Tesco Vee has been at the forefront of punk since the days when a Mohawk and a spiked collar was a political statement, not a fashion statement...although the only political statement Tesco would make is that "Politics Suck."
As he told Skin Central: "All the other bands were railing against Reagan and social injustice, and I was writing songs about poop and boners."
He founded the legendary punk 'zine Touch and Go while working as an elementary school teacher in Michigan in 1979, then watched his creation grow into a rallying point for fledgling punk and hardcore scenes scattered across the USA and eventually into a record label.
He's also the front man for The Meatmen, a punk rock powerhouse with an outrageous live show and hilariously politically incorrect songs like Camel Jockeys Suck, Blow Me Jah,French People Suck, and Lesbian Death Dirge.
Now Tesco's infectious brand of potty-mouthed humor has been re-introduced to the world with the reformation of The Meatmen in 2008 and the collection of every issue of his famous 'zine into the book Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-'83, published by Bazillion Points.
We caught up with Tesco driving around his home state of Michigan, and he proved himself to be very much a man after Mr. Skin's own hard-on:
Skin Central : First of all, what are The Meatmen up to right now?
Tesco Vee: We did about 50 shows last year and we are going to Europe in September and we are working on new material for a new record right now tentatively titled Lansing Liberace in honor of yours truly. We’ll be playing lapooza fest in Montreal in May and short of that we don’t have a whole lot of shows lined up. We are planning a big summer party in Detroit. That’s going to be in August and not quite ready to release the list of stellar old school hardcore bands that we have lined up, but it's going to be a good one.
SC: Cool! Will you announce that on your website when it's time?
TV: Oh yeah, absolutely, tescovee.com will have all the dates and all the pertinent info. So within in the next two to three weeks we should be good to spring that one on the unsuspecting masses.
SC: I read the Touch and Go book...I loved it!
TV: Cool, thank you.
SC: When I was reading it I noticed there were two names that came up over and over again: Seka [left] and Penelope from the Avengers.Why was Seka so popular amongst the punks?
TV: You got to understand it was kind of a different world back then. We were all related, we were all limited to our Swedish erotica the little 8mm movies you sneak into dad’s room and pull out the projector and watch them. So you were real limited to Seka, Gloria Leonard or Gayle Palmer who’s a local Lansing girl who actually did some porn movies. Rhere wasn’t a whole lot for us to look at, so Seka became the de-facto favorite because she was blond and she was extremely hot and we didn’t know any better.
So Seka was anointed, and we weren’t the only ones because on the cover of one of our later issues we had the Boston crew all outside of a smut shop all pointing at a Seka poster so its like there was something about her that resonated with the young hardcore fellows all over the country. Resonated in their penises to be sure.
SC: How about Penelope [Houston] from [San Francisco punk band] the Avengers?
TV: I don’t know...she just sort of had it. I don’t want to sound sexist but a lot of girl punk singers had that Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex thing, that really annoying screech which I can’t stand, but Penelope was cool she was like one of the guys when she sang...and plus she was extremely cute. She made the cover of Touch and Go not once, but twice [right], and I believe she was the only person so blessed to have been on the cover twice.
SC: Has there been anyone hotter than them since then? Or are they the all-time gold standard?
TV: Well there have been plenty. When we actually expanded beyond our limited scope...oh yeah. We all went through our Traci Lords phase. I’m old school, I'm, like, old, so I was raised on and always a fan of the rubenesque, like Anita Ekberg and the Lainie Kazan and remember seeing the naked pictures of them when I was a very young boy and for some reason the big ones always made me lift off the bag.
SC: Do you remember the first nudie pic or movie that you ever saw?
TV: My actual first recollection of being aroused was actually watching Gilligan’s Island when Ginger [played by Tina Louise] would start walking slowly towards Gilligan when she wanted something and the saxophone music would play. That’s when I remember little Bobby wondering why there was something stirring down below the belt and I didn’t quite understand what it meant, but...I actually had my first sexual experience watching Gilligan's Island. I don’t know what that says about the man that I am today, but that’s how it went down...or came up as it were.
SC: What are some of your favorite nude scenes of all time?
TV: To me there is something more titillating about partially clothed or see-through than there is about totally nude, especially when it is someone as exaltedly hot as Raquel Welch or Sophia Loren. And Jayne Mansfield...I love the picture where her tit’s hanging out and Sophia Loren is looking down at it. That’s a classic moment for me. I’m from the days when things were a little bit covered up, so I like magazines like Barracuda that recreate the old pinup thing. As far as nude scenes in movies...there is sort of the obvious one in Phoebe Cates in the swimming pool...
SC: That’s Mr. Skin's number one nude scene of all time, actually.
TV: See, I’m probably going to be the only one who says Phyllis Davis in Sweet Sugar. Anybody remember Phyllis Davis, the secretary from Vegas the TV show? She had some big hoops. She had some big milk wagons and she did a naughty movie called Sweet Sugar that’s bad/really cool if you want to see Phyllis Davis’s jugs.
SC: I'm sure we have it on Mr. Skin! Anyway, so some people perceive punk culture as anti-sex. Do you think that’s the case, or are people [who think that] just not getting it?
TV: Yeah, I think part of that probably stems from the whole straight edge culture that came out of DC and Boston- like no sex, no drugs, that kind of thing. I always thought was kind of dumb. I mean, Touch and Go was filled with sex and making fun of sex and we definitely enjoyed the potty mouth angle, the sophomoric scatological bent. So certain factions of punk were anti-sex, but we were all about it.
We even put Cosey Fanni Tutti [below, left] from Throbbing Gristle in there with a split beaver shot we just kind of stole! [Cosey was a stripper and porn performer before and even during her time in the band- SC]
That’s the nature of fan-zines; it's shotgun journalism so you just sort of steal an image...if you need a picture of somebody you cut it out of the Trouser Press or the NME and you stick it in there. We were all about sex and being naughty, I mean that’s what punk rock was all about, shaking things up. It was just a whole musical spectrum through the eyes of two high school chums who loved the music. We had no idea that some 30 odd years later it would become a book, but we’re damn happy it did!
SC: The scatological and the sophomoric humor, is it ever not funny?
TV: It’s never not funny. When you stop thinking poop and boner jokes are funny, you are certifiably old. That’s what I say. I mean I’m 56 years old and if somebody farts I laugh. If somebody comes in and talks about the big giant Carolina pipe snake they left in the toilet it’s funny, it’s still funny, it will always be funny. If you don’t think it’s funny there is something wrong with you.
SC: Yeah, or you just don’t like fun, you know?
TV: Exactly. It’s just funny and it will always be funny. As far as my sense of humor I’m still stuck in the eighth grade, and I’m happy to be stuck there.
SC: That’s how Mr. Skin rolls too, so...
TV: Absolutely, and I made my living being the big overgrown potty mouthed teenager in The Meatmen as well. A lot of people who like my band would have me no other way. All the other bands were railing against Reagan and social injustice, and I was writing songs about poop and boners. That’s how I roll.
Be sure to check out Tesco's site, TescoVee.com, for all the latest news on The Meatmen and all of his other projects, and get your paws on a copy of Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk 'Zine '79-'83 (split beaver shot and all) on Amazon.com!
