Interview: Todd Knapp (76% Uncertain, Watchlist)

The amazing Todd Knapp (76% Uncertain, Reflex From Pain, Shelter, Watchlist, Prana-Bindu, etc.) agreed to do an interview with me recently. I first heard Todd on 76% Uncertain’s classic ‘Estimated Monkey Time’ and have a been a fan since. In this interview he talks about some interesting history, praises his long time band mate, Kenny Peterson, dishes on Milwaukee’s brilliant Die Kreuzen, talks about some of his post-76% projects, and gives a bit of future news, including a tantalizing tidbit about a Lost Generation reboot! Enjoy!

Todd: ..... and i think that it closed like the week before that was supposed to happen for whatever reason.

Jim: Yeah, something with the owner, or whatever. Charles Walls from the Anthrax Facebook group said we should do a little book about Studio NY/ Enfield Roller World, but i don’t know if there’s as much material as there was for the Anthrax.

Todd: Yeah, but it’s harder for some of the places that were just around briefly—not as much history, and not as much written about them. There’s the Brick & Wood in New Haven. Did you ever go there? 

Jim: Maybe once, don’t remember who i saw there. 

Todd: That’s another one of those kind of obscure venues that was really only around for a while.

Jim: There was also the El N’ Gee in New London. I was from Hartford so i was usually stuck in the Middle and Northern part of Connecticut. I actually only went to the Anthrax twice. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s a long haul from that area.

Jim: I got Chris’ book when i was at the Punk Museum (in Las Vegas) last month. I was looking at the gig list and was gob-smacked by all the amazing bands that played there—so jealous!

Todd: Oh yeah, it was unbelievable for many years.

Jim: Like Die Kreuzen, for example—I was amazed they played there. 

Todd: Yeah, we played with them at the old Anthrax. And the first time we played with them, our first album and their first album had just come out, and Maximum Rock N’ Roll was comparing us to each other, which is kinda weird. I mean there’s maybe some superficial similarities, but they were not havin’ it. They kinda wouldn’t talk to us when we brought in our equipment. They were all set up on stage and didn’t want to move it. They may have been on tour for a while and they were crabby. Then we played and they said you don’t really sound like us, but you’re good and we became friends and I think we played with them a couple times more. And I got to see them, I think it was early ‘89, at Rockin’ Rex down in Yonkers. Acoustic! It was really good too. You could almost hear everything better, like the detail of it. The interaction between the guitar and bass, and the great drumming, and his vocals. I’m not a big fan of going acoustic, but with them it was something that really worked. It was great.

Jim: OK, I’m going to start the interview. I’m going to start off with 76 and then I want to talk more about some of your recent projects. I think the last time i saw you was with Watchlist. (Todd’s band with Kenny, Pat Gorman, Matt Sekel and Mike Oswald) You played the Anthrax photo thing at Willimantic Records. I was talking to you and Kenny afterwards and I think I asked if you were ever going to do re-releases. You said probably not at that time. Any thoughts on putting the stuff up on Bandcamp or something?

Todd: It would probably be kind of hard to do. I have the original tapes and I think that Dave Ware (bassist) did some work on making some kind of remixed digital version but never got together in terms of putting it up there. And things have changed, like there’s never going to be another 76% gig because two members don’t want to do it any more (Dave & Bones). Bones said “I don’t think my voice can do it any more.” That’s kinda the main reason Watchlist exists. We were having practices to do 76% stuff and those guys couldn’t make it (stuff going on in their lives) so we said “let’s try to move on and we’ll just get other people to play.”

Jim: It’s like a continuation with 2 of the originals. 

Todd: Yes, and Spike Oswald, who was in Big Gulp before (drummer) played with us for a quite a while — he was last the 76% drummer. We had, obviously, Bill as our drummer for a long time, the he left to go do other stuff. Then we had Chip Moody from Vatican Commandos on drums for a while . Chip Moody was also in later version of CIA after our guys left . Then Bill came back, then we started having a lot of problems playing with Bill, and he was kind of a difficult personality. And I don’t mean it in a bad way, he just had a certain way with things, so we actually got Bill Armstrong from Th’Inbred (West Virginia). We’re kind of friends with them because Bob from Th’Inbred ended up being sound man for Jawbox and other D.C. bands. When they came up to this area, we reconnected with them a little bit. And then Bones became friends with Bill Armstrong (who may have moved to New Jersey) who asked them “Hey if you guys need a drummer, I can come up and do that.” We did only one show—I think it was the first time played at Cafe 9 in New Haven. 

That’s how Watchlist started, it was the continuation of Kenny, Spike and me and we got a bass player and a vocalist. The bass player was a local guy named Johnny Blacklung who we are all friends with. And the vocalist was Pat Gorman who was in The Pac Men who played around a lot. I love them because they were like a reincarnation of early 80s hardcore. 

