By Andy Whorehall

Forewords by Kevin Schwitters & Dave DeCastris
Epilogue by Jesus Correa
Video by Stephanie Barisa
Download Bootleg by Mark Muraski

“The CJ’s SYTTNN show was one of the best shows I have ever been a part of.

We drew numbers to determine the entrance order, and I drew #2. I remember being excited because I figured my entrance would be the moment when the show transformed from one guy playing music alone into something truly special and weird.

I stood in the back room with the other members listening to Jesus (#1) play the intro, and after 10 seconds, I knew he had already achieved this on his own. We filed out one-by-one and kept piling on the noise.

We had only gotten together to discuss the project one or two times before the show, and most of that time was spent making costumes, taking pictures, and playing with action figures. The music wasn’t so much an after-thought as it was a never-thought. There was a .001% chance the music would be anything but annoying, indulgent, and unlistenable. Magic. And it never happened again.”
-Kevin Schwitters (The Braves / Table & Chairs / Haunted Hayrides/Say Yes to The No-No’s)

“The moment he (Jesus) mentioned costumes & noise makers for instruments, I was sold.  We had simply agreed to be in a Jesus Correa project, which in itself is worthy of any sort of participation.  We did discuss his idea for the show and what to bring;  a cape, masks would be provided, and any noise making device.  He said he’d provide the songs.  There would be no practice which made us ecstatic but curious.  That night we gathered back room at CJ’s downtown in our costumes & pulled #s (me pulling #11) for entrances.  Jesus, #1, proclaimed that we were going to play cover songs & before you knew it, it was over to the tribal chant of “Crocodile Rock” & feedback from a rigged, audio-out space-lego noise maker toy that  Mark Muraski tweaked up for me to abuse with a pedal & practice amp. We were sweaty, thirsty, happy.  Musical therapy.

Someone yelled, “It was a happening!” as Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” began to play from the bar overhead PA.  It was only then did the irony settle in we just made ridiculous noise like masked banshees on a bender in a Rockford bar. We should have been kicked out, thinking back; but Jesus is cunning, charming and those costumes may have been the decoy in his plan to not get us kicked out.

In the parking lot afterwards, 2 guys approached me ‘loading’ the car. “Dude, were you one of the No-No’s?” Yes. “That was crazy man, space circus music man!”  Yeah it was fun. “We’re from Caledonia man, we drove in to get drunk but man, we didn’t expect that shit.”  Thanks (laughing). “How did you practice for that?” That was practice. “When are you playing again?” I doubt we will.

It’s pretty rare when I can say without irony, ‘thank you, Jesus.’ That was fun.”
-Dave DeCastris (Donkey Boy (USA) / Staasuhnator Rex / Say Yes to The No-No’s)

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On March 1st, 2008, CJ’s on State St. in Rockford, IL played host to an unknown gathering of local musicians performing in costume by the name of “Say Yes To The No-No’s.” Armed with various noisemaking devices, percussion, toy instruments, harmonica, trombone, and slide guitar, the local ‘ironic super-group’ could be considered veteran, Rockford area musicians now who are more often ignored than actually listened to.  They were brought together by midwestern artist, musician & 2009 city mayoral candidate, Jesus Correa IV. He the brain, the No-No’s being his brainchild

Correa’s No-No’s consisted of members he gathered together from The Braves, Midwestern Death, Donkey Boy (USA), The Moment, Popeye Jonesin’, The GoMows & many more; possibly forming the first ever Rockford Area Anti-Arts Indie Super Group. (It’s ok to laugh.)  Together they created a unified sound, void of arrogance & musical discipline, with unadulterated defiance for each other and their environment.

Jesus Correa

12 members filed in  1×1, each 30-40 seconds apart to fulfill a roll call led by its leader, Mr. Correa.  They eventually created a half hour of “cover songs”- as Jesus put it lightly during the intro.  Far from being cover songs & closer to something from space, the 12 members from all walks of life and styles of music created a circus of sound. Each member being the asshole in any other band performed out of tune, out of rhythm, and proudly.  They became elephants that night, marching together to the beat of their leader’s drum machine. Yelling, banging, chanting & laughing like adult-children should do on occasion just to feel alive.

It became the sound of Rockford at night I’d dreamt of for years; elephants stampeding through, marching with the self-defeated while trashing the town into a disgusting layer of party confetti, balloon skin shrapnel & empty beer cans. The drunk women at the bar never saw it coming, leading them to bed & leaving them for a new town to trash come morning. The sound of Rockford had finally arrived & it was gone in 31 minutes. Go figure, it was led by a human being named, Jesus.

