A True Treasure: The Fabulous Bambi Nonymous Founder Of The MUD WIMMIN
Interview By: Ginger Coyote
I have known Bambi forever but it was just recently that we became closer. She is truly a treasure I adore her so much…I hope you dig our interview.
Punk Globe: We have known each other for years but it was on Facebook we connected. I posted photos that my ex Alex Cheney sent me and you recognized the area from where you grew up. So funny
Bambi; That’s right, Ginger. Your Meteorologist boyfriend did a weather report about Laguna Beach, California. That story really caught my attention as I was born there in 1962.
My origin story begins with early years spent along the sleepy southern California coast. Ever an outsider even as a child, I spent a great deal of time alone, wandering coastal cliffs & open fields lost in imagination until the street lights would come on each night. My parents embraced the 60’s cocktail culture.. They also loved music and collected LPs… the HiFi Stereo Record Console was central to our existence and one of our only pieces of furniture.
Punk Globe: When did you realize that playing drums was your weapon of choice?
Bambi: Playing drums has always felt very familiar and natural to me. With that said, I’ve always found drums to make very good social armor. Being surrounded by percussion instruments and the physical/emotional outlet drumming has always provided gives me a sense of protection and a way to effectively communicate without words. I’m generally a more reserved type, therefore I’m a very emotional drummer!
Punk Globe: Tell us about your very first drum set.
Bambi: The first drum set I assembled (if you could call it that) was a completely janky trash collection of mismatched busted drums, broken cymbals, and DIY hardware. I used metal-found percussion as well as secondhand marching band instruments added to the mix. Eventually, I leveled up and acquired several large floor toms and a standing set of large, loud rack toms. With time I developed into my own loud, muscular sound and style – based on what I had available to me, and what I heard in my head and body. I experimented with tuning drum heads to guitar notes, bringing the pitch way down. I do have a reputation for playing drums really hard – I certainly broke a fortune in sticks and drum heads in those days. But I never really owned a standard drum set until I broke my foot in the 90’s. I had to play sitting down for the first time in my life while on tour in the USA/Canada with MW.
When I was younger and had first discovered punk I was more of an observant type. But I was also a rabid follower and seeker of weird culture and music. When I was 16, my first job was at a Train depot in San Juan Capistrano, CA. Next door was a very tiny record store slash headshop with a small section of punk rock albums curated by an older, British shop owner.
My imagination was instantly ignited by the imagery on those first punk record covers I saw.
When I got my paycheck, I bought a stack of 10 punk albums with what I thought had the coolest covers: Dead Kennedys, The Plasmatics, Devo, X, Crass, Chrome, Throbbing Gristle, Sex Pistols,GunClub and an album called the Rodney on the Roq compilation. From that moment on, I was hooked….and I hadn’t even heard the music yet!
There was a punk club in Orange County called the Cuckoo’s Nest in the 80’s. Many local bands played there – Social Distortion, TSOL, The Simpletones, and The Crowd. Black Flag played there and the Circle Jerks too. It was a very DUDEcentric scene, with a violent mosh pit. I would usually go to shows alone and basically kept to myself. But I enjoyed the intense energy and observing the personalities. Eventually, I was drawn to and gravitated more towards following the bands in LA. I would literally go to the ends of the earth to get to Hollywood and see my favorite bands like X, the Suburban Lawns, The GoGos, GunClub, and The Germs. I was inspired by the bands with girl band members and wished that I had that kind of camaraderie. I owe alot to those times seeing the original LA punk girls rock so confidently. I was really inspired and looked up to Kira Roessler (Bassist in Black Flag) – how she held her own in the dude-ruled punk scene. I would find myself at clubs like the Starwood, The Masque, Madam Wongs or the ZeroZero club in Hollywood. I would travel for hours on city buses from southern O.C. to LA and Hollywood to see all these exciting bands that I loved and was curious about. This was all long before I had any idea I would ever play in bands myself one day.
Looking way way way back —I feel that I owe a lot of my curiosity about punk music and the courage to start a band of my own to a weird guy I met as a teenager in Orange County named Robert Omlit. He was this really eccentric queer guy, older than me. There were few openly gay punks in those days. Robert was a completely wild punk singer who was in a million garage punk bands himself. We met by exchanging tapes by mail and were pen pals. (I had other punk and underground pen pals that I traded cassettes and postcard art with – including Mike Doscosil from the Band DRUNKS WITH GUNS and I traded art postcards as a teen with Monte Cazazza, a collaborator with Throbbing Gristle. He and I remained friends for over 40 years).
