In early 1978, Joey Vain and Scissors had the good/bad fortune to play as the opening act for Elvis Costello on campus at the Glenn Miller Ballroom. This was the biggest crowd they had ever played for, but the audience evidently was expecting Ramones clones and were hostile during their set. The discouragement from that experience soon led to the band breaking up. Jerry Kunkel would shortly be appointed head of the Fine Arts Department at the University of Colorado, Jerry Budwig moved to San Francisco, and Peter Roos became the drummer for the Nightflames, whose first concert was opening for Joey Vain and Scissors at their final performance in March 1978.
After Joey Vain and Scissors broke up, Phil Gammage got another band together called the Corvairs. He and another student Miles Syken agreed to form a rock band; Syken had been the guitarist in a high-energy cover band called the Mutilators, with the remaining members of that band becoming a punk band called Defex. Jon Cormany had just returned from playing in New York City with Boulder’s first punk rock band the Ravers (who by then had become the Nails – they are now one of my favorite New Wave bands since I picked up their album Dangerous Dreams), and he was in the audience for their first show at the Moose Club as the opening act for the Nightflames. He became the band’s bassist by their next concert. By the spring of 1979, Jimmy Frost joined up as their permanent drummer. Icepick Phil describes their sound in the early years as “a hybrid of a 60’s pop sound, surf, and artsiness”.
(March 2015)
