two later. Amazingly, The Right Profile (which included future Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner on keyboards and guitar) ended up getting signed by Clive Davis to Arista Records a couple months later. My insane goal of "making it" by age twenty had actually been reached. The ensuing years provided nothing but heartbreak for The Right Profile (our debut LP was aborted halfway into its recording), and I eventually left the band in the fall of 1991 when I joined Superchunk.

Ted and the two Toms played with a couple other drummers after I left, but I don't think the band ever played another show. I'm not even sure the Psychotic Norman single technically "came out." I did buy a copy for seventy-five cents at a record store in Portland, OR, in 1992, so a few of them did make their way into the world. Tom S. says he still has about 500 copies in his basement.

Ted lived hard and it eventually caught up with him. The two Toms and I were lucky enough to reunite with him at his hospital bedside before he passed on three years ago. Ted was a very smart and eloquent guy who never really found the proper outlet for his talents. My favorite memory of Ted is of he and D. Boon engaged in a heated and hilarious belly-bucking contest the night we opened for the Minutemen in October of 1985 (two months to the day before Boon's tragic death in a van accident). It was a draw.

This is my favorite photo of Ted. It was taken the night we opened for Suicidal Tendencies at a rec hall in Catasauqua, PA. Ted was totally in his element, prowling the floor (there was no stage to speak of) and singing his heart out. I should also mention that he sang a large portion of our set while reclining in a plastic lawn chair.

Sgro ho!

Jon Wurster
October 2011

*****

Psychotic Norman - Man Meets Fish

Psychotic Norman - Davey Jones / Water Cooler

Psychotic Norman - Cosmic Rap

Special thanks to Brian Varney for technical assistance with the vinyl-to-digital conversion.

I think I spotted someone dressed as my dear stepuncle: Bang Tango frontman Joe LeSte!

Go to the Merge Recording Company's website to pre-order Wild Flag, the self-titled, debut long-playing record by the greatest rock music supergroup since Contraband.

UPDATE: The diametric parallel.

UPDATE 2: TMS.

"I am going to call shenanigans on that." -- Tom, disputing the claim that attractive girls were present at the Amadeus Nerd Party

"Party for one. Right here. Happenin' ... now. And it's pretty good." -- Coco Hames, flying solo in her London flat

"I think he's a savant. Gifted in ways that no one can explain." -- Dave from Knoxville, describing the mysterious mind thing of Fredericks

"... or enjoy." -- Tom, putting a different spin on the peculiar New Port Richey brainspace

"First of all, it's science-fiction. A deer sees white pants coming at him, he's gonna run away. He's gonna see that from 200 yards away. Some dude with white pants and the light reflecting off his goofball sunglasses. Big Buck Hunter. Shameful." -- Tom, pointing out the shortcomings of this hipster shoot-em-up

"In this part of Jersey it would have had Zubaz on instead of a pink diaper, though." -- Ted Leo, explaining the regional attire worn by the dangling van monkeys of Bloomfield

"Wow. Heather Graham, the guys from Jawbreaker, and Spike. It's like a red carpet!" -- Tom, marveling at the NYC celebrity parade

"I'm taking creative writing and English literature with a minor in food services." -- Emma, detailing her path to becoming Canada's finest chalkboard prose stylist

"Welcome back. We knew you'd be back." -- Flight Attendant, welcoming Ted Leo back to the slums of coach

"Laughinstock. Food. Laughingstock. Food." -- Mr. T (via Tom), considering a Brisk Super Bowl commercial offer

"He's like an out-of-shape person that they hooked up to an air hose who just kept inflating. Like, 'I'm gettin' bigger! I'm gettin' bigger!'" -- Tom, revealing Hulk Hogan's workout regimen

"Whaddya think? It's a gold disc, isn't it?" -- Herb Wilkinson, predicting Billboard certification for his "Living Hardcore" single

"It was, and I'll tell you, the soda turned bad, and it really sent those elk sausages barking at the door. They were barkin' loud!" -- Herb Wilkinson, describing the severity of his digestive distress

"Like those Harry Turtledove books where the Nazis win World War II and basically Wall Street is now called Adolf Hitler Avenue." -- Herb Wilkinson, placing American Hardcore: A Tribal History in the historical fiction genre

"They also brought along a lot of these lesser gangs with them who were awful fighters. Gangs like The Painted Willies and Tom Troccoli and his Dogs. Terrible gangs. Real bad. Bad fighters." -- Herb Wilkinson, lamenting The Black Flags' association with subpar forces

"I thought those were guns and spears and canons. Those are drums?!" -- Herb Wilkinson, discovering that American Hardcore does not contain photos of weaponry

"I picked it up, and I flew it over to Leftbridge. And then I hovered above Leftbridge, and I dropped Rightbridge onto Leftbridge. Smashed it. And that's why there's no Rightbridge or Leftbridge now. It's called Middlebridge. Yup." -- Herb Wilkinson, detailing the logistics of the Lady Foot Locker blimp bombing that killed 712 citizens

"Are you bleeping everything I'm saying?! Okay. Well then he shoved me, and then I shoved him into this wall full of                          . And they all turned on and then we both got stung." -- Herb Wilkinson, attempting to provide the obscene particulars of the Del Sparrow's Erogenous Zone device zapping

"Well, it's a satanic march if you ask me." -- Herb Wilkinson, denouncing scum-rockers The Buckingham's hit single, "Kind of a Drag"

"Oh my ... what is this?! OH MY GOD! Noooooo! Nooooooooooo! WHAT IS THIS?! AHHHHHHH, I'm gonna, AHHHHHH! No! No! Nooooooooooo! No! No! Noooo! Noooo! Oh my God. Oh my God (whimpering). It's so much worse than I could have ever imagined." -- Herb Wilkinson, reacting to his first exposure to MDC's "Business on Parade"

"Oh, why don't you shut up. Piece of filth!" -- Herb Wilkinson, refusing Tom's recommendation to visit a licensed medical doctor

"Goodnight, Dumm Oaf." -- Tom, bidding farewell to his new meal ticket

"Who was behind the counter? Andrew Dice Clay's girlfriend?" -- Tom, inquiring about the identity of the circa-1988 Hat Check Girl at the Museum of Natural History

[TBSOWFMU - 4/26/11 / Full Podmirth / Best Show Gems / Myspace / Fotpedia [RIP?] / Newbridgctionary / Headquarters / S&W / Twitter-S / Twitter-W]

STP - "25 Miles/Safer"

( Click here to acquire the other side of the "Smoke 'Em" 7")

The Vivians - "Midnight"

( Click here to acquire the rest of I Fear)

Sloan - "The Answer Was You"

( Click here to buy The Double Cross)

Quintron - "Ring The Alarm"

( Click here to buy Sucre Du Sauvage)

Tyler Jon Tyler - "Faster Than Light"

( Click here to buy Tyler Jon Tyler)

White Mystery - "Pumpkin Crème"

( Click here to buy Blood & Venom)

Milk Music - "Fertile Ground"

( Click here to read the Still Single review of Beyond Living; the slab's already OOP!)

Prisonshake - "I Hear Your Name"

( Click here to acquire more of the Singles '87-'89 box set)

Now is the time for us to gather together and celebrate those things that we like and think are fun: