He has almost singlehandedly documented Newark’s underground music scene, but those who have met Jerry Lehane III may still have cause to wonder…

By MIKE WALSH
(Editor’s note: Mike Walsh is the editor of Expresso Tilt! magazine)

(June 1989, Big Shout Magazine)

We’re technicians cranking out the sound,
working late at night with no one left around,
… mikes and amps are all we need,
We’ll mix the tapes until they bleed…

— The Moaners, from “Technician”

Over the past four years, Jerry P. Lehane III, better know as “Pumpkinhead,” has issued numerous cassette tapes from a band called the Moaners. Along with several Newark rock compilations, Lehane has foisted over 10,000 tapes on the northern Delaware community. In the process, he has almost singlehandedly documented the persistent underground music scene in Neware and environs. Since Mr. Lehane has become such a sizable force in the local cultural milieu, the question mush be asked: What hath Pumpkinhead wrought?

What be dem Moaners?

The Moaners aren’t a band in the traditional sense. First of all, the only consistent aspect of the Moaners line-up is change. At any given time, the Moaners consist of Jerry and whichever friends of his happen to be hanging out nearby, willing to make noise into a tapedeck. It may help to think of the Moaners as an oscillating conglomeration of young musicians shuffled in and out of an endless party chaperoned by Pumpkinhead (Lehane even suggested that I emote in front of his stack of high-speed tape dubbers during the interview, an invitation I graciously declined, depriving the community of even more well-deserved moaning).

Despite Lehane’s continuous presence, the Moaners in their various incarnations sound like several completely different bands, which by the way, are not all created equal. Chameleon-like, Lehane adapts his material to the style of his collaborators.

Another unusual aspect of the Moaners is that, with one exception, the Moaners have never performed live. A couple of years ago, Jerry, Chip Willey and John Dugan moaned their way through a set at Sam’s Steak House in Newark. However, the Moaners won’t be doing any more live shows because, as Jerry explains, “we’re not good performers.” Humility is another unusual quality for a rock musician. The Pumpkinhead can, however, be found playing solo at the East End Cafe on Main Street in Newark during Saturday open mike nights.

A moanin’, tape distributin’, hi-speed dubbin’ dude

During production of the earliest Moaners tapes, Jerry realized that filling the empty portions of tapes with recordings of local bands greatly enhanced the marketability of the tapes. Consequently, all Moaners tapes include healthy samples of recordings from various sources, such as the bands themselves, public or radio performances, demo tapes, friends or by unabashedly lifting them from albums. Once all the pieces are collected onto a single master tape, Mr. Moanerhead begins the time-consuming, laborious process of copying the tapes on seven high-speed dual-cassette decks. With over 10,000 copies since 1985 (at least half of them given away gratis), the tape decks, he points out, “are getting their use.” As you might guess, the quality of the recordings is awful. Hiss and distortion are givens.

But it isn’t recording quality that might bring you to purchase a Moaners tape. It might be for recordings of bands you’ve heard of but can’t find elsewhere; it might be that your tastes lean toward the unconventional, experimental or whimsical. If you are willing to listen to experiments that fail more often than they succeed but provide an invigorating rush when they work, the Moaners are for you.

Everywhere be Pumpkinman

Let me explain something about Jerry P. Lehane III: he has a bloodhound’s sense for the event of the evening. Wherever the scene is that night, that’s where you’ll find the gentle, clumsy giant that is Pumpkinhead. Inevitably, at every gig, performance or party where someone is doing anything the least bit entertaining in front of a microphone, you’ll find Lehane with his boombox, his thick finger gently caressing the “record” button. One wonders where he would be today if the boombox and high-speed tape dubbing had not been invented.

I first met Lehane several years ago when he started showing up to read the weekly events listing during my “Cutting Edge” stint on WXDR. Week after week, his slow, persistent monotone cast a strange spell over the airwaves. Any of you who have ever heard Lehane’s voice know he possesses one of the spookiest and most indefatigable monotones going. He also has an allergy, which may explain his predilection for moaning.

Spoken word tirade (proceed with caution)

The gnashing, groaning sound of the Moaners was first heard in 1985 when Lehane and Jones “Woody” Purcell found themselves with access to a four-track tapedeck. That collaboration yielded Television Brain, which consists for the most part of Jerry’s poetry readings and Woody’s synthesizer, drum machine and guitar doodlings. Jerry also did a number of similar spoken word/music recordings with Chip Willey and John Dugan from Batz Without Flesh — which appear mostly on Dangerous Times and Rock ‘n’ Roll Jesus — and with Rob Byrd and Keith Duffy of the now-defunct 291.

