Dave Insurgent, Reagan Youth

Oz

Reagan Youth, Nausea, and APPLE at CBGB, from North East Punk Flyers, FMS Publishing, 2003

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Many of today’s Wall Street philanthropists win the public’s esteem by giving away money that, without the loophole they’ve fought to protect, would not all have been theirs to donate. “I don’t want to bash the philanthropy, because it does good,” Victor Fleischer told me. “But we’re creating what’s essentially a parallel system, where a small number of individuals control quasi-public spending, and that will reflect their values and not democratic values.” Of Rubenstein, he said, “It’s great that he’s helping out with the Washington Monument. But, if we had a government that was better funded, it could probably fix its own monuments".

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So today, yes, today, would have been the 50th birthday of the best singer I've ever seen let alone been graced to have had him sing alongside me and yes Dave and I did record after Reagan Youth, a band we called House Of God, because at that time we were grown men, not kids (youth) and instead of taking on politics we were ready to start taking on a higher authority. It was the best stuff we ever came up with and if you don't believe, just listen to "In The Beginning" or any of the other six songs we recorded with Jay at Giant studios on 14th Street, and on an 8 track no less. If you can get by the grainy recording, then you could hear that Dave had his best years ahead of him, his lyrics more poetic, vocal melodies more complex, song structures sounding epic. But the disease of addiction took all that away. Drugs are not romantic, they are insidious and have cost too many people their lives way before their time, and it really sucks for me that someone so brilliant, so talented, could fall under such circumstances. I miss my friend, my band mate, the incredible human being I knew since we were playing in a schoolyard during 3rd grade recess. I miss Dave's sense of humor. I wish he was still here and though he is not, his incredible words remain with us because he was a true punk rock poet and his message of Anarchy and that no one should hold authority over anyone else are as important as ever these days now and those to come. His message of Anarchy & Unity + Peace is too important to let slip away and maybe,  just maybe, one day people will stop embracing hate and find out the only thing to hate is hate itself. So let's all sing it together; I HATE HATE !

I'm officially 50 years old today. When I was born, John F. Kennedy had been assassinated some months earlier the year before and The Beatles were just making a splash, and with "She Loves You" being the number one hit when I was born (They had a lot of number one hits while I was in my mom's belly ) I was named after Paul McCartney by my mom. My dad had named the first child so it was her turn. She told me if I was born two days earlier, March 17th, I was going to be named Patrick. Well fuck that now. I always knew I loved music and wanted to be a guitarist as soon as I saw Ace Frehley rockin' a Gibson Les Paul on stage at Madison Square Garden. So I started a band with my good friend David Rubinstein which led to this here picture I have up. I still had hair, I remember that flannel and that Les Paul copy of a guitar from the photo when I was in the band I'm known most for; Reagan Youth. After that ran its course I was going to make an even better band, again with my good pal Dave, called House Of God, of that I am most proudest. And yet House Of God is practically ignored, yet here I am at this age still rockin' the guitar. It's my mother's fault for naming me after a musician and I suppose that's why I'm a better bassist than I am a guitarist. Now I do both with my new band's recordings, DUST ANGEL, and I'm looking forward to finally making a band successful, other than that short time, when I was a teenager, because when Reagan got re-elected, that's when people stopped giving a shit all together, so that's why I wanted House Of God to not only follow Reagan Youth, but to be a lot better, which I know in my heart and soul is. But that was decades ago and now it's all about my new project DUST ANGEL https://dustangel.bandcamp.com/. Here's to my next 50 years, Salut!