PleaseKillMe

PKM: Can you offer a quick history of the Cheap Nasties? How old were you when it started? And did everyone's parents think you were nuts? Kim Salmon: I was in a sort of prog outfit with Dave Faulkner (Victims, Hoodoo Gurus), Neil Fernandes, and some other guys. Dissatisfied with the band's lack of impetus and constant navel gazing, I was ripe to be taken in by an NME article about CBGB. Charles Shaar Murray wrote compellingly about a sub-world populated by people with names like Johnny Thunders and Joey Ramone who wore black leather jackets - and that was the end of it for me. I was going to search out punk rock and form my own band no matter what! Dave and Neil weren't immediately convinced by any of it, so I looked to my old school friends Ken Seymour and Mark Betts and drafted them into my own punk band. It was at the start of 1976 and I was 19. As there were no records by CBGB bands out, we didn't know what punk sounded like at first, but we got hold of various things that had been namechecked, like the Dolls, Velvet Underground, and Stooges, and found the Modern Lovers too, but probably had some suss things in there like Brian Eno and Led Zeppelin. We tried a couple of singers including Dave Faulkner (once he'd come around to it) before getting Neil in. Neil had a beautiful bluesy voice which probably wasn't terribly punk.