To “tear shit up” or not, that — for Durango 95 and frontman “Smilin’” Andrew Foard — seems to be the question.



Of course, there’s slightly more to the story, but as Foard and his band prepare for a comeback show Friday, April 24, at Hell’s Kitchen, it’s as good a place to start as any.

For a time Durango 95 was pretty much the hottest band Tacoma had going. And by “hottest” I’m not talking about a group of fame seekers laying it all on the line for potential record deals, appearances on corporate shit radio, or Jägermeister sponsorships. 



No, I’m talking about buzz. I’m talking about explosiveness. I’m talking about the ability to get people to take notice, the chops and swagger to make Tacoma turn its half-drunk head and focus a bloodshot eye on a band of kids. That’s what Durango 95 did with seeming ease. As they return to the stage this Friday — not as youthful as they once were — I expect nothing but the same.



It’s simply how Durango 95 rolls. The band is the very definition of punk. Since the beginning, for what started as a group of teen-agers too young to get into the club’s they seemed made for, this has been part of Durango’s appeal for members of Tacoma’s music scene — young and old. From the moment Durango 95 flipped its first bird or pounded its first power chord — spitting in the face of everything Tacoma’s young music scene had been until they arrived — the band has used their dirty fingernails to grab people by the throat.



In the process, Durango 95 seems to have won over most ears that matter in our fair city.

“I saw them after they were pretty established, but I’d heard a lot about them, noticed they were playing a lot. But when I saw them I knew right away why they were popular. They had it,” says Girl Trouble drummer Bon Von Wheelie of her first experience with Durango 95. Girl Trouble along with the Drug Purse and the Makeup Monsters will join Durango 95 on Friday at the Kitchen, on a bill that originally included the Strange Boys.

“They are perfect for Tacoma,” continues Von Wheelie. “When they got on stage it was all business. Tacoma appreciates a working-class band. They are all Tacoma — no frills, straight ahead. Don’t get in their way. Let them do their job and enjoy the ride.”

Dangerous

“He just started showing up outside (Hell’s Kitchen) even before we were doing all-ages shows,” remembered Hell’s Kitchen booking agent Flash, specifically of Foard, in a previous article I wrote about the band. “None of us knew him before that. You could tell he truly liked music and just wanted to be around it and involved in any way.”



Rock ‘n’ roll isn’t for the faint of heart. Anyone who’s followed it knows it’s a battleground, covered with broken bones, broken spirits, broken promises, bloody noses, and trips to the Betty Ford. Truly dedicating yourself to the service of rock ‘n’ roll can easily break a band, or a man, and at the very best is hell on one’s liver.



In the realm of rock and roll, walking the line between combustible and combusted isn’t easy. There are pieces of wreckage all over the path, and most who attempt the journey either burn in flames, burn out, or are forced to find Jesus. One of the biggest things that set Durango 95 apart was the sharpness of its cut — like a rusty razor blade on pale flesh — a band you were always halfway expecting to literally explode on stage, sending shrapnel flying into the eyes of those silly enough to stand too close to the psychosis. Durango 95 was mildly controlled, safety pin-punctured craziness, though who exactly was in control was never terribly clear.



“I think we just wanted to have fun and play the kind of music we wanted to hear. We just had the energy and brought a good crowd,” says Foard as to why his band struck a chord with Tacoma.



“And we were dangerous.”



“At their highest point they were young — too young to buy a drink — so you would see them standing outside the gas station with skate boards playing ‘Hey Mister’ for a six-pack of 40-ounce PBRs. The music scene was heavier back then. Durango was too rock and pop to be heavy and too heavy to be considered a typical rock group. Like the Stooges, raw power rock ‘n’ roll, man,” says the Drug Purse’s Tarek Wegner. “Their strongest point was their obvious disregard for safety and the fellow teen-ager while performing. Anything went down at a Durango show.”



Durango 95 didn’t necessarily create this world in Tacoma, but they sure as hell represented it. Mystique can be built on danger, and they now created plenty of both.

At some point, December of ’07 to be exact, the band needed a break.



