Living in Citrus Heights is like eating a mayonnaise sandwich in the desert. What else were we supposed to do beside dye our hair and try to act different (by different I mean like MTV).
So I meet Jeff in French class (at Mesa Verde High School) circa 1995. He graduates, but still frequents The Mesa Campus because his underage girlfriend is still a sophomore (note: this is a Citrus Height tradition). So, the end of my senior year May 1997, I see him and ask him for the fiftieth time if I can sing in his heavy metal band (hold over inside joke form French class). He says no but says he has borrowed a guitar form his friend and wants to play guitar in a band. I say I have a drum set and ask him to "jam" (music term). He does.
Milhouse is born.
I have a tape of it if you want to hear it. I think we tried to "jam" (music term) to the punk-o-rama II sound track, Minor Threat, and Operation Ivy (not from Sacramento). His underaged girlfriend came along to this practice. She said I was invited to her house for a BBQ. Me and Jeff ask in unison if we can play (I think this is the actual moment the milhouse spirt was born). She says OK, only because she needs a ride home.
So one practice and we hit the road on our first tour. The only thing I remembered from the show was putting up flyers for days on end on Santa Monica Blvd. and having Mugger laugh at me when I asked things like "where are we gonna eat?" and "where are we gonna sleep?". This was definitely not Van Halen.
So this BBQ thing went well and I felt with a track record of one practice and one show we would soon be singed to a record label, break up and reform with in a month. But Jeff and his underaged girlfriend decided to spend 1000 bucks going to France for a month. So Milhouse goes on hold.
While they are gone, I enroll our first bass monkey Dave Brien(tm) (another student of Mesa Verde High School). Me and Jeff were class of 97 and 96, respectively. Dave B. was class of 98, so I knew he would give us that youthful edge we lacked.
Jeff and his underaged girlfriend send me funny post cards from France(tm).
Jeff comes back and we practice as a three piece. We write songs, by taking existing songs and stealing parts (not a joke). Dave writes first song by taking a Beastie Boys song and playing it backwards. We rock hard with borrowed equipment and heart. I move to CSUS dorms form North Highlands (15 miles).
I meet Matt Silver (tm) and he inquires as to my AFI poster. I tell him he would understand my street punk ways and split on him with the can of fake punk rock spit I got at the hot topic (tm). Matt says then I have to play at his show at the DC (cafeteria of the dorms) with his band and Saucer (the Sacramento one). The Secretions were added to the bill because then guitar player and fellow CSUS dorm resident Morgan Giles (tm) asked. They were allowed. Yes.
There is a lotta crap around this time that happens involving me (Charles Albright) getting dumped by a girl (tm), Dave Brien going to LA and me getting a credit card. In the end Milhouse meets the Secretions (an important plot point) and gets a temporary singer (Sean South). Oh yeah! that's what it was! The girl that dumped me's cousin fills in on bass cuz Dave went to LA.
Oh, yeah. After the show Mickey tells me that he has had a life long dream of taking teenage punk bands under his wing and showing them the ropes around town. He offers Milhouse a future show if we "get our act together", what ever that meant. At this stage I felt we were already a success beyond our wildest dreams.
OK we practice w/ this new singer guy. He was a grad student a CSUS in one of those made up subjects (I think Sociology). He wanted to sing for us and that was the one specification we had. (Note: underaged band girl friend who shall remain nameless hates new singer Sean south...)
Dave Brien (still in high school) gets us a gig the annual Mesa Verde talent show. Actually I think we just used him to be eligible to play (he was still a student there). If memory serves me it was the soon-to-be members of the Riff Randals that got us the gig (come to think of it, they were all present at our first show,too. Wow they seem real import to the history of Milhouse. Better make sure not to mention them). Anyways, we tried out, were liked and were booked for a two nighter in late march of 1998.
Then tragedy struck. We found out Sean South was an asshole. Years later he was to go into rehab and reform this horrible problem (with some say a "limited success"), but for a generic suburban punk band form Citrus Heights, he did not cut it.
So we play Mesa Talent show, minus singer. In true Milhouse fashion I think Jeff tried to sing to the songs. We played Louie Louie. Both nights.
Dave told me after the first show that Deni Fusion (orchestrator of the event and Mesa Verde English department pin-up) tried to tell us to stop as soon as we turned on our amps and the the ear piercing feed back started. Dave said he just started playing a song so she wouldn't stop us. Mickey from the Secretions (who was in the audience that evening with then guitar player Morgan) said people put their hands over their ears and left the room in droves!
You'd think after an accomplishment like that, that we'd be on track to really kick some Sacto suburban ass, but alas Dave tells us the second night we played the Mesa Verde multi-purpose building that "he's not as serious as us" (by serious he meant we wanted to practice) and that "he is moving to LA anyway" (note: Dave Brien never moved out of the Sacramento area and still resides in one of Sacramento's suburbs).
Well so we were now back to Jeff and Charles. This concerned me, but Jeff reassured me that "we had fallen ass backwards into the band so we'll most likely be ok."
No sooner did he say that when Mickey of the Secretions offers his first wife to our be our bass player. While hanging out with us an our entourage (French gang) he made mention of Lory's desire to play one minute songs with only two parts and hang out w/ teenagers.
I remembered she saw us at the DC when we played (she was in the Secretions french gang along with Zombie Kevin ). I remember we had one song left. I said "this one is clocked in and it's for Lory cuz she has to go to work". I don't know what came over her, but she jumped up on the stage pulled the mic from Dez and sang the song. Dez didn't seem to mind. She told me after joining the band that she was on a high all the way back to DC and the Hagen Daz Ice Cream store she worked at.