Then I played with Pat and Bruce Wingate from A.O.D. I’ve known him for 40 years, or something like that. Bruce and I have done 5 or more bands together over the years. One of the first ones that really got out there and hit the state and went to other states was Total Dick, which was Bruce with Pat Gorman playing keyboards and both kind of improvising in between songs, kind of talking, I don’t know how to explain it—but it was really funny—both guys have quick wits. They would come out and speak with heavy German accents “Vee have just arrived here”, and the next time we came to the mic, they would be talking in southern accents. At one point they’d be speaking with Russian accents. One time we were playing at Asbury Lanes - Bruce walks up to the mic and goes - “Vaht is like to live in New Jersey. You tell me? Death trap? Suicide rap?” (laughter). It was pretty funny.

We did that for a while and then we integrated an MC into things, because we all liked this local MC- Clay Reed—(cReed)—So we started doing an amalgamation of hip hop and post punky keyboardy stuff we were doing, and kind of mix them all together and do the Diztrict Allstarz. Pat was in both those bands, so it seemed natural for him to be vocalist for us. At one point Johnny was busy with other stuff (a couple of great bands that never got out very much). We switched over and i started playing bass (as i did in Total Dick and Diztrict Allstarz) and got our friend Matt Seckle. You saw us, he played with us in Willimantic.) Yeah, and so that’s the current version of the band.

Although I’d like to get back to playing third guitar. We used to have three guitar version of 76%—which I love because I like being the other guitar in the background. Someone else can be the other lead player and I can do something that I hear that fits in with it. And I would like to go back to being third guitar. There’s that whole thing with MC5, we all loved especially the ‘High Time’ album even while Rob Tyner’s singing—which has haze of guitars in the background —there’s great guitar interplay going on behind him. trying to get into doing that a little bit. Not that we could be MC5 that was a very singular amazing band, but…

Jim: So when you had the two-guitar version of 76, did you talk about who was going to do leads for songs, was it pre-established, or someone would come in with a riff, you would double up or someone would say “I’m going to do a solo here”?

Todd: Well, actually what it was is that we would write the songs with parts that were sort of solo, and I was… Kenny really didn’t play lead, he played rhythm. And I also think that Kenny Peterson is one of the most underrated American Hardcore guitarists (ed. I agree!) He’s up there with Lyle Preslar (Minor Threat) in terms of his ability to just tie down the whole song. He wrote alot of the songs and he could just create a wall of sound all by himself. And he’s really good at it. And the combination of him and Bill Knapp in the early days, that was a really powerful combination. Because Bill had played with C.I.A. too, even though he was in Reflex From Pain. It’s great that I walk into practice or onstage and I look across the stage and there’s my band mate from 40 years ago! I think it’s 40 plus years because we sort of broke up the original version of CIA and the last version of Reflex From Pain to start 76% Uncertain. I think the end of 1983. So our first gig I think was Sal D’s in Bridgeport, which is around the corner from where Joe Dias (ed. Lost Generation and founder of Incas Records) lived at the time, and we opened for Channel 3. That became a thing where we were friends with Channel 3. And they were friends with CIA before that because they played together at Pogos. We ended up being friends with a lot of bands, and some of the bands from D.C. like Scream and Government Issue. Even Tom Lyle came up and produced a version of our last album, that never got released, although for a while somebody put it up on YouTube and you could listen to the whole thing. That was great because Scream would be like “Hey, you guys want to go to Canada?” So we’d go to Canada for a long weekend. We went to Canada I think three times during that time, and the last time was when I was… I was always involved with my career at the same time I was doing 76, and I started to have more responsibilities, and I wasn’t sure I could go on tour. So we got another guitar player, Mike…

Jim: Spadaccini?

Todd: Mike Spadaccini, who was Jim from VC’s (Vatican Commandos) brother. And then we had the three guitar lineup, and I think that’s what caught the eye of Scream, kinda. “You guys are like the Blue Oyster Cult of hardcore.” We had fun with those guys, in fact they just came through last week in Brooklyn and I forgot, because I would have gone. Then I spent Saturday deliberating whether to go up and see them in Medford! I still love them. They’re still in my top 10 of favorite HC bands.

Jim: Yeah, so have you heard the new one yet?

Todd: I haven’t heard it yet. I’ve been sort of holding off on hearing it because I wanted to see them do the stuff live. I heard there’s a lot of guest appearances. Has it good? Have you heard it?

Jim: I think I’m going to try and order it soon from Karl (S.V.O.E., owner of Phoenix Records).

Todd: He’s a big Scream fan.

Jim: So, one of my other questions was, you had gotten to ‘Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Log’, by the time you had gotten to that album, you were going onto Wishingwell Records, and was there any talk within the band about trying to go onto a wider audience because there’s almost like a post-hardcore sound on there and it seemed like the trajectory was going towards more accessible stuff. Was there a thought to becoming minor regional stars, I guess?

Todd: No, I mean, we never really thought that way. What was coming into our minds… I think there was a lot of great melodic post-hardcore bands during that time period. We were already listening to like Squirrel Bait, bands like that we really liked. I was always trying to get those guys into the whole Australian thing too, which there’s a lot of great melodic punk.

Jim: Vicious Circle?