“We were tired of playing the same old shows,” says Foard, a man of few words — at least when it comes to talking to journalist types.



“I pretty much thought we weren’t going to play again.”

The rest of the story

As you probably know, or have heard, or have maybe even read about in this fine rag, the story of Foard and Durango 95’s return isn’t just one of a young band deciding to get back together. The miles Foard in particular has traveled to get to this point are many, and as much as this is a story about one of Tacoma’s most dangerous and captivating bands getting back on stage, it’s a story about Foard surviving one hell of an ordeal.

On March 30, 2008, Foard turned 21. The wait had been a long one. Known as a constant fixture outside Hell’s Kitchen’s 21+ shows and as a young and growlingly iconic punk rock frontman, Foard had no doubt been waiting for this day for a long time. Naturally, he celebrated. 



After working his shift at Farrelli’s Pizza, Foard got together with friends and did what most new 21-year-olds do. He partied. And if his reputation does him justice, he probably partied hard — though the exact details of the evening aren’t particularly clear, and I didn’t care to prod.



Later that night Foard’s mom found him passed out on the floor, but this was more than a typical scene from a 21st birthday party. Foard, a type 1 diabetic, had fallen into a diabetic coma.



What followed was a lengthy hospital stay, plenty of worry from Foard’s friends and family, an outpouring of support from the Tacoma music scene, and a long grueling climb for Foard to recover from what he referred to as a brain stroke during our conversation. Doctors openly spoke about the possibility of permanent brain damage even after Foard awoke from his coma, and there were plenty of times throughout the recovery process when it was not at all certain Foard would ever regain his old form.  It was a climb to not only become the person he once was, but the man he just became.

During his hospital stay, Tacoma came out in force for two benefits at Hell’s Kitchen in Foard’s name.



“I still say that kid is a star, even though he probably doesn’t want to be described as a kid,” says Von Wheelie. “It was some tough times for him, and the entire music community got together to try to help him a little. It just goes to show what he means to everybody — as a musician and as a great guy.”



“The guy has gone through hell,” says Wegner of Foard’s journey.



For his part, though, he’s still battling a few symptoms associated with the event.  Foard sees his diabetic coma as a number of things — from an extremely shitty episode in his life, to a learning opportunity, to a humbling event that put how much people care about him in perspective.



“I really didn’t have any idea of the reaction until May or June,” says Foard of learning about the widespread support he’d received and the benefits at Hell’s Kitchen. “It just made me so happy, so excited to see how many people cared.



“When I was in the hospital I was completely out of it. I guess I was trying to kiss nurses and drag them into the bed with me, but I can’t remember,” he recalls. “Now it’s pretty much all systems go.”

Saturday and the future

After breaking up in late ’07 and dealing with Foard’s diabetic coma throughout an all-too-big chunk of last year, Durango 95 will return to the stage Friday, but the date has even more significance. Not only will the band strap up and turn up for the first time in over a year, but Durango 95 will mark the occasion with the DIY release of three items of interest to any punk with decent sense — or fan of Tacoma music, for that matter.

First and foremost, Durango 95 will re-release its first demo and first real disc, Today Tacoma, Tomorrow the World. If that doesn’t get you excited, it’s hard telling what might be wrong with you (though chances are your sauce is weak).



But the Durango boys have another trick up their sleeve — mainly Feature of Waste and Welfare, an eight-song effort recorded with Steve E. Nix of the Briefs and Cute Lepers. All three discs will be released officially April 24, though I feel awkward and at risk of inaccuracy using such official sounding, music biz statements with a band like Durango 95. For all I know the dude in charge of delivering the CDs could be arrested for drunken back alley bike-chain fighting between now and then. Or the whole band might simply explode.



The real question is, considering the speed, intensity and disregard for convention that defines Durango 95 — the danger through which the band survives and thrives — can Tacoma expect them to be back for a long time to come?



“Without a doubt,” says Foard. “We’re pretty much just going to tear shit up.”

Or — perhaps more accurately — as Wegner puts it, “They were never gone, man.”