Anyways, I gave Mickey my number. That next week (this is a true story) she called and left a message. I called her back and asked if Wednesday was good for her. She said no. I said how about Saturday. She said no. I said how about next Wednesday and she said yes. True Story.
Oh before I forget I remember I went to a Secretions practice to interview them and she brought her bass to "try out". Well, she had a bass and (like previous Milhouse members) wanted to be in the band. So, that was, good enough for me.
was the birth of Milhouse SMF (note we did not start using said name until Fall 1998)
There is a really funny story around this day and if you want to read more click here.
OK so adding Mickey's wife Lory to Milhouse mean that we finally "got our act together" and could play the Secretions' first ever record release at the Guild Theater [Dave Smith note: this was the day after No Kill I played the Guild and me and Ed almost got stabbed by a biker for repeatedly insisting he was a homosexual]. We practice and are ready to play except that we forgot to get Mickey's other wife to sing for us. I decide I will sing because secretly I wanted to marry Mickey too..
So we steal the show at the Guild (a bill that included the Lizards, Mynock, the Knockoffs and the Secretions). Now that we ruled the Sacramento scene (with out even a real singer) Lory decides to get her friend Candice to sing for us. Oddly enough Candice had gone to Mesa Verde High school at the same times as us (she was a few years younger).
It is interesting to note that when Candice joins the band, Jeff's unnamed underaged girlfriend quits coming to practice.
So we practice all summer. We play a few times. Most notably at the Second Annual geek Fest Tribal Camping Quest at Lake Ladoga. See this for more details. We convince Ken Doose to put us on his third tape comp of the 90's. He says cool to that and we practice up for it. We record in in September of '98.
We play the DC II show w/ Secretions, Peeping Toms and The Riff Randals (their debut). In many ways it was the real debut of Milhouse SMF. We resolve not to play till 1999.
1999 is the year we really rock it! We start off the year recording our first LP (that was released as a cassette only). Um, we play w/ The Bananas for the first time. They suck as usual. Aaron Probe, interviews us and we tell him that "pop-punk" bands like the Bananas are not really our thing. He then fucks me and gives me a bad boy review in his crappy porn zine. Fucker!
The garage rock band I (Charles) am in plays the Loft. Here we meet Sacramento icon Scott Soriano. He tells me he is old and "Milhouse's trash-snot" sound isn't for him. I tell that we sound more like "a bus load of Black Flag"(inside joke #144) running over a group of record collection dorks. Afraid of us, he offers to let us play March 21st at the Loft. (Note: this is day after we play Old Ironsides for the first time. Kind of appropriate.)
OK, we play, we practice. oh, yeah we go on tour w/ the Secretions.
Tour summary: Sacramento to Reno to Provo Utah to Las Vegas to Los Angeles (click here for good Vegas story), then back to Sacramento. One week in the summer driving in the desert to play to no one. Still we had fun.
Um, we come back. Rock Sacramento pretty hard. I think we decide to go on another tour in January. But before then we rock more.
Oh yeah we play the loft again. Scott tells us that since all the other people that are involved with the Loft don't want to be in punk bands anymore, that we have to be the token punk band in their punk scene. He also asks us to help split a 45 with the Bananas because they need help selling to the youth crowd that we are in touch with. We say sure whatever.
We go on a tour of California (this time in the winter). Riots and panic from Y2K kinda fuck our tour, but we rock from Red Bluff to Oxnard.
We come back into town to rock more.
But then Lory quits. No explanation just out of nowhere, she quit. If you ask me I think she is crazy.
So crazy Lory Quits Milhouse SMF and this is where our story ends.
You might be wondering what the members of Milhouse SMF do now. Well, shortly after Milhouse SMF some guy named L.T. Smash posts at Skips music that he is putting together a band to encourage enlistment in the the KISS army or something like that. To tell you the truth I was so fucked up from this weed I got from this group of Sacramento Euro-trash that I don't know why he was forming a band. (Last Paragraph brought to you buy www.insidejokes.com)
The Band was to be called Milhouse USA. Wow that is like the same name as Milhouse SMF. I never realized till now how close those names are.
Well anyways, a lot of people came out to the try outs. I saw Jeff and Candice there. (Note they let me cut in line. Good thing too cuz I had to write a paper that night. The paper I think was about Kant's justification for the death penalty. Doing the paper sucked cuz I wasn't into ethics at the time. It seemed so dumb to me because I figured once the main epistemological and metaphysical issues were sorted out, then ethics would just kinda "fall into place" But anyways, I went home and wrote the stupid paper and like anything having to do with Kant, the source text is like indecipherable so I just used our text books analysis of Kant's justifications. Yeah I know I was paying 1000 dollars a semester to go to school, but hey a degree is all bullshit anyway so why not just BS my was through it. That seems the most appropriate thing anyway. I think I ended up getting like a B on it. It always puzzled me how I could get B's on papers when I thought I did bad. I guess it wasn't so much as puzzling as, well, it just left me in a dilemma. Either standards were low and I was getting shit for my thousand bucks or I was a super-genius underachieving. I guess if you had to ask me why I even got into Philosophy it would be because it had the fewest units of any "real" major. But whatever. It was better than 90% of all the other majors anyway. What? was I supposed to major in Business? or Anthropology even? I made my decision and I meet a lot of cool people.)
The End
May 8? 2000
Milhouse USA is born (Note: Dave Smith is filling in on Bass until we hire a permanent replacement)