Brad Nowell Years 1986-1988 - MC Naitch

Living with Brad 1986-1988

Words by MC Naitch

The following blurbs were originally my posts on the current Sublime Forum. Many of them were responses to specific inquiries so I hope that helps to excuse their schizophrenic and generally hodgepodge nature. ____________________________________________________________________________________________

I originally got sucked into the Sublime Forum by responding to a Sublime Time line that seemed to be pretty inaccurate. I'm such a nitpicker. Here is my unsatisfying introductory post:

Hey Everyone (all 8 of you). I'm new to this site but I knew Brad pretty well and the above timeline is really not that great. Yes, most of it seems to be right but there are some glaring errors. Yes, they really don't matter but... Brad first went off to college to UCSC in 1986 (Stevenson College). He was a Slug for 2 eventful years. He wanted to go to UCLA and possibly follow his off and on love but he didn't make it in. (One of the main reasons he went to UCSC in the first place was because his girlfriend was already there. She left Satan Cruz a year before Brad and went to UCLA.) He went to CSU Long Beach and majored in a business related major and was a close second (or was it first?) in some major assessment. Business would not have been my first choice of a major for Brad but he was so smart that he could apply himself to anything that he was into. He was really close to graduating but never did. ____________________________________________________________________________________________

One way to look at the 1986 to 1988 period was that Brad had few collaborators or musical co-conspirators. It was a solo period when he didn't perform that much in public. He probably played with Eric and others when he returned to Long Beach for the summer of 1987. Sloppy Seconds had ceased to exist when I met Brad in 1986 but the way Brad talked about this group, it never seemed serious nor very organized. The members were mostly high-schoolers who wanted to party, get laid and play music. The only other member that I believe was in this group was Eric. Bud might have played drums for them occasionally but I don't think that he was a core member. When Brad ever referred to this band, the main emphasis was on the name of the band as a big joke. I don't think he would ever have mentioned it to me if he didn't think that the name was hilarious. I'm pretty sure that Brad occasionally played with a horn section but in which band, I have no frickin' idea. (This is so random and trivial but I think that he played with a girl named Ruth who played the sax.) As for Hogan's Heroes, I can't really trust my memory too much. Maybe he mentioned it to me or I could have just read about them in Crazy Fool. Recordings? I doubt it.

I would be surprised if there were any recordings of Sloppy Seconds or of Hogan's Heroes. You never know, but if any one is going to find them, it is Guitar Josh. They would probably be recordings of a horrendous quality.

My memories of the 1986-1988 period were of Brad listening to tons of music, playing his guitar and singing almost every day, recording the occasional song and writing down songs & other ideas. He was pretty well prepared once Sublime finally formed. I can only remember one real show from the Santa Cruz era. It was a solo acoustic show in one of the on-campus coffee shops. I don't think he advertised it at all. He just showed up, played a few X covers and other songs that I can't remember and that was it. Not too many people were there. There was also a note-worthy (pun intended) party at which a few guys were playing a gig and Brad just took the mic and blew everyone away. He did some sort of a spontaneous rap (no guitar) and that was it. There were countless private shows in our dorm room and later at our crappy apartment which we dubbed the Pink Palace. Kelly Nowell mentioned this place in Crazy Fool. During the week Brad would play whenever he wanted. It didn't matter if anyone was around or if others were trying to study. This is cliché but it was like it was just another basic human need for him like eating or sleeping. He had to play and sing. There wasn't that much more to it.

The weekend "private shows" would invariably involve an attractive young female who had a very hard time resisting the aphrodisiac effects of his music. We joked that normal morons like myself would make sure that the mini fridge was stocked with beer before going out on the weekend but Brad only tuned his guitars. I think that Brad recorded some of his music from this period. The best example being the song Ebin. Right before Brad departed Santa Cruz, a few friends came over to the Pink Palace and by hand wrote down many of the songs that Brad had been playing. They fastidiously copied them from the notebook or notebooks that Brad had been keeping. I remember thinking, "What are they doing?" Obviously they had a lot more foresight than I did but I probably never would have done that anyway. I'm kind of surprised that they have never surfaced. Hopefully Troy has at least the original. (Just don't let G-man get a hold of them. I heard that he would charge a fortune. Just kidding, I'm totally f'ing with you.)

The hair? Oh yes, the hair was very special. Before I met Brad, I don't think I had met a dude with bleached hair before. He generally had long bangs and it was short in the back like it should be. No mullets!!