Although a few of the pieces, like “He is Invisible,” are striking and some of the effects are nifty, most of the Moaners’ spoken-word pieces are dreadful, painful listening experiences. Much of the poetry is whining, negative stuff, all of it awash in a cloying drum machine. The subjects for attack — TV, drugs, war, assembly-line lives, Ronald Reagan, Big Brother and the Dear Lord — are tired and trite. Lehane is definitely not the next spoken-word Jesus.

This genre has seen so much horseshit since Laurie Anderson rock-i-fied it with synthesizers, it’s amazing anyone still has the balls to dabble in it. Anderson doesn’t even do it anymore, and Patty Smith is a housewife. It’s a washed-out scene, and the early Moaners tapes provide some good examples of why. Wisely, Lehane no longer distributes these tapes, although portions of them can still be heard on God is Bogus.

If God bogus, what does that make us?

God is Bogus came out in early 1986, and it includes a few surprisingly melancholy solo pieces by Lehane, which display the first signs of Lehane’s respectable singing voice. Many non-Moaners appear on God is Bogus, including Tim Gager and the various rock ensembles he fronted, like the Maytags, the Zippers and the Wake (Gager moved to Boston several years ago). It also includes a couple of cuts credited to Chuck Werneke, a young man with a reckless attitude that makes for damn good rock ‘n’ roll. Unfortunately, the first side is marred with several cuts from Television Brain.

Besides being the name of the tape, “God is Bogus” is an anti-religion slogan that Lehane adopted as a personal protest in 1985. During a 20-month period, Lehane distributed an amazing 20,000 “God is Bogus” stickers. The slogan helped him channel his suppressed antagonism for the heavy-handed religious teaching he rebelled against in school and the rising tide of phony, money-grubbing evangelism in this country. The slogan was also a way to publicly proclaim his atheism.

“The ‘God is Bogus’ slogan was a breakthrough for me spiritually and mentally, and it was very important for me to hand out the stickers,” he explains. “I was expressing myself in a way that people would not be able to easily overlook. A slogan seeps into your mind, and once it’s there it’s hard to ignore.”

“‘God is Bogus’ is a good slogan because it simplifies everything and polarizes people. It cuts them pretty much down the middle whether you agree or disagree. It got to a lot of people.”

He also knew the slogan would target him for attack. “For some people it was a threat, like the religious groups on campus,” he says. “They would tear the stickers down, insult me behind my back or confront me. Wherever I go, I am always yelled at from cars. Sometimes it’s positive, like a cheer; sometimes it’s negative. They say, ‘you’re bogus!’ But I enjoy the attention because being ignored is the worst possible thing that could happen.”

Out to kill

Perhaps the best version of the Moaners consisted of Lehane, Chuck Werneke and Lee Harting and produced Out to Kill, the only Moaners release that can legitimately be called “inspired.” Where Television Brain is self-conscious, Out to Kill displays an abandoned, reckless and whimsical attitude. With a spartan mix of guitar, voice, drums and practically no bass, the trio came up with some very spontaneous and raucously naive rock music.

Songs like “I Am a Man, “Who Do You Love,” “I Am the Beast,” “We’re the Latrines,” “Out to Kill Tonight” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Jesus” depict a neat combination of angst and wackiness. It’s plain old trash rock and just about makes up for all the pain inflicted on the community by the earlier Moaners tapes. Unfortunately, Werneke has since left the area (does anyone see a pattern developing here?). Out to Kill also includes Jones Purcell’s killer “15 Minutes,” a song that displays his substantial songwriting abilities.

However, Out to Kill, especially the B side, is not completely painless. The less said about Lehane’s “Whitetop Roads” the better, Kenny Mullins’ “I Will Survive” is an awful little ditty, and Tommy Conwell’s “Do You Still Believe in Me” documents his turn from Thorogood-style bar rock to Hooters-style arena pop.

