(Sub)Basement Tapes
Bet you didn’t know St. Louis had an all-girl punk band a year before The Runaways released their first record. Well, neither did anyone else—until two local audiophiles began digging up some of St. Louis’ oldest new wave.
Photograph by Sofi Seck
1975: Three junior-high-school girls and one high-school sophomore in North County banded together as The Welders. “We just wanted to be near rock stars,” says drummer Jane Fujimoto, who was a worldly 15 at that time.This was the year before Joan Jett’s Runaways became the first all-teenage female band (and only the second all-female band) with a record contract.
1978: A dozen or so young music fans, including members of The Welders, gathered together every Friday night at Washington University’s KWUR, which broadcast the city’s only two hours of what was just beginning to be called new wave music. Two teens from North County and two teens from South County exchanged ideas and agreed to start their own band, which soon acquired the name Raymilland.
“I wanted to appropriate something that was like an icon, that meant a lot of things to a lot of people, yet nothing at the same time,” explains Rick Buscher, the group’s singer/keyboardist. (For those too young to remember, Ray Milland was an actor, known best for his role as an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend.)
1979: The Welders, with a repertoire of original material, including the irony-tinged “Debutantes in Bondage” and “Pervert,” went into a professional recording studio. “We had a manager who exchanged advertising in his newspaper for time at this 24-track studio,” says Fujimoto.
“But,” laments guitarist Kelly “Rusty” Draper, “he went out of business before he paid his debt to the studio.” In those days, releasing a record cost more than most young original bands could pay, so the music has sat on shelves ever since.
Meanwhile, the members of Raymilland played most of their eight live performances (four in St. Louis, four in Chicago) and recorded every one, as well as virtually all of their rehearsals. They were booked to perform in Chicago as the opening act for the legendary British band Joy Division during its first American tour. “It was considerably expensive for us to play out of town,” says Buscher, “so we tried to talk the promoter out of it, but he wouldn’t even consider another band. Then he called me and said we wouldn’t have to go to Chicago because Ian Curtis committed suicide.”
“Joy Division would have kicked our ass if we had played,” adds drummer Bob Trammel.
1980: Raymilland released its one and only record, a 7-inch single with “Talk” and “Distant View,” which was originally included in an art magazine called Praxis. “After that,” says Trammel, “we just concentrated on trying to build a little studio, and before you know it, time slips away, and that’s basically all we did.”
2006: Two record collectors, Jason Ross (a.k.a. Jason Rerun from KDHX’s Scene of the Crime) and Matt Harnish (guitarist for Bunnygrunt), decided to research the history of St. Louis alternative music. The two began tracking down musicians who had played in bands three decades before. “We would find a million things about one or two bands, and other bands we’d have a terrible time finding,” says Harnish.
2008: The original plan of releasing a compilation CD changed when they realized how much material Raymilland had accumulated. “Once we started working with them, the material jumped out,” says Ross. “It was very, very impressive.”
“They weren’t a straight-ahead punk band or a straight-ahead whatever,” adds Harnish. “It was a weirder mix than other things coming out then.”
Interestingly, Raymilland and The Welders have remained close friends, even as some of them have moved to and come back from California. But Ross and Harnish didn’t know this when they simultaneously decided to release a Raymilland CD and a Welders 45.
“That was our first holy grail,” says Harnish of The Welders recordings. “Everybody was talking about it, and we knew we couldn’t do anything without doing that.”
2009: So, three decades later, The Welders and Raymilland will have their music out in the marketplace. “I look back on when we were 14, 15 years old, and we approached people 10 years older than us,” says Draper. “And then getting up onstage and doing it.”
“Honestly, for us to start doing it and not having any kind of music lessons, we weren’t that bad,” adds Caroline Fujimoto, the group’s bassist. “Now we can hear
the evidence.”
For more information on Bert Dax Rerun Records reissues, visit chinareactors.com or myspace.com/bertdax; find your very own copies of The Welders and Raymilland at Vintage Vinyl (6610 Delmar 314-721-4096, vintagevinyl.com), Euclid Records (601 E. Lockwood, 314-961-8978, euclidrecords.com) or Apop Records (2831 Cherokee, 314-664-6575, apoprecords.com).