Robert told me about underground bands I should know about. I still have some of the cassette tapes he made for me – he introduced me to bands like the Bags and Castration Squad in LA and of course his many own bands. The Omlits rocked! Robert was my first example of someone who was vocally supportive of girls being punk musicians. He would say: “start a band! You don’t even have to know what you’re doing.. Just do it!” As someone who passed thru my life briefly, Robert made an impression when I was impressionable. I definitely used his DIY philosophy and threw out fear when it came to my future music making and performances.
Punk Globe: Who were your inspirations when you first started playing drums?
Bambi: I think my early influence was- and still is – legendary rock drummer John Bonham from Led Zepplin. I absorbed a lot of Rhythm influence during my formative years listening to music from my parents record collection – Captain Beefheart, CAN, Jazz drummers like Buddy Rich or Tito Puente, Sergio Mendez and Brazil 66, Ginger Baker of Cream. In the beginning I didn’t really have a lot of female drumming influences, although I always admired bands like Fanny,The Carpenters, Mo Tucker from the Velvet Underground
Punk Globe: Tell us how The MUDWIMIN got together. Were you one of the founding members?
Bambi: I had relocated to San Francisco from Hollywood, CA in 1983 and soon after founded MUDWIMIN with original members Rachel Thoele, S. Lee Robinson & Deb Vernet. I was already making noise with Shug, and then I met Rachel who was in G.O.D. and an earlier version of Frightwig. We all began rehearsing in a homebuilt practice studio in my garage on 47th avenue in SF. For a short while, Hayok Kay (Polkacide) played drums with us. As a couple members departed to pursue lives elsewhere, we then added guitarist Lisa Fay and eventually MIa D’Bruzzi to the mix. As band members came and went, I suppose I hold the distinction of being in the band the longest – clocking in at 15 years as a Mudwimin.
Eventually, we moved our band to a ‘real’ practice studio in Hunters Point that was run by the guys in MDC. I remember MDC would sit outside our room listening to us practice, and they were so encouraging to us as we wrote and developed our early songs.
Punk Globe: I have known Mia, Rachel, Lula, and Deanna for years. I discovered the genius of Gail at Turk Street Studios- she was tight with Nyna from The Vktms.
Bambi: AHH Turk Street Studios. What a sacred hell-hole temple of our generation. So many great musicians honed their craft and did their time in those studios. I feel like I accomplished a lot in that ramshackle environment even if it was in a creepy neighborhood in the Tenderloin. Many great bands rehearsed there..
We were kind of a different band in that each Mudwoman was multi-instrumental – switching instruments with each other after every song. l n MW I played bass, guitar and drums/ percussion… and I sang as well – we ALL did everything. But I guess as time went on, the drumming really stuck for me.
I don’t recall ever aspiring to please anyone but ourselves when it came to our songwriting or our performances. I think our band was probably an acquired taste for some. I’ve never seen or heard anything like MUDWIMIN before or since. It was so fun and freeing not to care what anyone thought and to just be creative and make music together. We wore outrageous handmade costumes and would do things like tell fortunes to the audience, pretend to read minds or challenge the audience to arm wrestle between songs.
Rachel was a commanding front woman and the crowd would go wild when she would take the mic, but was equally fierce on bass or drums. Lisa was an ethereal personality and stellarly talented & otherworldly guitarist – on par with Jimi Hendrix, in my opinion. It was natural evolution for Mia to join MUDWIMIN. She brought her own style, sensibility and personality to our music and live shows that worked well with how our music was evolving.
Original MUDWIMIN members, Shug and Deb are still a part of my life, and I consider them my oldest & closest friends. Shug and I started a heavy noise duo called BLACK MANNA. Today she is a successful fine artist of abstract oil paintings. Deb – who was our most unhinged, avant garde singer/shrieker / drummer/bassist has 4 grown children now and lives out of state. She and I are quite close and sometimes text several times a day.