The second year, he came back to school in the fall and he looked a little different. Maybe his hair was a little longer or something (and he had some new duds). I don't know if he had more of a surfer tan or something or his hair was whiter but the best way to describe him was that he was prettier. (Don't worry, I'm not going Sublime Brokeback Mountain on you). I can't even describe it. He was the same Brad but he just looked a little different. His personality didn't change a bit though. He was the same intelligent thrasher that I knew. His wild and reckless streak was still there with the same passion for music. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Brad served as my musical educator. I came to UCSC with a very, very limited musical knowledge. I was kind of a musical tabla rosa or whatever the blank tablet thing is called. Most of the first part of the music education course was taught in his cream colored Jeep Cherokee type vehicle as we drove around Santa Cruz looking for surf.

I think that we first listened to a lot of the Reggae Dance Hall Style artists or whatever they are called. I remember these the least probably because I didn't like them too much. I was asked before to name a few of the artists in this genre that we listened to and I really drew a blank. I think that it was Eek A Mouse, Yellow Man, and Pato Banton but I could be totally wrong. Maybe Half Pint was in the mix too but I might just be saying that because I heard it in a Sublime song this morning. I can’t really remember any songs at all from this genre. Brad clearly said once that he didn't like the Bob Marley roots stuff at all. I am really not much help at all with those artists.

There was a time when he repeatedly listened to the Beastie Boy's first album. Over and over and then 10 times more for good measure. It drove me crazy but I eventually grew to kind of like it. (Their later stuff is so much better) I was such a musical blank slate that I had never even been to a concert or show before. Wow. He took me to my first show which was a Camper Van Beethoven show on the west side of SC in the same complex as the big Safeway there. It was in some weird space there but really cool. He might have then afterward put on a little of CVB then like, "Take the Skinheads Bowling"

I have vague memories of him playing X or at least talking about them. I remember learning about John Doe and Xena (spelling). I only clearly remember him playing a few of their covers in his sole gig during his Santa Cruz years.

Three bands that he talked about but I don't think he played much were Bad Brains, Fishbone and Suicidal Tendencies. He had memorable stories from the last 2 bands but I'm not sure if I listened to those 3 bands that much with him. Okay I remember listening to Bad Brains with him but not as much as some other bands.

I think that the unofficial sound-track of the first year and maybe both years was the music of the Descendents. I absolutely love this band now and recommend everyone to listen to their stuff. I’m more into their studio stuff as opposed to the live album(s) but to each their own. Their influence on Sublime and Sublime’s music is huge. I’ll let the Sublimeologists do all the work on that. I feel that if Brad couldn’t play Sublime’s music, he would have been relatively satisfied just playing Descendents covers (Sour Grapes, No Fat Beaver, Pervert, Hürting Crüe, I'm not a Loser, In My Van, Wendy, Clean Sheets, etc..) We went to a Descendents show in Berkeley in the fall of 1986. Pretty awesome for the sheltered kid. We also went to a Butthole Surfers show. They projected this gruesome medical film of penis operations or something like that in the background. They had two drummers and the female one basically kicked my ass when I tried to do a stage dive. Brad and the other Pink Palace roommate held my legs down when I attempted to climb onto the stage and then she came out of nowhere through the fog filled stage and wrestled and danced on my back. I never remember him playing any Butthole Surfers tunes.

More Punk influences on Brad. Well, I’m listening to this cassette tape, as I type, of the Descendents and other bands. I’m not sure if Brad made it for me but it would make sense. It includes some classic songs of Fear, Suicidal Tendencies and the Vandals (Anarchy Burger.. Hold the Government Please is hilarious). Not too surprisingly, some Sublime lyrics seem to be influenced/borrowed/altered from these bands but especially from the Vandals.

A few other punk bands that Brad mentioned but maybe even never played for me were: Black Flag, Minutemen and (Rudimentary) Penni.

Much to Brad's dismay, I started to get into the Grateful Dead. We went to a show down in Monterey (maybe at the Laguna Seca racetrack) and that was an education in many ways for both of us. I don't think that he went to another Dead show after that. At some point, Brad got a hippie bumper sticker that read "Aint No Time to Hate" or something to that effect. It even had a Peace symbol on it. Brad was always making fun of hippies which is pretty easy to do when you're living in stinky hippie central, Santa Cruz. Brad was into the punk scene and identified with that a lot more. So Brad put this bumper sticker on his car because he thought it was hilarious, not because he really bought into the message 100%. He would joke, "I GOT PLENTY OF TIME TO HATE, HIPPY!" We were driving back to Santa Cruz and a car load of hippies came by and gave an approving honk and the thumbs up. Well, Brad loved that so much. He thought that was one of the funniest things ever (I don't think a peace sign was flashed. Brad would have shat himself cracking up.) This bumper sticker actually stayed on the car longer than you would have thought.