Coincidentally, Out to Kill is the only Moaners tape with no spoken word pieces. “Spoken word slows down a tape and hurts its marketability.” Lehane admits. He also points out that his predominantly young, rock-oriented audience “gets extremely bored by poetry.” Which brings us to an important lesson, one that all poets eventually learn: People like rock ‘n’ roll more than they like poetry. In fact, people like just about anything more than poetry. Truth hurts, don’t it?

The Conwell controversy

Recently, Pumpkinhead has gotten himself involved in a couple of controversies. The first involved the notorious Charles Cohen, a musician and University of Delaware student who allegedly murdered his parents in their Hockessin home last December and has been on the lam ever since. Lehane knew Cohen and had recent photos of him. Consequently, he was interviewed by several newspaper and TV reporters, as well as the FBI. His photos of Cohen were purchased by the news services and appeared everywhere.

Pumpkinhead has also instigated a dispute concerning the authorship of several Tommy Conwell songs. As he tells it — to anyone willing to listen — the Pumpkin recorded demo versions of a dozen original songs on a cassette and gave it to Conwell, with whom he has been friends with since 1982. Several of those songs turned up on Conwell’s Rumble LP, but none of them are credited to Lehane. The songs in question are “I’m Not Your Man,” “If We Never Meet Again,” “Half a Heart,” “I Just Want to Make You Happy,” “Gonna Break Down,” “Cruisin’ Slow,” and “Jet Plane.”

“I wrote the songs with Tommy in mind,” he says, “and I was willing to give up all credit because I thought they had a chance of making it with him. Tommy even got two of my songs, ‘I’m Not Your Man’ and ‘If We Never Meet Again,’ on MTV” (which might explain why Lehane recently wrote a song called “I Just Wanna Be on MTV”).

“Tommy offered to credit me for the songs, but I said no. It wouldn’t help me to have it known, but it would help him by making him, the star, look better.”

However, Conwell has never offered any money to Pumpkinhead for the songs, and according to Lehane, Conwell now claims to have written the songs himself. Conwell’s only comment concerning the dispute and Lehane is, “He’s insane.”

Nevertheless, Lehane harbors no ill will towards Conwell. “I am very grateful that he did my songs,” he says. “I’m honored. I was lucky enough to see that he was going to make it before he saw it himself.” Perhaps this gracious sentiment explains why so many Conwell tunes turn up on Moaners tapes.

Pumpkinhead of the future

Despite all the tape copying sales and compilations, the Moaners haven’t done much since Out to Kill. Lehane did release a 60-minute tape called Moaners 7, but the entire second side is stuff Chuck Werneke did on his own, and the first side is dominated by a seven-minute piece by Batz Without Flesh.

The Pumpkinman is definitely moaning less and less these days. He has also sold some of his dubbing equipment, so don’t expect him to make or give away as many tapes as he did in the past. A world without the Moaners? It hardly seems possible.

The (Bad) Scene

In the song “Big Brother” on God is Bogus, Lehane tells the story of how he and Chip Willey were harassed by the Newark Police while hanging out on Main Street. Several similar incidents have recently been reported in Newark. Lehane cites these incidents and the Newark Noise Ordinance as examples of a general community malaise toward young, creative musicians. The Mustard Trucks, for instance, were once fined for practicing with the windows open.

According to Lehane, most original bands in Delaware have trouble finding places to play, while cover bands can find employment at a host of clubs. “A band has to be able to sell beer to get gigs at the Deer Park or the Stone Balloon,” he says. Ironically, Henry the Band, the Freudian Slips and Batz Without Flesh all got gigs in Philly clubs but found virtually nothing in their home state, except for a few parties where they usually played for free.

The clubs that do sponsor original, alternative bands go out of business quickly from lack of support. WXDR, the University of Delaware’s radio station, hasn’t had a local music show in its programming for years, but you’ll get all the retro ’60s and ’70s rock you can take. All this probably explains why so many talented local musicians move away or give up.

Despite the problems, good bands continue to turn up with surprising regularity, and although many of them don’t last long, the Newark underground scene somehow manages to survive. This is why Lehane’s tapes are such an important outlet: because they are just about the only outlet.

So the next time someone asks you, “What’s awful, belabored, trashed-out, primitive, energetic, invigorating, reckless, pathetic, cheap, crude, amateurish, rebellious, painful, a contemporary history of the Newark underground music scene, and just plain great once in a while?” you’ll know how to answer. Moan loudly and chant, “May the wrath of Pumpkinhead be upon you!”