John Densmore – Memphis Flyer

This week the Memphis music community was dealt another tragic blow with the death of Bob Holmes on October 16. Holmes, the lead guitarist and songwriter behind one of the city’s foundational punk rock bands, the Modifiers, as well as Angerhead, Sarah & the Eyes, and the Binghamptons, had been in declining health in recent months due to a variety of illnesses, including cancer. He was 64.

Those closest to him (myself included) were not entirely shocked when the news broke, as Holmes was unable to make a scheduled appearance with the band at B-Side for the Antenna Club historical marker dedication event earlier this month. The Modifiers even played the venue when it was known as the Well. Behind the scenes, Antenna founder Steve McGehee told me that one of his primary motivations for putting it on was to give Holmes one last chance to perform and visit with friends, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

“I swear to you, Bob inspired the whole thing,” says McGehee. “That was my main goal, getting him to play again. It’s sad that it couldn’t work out.”

It’s hard for me to put into words just how important Bob Holmes was to the Memphis music scene. Bob (I’m just going to call him “Bob” from here on out), lead singer Milford Thompson, and their rotating cast of Modifiers poured their sweat and souls into every performance, breaking ground and opening doors for every original punk/alternative band in this town that followed along the way. The band’s reputation for both hi-jinks and debauchery was legendary, but Bob was every bit as prolific and accomplished as a songwriter and musician as he was a creator of spectacle. And make no mistake about it, even up to the end, Bob could still play a mean guitar. Here’s the last live version of the Modifiers: Bob, Terrence Bishop, John Bonds and myself – but mainly Bob – tearing it up on the now defunct Rocket Science Audio podcast:

In Memoriam: Bob Holmes, Memphis Punk Pioneer, Dies at 64

Over the course of the band’s roughly 35 year history, the Modifiers line-up ebbed and flowed as they bounced back and forth between Memphis and Los Angeles, and members – including the famous ones like the Doors’ John Densmore, Fear’s Derf Scratch, and Big Star’s Alex Chilton – came and went quickly. But one constant was the understated brilliance of Bob Holmes. And you don’t just have to take my word for it.

“I’ll never forget meeting Bob at the Well,” says David Catching, producer and guitarist for groups like the Eagles of Death Metal, Queens of the Stone Age, earthlings?, and the Modifiers. “He and Alex Chilton were my first guitar heroes I could actually talk to.”

The Modifiers at the Antenna, early 80s: Bob Holmes, second from right.

Catching also posted the following on social media via his studio’s (Rancho de la Luna) twitter account: “I played with the Modifiers from 1979-1989. Bob Holmes Ohm and Milford Thompson showed me some of the greatest times of my life and taught me more about life and living than anyone. I wouldn’t be what, or where I am without them. Love always. RIP”

“Bob, was one coolest cats around,” says Chuck Roast, former Modifiers and Suburban Lawns drummer. “Quiet, strong opinions, very talented guitar player, could shred on punk and the next minute lay down some sweet heavy blues. It was great time playing with him and Milford.”

“Milford was the method actor up front, but Bob was the engine. He was the musical director,” says Ross Johnson, drummer with Tav Falco’s Panther Burns and the Modifiers, among others. “He had a tone like no one else had, I could never figure it out. Like most signature players, like Chilton or Teenie Hodges, the sound came out of his fingers. It didn’t matter what guitar he was playing on, it was the sound of Bob playing. That made him very unique.”

The Modifiers

“He was an unbelievable, out of this world guitar player. Like no other,” says John Bonds, drummer with the River City Tanlines, Subteens and Modifiers. “It was an honor and a privilege, not just to be in the band but to become friends with Bob and be a part of his circle.”

I could quote a dozen more friends and bandmates, and they would all say the same thing: Bob Holmes was and is a wildly underappreciated figure in Memphis music history, and it’s a shame he’s gone.

