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From The Desk Of Don Fleming: Denver, Colorado, 1977

Even if you don’t know Don Fleming by name, chances are you own a ton of records he’s helped make. As a producer, he’s collaborated with the likes of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Teenage Fanclub, Screaming Trees, the Posies and Hole, to name just a handful. He works for the Alan Lomax Archive and has done archival work for the estates of Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey and others. He’s fronted such groups as the Velvet Monkeys, B.A.L.L. and Gumball and was a member of the band that provided the music to 1994 Beatles biopic Backbeat. Fleming also runs the Instant Mayhem label, which recently reissued the Velvet Monkeys’ 1982 debut Everything Is Right and is about to release the solo Don Fleming 4, which features Kim Gordon, Julie Cafritz and R. Stevie Moore. If all that weren’t enough, Fleming is guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.

Fleming: I was in Denver, Colo., for about six months in early 1977, stationed at Lowry AFB. I spent most of my free time at Wax Trax! Records on Ogden Street. It was freak central for the local punksters. I saw the Nerves play upstairs at one of the few shows the store put on. The Nerves had just released their great power pop EP, Hanging On The Telephone. Local punkers the Ravers opened that show, and Jello Biafria was a roadie for the band. I had met Jello, who was still Eric Boucher at that point, at an earlier show that year at Ebbets Field, a small Denver club that held about 200 people. The Ravers were opening on that night for the Ramones and Ray Manzarek’s Nite City. The Ramones were incredible, and I managed to snag a dropped guitar pick from Johnny. Nite City was fairly crap, fronted by blowhard Noah James (he was aiming for a Jim Morrison vibe, but it was more Jim Dandy meets Michael Des Barres). Soon after that show, I saw the Runaways play there and gave Joan Jett my Johnny Ramone pick. The Ravers and the Front were the only active local punk bands in Denver during the early months months of 1977, but then the scene really exploded in late ’77 through ’79 as documented on the amazing double-album compilation Rocky Mountain Low.

Video and photos after the jump.

—photo of the Nerves, Denver, 1977, by Don Fleming

Jackie Fox of the Runaways and Don Fleming:

Joey Ramone and Jello Biafria:

Gig poster:

4 replies on “From The Desk Of Don Fleming: Denver, Colorado, 1977”

Great article. I was at the Ramones/Ravers show at Ebbets Field but still kick myself for not going to the Nerves show.

I was at the Nerve show at the old Wax Trax! My older sisters took me; I was all of 14 at the time. I remember the Ravers or was the Front doing an awesome version of “I Fought the Law” I also remember the police shutting the power off soon after the Nerve played. I still have the EP somewhere, their version of “Hanging on the Telephone” was so much better then Blondie’s. There were what, 15 -20 people at that show?

On behalf of everyone who worked the scene in those days thanks for the nice words…. personaly I was knocked out by The Ramones and was lucky enough to see them later on at CBGB and in San Francisco (there are some advantages to being old) but I thought The Ravers held their own with them but of course I’m prejudice…

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