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Punk Rock Urban Legends

posted by McFrozen on January 7, 2003

Does anybody remember the legend surrounding the Circle Jerks and the Adolescents? That one of them traded the other one a song for a band name? I remember it being something like the Adolescents were originally called the Circle Jerks, and Greg and the boys needed a name, but had written the song "Kids of the Black Hole". A conversation ensued over beers and the rest is history. I am absolutely positive that I've embelleshed my memory, but I don't know which parts.

Comments

I just talked to our friend Ph*l and he said that he thought it was Social Distortion, not the Circle Jerks, and that the song in question was "Amoeba", which does sound an awful lot like a Social Distortion song, Anybody else?

Posted by: mccreath at January 8, 2003 11:30 AM

Rings a faint, faint bell with me, but I don't remember the details...

Posted by: Hoyt at January 8, 2003 01:39 PM

Well, as I've been thinking about it, I'm starting to also have faint memories of something similar happening between the Circle Jerks and Gun Club, involving the song "Group Sex". I'm addled. Where are the Punk Rock Historians, dammit?

Posted by: mccreath at January 8, 2003 01:43 PM

gun club rumor was about a song and stuff... it was one i learned from andrea and so i wonder about its cred.

but i do recall circle jerks in such a thing - apocrophally at least - but i thought it was with black flag. but now that sounds wrong. the kids of the black hole sounds totally wrong in so many ways.

U-RON WOULD KNOW.

Posted by: ttk at January 9, 2003 12:18 AM

Yeah, "Kids of the Black Hole" is the wrong song. Phil was right that it was "Amoeba", and that means it was probably Social Distortion and the Adolescents, but I can't remember the details.

Anyone know how to get ahold of Ronnie?

Posted by: mccreath at January 9, 2003 11:13 AM

Duh. Google.

Here's some stuff about the Gun Club/Circle Jerks lyric:

The Gun Club Story in detail

For a short time, the band adopted the name Creeping Ritual, a name with pre-Gothic connotations they soon tired of, but not bad for a band attempting to destroy rockabilly. They spent a couple of years playing around L.A mainly at local Chinese restaurants as support to bands from the first wave of LA punk such as X. After tiring of the old band name, they swapped the name The Gun Club from Jeffrey's flatmate Keith Morris for a Jeffrey Lee lyric. At the time, Morris was singer for Black Flag. The song would turn up as the title track on Morris' next band Circle Jerks LP Group Sex.
Several other sites make reference to this same story, but this is the only I found that actually refers to the song element.

Posted by: mccreath at January 9, 2003 11:22 AM

Duh, Number 2.

According to punkrockers.com, the Agnew brothers, Rikk and Frank, were part of Social Distortion's original and left to join the Adolescents.

So I probably just got everything cross-wired in my head.

Posted by: mccreath at January 9, 2003 11:30 AM

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