Upon his engagement with the Italian musical and subcultural underground, Porter connected with a producer by the name of Enzo Rinaldi, who is credited as being his primary collaborator, and who is credited as the co-author of all of his music and lyrics. Porter’s earliest recordings came out in the form of several singles (all of which must be next to impossible to find for less than your annual income), which boasted an uber gritty, howling, and cathartic rhythm and blues/proto-garage punk sound, with lyrics mostly sung in Italian, mainly dealing with the tried and true sex, drugs and rock n’ roll-type themes.

By the time the 1970’s began to roll around, however, Porter’s sound and lyrical content began to change drastically. The music got darker, heavier, more atmospheric, and increasingly existential to the point of nihilism in its lyrical content.

One can only wonder to what extents some of his experiences as one of the lone Black faces in many of the scenes he would have been a part of must have influenced his writing and sonic output, at the same time as many newly decolonized nations throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia dealt with the repressive counter-insurgent military backlash from imperialists and former colonial masters, and street clashes between Italian fascists and anti-fascists led to an increase in bombings, assassinations and armed confrontations right within his immediate physical proximity at that time.

The laziest way to describe his musical offerings during that time would be as space/prog/psych, with close intersections noticeable with the likes of Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Hawkwind. But there are many others who have noted a close similarity between his heavier, sludgier, dirge-like recordings of the time, with some of the death/doom/crust metal genres which would emerge in later decades.

Going by surfaces alone, it is too easy to look at pictures of this mild looking, bespectacled and rail thin brother, and assume him to just be an accountant or medical student. Little would you know that this man was in fact creating easily some of the heaviest prog/psych recordings of that time.

In 1973, he retired from the world of music, moving into the world of fashion, where he established the Mack Squire brand name.

- El Machetero

When Watson’s Baptist preacher grandfather gave him his first guitar at the age of 11, on the condition that he not ever play that “devil’s music” (he is on record as joking that this, of course, was the very first thing he did as soon as he was alone with that six string), he most likely did so with the very specific hope that his grandson would never create a record as raw, abrasive and downright futuristic as “Space Guitar”.

After several years of paying his dues, making his name as a much in-demand guitarist, vocalist, pianist throughout the early 1950’s in West coast African-American juke joints, Watson adopted a strutting, swaggering, flamboyant stage personality, with loud, flashy clothes, outrageous styles and an immensely aggressive style of guitar playing (or “stressifying”, as he called it), which would often result in him having to replace his strings at least once or twice during every set he played.

When he dropped “Space Guitar” in ’54, very few people had ever heard feedback, distortion or reverb before. While, as previously acknowledged, he was not the first to introduce these elements into his sound, it is admittedly quite hard to imagine what music would sound like today if it weren’t for this dangerous, violent and cathartic joint he dropped. At the very least, it serves as a valuable reference point for where a certain guitarist by the name of Jimi Hendrix may quite possibly gathered a few ideas he put to extremely fine use some years later on.

- El Machetero

Rock n’ roll being widely condemned and reviled as it feverishly was during that time as the “devil’s music”, so, David Walker adopted the moniker Bunker Hill, so as not to lose his standing in his church, or his position with the Mighty Clouds of Joy, who he continued to perform with by day.  He recorded several scorching hot sides of absolutely wild, primal, brass knuckled, chain swinging, rumble ready juvenile delinquent rock n’ roll on the Mala label, backed by none other than Link Wray and his Ray-Men.

One of the tracks, "Hide and Go Seek", became a hit single in the United States, reaching #27 on the Billboard R&B charts and #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. Despite the efforts he made to keep his true identity a secret, he was still found out, and was unceremoniously kicked out of the Mighty Clouds of Joy not long after.

The details of his later years in life are largely obscure, although it is widely believed that he eventually made amends with his church and reconciled with the Mighty Clouds of Joy, continuing to perform with them until late into the end of the 1960’s, when it is said that he retired completely from creating music.  Even the details of his death remain unclear; it is said that he died in Houston, TX, although even this detail remains unconfirmed.

Some may consider this to be a sad story; However, his legacy was far from being in vain, as many true scholars of punk rock music consider him to be one of the true founders of the genre. I advise any who may question this assertion to take a close listening to “That Girl Can’t Dance”, featured below.

- El Matchetero