It was a lot of fun playing in MUDWIMIN. We were especially creative in our raw and very early years. It was a really free and fun time in San Francisco and like many in that era, we were shamelessly creative. I don’t think it ever really occurred to us that we were an ‘all female band’. We were maybe less “punk” compared to what our peers were doing, instead Mudwimin had more of a wild theatrical tribal cabaret thing going on. There were staff changes over the years, of course. \Mia D’Bruzzi from Frightwig joined us and recorded two amazing albums with us. She was a big part of the memories I have about being on tour. Mia loves touring. Eventually Shug returned to the band when Rachel left, enabling us to tour more in the USA, Canada and eventually Europe. (Shug appears on our 2nd album, Mysteries of Inner Beauty’). While too eclectic for our own good, and our collective emotional energies on a constant ramp up to inner-MUDWIMINl skizm, we wrote, performed and recorded some great original music together – in total we made two full length LPS, a bunch of singles and EP appearances as well as mash up collaborations with our friends in Steel Pole Bath Tub and Zeni Geva from Japan.
We were featured in a documentary about female bands In the 90’s called NOT BAD FOR A GIRL (with L7, Babes in Toyland, Hole, Lunachicks and more) that I has been alleged to be used in the curriculum for college women’s studies classes. I’m not certain what ever became of that documentary – but I will say our band was somehow out of place in comparison to the other bands featured. I believe the intention was good, but MUDWIMIN were on the complete opposite spectrum of what was happening in the 90’s ‘female band phenomena. There was a premier of the finished film at the Roxy in San Francisco that Shug and I were asked to open as BLACK MANNA. When we played our set, our amplifiers were too loud and we blew out the power in the theater.
Mudwimin lasted a good long 15 years before we evaporated. Few relics remain, and our music was never distributed well but floating around somewhere.
My daughter has been requesting that I stream all of my music on an online platform so her generation can listen. Do you know anyone who can help with that?
In 1985 at a MUDWIMIN show at Club Foot on 3rd Street, Alistar and Gail from Tragic Mulatto approached me after our show. Alistair told me he was blown away by my drumming style and asked if I would play drums with them. I instantly accepted on the spot.
Tragic Mulatto was already an established avant garde punk band by the time I came into the picture. I admired them greatly and was also a bit intimidated, but I looked up to and appreciated their maximum talent and truly underground ethos. I wanted to experience being a part of that energy and make my contribution.
Tragic Mulatto were on the Alternative Tentacles label and even before I came along had a reputation as disruptors. They were completely over the top performers bordering and often crossing the line into obscenity. I was added as second drummer/percussionist and promptly got started touring with them in the USA and Canada. We recorded two full length albums on Alternative Tentacles Records: HOT MAN PUSSY and CHARTREUSE TOULOUSE that are packed with hits. Many say that after I joined, the band took a turn towards more orchestral, heavy metal and high art performance art. All boundaries pushed!
I played in both bands simultaneously until things started to really get rolling with Tragic Mulatto and I put MW on the side while I toured with them. I had the opportunity to record amazing albums with TM, and toured the USA and Canada with the band while making making heads spin and making complete spectacles of ourselves. It was crazy, but the music and the rhythms were ON POINT. I feel quite fortunate to have collaborated and performed with TM and for the total and complete outlet it provided me and all of us. I’m grateful for the discipline I learned as a drummer and how drumming in TM lifted me to a higher spiritual place. I know it sounds contrary – that our music was spiritual for me, but when I turned myself inside out playing drums to those songs I reached a meditative, altered state. I’m very proud of my work in that band and have nothing but respect for my former bandmates in TM.
Punk Globe: When did you decide to get married and raise your beautiful daughter?
Bambi: I’m not sure if it was a decision, it was more like fate conspiring in my favor.
I was considering returning to school to complete my degree and also mentally conjuring ways I might buy my own house. I was in a phase of gathering information and feeling very open to my next chapter, whatever that was.
One day I went to an investment real-estate seminar at a hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf in SF and met my future husband. A handsome, young South American man sat next to me… I felt electricity with no words yet spoken between us. Such a profound experience! He followed me outside afterwards and we exchanged phone numbers.. He knew nothing about me – didn’t know my friends – my bands – or who “Bambi Nonymous” was. He was from a completely different culture and his life experience was vastly different than anyone else I knew. It sounds hard to believe – but we connected instantly and since that day we’ve been inseparable. We recently celebrated 26 years being together! He is so good to me and is an amazing life partner and father to our daughter as well. Every day he strives to be a better person, and he’s a very hard worker in everything he does. I don’t know what I ever did in this life to deserve such love. He is a very private person, and doesn’t use social media. But I must acknowledge the meaning he has in my life and how much he inspires me. We are an unlikely pairing – I’m 13 years older, with my own colorful past – but it works, and we’ve built a beautiful life together. He’s a professional himself – a successful Engineer. He’s also an Ultra Endurance Athlete who has been competed for the past 15 years. He’s been in several challenging 100 mile trail races and international competitions with much success as a long distance and high altitude runner. It’s something our daughter grew up with, as she and I have been waiting for him at many finish lines over the years.