A while later, we were making the long drive from Santa Cruz down to L.A./Long Beach and for whatever weird reason, Brad decided to let me put in some of “my music.” I put in some random Grateful Dead tape. At some point, Brad got totally obsessed with some song and specifically with just the chorus or something and he kept playing it over and over. Now, I think the song was Sugar Magnolia. He just was totally fascinated by it and I was blown away because he had been spewing venom against the Dead for the previous 9 months. If you knew Brad before Scarlet Begonias came out, this behavior of obsessing on one small part of a GD tune was very shocking. (In retrospect it doesn't shock me at all. Brad was a musician through and through.) It completely blew me away but with most things at the time, I didn’t really think much about it. (Can you all imagine how much I would have remembered if I knew that some day Brad would be a big rock star? At the time everything didn’t seem to be as fascinating as it is now.)

I was positively baffled when 40 oz. to Freedom came out and there was a Dead cover on it. I was like, “Is this a joke?” I also got confused and thought that the song Brad had obsessed on was actually Scarlet Begonias, but I’m pretty sure that it was Sugar Magnolia. Eric also had a t-shirt that had Jerry Garcia’s mug on it and it said, “I’ll be Grateful when he’s dead!” Not quite the band that is going to do a dead cover. I theorized that the inclusion of a Dead song on their album was a savvy business move to appeal to some of their potential audience that was into the Dead. It sounds like a potential financial juggernaut; getting the lovers of ska, reggae, punk and the Grateful Dead to dig your band all at the same time.

Not sure of this one but I think we listened to Public Enemy in the apartment close to the time of him leaving Santa Cruz. No KRS-1 played that I knew of or remembered. One final band that I'm unsure of was NWA. I listened to that group in the Pink Palace but it might have been after Brad's departure.

Many of you are probably snickering because of my faulty memory. "Come on dude, you were living with THE BRAD NOWELL. You must remember every last detail." Well most of you will probably not remember every stinking detail of things you deemed irrelevant 22 years later. So back off.

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From a song standpoint, maybe the most noteworthy moment was his encounter with Ebin. Yes, the dude was actually named that. Brad and I would see this crazy-looking dude around campus who had these super long dreads (don't forget that this was 1986 and dreads were really not that commom yet). At the end of the dreads, his natural hair was growing an inch or two and it was bleached blond. We would always trip out on him. Well Brad and Ebin finally met up. It might have been at a party where Brad ended up taking the mike and he rapped and free-styled, blowing everyone away. Anyway, Ebin came over to our apartment which was called the Pink Palace and played bass with Brad while Brad played guitar. I think that they only played twice or maybe just once and Ebin gets a song named after him!! That's not cool. I wanted a song named after me. Ebin was not a Nazi, by the way. I saw Ebin once in San Francisco and he had changed. I don't think that I ever got to tell Brad that.

Well, the "real" account of Ebin is also on SublimeWiki but under Miscellaneous. Go there now to read the more personal and accurate account (written by the real Eben) of how playing with Eben turned into an amazing song.

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This rambling is loosely connected to the song, "Paddle Out"

Once Brad convinced me to allow him to drive a car I was borrowing. Four of us piled into this 70's style boxy sedan with surfboards stuffed inside the car and we headed off to the West Side. First stop, Stockton St. We're pulling up and we see a set coming in so three of us jump out excitedly to get a good view (Brad, at the helm, was probably the first out of the vehicle). A second or two later, we hear a scream coming from the car with the door open, no driver or occupant visible, and the car is bolting in reverse across West Cliff Drive. The car crashes up and over the curb into some ice plant and our friend Jon comes crawling out, scared sh#tless. Brad says, "What are you doing dude? Poor Jon was crawling out from the back seat from under the boards but Brad was so fired up he didn't properly put the car in park (You know what is right below "Park"). I drive the car off the iceplant bushes and half way across the street the car completely lifts up off the asphalt, stops and then continues. The tail pipe had wrapped around the axel. Bummer. The girl whose car it was not too happy. Yes, we scored pretty good surf if I remember correctly. Moral of the story: only idiots let Brad (even a sober Brad) drive their car. More random trivia... I think Brad's favorite spot was Natural Bridges which is close to Stockton. Actually it might have been 4 Mile. We went there so many times in 86/87.

Once again I have no clue how Brad created a song out of this. This song kind of seems like filler on the Sublime album but it does briefly highlight some pretty cool surf guitar. It seemed like Brad and I drove a lot between Steamer's Lane and Natural Bridges. The soundtrack that I most vividly remember for this trip was the first Beastie Boys album. I hated it at first but after the 15th time at ear drum popping volume, I started to get into it. Relisten to 40 oz. to Freedom and its influence has to be there.