As for me, I’ll certainly remember Bob as a brilliant musician. As I’ve written before, he was an inspiration and mentor to me as a young guitarist. But my favorite memories of him are of us just hanging out, winding up my dad for kicks, making fun of bad television, or posing ludicrous questions to my cats. (“Are you a cat?”). He was a good, fiercely loyal friend and I valued the time that we got to spend together.

The music of Bob and Milford and the Modifiers is very important to me, and collecting as much of it as I could consumed much of my last few years in Memphis (my wife and I relocated to Chicago in 2017). There is a vast catalog of unreleased material, and I’m hopeful it will get released sooner than later. It’s long overdue. Until then, here are two things I uploaded (with help, thank you Fred Kelly) to YouTube this afternoon to tide the world over:

1. The rarely seen/heard A-side to the Modifiers only official release, and arguably the band’s most famous song, “Roweena.” The rock stars play on this one.

In Memoriam: Bob Holmes, Memphis Punk Pioneer, Dies at 64 (2)

2. The world premiere of “Peasant,” a song Bob and I “wrote” and recorded in my living room when I was 14 using my Casio keyboard. I have only played it for two other people before this publishing. It’s pure Bob.

In Memoriam: Bob Holmes, Memphis Punk Pioneer, Dies at 64 (3)

RIP, my friend. Your music will live on, I promise.

John Densmore, drummer for the Doors, will sign his latest book, Doors Unhinged, at the Booksellers at Laurelwood on Saturday, March 8th, at 2 p.m. The new book chronicles his plight as a hold-out in a deal designed to use a Doors’ song in a car commercial. Densmore was sued by fellow bandmates Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger when he exercised his veto option. We talked by phone on Monday and were glad to hear that the relationships were mended and that Densmore is enjoying his new life as an author.

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You have ventured into writing and acting. What are you up to musically?

I haven’t done much acting in quite a while. Basically, I’m looking for the music in between sentences. I’m primarily writing. As you can read in Doors Unhinged, I go sit in with Carlos Santana and Eddie Vedder and people like that. So that’s real fun. Robby and I played together for the first time in 15 years. There was a little screening of the making of L.A. Woman at the L.A. County Museum. We did a Q&A, and I said why don’t we break up the blah blah with music. He brought an acoustic guitar. I had a hand drum, and we played for a little bit. Hopefully that’s a precursor of a concert for the late, great Ray Manzarek.

Has his loss helped mend your relationship with Robby Krieger?

Before I published the Doors Unhinged, I sent Ray and Robby the last chapter with a note saying, this probably will be a hard pill to swallow. But I wanted to be sure you got to this chapter, because this is the part where I talk about how we’re musical brothers and how could I not love you guys. They got that. Then when I heard Ray was getting really sick, I gave him a call. We had a nice conversation. I didn’t know it was going to be our last. But there was closure that I was really grateful for.

You seem to enjoy writing. Is that a function of age?

It’s easier than drumming, physically, certainly. You don’t have to depend on other musicians, like whether Jim is going to show up. It’s not as fun. To get philosophical, Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, said, the first half of you’re doing stuff. The second half, you should kind of reflect of what the Hell all that meant. I kind of like that.

Have you been to Memphis before?

I’ve been to Memphis one time. I was driven by the hospital where Elvis had taped up aluminum in the windows. But I think it’s gone. I heard Voodoo Village is still there. Is it cool to go over there?

We can get you over there.

I don’t know. That’s all I remember about Memphis. But it’s certainly a musical town. I hear you’ve got great museums.

When I hear The Doors, as a Memphian, I hear that organ combo thing. Were you aware of that music?

Oh sure we were aware of it. We didn’t directly say let’s try to sound like that. But we were in awe. I saw Booker T. (Jones) backing up Neil Young many years ago, that was a real treat. I kind of think about him and Ray in a way: In rock-and-roll, the guitar is kind of the lead thing, and those two kind of brought the keyboards up to the front line. You know, that’s a really big contribution.

How did you fall into playing drums?

