Pit Bulls On Crack

Bloomington, IN punk rock tribe 1986-1988.
The legendary punk-rock band "Pitbulls on Crack" The original line-up, consisted of Bloomington.IN natives, Greg Phillips (Guitar), Andrew Mayer (Lead Guitar), Glenn Hicks (Vocals), Dave Fortney (Bass) and Al Jarvis (drums) Known for their powerful brand of Bloomington punk rock originals. Their song, Rock Your World, landed them on the 1988 version of Hoagie Picks the Hits. "Glenn was 19 at the time and David Miller had him wait backstage until we went on because he wasn't old enough to get in Second Story!" explained Greg Phillips. "We are really more rock than punk to be quite honest. I really love the Flaming Lips and in talking with Wayne Coyne, we discovered that at that time, the Pitbulls and the Lips covered the same songs, The Replacements, Iggy, T-Rex, Zep.

The trail of original Bloomington music left in their wake enumerates: popular surf garage combo The Trailside Killers, dumpster rock kings Chiba Dowa, international alternapop recording artists El Nino, regionally known and Indianapolis favorites Speed Luxury as well as the Sugar Freaks. Looking back, the Pitbulls effected the Bloomington scene with their music, sparking the Little 500 riot of 1987 and the sporting of a "Pitbulls on Crack" T-shirt by Aerosmith front-man Steven Tyler. "We were students during the week, but come Friday or Saturday night, we would search and destroy driving around campus in my giant 1973 Mercury Brougham wagon loaded with our gear looking for parties. When we found a party, we'd all get out and just start setting up the drums and amps. The cops inevitably came because the music got the party really raucous. We would get shut down, but we'd pile back in the old Bro-Ham looking for other parties"

The Pit Bulls' recorded material left to ponder are the underground basement tapes and from live shows with the Lemonheads, Eleventh Dream Day and Walking Ruins. There is also the 3:00 am MAC studio session in circulation. "We were only allowed in to record because we knew someone who knew a guy who had a key, we set up, recorded live and tore down it all down in about 2 hours. When we were walking out of there, the sun was coming up! Evidence of the session survives on u-tube" remembers Phillips. That session ended up in Maximum Rock and Roll and on west coast college radio stations. "We had an offer to tour Germany, play Berlin, but that kind of freaked us out because of the wall and the fact that none of us spoke any German"

Dave and Andy left for Chicago, Greg and Al stayed to play with Cheetah Chrome from the Dead Boys and Glenn ventured west.