Each member performed draped in a cape with masks on made by Correa for the No-No’s to wear, an homage to the good ol’ days of wrestling, performing, entertaining the locals and releasing the demons. Together they formed something larger than the scene they pissed about in tinkering away their youth on. Large &  memorable, it was only going to happen once this way.  12 idiots, all ironic & talented with multiple issues spread out between each one for 1 night, 30 minutes in Rockford creating unrehearsed, city-circus noise.

A soundtrack for a city so sad from waiting on a train to come back that they missed these elephants trampling all over their town for 30 minutes. From the Say Yes To The No-No’s to no one else but themselves.

AW | andy whorehall

{Download a bootleg recording / Say Yes To The No-No’s / Live @ CJ’s Lounge, Rockford, IL 03.01.2008 / Recorded by by Mark Muraski}

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SMS Ed. Note, 01-26.2011: We were able to hunt down Jesus Correa for a few comments, thoughts about the 1-off event after this article’s original posting.  Enjoy.

EPILOGUE / Jesus Correa:

“At the time of the show I was performing with an odd band called Lightning Thunder Fox-Chip Copeland was actually very shortly involved with this project-and we had a show booked at Cj’s. Elizabeth Kris McQueeny was in this band, and she was unable to perform-due to a vacation I believe-and I am a sickfuck who is unwilling to cancel a show-I performed last Valentines Day after spending the previous evening/early morning in an emergency room in Chicago after plummeting off the roof of the Congress Theatre-so I started racking my brain.

At this point I had been playing in bands and performing for about ten years, and I always felt like an outsider, a weird-o, and an outcast in the local music scene. I knew a lot of other folks in bands around town, but I was never “IN” with the incrowd, and my musical projects were often spurned and overlooked, and Lightning Thunder Fox was really sort of out there. So I start wracking my brain, because I am not going to cancel a show-I probably love playing shows more than anything else I can think of-and I figure, “Well, they think I’m weird, and out there, I will show them weird and out there.”

So I start getting in touch with folks I respected around the area, mostly musicians, some other random folk that I was sort of curious as to what they would do, some just on the word of other folk I had asked. I had a fuzzy idea of what wanted to happen, and I had a name. Say Yes To The No-No’s was just something I said around the house, and I recorded a few things under the name around that time-an album called Ko-Ko Luv Good available on Greentape.

I got a basic line-up worked out, and so I set to work. We all met at my house a total of two times, maybe three. We met once to do a photoshoot at the 412 mansion-I am not sure where these photos are, I believe we used Elliot Porter of the Moment’s camera-and I think the second time we met up was before the show to finish up some masks and drink beer before the show. There may have been another get together, but I am a little fuzzy on the whole thing. I think we decided on the way out that the ultimate goal was to end up playing “Crocodile Rock” and that was it as far as the musical guideline was concerned.

I believe a couple of people backed out at the last minute from the show, and I remember trying to talk a couple of people in the back room into playing along, but to no avail. I think we ended up with eleven members onstage when all was said and done.

The masks were something I was sort of using at the time in Lightning Thunder Fox. I like to see a show as much as hear a show, I am very much into stage presence, and am all for putting on a Show. I sewed most of them myself, but I remember a few people helping out in my cramped little room just before the show, Phil Goudreu sticks out as one of the sewers.

Before the show we all drew a mask and a number from a bag. I believe I actually drew number nine, every other number was drawn, and I went ahead and drew again and ended up number one. I never told anyone that before, I sort of cheated a little, but it was my baby and I wanted to be the first one to go, sorry.

I remember walking out and being just sort of disoriented, with the mask and just the oddness of it all. We set all the instruments out beforehand, just sort of scattered all about. I just started my drum machine, and it was all just a little fuzzy from there.

I was reprimanded on two counts for the show:

• Eleanor Boersma who was in the band LIghtning Thunder Fox with me, and also underage kept trying to sneak into the place, which was my problem for some reason.
• It was just sort of too out there, it didn’t sit well with the generic rock and roll shows that typically go on around town-where was the bass player and the drums and the guitar riffs and the structure and who was in charge, where was the frontman etc. It made some people uneasy, good, I like that.

All in all it went above and beyond what I expected. It made my weird band that I was with fulltime not seem so weird. I got to play with a lot of folk I respected but who would not normally perform with me or one of my bands under normal circumstances. I got to bring a weird idea that belonged in some uptight boring art gallery into a cozy little dive bar, and weird out the Squares.

