Punk Globe: Were you living in Los Angeles at that time?

Gregg: Lived and grew up in LA until I moved to New Mexico in 91.

Punk Globe: Had you already written the Suzi Quatro review?

Gregg: Yeah. I wrote for Creem from 1976 – 1988.  

Punk Globe: Did you ever meet my dear friend Bebe Buell during your time at Creem? She is pals with Dave DeMartino. And a Creem Dream.

Gregg: Never met her in person.  Lots of folks I wish I had the opportunity to meet – but I always liked her – wasn’t she Stiv’s girlfriend for a while?  Dave DiMartino is a dear friend of mine.  Super swell writer and a great dude!

Punk Globe: Were you also playing in a band while writing for Creem?

Gregg: Just the Samoans. First VOM with Meltzer in 76, then in 78 the Sams were born. 

Punk Globe: Tell us about your time with  The Angry Samoans and how the band began.  Are you still in contact with Metal Mike?

Gregg: I was a fan of the NYC proto-punk band, the Dictators.  There were just a few of us who’d even put ears to their first hilarious LP, “Go Girl Crazy.”  So when Richard Meltzer moved to LA from NY in 76ish, he met me and Saunders, and he bonded quickly.  That provoked the impetus to put an obnoxious and offensive band together – VOM, like in VOMit.  We’d throw bug viscera at the audience – angry owners made us clean up the crickets at the end of the night that wouldn’t stop chirping (couldn’t score roaches from Bug Emporiums selling the stuff, so had to settle for crickets !). I think we played the Mab in the beginning then we had one gig opening for the Dickies and the PA manager turned off the sound half way thru our set and told us to scram. “You assholes need to go the way of that creep Jim Morrison – I tossed him outside on the sidewalk – AND THAT’S WHERE YOU’RE ALL HEADED !!!”  A badge of honor – or something. Anyway, Vom devolved quickly and left with a few still offensive tunes (“I’m In Love With Your Mom”  and so forth), we segued into the Samoans.  It wasn’t a huge jump.  The Sams lasted about 13 years, incredibly, before imploding.  Mike and I have been close buddies since the time we met in Hollywood in 71.  He wrote these hilarious songs (“Gettin’ High With Steven Stills”) and did some great Marc Bolan imitations (if you can believe it!), but over the years, we had our issues, which lately have been resolved.  He’s a genius when it comes to 60’s garage punk (Shadows of Knight, Standells, Seeds, Kinks, VU, etc), and he had no shortage of permutations writing songs that evoked this swagger.  I followed in suit – we’d frequently write together – the more outrageous and stupid (“They Saved Hitler’s C*ck,” “Get Off The Air” (about the pedophile and KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer – but that’s a whole other can of worms).  As SF valley dudes we never had any allegiance to the celebrity starfucking of Hollywood, so we were quickly castigated amongst that cadre of bands (After the Rodney song circulated we were banned from every venue in town. He would routinely bribe clubs and bands to refuse to book us and play with us, offering extra radio play and so forth. Bands like X, Go-Gos, and Germs couldn’t sell their souls quickly enough to divorce themselves from us. Ironically, the only shows we could ultimately play were the hardcore gigs happening in the boondocks.  So suddenly we’d be playing with Social D, TSOL, Fear – and started gaining a pretty big following from this relocation (tho Lee Ving, who produced the first Samoans record (with the Rodney song on it), asked us to not credit him as producer! (“you’se guys don’t wanna fuck with Rodney. He’s a moron but everyone listens to the radio show” !!)  I feel, btw, satisfaction, these years later, that “Get Off The Air” was downright prescient.  Kim Fowley raped Runaways, and Rodney assaulted groupies at his English disco. Fowley’s long gone,  but Rodney is awaiting legal proceedings (so I’ve read).  Anyhow, apologies for rambling so,  this is all a synopsis of the antipathy we seemed to be at the center of: “8 pm and Rodney’s on the air, he’s beating off in Joan Jett’s hair”!   We were just snotty kids from the Valley!

Punk Globe: Tell the readers about relocating to  Santa Fe. Did you play with Roky Erickson?

Gregg:  We opened for Roky and the Aliens in mid 80’s.  Roky’s first official gig after being released from the mental hospital early 70’s  I so loved Roky and the Elevators’ sounds.  HE was a close soul buddy of mine.  I conducted countless interviews with him, which were always a hoot.  What an incredible voice and presence.

Punk Globe:  Were you a whiz at mathematics in school? How did the teaching position in Santa Fe come about?

Gregg: Always loved math. But never thought of pursuing a career in it.  But by 1986, it occurred to me I wasn’t going to comfortably support myself financially dialling Samaon irreverence.  So I went to grad school at Pomona College (one of the Claremont Colleges, an hour east of LA). It was like punk-rock math !! Disassociated and lunatic math professors lecturing on the blackboard with two hands simultaneously! I was in heaven!  Finished my doctorate in math in 1991. But the job market had tanked at universities across the country.  So I hid out and completed a postdoc at UCLA for a year, but still no jobs.  SO I finally jumped ship to New Mexico and took a gig teaching math to art students at this little private college in Santa Fe.  Now, what was in mind but it was a paycheck.

Punk Globe: You played with bands upon your arrival in Santa Fe. Tell us about the bands you formed. You also had releases with them.

Gregg: So I in a flashback to my 60’s garage rock roots,  I formed this ’60s-style punk band called the Blood Drained Cows in 1998.  It dialed a mosaic of  Velvets, Stooges, Kinks – the usual suspects.  An aside:  In the local newspaper, there was an article about eviscerated cow corpses that had been found in the local foothills behind town.. No organs, no plasma, no nothing except hide and bone.  No footprints even !!  Anyway,  a vet investigated the scene and was quoted in the paper that the dead carcasses were just a bunch of “Blood Drained Cows’ Whoah! That had to become a band name, right?   We issued two BDC CDs (the first produced by music legend Jeff Dahl, and the second one by Andy Shernoff of the Tators).  When I first moved to NM,  there was a plague outbreak – deer mice in the country were infecting folks in town with a pneumonia-like syndrome, which was eventually ID’d as a “Hantavirus”. So I compulsively wrote a tune called “Hantavirus Deer Mouse Blues” !  Stuff like that……

Punk Globe: You now have The Gregg Turner Group.. Who is in the band, and what do they play?

Gregg: GTG has been around since 2010 I believe.  It’s more folk/punk/melodic stuff.  I’d served time dialing my punk roots, 60’s or otherwise, so I migrated to emulating Jonathan Richman-ish moves (always loved Jonathan, who remains a close friend).  Tried to be funny and catchy (“The Pharmacist From Walgreens,” “FRanz Kafka,” “Medication” – about a horrible antihistamine “trip” that occurred by accident eg). It has had several incarnations and lineups over the last 15 years.  GTG procreated like 2 CDs and 4 LPs.  

Punk Globe: You had 2  releases out on Triple X  Records with critical reviews. Tell us about them. Where can readers score them?

Gregg: Most of the GTG catalog can be ordered from Triple X, some can be found on Amazon 4 LPS, 2 CD.  Tons of stuff on YouTube.