Punk Globe: I am very impressed with how you raised your daughter and involved her with music.
She grew up alongside me while teaching music since infancy. . At home we always exposed her to different types of music and gave her freedom to explore any music and try any instrument she was interested in. When she was around 8, she was inspired by Lisa Simpson and asked us for her first saxophone.
She’ll be 20 this summer and entering her 3rd year in college. She’s studying music, composition and arrangement with emphasis on Jazz Studies. In addition to playing saxophone, she’s an arranger, a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. She’s the one to watch!
I’ve realized – my God, my child is a true musician. While I may have been a ‘performer’.. a punk rocker,,, a poseur.. an observer and an explorer my daughter emerged as a musician in the purest sense of the word. She understands music on a profound level and is so focused with expertise that is unique. I’m so proud and impressed. Although on a very different path than mine, at 19 she’s already a hard working female musician and is blazing her own trail. It’s a beautiful thing to witness and I’m so grateful to be her mama!
Punk Globe: You are very resourceful. I so much appreciate the help you gave me with renewing my passport. What other duties are you involved in besides being a Mom?
These days I’m back in the Adventure Travel Industry, working full time for the #1 luxury adventure travel company in the world. I work REALLY hard,and I love what I do. It’s a good place to be, and has infinitely less strain on my body. I have a lot of responsibility and feel that I’m making a difference in the role I have. Personally, I’m enjoying living a sweet life in Sonoma County with my amazing husband and daughter. We and our cute little dog are very happy.. While things haven’t always been easy – I’m much older now, and grateful to all of my experiences in life that led me to this place.
Punk Globe: You gave drum lessons I remember you telling me. Tell us about your students.
Bambi: This was one of my drumming classes for foster children and at-risk youth. My friend Monte Cazazza told me it was the most important band I was ever in.
While I was raising my daughter I left my adventure travel job for a while and pivoted to teaching music classes and rhythm workshops. My drumming business was called ADVENTURES IN RHYTHM. Being self employed was flexible and allowed me to be present in my daughter’s life every day. While she was at school I taught at various schools around the SF bay area and played drums all day – mostly with kids. I also offered community group drumming classes and workshops: for adults, families with babies, grandparents, veterans and of course for women.
I also became involved with the REMO Drum Company who supported my efforts in developing my own educational and wellness drumming programs. My mentor, Remo Belli (Founder of REMO Drums) was quite supportive of my ideas and asked me to contribute research about drumming and children to their wellness division.
My research with rhythm as therapy for premature infants in hospital settings is an accomplishment I’m very proud of. I developed science based therapeutic rhythm methods and applied that to my drumming practice. I drummed with at-risk youth and other-abled populations with DownSyndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorders. Over the years I created my own classroom curriculum and successfully facilitated hundreds of group drumming programs for almost 17 years while raising my daughter. It was a great run and I feel I made a big difference as a drummer with this work. I had a very good run as a drummer professionally, on my own terms for 40 +yrs.
Punk Globe: Do you have any internet addresses you would like to share with the readers?
Bambi: If you want to renew your passport go to: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/have-passport/renew.html
If you have questions, comments or want to say hi, my email is: bambi.nonymous@gmail.com
Punk Globe: Describe yourself in three words.
Bambi: GRATEFUL – LOVING – RESILIENT
Punk Globe: Any last words for Punk Globe readers?
Bambi:
– What do you want?
– What will having it do for you?
– How will you know when you have it?
– What might you lose that you value if you have it?
Bambi: Ginger, I know how much everyone loves and adores you – then and now – and now that we’re here, I wish that you and I could have been closer friends in those early days. I’ve always admired you and your star quality from afar. I look up to you and how respected you are. You are such a smart and caring lady and I think you are an amazing person. I can tell you have a big heart and you care deeply about those you love. These are things to really value in a friend. Thank you for interviewing me for your prestigious publication! It means a lot to me and I appreciate you!