Todd: Well I’m actually thinking of going back to the first era, like Saints, for me especially Radio Birdman. I like alot of the noisy ones too—Grong Grong—there’s no end to my love of the Australian stuff, but I think it was the groups that integrated the Americans with Australians like Dennis Tex collaboration with post-Stooges people and MC5, New Race? And also New Order and Ron Ashton. And we were all into Destroy All Monsters! And we were all digging into music. Like Bones and I both loved the Chameleons and everyone else hated ‘em. But there was a mixing in all of that melodic stuff. And the other factor on ‘Hunka Hunka’ I think is Mike Spad, because he was a great guitar player and he had a lot of ideas to make stuff more melodic, like The Beatles, so we kind of went in that direction. I liked to throw noise right into melody too. Like when I first heard Jesus and Mary Chain, it was like “Wow’ that’s something I’ve been thinking of doing for a long time.” Dinosaur Jr. stuff like that, that was effecting our perspective.

Jim: So what was the decision around that time to put the band to rest. Did you all decide to focus on careers or just do different things. Were you getting tired of each other? 

Todd: Well I think there was some of that. You know, in the end, Bill… he was kind of a problem for some of the guys in the band, especially Dave, because they couldn’t be more different from each other as far as their perspective on things. Most of us were very humble, and I don’t think Bill—god rest his—I don’t think Bill would care if I said this, but Bill was not humble (laughs). He was very aware of how good he was, and he reveled in that. Which is OK. But it was hard for the rest of us. Because he was also a sound man at Anthrax So we’d go to have a show and he’d go up to the sound man and sort of try to tell him what to do, which doesn’t usually go over too well. And we did kind of get tired of each other. And we got tired of working so hard at things and playing so much and not getting any recognition. 

I mean we DID get recognition by bands, but it didn’t mean a big increase in our fan base. You know, you’re playing with another band… people come to see that band because they love them. We didn’t sound just like them, so alot of times it wasn’t a big boost for us that way. And that’s not why we were doing it anyway. I’d would say most people in the band would say “We went alot farther than we ever thought we would. You know, I mean we opened for the Ramones at The Ritz in NYC on Christmas Weekend in 1985 and we didn’t get booed off the stage. It was great! (Laughs) So that was an interesting show because… I think we were all scared. First we heard there were 1,700 people there, than we heard there were like 2,000. And you’re standing on stage and you have to just rip through your set because there’s not that much time to keep a Ramones fan entertained, so we just blew through it. We got a lot of reaction to that, and that was one time we felt kinda boosted. Because we got letters, because back then it was still everyone still writing you a letter. We had people calling in or writing asking if they could buy our record and all that so that was great. But there was a lot of down times in later years when only a few people would show up and I think everyone was getting kind of tired of it and had other things to do, pretty much everyone had careers.

Jim: So you were destined to be an architect either way?

Todd: Oh yeah, I still remember, I think it was our first tour I was running a job (Todd goes into some detail about contacting his boss from the road)

(From here Todd talks a bit about his improvisational work which started in 1989 in a project called Hat City Intuitive (“Sun Ra with guitars but a bit more abstract at times”), working with some of his free jazz heroes, and his recent work with Prana Bindu, currently idle but whose records can be found on Bandcamp (link below). We also talk a bit about Todd’s skill at bass clarinet which started in high school and which he uses in Prana Bindu, hunting for jazz 8 tracks by Sun Ra, John Coltrane, etc. and becoming briefly disenchanted with rock music, and getting to see the original Sun Ra Arkestra. The interview concludes with some news on future projects.)

Jim: Alright, well we’ve got about a minute thirty left cause I’m on the free plan.

Todd: Oh, OK! (Laughs)

Jim: So really quick, anything coming up for Watchlist?

Todd: We don’t have anything planned but I think we’ll be playing the greater Irish Cultural time sometimes after ST Patty, but we’re just finishing up another album. It will be our third one and it will go out on Bandcamp. I’m hoping we’ll get more gigs. We’re trying to let people know we’re playing again. (ed. Wait for it….) The other thing I have going on is… I got asked by my old buddy, Joe Dias, of Lost Gen...

Jim: Ohhhh…. 

Todd: …if I wanted to be involved in a reboot of the band. So I said “Yes.” Kenny was supposed to do it with me, but he’s getting more reclusive as he gets older (ed. I can relate.) and he also says I’m too lazy to do it so it ended up being me and Matt Sekel are gonna join with the original drummer from Hatebreed and Sean Sheridan on bass and Joe. So we’re starting to do that now too. So I don’t know if that’s going to so much be live shows, but we might play a couple just to get our sea legs.

Jim: So that’s going to actually be Lost Gen?

Todd: Yes…. (Zoom ends my interview on me!)

For some of Todd's recent work, check out these links:

https://watchlist.bandcamp.com/

https://prana-bindu.bandcamp.com/

https://diztrictallstarz.bandcamp.com/

Here's the Discogs link:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/279282-76-Uncertain

Here's a German wikipedia entry for the band with more info:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/76%25_Uncertain