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Snare & the Idiots were a back to basics punk band
from Newport, Kentucky who made a lot of noise during
the hardcore era. Because they were alive after the
so-called Killed By Death years, they unfortunately
get overlooked. They released one great 7” in 1985 and
disappeared. This is their story. —SS
“We were from Newport, KY, right across the river from
Cincy. When we formed in 1982, I was 20, Donny was 22,
and Dave was 17. I met Dave Dunkum in 1977. He was
eleven, I was fifteen. We both liked KISS and he said
he could breathe fire like Gene Simmons. All of us
neighborhood kids told him he was full of shit, but
sure enough he did it. Pretty soon every kid in the
neighborhood was breathing fire. We had a mutual
interest in the hard rock of the day. That’s what
brought us together.
I met Donny Watson a few years later when I was a
senior in high school. Some mutual friends had an
apartment which they rented to party at. That’s where
I met Donny. Like me, he liked the more rock ‘n roll
side of Punk. I heard that he played guitar.
I had the concept of the band in my head as early as
1980 – band members, everything. It didn’t come to
fruition until late 1982/83. Donny was drawing
unemployment and I was off on Fridays, so Fridays we’d
get together and play some Thunders and Sex Pistols
tunes and a few originals. Bill Leist, the booker at
the Jockey Club, told everybody we were called Snare &
the Idiots before we ever played a gig, so we just
went with it. We could’ve came up with something
better I’m sure.
It really came together in the Summer of ’83. We
recruited a drummer and practiced four or five days a
week at Donny’s parent’s house. We played mostly
covers and gradually added more originals as we wrote
them. We played our first gig like two weeks later.
Here’s what we played that I can remember: Originals:
“Do The Seizure”, “I Love Me More Than You Do”, “Newport
Blues”, “Stab Somebody”. Covers: “You Gotta Lose” (Richard
Hell), “Little Queenie” (Chuck Berry/Rolling
Stones/Johnny Moped), “Pills” (NY Dolls/Bo Diddley), “No
Fun” (Stooges), “Let Go” (Heartbreakers), and “Great Balls
Of Fire” (Jerry Lee Lewis).
Being from across the river in Newport really shaped
us. Most of the Cincy kids that I knew came families
that had more money than we did. We were lower middle
class and weren’t into the fashion aspect of punk. One
scenester once told me I looked like I should be
wearing a Journey T-shirt. See, I didn’t fit in my
family, who are all Catholic jocks. I also didn’t fit
in with a lot of the hardcores.
We were misfits among misfits. We were about the music
and the passion. We did go against the grain because
me and Donny first and foremost loved rock ‘n roll. We
thought bands like the Ramones, Pistols, Hotrods,
Thunders were bringing back that early Rock ‘n Roll
spirit that arena rock had lost. As punk became
“hardcore,” we felt like that little R&B; Chuck Berry
thing was being lost in the shuffle and we wanted to
hold on to that. Also it was getting more political
and about who can be the fastest, loudest, nastiest.
We wanted to have fun, drink beer, and meet chicks.
Plus we hated heavy metal. To us it wasn’t rock ‘n
roll (although our drummer on the EP was a metal
drummer).
When we first started out we had a rhythm guitarist
who brought some blues and rockabilly songs in, which
we appreciated, but we wanted to rock a little harder.
After he left the band we got the sound you hear on
record. By that time, the hardcore kids accepted us,
even though we had no mohawks, leather or studs – just
feathered hair, sweaters and all. (I’m a little hipper
than that these days.) Some of the younger hardcores
weren’t the most open minded people in the world, but
when it came down to it they just wanted to rock, and
we delivered.
At that time, Newport was actually the perfect place
for the whole Jockey Club scene to exist. In the
1940s-early Sixtiess, Newport had legalized gambling and
was run by the Syndicate until the Kennedy
Administration cracked down on organized crime.
(Syndicate Wife and Razzle Dazzle are two books
available on Newport’s gambling history. Newport is
also mentioned in the “Godfather 2” in the scene where
the Corleones go to Cuba to set up an operation.
Someone says “We have two of our best men here from
Newport.”)
In the Fifties, the place was a casino called the
Flamingo Club and the building still had the Pink
Flamingos on the outside. It was not an uncommon sight
to see members of the Rat Pack there and at other
places around town. After gambling was outlawed in the
Sixties, it was a rock club and featured Bo Diddley, Jerry
Lee and Little Richard (supposedly with Hendrix as his
guitarist).
In the early Seventies two brothers, ex-speakeasy operators
Haynes (Tiny) and Hallman (Shorty) Mincey bought the
place. When they bought it, it was a top 40 rock bar where
a lot of bikers and white trash hooligans hung out.
I first went into the Jockey club in March of 1982.
I’d seen the place there for years and never thought
twice about the place. I went in with some friends of
mine from high school. One of their brothers played in
an FM rock cover band. I was really taken by the place
and thought it would be ideal for punk.
First of all it was almost as big as Bogart’s (in
Cincy) which featured a lot of bigger name New Wave
acts like Iggy, Stranglers, Gang of Four, 999 etc. It
was much bigger than Club COD in Chicago where I had
seen the Damned. Also it was big and run-down and
smelled like a combination of mildew, piss and stale
beer. The paneling was coming off the walls. The roof
leaked and bathrooms, well, let’s just say you had to
go pretty bad to use them. They smelled like an
ammonia factory.
