Spot on

I really like finding out people's stories. You know, where they've been, what they've done, what experiences have shaped them into who they are today. It's especially fun when a person's history is prolific but not talked about much, and he or she shows up day after day at his or her job minding their own business while all the youngsters mill about self-importantly oblivious to the royalty in their midst. Such a person is Spot. He currently works the door at Lovejoy's, and has a standing happy hour gig at Beerland on Tuesdays with Charlie (of Charlie's Holy Happy Hour).

Marshall had always told me that Spot was heavily involved in the punk rock scene years ago, but the details ended there. Recently I was looking up Lovejoys' street address on the internet and Spot's website came up in the search; I ended up searching out more little tidbits that pieced together Spot's former life as producer and engineer of some of the most important punk underground records of the 1980s, including Black Flag, Husker Du (he co-produced Zen Arcade), Meat Puppets, Minutemen, the Descendants, and the Misfits.

A multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, he does his own thing now and apparently doesn't like to talk about his place in the punk rock canon. So if you are a punk rock history buff or just curious about people here are some links where you can surreptitiously do your own investigation. Oh - and go see him on Tuesdays from 7 to 9 at Beerland.

"X Marks the Spot" (article in the Denver Westword)

Excerpt from the book "Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981 - 1991" by Michael Azerrad (a historical primer on Black Flag)

Spot's website