Avant-Garde Punk Rock from early Tucson Music Scene of the 80's. Duck Stix, der Dentist, Matt Griffin, the InHuman, and many others.
‘The Corporate Whores’ were formed in Tucson, Arizona in the fall of 1981 by Phil Pratt (Duck Stix) on drums, Matt Griffin on bass, and Dennis McKeown (der Dentist) on guitar. After performing one show under the original name of ‘Pink Dancing Elephant’ the band was inactive for several months. In the spring of 1982 a guy by the name of JoJo Fishhead came by Phil’s house, which was the band’s practice space at the time, because he had heard that there was a band that lived there. When he met the band he asked if they had a lead singer and if not could he be that lead singer. The band which had no prospects of getting a singer anytime soon said, “Sure, why not.” They had no idea of what they were getting themselves into.
JoJo went out and set up a show for that weekend at the ‘Backstage.’ With only a few practices with JoJo the band played out under the name of ‘the Corporate Whores’ for the first time. The show was seen by very few people but those that were there were intrigued by this new out of nowhere band playing loud noisy dirge punk rock, using piece of shit equipment with a really different sound. ‘The Corporate Whores’ were punk and didn’t even know it.
That show put the ‘Corporate Whores’ on the map. They were booked for another show opening for other local bands at the ‘Backstage.’ On that night JoJo Fishhead while performing with the band went crazy and started running through the audience with his dick out trying to stir people’s drinks. The band just played on, never taking a break between songs. Needless to say ‘Corporate Whores’ were now the talk of the town. JoJo Fishhead however was history. After that show he went out of control with months of drug and alcohol binging and was never heard from again.
This was the beginning of the ‘Corporate Whores Power Trio’ period. Duck Stix went back to singing while playing drums with Matt on bass and der Dentist on guitar. Over the next few months the band opened for several big name touring punk rock bands at the ‘Backstage’ but never got a higher billing than the very first band. They usually played to an empty house made up of only a few of their fans and some drunks from the bar. Their shows were high energy, loud, and noisy. They began to book their own shows at the ‘Backstage’ with bands that they would make up from members and friends to open the shows. Bands with names like: ‘Nitro Burning Ground Pounders,’ ‘Dip Dangerous in Flood Season,’ ‘Apparition of Lenin,’ ‘The InHuman,’ just to name a few. They even had the ‘Self Destructing Tapes Night.’ This night showcased several bands and was the first event of its type in the Tucson punk rock music scene. (‘Self Destructing Tapes’ was the music label that the band had created and released several tapes on including the original releases of ‘Voodoo Economics’ and ‘Swine Courage.’ As far as we know there are no copies of the original ‘Swine Courage’ left in the world!)
After a while the band realized that they needed a new singer and frontman if they were going to get anywhere in the Tucson music scene. They were tired of playing first on bills to small crowds. They started the search and found Bill Fisher (Drunk Dick). He was with the band for the rest of it’s existence and went into the studio with the band to record ‘the Revenge of the Whores.’ Due to technical problems however, most of Bill’s vocals were redone before the release of the tape by Phil, Matt, Lenny Mellow, and the Shithouse Starvation Choir.
After the Backstage burned down, the Tucson punk rock music scene pretty much died. ‘The Corporate Whores’ broke up and the members moved on to form ‘Useless Pieces of Shit,’ another more famous Tucson band. Drunk Dick was replace with Larvae E. Kudish and the music was revamped to be more hardcore punk rock. ‘The Corporate Whores’ did however do a reunion show in December of 1986 with ‘the Snail,’ (Jon Mincks) on vocals. That was the last time the band ever played live.