I played the piano as an 8-year-old and loved it. I had more fun improvising than playing the compositions I had to learn. By the time I got to junior high, I wanted to play any instrument. I wanted to play clarinet, but I had braces. The orthodontist said you’re not playing the clarinet in braces. That will push your teeth out. We want to push them in. So I chose drums. But I think it was really good for me that I participated in every musical organization they had: marching band with the ridiculous uniforms, symphonic band (I played timpani). I learned every form of drumming. I think that really fed me. So when we were writing songs with the Doors, I kind of had a big mouth about the arrangements. I didn’t really know that it should be E-flat, or whatever. I knew intuitively that we need a bridge or a guitar solo. It came from all that schooling.

This is I’m sure a cliché question. But to have worked with Jim Morrison, someone who has taken on such a persona and is such a specter in the public imagination, there has to be such a weird disconnect between your experience of him and how everyone else …

It gathers, not moss, but B.S. In the early days, he was just a regular guy: friendly and a little different. He was real good-looking. But then, he became an alcoholic and we didn’t know that. We didn’t understand that he had a disease. They didn’t have substance abuse clinics and all that. So midway through, I was like damn this is crazy. But nobody is saying anything about it. That was a real struggle. I knew I had found my path in life, and we had a wild man as our lead singer. I loved him for his words. And for his melodies, he had melodies in his head. He couldn’t play a chord on any instrument. Really gifted. But ask us how did we write songs? We did it all together.

The book is about your decision not to use the music for advertising.

That’s what I was counter-sued for not doing.

Do you think that Morrison would have maintained his idealism about the music?

All I’ve got to go on is how he acted when he was alive. I’ll give you the first sentence of the book. It’s Jim saying, “Fuck you.” I’m very pleased that those are the first two words of the book. He’s saying that to us for considering, “Come on Buick Light My Fire.” He didn’t primarily pen “Light My Fire.” That’s mainly Robby’s lyric. So, I think that means he cared about the whole catalog, the whole thing. I’ve kind of stayed with that.
I understand the music business is difficult, and that some new band is trying to pay the rent. Do a commercial. But maybe later, you can reconsider. Because, as Tom Waits said about it, “If you change your lyrics into a jingle, you might have just sold your audience.” Then I got Pete Townsend in there in a Rolling Stone interview saying I don’t give an F if you fell in love with Shirley to my song. I’ll do what I want.

He was an autocrat. But you guys split everything four ways.

That came out of Jim’s insecurity in how to make songs and music. So it was incredibly generous. I don’t think there was any band ever that did that. That set up a total unanimity. We split everything. The lyrics were not credited to him. It was “music and lyrics by the Doors.” That was his idea. He also said we need veto power in case someone weird. And, well, I became Mr. Veto.

But, you know, if the others didn’t have a nice house and a couple of groovy cars like me — because I know down to the penny — it might be different. I’m trying to adhere to what our main muse wished for. My knees were shaking when the Cadillac offer kept doubling and tripling. It was obscene. So I’m un-American because I’m not greedy? I don’t know. I just feel it in my soul that that’s the road our band ought to take. And I don’t condemn other groups. And Dylan, my god. I was asked what I thought of his Superbowl thing. I said, haven’t you heard? He’s broke. That was a joke. What he does will have no effect on his genius. It just makes me a little sad. But whatever. Money doesn’t talk it swears. That’s a Bob Dylan line.

I saw a short film that was made with y’all and Skrillex. If I’m not mistaken, you’re in it at the beginning, and then not as much later. Did you identify with that type of music?

They were trying to put together weird combinations of artists. In the beginning, I quote Ringo Starr from when drum machines were invented. He said, “I’m the fucking drum machine.” So I went with reservation. But then I met Sonny. He was a musician. You know, a long time ago, Jim said, “Maybe one day in the future, a musician will be one guy with a bunch of machines.” Hello?

Do you keep up with music?

I don’t really have my finger on the pulse of the music scene. I just read Salman Rushdie’s memoir. That was incredible. I’m into books.