dan monick

Thee Makeout Party! come from Anaheim and sound like the Dictators’ version of the 1910 Fruitgum Company. They eat the best burgers at the Chicken Pie Shop on La Palma. They have two 45s out and are working on their first album. They meet for chicken and waffles and Sunsets and Eclipses at Roscoe’s in Long Beach.

What was thee Makeout Party’s best Valentine’s Day?
Lee Noise (bass): Last year we had melted ice cream and we tried a little ice-cream social event—it was messy and fun. But it ended prematurely.
Dan Bush (guitar): There was a line of people taking pictures of a passed-out homeless guy in the bathroom with some HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY balloons.
L: A bouquet of balloons!
What does it say about your character as a band that you refuse to change your name after all these years?
L: We’re stubborn and we don’t want people to forget we’re a band. John Peel knows that we exist—John Peel knows thee Makeout Party! It’s in memoriam to rock ‘n’ roll.
Alex Nowicki (drums): We’re like his living epitaph.
L: It’s so he remembers up in rock ‘n’ roll heaven. He’s rolling over right now.
What’s the most romantic thing you ever saw from stage?
A: When I play drums, I got my hair in my face, so I see nothing.
Were there ever actual makeout parties?
L: Our first show—a house party the first time we played—I was kissing girls.
In the backyard?
D: No, no—on the mouth.
Were we correct to have the Pity Party come before thee Makeout Party?
D: Actually, it’s too bad there’s a band called Pity Party, because we were all gonna do solo projects. Lee was gonna have ‘Private Party’ and I was gonna have ‘Pity Party.’
What happened to the original recordings for your LP? Weren’t they done on one constantly taped-over five-minute segment of tape?
L: We recorded over Nikki Corvette—if that’s not blasphemy… actually, it was just sad.
A: But the dinner they gave us at the studio was great.
What would happen if Nick Lowe heard your album?
D: We gave it to him when he played.
A: Hopefully he offers to produce our next record.
Who is your fiercest fan?
L: A teenager with a tattoo under her pants. Where her underwear would be.
D: And now I apologize to her brother for us saying that.
Is that the first band tattoo?
L: That we know of.
What are some other milestones for Makeout Party?
L: We played the Orange County Fair twenty years before we thought we would. And we found the Let’s Get Rid Of L.A. comp with us on it at the swap meet with a bunch of other junk from 2003.
Your career is running in reverse.
D: And now we almost have a record out.
Is it still fair to call you swap-meet rock?
D: We’re more record-swap rock now.
A: There are goofier old guys there.
What’s the most you ever sold your own single for?
L: I sold a Lipstick Pickups single to some guy for $20 in Tennessee. I don’t know if that counts. But I felt proud.
A: We got a bar to jump over now.
L: And I got my two-dollar commission.
How much band revenue goes right to burgers?
A: Burgers and gas.
L: Gas and burgers—too bad we can’t connect the two.
Is Dan the only one who’s drawn a Disney paycheck?
D: Yeah, and I think I’m going back there.
Can you still do your spiel?
D: ‘Well, folks, welcome to the Imagination Institute, the only institute dedicated to imagination—’
L: Blah-blah, and ten minutes later—
D: Eight minutes! It’s only eight. I’d say I was Professor Bob Dobbs to all the kids, and I’d tag ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’ and Mickey Mouse pentagrams. You couldn’t really talk to anyone there. One kid was this really weird Christian guy who’d try and convert you, and right after he left, we found out he sent this girl all these letters about wanting to worship her feet. He said he’d turn his back on God for her feet. He wasn’t a foot fetishist.
A foot aficionado?
L: Yeah, cute.
Are you the flagship band in Anaheim?
L: Slack rock is a very touchy subject. Teenagers are doing what we haven’t done yet.
D: What’s that mean?
L: It means we still have something to learn from the youngbloods up there.
Are you still full of civic pride?
L: The Adolescents, what? I ran into Steve Soto at the La Palma Chicken Pie Shop. If that’s not punk rock, I don’t know what is.
What did America think of you on your first American tour?
A: There were naked guys dancing.
D: We got a lot of love everywhere.
What era of American loves you the best?
L: People like yourself, who get paid to listen to records—they know where we’re coming from. [Note: L.A. RECORD does not pay anyone to listen to records and actually prevents people from purchasing as many records as they might like – ed.]
D: And high school kids—normal-ass high school kids.
Are you the only band to ever play both the Orange County Fair and the Smell?
D: We were there the night after Willie Nelson.
L: And the day before Earth, Wind and Fire.
Why was Lee thrown out of a Raspberries show?
L: I spent top dollar to see one of the best bands in America, and I drank some Alize Wild Berry that was my birthday gift, and the next thing I know, people are picking me up—the old-timers did not approve—and tossing my ass out. So I threw a temper tantrum, and called the bouncers Eminem rappers—that was unnecessary—and they eventually let me back in, and we met Spongebob, who had an NRBQ t-shirt, and he started singing Wreckless Eric.
That’s the most confusing story I ever heard.
A: It is what it is.
Sean, are you still a licensed reverend?
Sean Bohrman (guitar): Yes, I am a doktor of forbidden science and a reverend in the Church of the Subgenius. That’s doktor with a ‘k.’
D: When I met John Waters, I asked him what he thought of Bob Dobbs, and he said, ‘I’m a reverend—I can marry people!’
A: And I met Weird Al, and he said he does it all for Bob Dobbs. It was the best moment ever!
S: I interviewed Weird Al once, and hugged him in the parking lot of Amoeba—I saw him and ran to him and said, ‘I love you!’
How much will your records be worth in fifteen years?
L: A lot if we throw the last two boxes away. Or if we hand-print them with blood.
How did you meet the guy who used to do Pink Floyd’s light shows?
L: Lord Dragon, Ron of Henderson.
A: He was supposed to do our album cover.
L: He painted a cover for the group Man, featuring Terry Williams of Rockpile fame.
How did you find him?
S: He found us.
A: It was magic, man.
L: We played the Warehouse of Contemporary Art—WOCA—in Anaheim and he told us he did light shows for Pink Floyd and was friends with Marc Bolan and we just kept picking his brain.
S: His scarf was in the back of Marc Bolan’s car when he died.
L: I think he died the day before my birthday. But the year before I was born.
So you aren’t the reincarnation of Marc Bolan.
L: Reincarnation! Come on! That’s too deep, man!
What was it like when you met Debbie Harry at the Smell?
D: It was at a Drunk Horse show. People were like, ‘It’s Debbie Harry! It’s Debbie Harry!’ And I went over and said, ‘Are you Debbie Harry?’ And she went, ‘Noooooooooooo.’ And all her friends laughed, and I went, ‘Yes, you are!’ and I touched her boob.

THEE MAKEOUT PARTY! PLAYS SAT., OCT. 20, WITH E.S.P.S. AND THE MAKES NICE AT THE SMELL, 247 S. MAIN ST., LOS ANGELES. 8:30 PM / $5 / ALL AGES. WWW.THESMELL.ORG.