Mike Smith over at
Comboland Radio made an interesting discovery recently while editing audio samples from a recent episode of "Dancing With the Stars." The episode in question featured Miley Cyrus performing her latest single, "Fly On The Wall," which Smith immediately recognized--except the version is his head was by the influential if obscure Raleigh punk band Th' Cigaretz.
Smith has the two tracks clipped side-by-side at
combolandradio.com.
More info on Th' Cigaretz from Sam Hicks' essay
"How North Carolina Got Its Punk Attitude":
In 1977, the first full fledged N.C. punk band was Raleigh's th' Cigaretz. Band members' punk identities included Throb, Bindee, Johnny Guitar and Jimmy Jones. They had been in cover bands for years, but were sick of heavy metal, poodle haircuts, and trying to play wah wah pedals wearing platform shoes. House painters by day, they say it was a combination of paint fumes and Never Mind The Bollocks, that inspired them to "...just say fuck it!." The problem was, original music wasn't of interest to anyone at this time. The only club that would allow them to play regularly was the Free Advice; their Thursday nights were dead so they made them into "Punk Night" to fill the void. "Then we came under the influence of Iggy," relates Byron. "We became every visual and interactive because we wanted the audience's total undivided attention." They started throwing junkfood, toilet paper & cereal into the crowd... anything they could think of. "We gave up on soda and shaving cream because it made the stage so slick and we couldn't get paid after ruining people's monitors." The original drummer left the band when he decided he wasn't paying for all this crap they were wasting just trying to get people's attention. After efforts to record demos at Reflection Studio failed, they decided to try recording themselves live from the soundboard at several shows, including a fantastic Halloween show. It was in this way that they succeeded in getting enough material together to press an album. The Crawl Rite Outta My Skin (34796) live LP, begins with them yelling "Get this guy off the stage! Yeah, you fuckin' stupid asshole, what is this shit!" Eventually released in 1980, it contains classic songs like "Fuckin' Up Bad," "Skullfuggin" and "Just Another Piece Of Meat." Crawl came out on their own Cancer Records and was embossed with a hand silk screened cover; each one slightly different. Due to this record's 100% D.I.Y. existence it might be hard to say how far it traveled or how much their Heartbreakers-style music had an effect on the rest of the state. But gauging from the response of their fellow musicians, it would be on par with the first Arrogance single in its scope of influence.
Legend has it that this was the band that set the Triangle afire with punk rebellion. A well-remembered gig in their career was with the H-Bombs, but the most infamous Cigaretz show was an outdoor May Day block party in '78 or '79. They had basically finished their set and started playing the finale, a "Rolling Stones / Get Off My Cloud Medley," when the police arrived. The city of Raleigh had recently assembled a SWAT Team and dispatched them on a complaint of "obscenities over the P.A. system" for their first assignment. Since the band had almost finished, the crowd was already dispersing, but the SWAT Team overreacted and the situation turned violent. News crews arrived at the scene of the "riot," and broadcast footage of police beating people, some of whom turned out to be well respected and famous people. Public outcry resulted in an investigation. It's no wonder that th' Cigaretz moved to NYC in 1980, but it was only a year before the big city broke them up. Jerry "Johnny Guitar" Williams later took up studio engineering, moved to NYC and recorded the Bad Brains, MDC & Reagan Youth. Scott "Throb" Jarvis engineered and produced the first Beastie Boys LP and was their tour manager when they opened for Madonna. He currently plays in the Workdogs. Byron "Jimmy Jones" McCay followed a similar path, but moved back to Raleigh to start his own studio, which would play an integral part in the upcoming Hardcore movement.
The venerable Washington Post knows what's up. In yesterday's "Singles File" article, Allison Stewart gave a nod to Raleigh rap group Kooley High's newest single.
