*In no particular order... Please let me know if we forgot anyone!
Don Vinil,
Billy Hawk,
Chris Olson,
Bob Morgan,
Bob Roberts,
Robert Steeler,
Johnny Genocide,
Denny Boredom,
Fred,
Olga,
Fast Floyd (Right?)
These photographs were generously donated by the Chris Olson archives... I would like to give credit where credit is due so please contact me if you know who took them.
The Offs were unique among the first wave of West Coast punk bands in maintaining a home base on both coasts. In SF, their manager discovered the Deaf Club as a live venue, and the Offs released records on the labels CD Presents and 415 Records. In NYC, they hung out with Basquiat (who scrawled their album cover), and released a single on Max's Kansas City Records.
The greatest thing about this San Francisco sextet when they would play ~Max's Kansas City (they lived in New York on Prince Street for part of each year, and even released a single on the Max's label) was how uncategorizable they were. Were they punk? New wave? Avant-garde? Art rock? No New York noise? A new strain of art jazz? Some odd form of mutant ska gone wrong with bleating sax? (Mostly.) You never knew what to tell people about what you'd seen. Like their U.K. contemporaries, Blurt, they were sort of all these things, and still others with names that haven't been invented. But what tied them to the punk community (caffeinated singer Don Vinil, who sadly died of a heroin overdose on Ninth St. in New York in 1983,was the basic burping energy to everything they did. These weren't a bunch of art school posers, they were smash-it-up party skanksters who wanted to do something fresh within an absolutely remarkably creative late-'70s Bay Area scene -- in cahoots with Crime, Nuns, Avengers, Negative Trend, Flipper, Pink Section, Tuxedomoon, Vktms, Mutants, Lewd, Dils, Zeros, and more. Sadly their earlier recordings have been nearly impossible to get but recently a live recording of The Offs has been released on Vampir Records, Recorded by Terry Hammer at the infamous Mabuhay Gardens in 1980. The recording begins with Dirk Dirksen introducing the band in his own special way... It's really touching.
The Offs' singer, Don Vinil, was one of the first openly gay people in the West Coast punk scene. V. Vale of Search and Destroy and RE/Search introduced Vinil to guitarist Billy Hawk after Vinil was kicked out of his first band, Grand Mal. Billy Hawk is still around... I hope to soon get some input from him and others.. This is a tribute to the Offs so please.. feel free to contribute to keeping their memory alive!
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The Offs were the band that started an entire movement. It was an honor play guitar with Billy and Don when I was a little kid. The Offs are still in my top ten of all time great bands.... Jah Genocide
The Offs were my professional gig as a guitar player. Billy had to teach me to play. I still miss Don to this day. We used to have a lot of fun, especially up in Seattle. This band deserves a myspace page!