Just the experience of being there was one thing. There were some fuzzy videos on the YOUTUBE a few days later. Then I heard someone had recorded the damned thing, and lo and behold it was not as annoying as I thought it would be, it was actually sort of good in its own weird way, it sort of clicked, and it worked, godammit it worked.

This is the final line-up of performers as far as I can remeber, I think some of them kept their masks, which made me mad at first, but I hope they treasure their stolen mask, and the magical evening we shared together, just some masked men wailing and banging in the evening.

Say Yes To The No-No’s, line-up, 03-01-2008
1.Jesus Correa VII
2.Kevin Schwitters
3.Dave Decastris
4.Phil Goudreaux
5.Brandon Lutmer
6.Taylor Marie Moorman
7.Jason Judd
8.Steven Wirth
9.Spencer Scott
10.Zach Ippen
11. Barrett James

Sock Monkey Sound

Sock Monkey Sound

Sock Monkey Sound

Shameless self promotion with a twist as Joie de Vivre joins us in studio for some talk about their new release The North End. Steve, Chris, Pat, and Brandon give you the uncensored and unedited truth of the band. Disc Golf, texts from ex-girlfriends, and Get Positive are all covered in this episode. Stick around at the end for Danger’s voice mails.

Featured Artists:
Broken Social Scene
500 Miles to Memphis
Matt Ulery’s Loom
Donkey Boy (USA)
Joie de Vivre

Also check out:
Count Your Lucky Stars
Andy Whorehall
Green Light Nights Tickets
Kickstand Productions
Guzzardo’s Performance Music
Kryptonite Bar

Sock Monkey Sound

Ghosts – Donkey Boy U.S.A

by Alex Danger Stewart

With the new Donkey Boy (USA) EP, “A Song for ‘Last Rights,” Dave Decastris delivers a rumination on his favorite theme. The pain and degradation of low class Rockfordians. Those people whose hopes have long since died and for whom pleasure can only be found in the further destruction of their fragile ability to love.

Are you sure?

Yeah, mostly.

“There are ghosts everywhere that I go in this town. There are ghosts everywhere I lay my head down. You could be my only friend. Take my hand, take my hand, take my hand.”

It’s the long story of still born dreams and the ways in which we desperately cling to each other in a desperate attempt to hide the sound of every creeping death. Or something like that.

With the help of a few Anthony Graigs, DBUSA offers us three versions of the song Ghosts. On a sheer economics level, it’s a great deal. For the price of one song (free) we get the final product, the demo, and the bangin club remix (look for that one on the Edmundo Graig 7”). It’s like the Stimulate This tour where all of those Republican bands played for really cheap to stick it to Obama, or something. Like that, but awesome.

The final version of Ghosts came out jagged and haunting with a surprisingly sexy blues undercurrent. It reminds one of the darker side of Gnarls Barkley, or the Black Keys album that Dangermouse produced (which is really redundant, if you think about it) and also very much of Beck; especially some of the more mechanical songs on Charlotte Gainsbourg’s IRM. I’m not positive, but the Ghosts demo might be my favorite mix of the song. Where the single version is sprawling, the demo holds itself close to your ear, feeling intimate and all the more damaged. Like the laptop ruminations of a man on his last legs. A man who has long since run out of friends who don’t come with screw tops. The Emundo Graig remix is pure sugar. A straight up flash of New Order, cocaine, and hair gel. It’s perfect for a quick desk chair salsa.

So I guess the question is: How do you feel? Sexy? Depressed and alone? Piquant? The “A Song for Last Rights” EP has a flavor for each.

Download the EP for free at http://www.donkeyboyusa.com/

Donkey Boy has submitted Ghosts for the soundtrack of a film. Go vote for it here http://www.lastritesfilm.com/friends.html

Sock Monkey Sound

We welcome Dave DeCastris and Zach Staas to Sock Monkey Sound. We talk about Daves music as Donkey Boy USA, his work as a designer and artist, John Madden, aging gracefully, Nirvana, and The Replacements. We end on a very compelling conversation with Dave about his view on our fine city. Donkey Boy USA performs live in studio featuring Dave, Zach, Mark Muraski, and Dan McMahon.

Featured music by

The Pixies
Backyard Tire Fire
The Dear Hunter
Brendan Benson
Julian Plenti
Donkey Boy USA

Sock Monkey Sound