The Cincy punk scene got started around ’78 or ’79 with the
short-lived
“new-wave clubs.” There were a few good bands around
like the Customs and The Explosive Broomhandles, both
long gone by time Bill Leist started booking punk at
the Jockey Club started in ’82.
The JC scene could be broken down into three
categories. Early on the biggest draw were the “Art
Bands,” everything thing from Dementia Precox, who
used tape loops and beat on trash cans and street
signs, to synthesizer-based bands like Dream 286. One
the biggest drawing bands circa ’83 was Junta. They
were sort of Cincy’s answer to the New Romantic
movement. Junta were more about what they and their
audience were wearing than about music. They were very
slow, minimalist, couldn’t really play, had a drum
machine instead of a drummer and were very boring. One
of the best “art bands” were BPA (By-Products of
America) who just had some of their stuff reissued on
Shake-It Records.
Then there were the Garage/Roots/Slop-Rock bands which
included Snare & the Idiots, The Reduced (Bill Leist’s
band), The Auburnaires, The Thangs, Stiff Kittens, Doc
& the Pods, and Human Zoo.
The third and most consistent category (and the club’s
main feature) was hardcore. Let’s see, some bands
were SS 20, Musical Suicide, Sluggo (from Lexington),
Active Ingredients, and Malignant Growth (from
Louisville). Many small-time regional and national
bands too numerous to name also played there. Hardcore
was the club’s main feature probably because there
were so many hardcore bands out there touring and
it had a regular crowd. (For more check the Jockey
Club Website.)
Besides the bands, one very important thing that
contributed to the Jockey Club‘s “success” was the
owners. At an early Toxic Reasons show there were
about 75 punks there with mohawks, died-hair – the
whole bit. The thing that freaked me out was the fact
that these two old geezers – Tiny and Shorty – were
totally unfazed by these odd looking kids and this
loud, angry aggressive music.
Tiny and Shorty had seen it all. They tolerated
under-aged kids, drag-queens, slow business, strange
music, and all kinds of unusual things. I think they
actually got off on it and had an affinity for the
kids. Tiny was in his 70’s and had a very long beard
that he quit shaving when Reagan was elected (and
would not shave until he was out of office). Tiny died
in 1984. Shorty was the mainstay and also in his 70’s.
He was a short hunch back who you could tell was a “wise
guy” just by his face.
We all loved Shorty. If it wasn’t for him, none of this
would’ve ever happened. He was not a guy you wanted to
cross though. I’ve seen him crack people over the head
with his flashlight/club on several occasions and I
had heard that he had actually shot somebody and did
time once. He sold the club to the cab company next
door in ’88 and he died in ’92. He was almost 90. Some
used to refer to Shorty as their favorite bad person.
We got away with a lot. The Newport P.D. kind of let
us do our thing. One of them told the booking agent
that they didn’t even like coming in the Jockey Club.
Since Newport used to be a big syndicate/gambling town
in the Forties and Fifties, I guess they were used to a
little vice as long we never bothered anybody. Nearly
all the patrons were from Ohio anyway. Newport has
now become very commercial and yuppie-fied. Something
like the Jockey could never happen here today.
I was the one in the band who had the good job. My
stepfather got me a good paying factory job at Dover
Elevator in 1980, when I graduated high school, so I
had plenty of money to buy records, beer and weed. I
also financed the Recycled Garbage EP because we were
desperate to get something out. It was recorded in one night
(12/21/84) at Group Effort Sound Studios on 16-track.
At $35.00 an hour we had to rush it. We re-mixed it
about a week later.
In the Spring of ’85, we moved to Boston (without a
drummer and into their friends’, After the Edge,
apartment – eight people in one living space – SS). We
thought we had a better chance playing music in
Boston. It was a very bad mistake. I quit my job and
left my girlfriend behind. After about a month I about
lost my mind and had to come home to Newport. I lived
in the back seat of my car all Summer. Very bad time
in my life. Donny came back to Newport a short time
later. Dave stayed in Boston until the fall of ’85.
The band got back together in the spring of ’86 and we
wrote some of our best songs, including “Slam Bang.” I
didn’t have a good job to sustain the band and it fell
apart again. We had no money and more drummers than
Spinal Tap. We did do the occasional one-off reunion,
the last being in 1995. Me and Donny have started a
new band project similar in style to the Idiots. Dave
was involved but had to bow out for personal reasons.
We’ll see what happens. We are still in contact and
if there’s a demand and opportunity to bring some cash
back with us the others told me they’re ready.”
Discography:
Snare & The Idiots – “Recycled Garbage” 7” (Slopfactor, 1985)
(Ed. Notes: 500 copies pressed. Three of four tunes included below.)
(Right click and “Save as…” to listen to “Zero Worship”)
(Right click and “Save as…” to listen to “Pimples”)
(Right click and “Save as…” to listen to “Political Song”)
Band members:
Steve Arnzen – Vocals
Danny Watson – Guitar
Dave Dunkun – Bass, Vocals
Dave Erskine – Drums
References:
Jockey Club Remembered
Cincinatti Punk Rock/Zero Worship
Fliers provided by Jockey Club Remembered website. Thanks.
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