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Austin Frapson was born on July 18 1952 in Memphis,Tennessee on the same day as his friends,Jane Trend and Aaron Bates.The trio met on July 18 1962,when Austin's friend invited them to his birthday because he knew how similar they were without ever even meeting,and wouldn't you know it,they instantly hit it off,and realized they actually go to the same school area.They continuously bonded over big rock bands at the time,like 30 Years of Grace(1954-1997),WonderLand,Creative Commons Orchestra,and mainly The Crusaders.The latter got Austin into the bass in the first place,before that he was a pianist / guitarist,which mantle would later go to Jane Trend.Although people thought they three created a band,they played in a school orchestral band.In 1968 though,everything changed after seeing The Crusaders perform live at Memphis on October 11 1968 to their biggest audience yet of 117.000 people in the stadium,and 9 million people live.Once during the concert Austin was invited on stage,where he perfectly helped the band perform their anthemous biggest song,Music Girl / Carnival Girl,where in the latter he performed the bass while the actual bassist focused on the vocals instead.On the stage,Austin's whole worldview changed.He realized there's so much more to music than just the stupid school choir band that they were in,he wanted to go out and change and see the world with his own eyes.This new outlook inspired his iconic artistic vision,and his take on the not-yet-existent punk scene.In 1969,the band wrote their first couple of songs,and performed at smaller and smaller venues,while sleeping on benches,in vans,and on people's couches after shows.Sometimes they'd drink themselves to death,and wouldn't care about the world at large.
On July 3 1973,the band snuck into the studio of Mountain Records(important),and tried to record a song,but the alarm went off and they were caught.They were sentenced to 2 years in prison,but their friend bailed them out after two months.The band was so infuriated by this,that they decided to write a song about their feelings of being lost in the underground scene of indie rock and roll,and their unsuccessful rock career.During the writing progress,they made multiple songs,because they weren't satisfied with anything that they wrote so far.But during a jamming session,Austin,Jane,and Aaron came up with a riff,that could connect all the 7 song versions they've written,forming a gigantic multifaceted song,that would blow everyone away.After writing the song,they sent it everywhere,but studios didn't even wanna hear from the band anymore,so they started performing it during performances.On July 10 1973,the band was performing their songs at a birthday party,where no one even payed attention to them,since they had to play on low volume for the kids to not get startled and such.But when they arrived to Bad Language(the big song),they turned up their volumes to 100%,stood up from the ground in the garden,and Jane jumped and punched her guitar strings with as much power as she could,creating probably the most iconic modern music moment,and modern music intro ever.Then they all jumped and started screaming and playing the song with the outmost power that they could,creating a sound that could be heard all around the damn neighborhood.The song is 15 minutes,and has 7 parts that all use different variations of the same synced up riffs on different settings and time signatures.As the song went along,more and more people showed up at the house and started dancing,jumping around and screaming the lyrics from the little pamplets on the tables.By the 6 minute mark,there was barely any space left for people to crawl in,let alone breathe in,and even the little girls were dancing and singing along with some of the parents present with them,and it seemed like everyone was enjoying the song,but a mom,by the name Maria Kertel called the police on the trio for disturbing her little daughters birthday party(who was also enjoying the performance,and wasn't little,she just became 13),but when the police arrived,they just laughed it off and joined in on the party.In a minute,a producer had heard about the performance,and came to check it out,and at last,he noticed the bands utter talent in performing and songwriting,and after the show,he gave them a contract with,yes,you guessed it:Mike Records.
In the first week,the band recorded and released the song,and it became insanely successful.The band spent 5 weeks writing songs for their debut album,and 2 weeks recording it.The band's debut album,Rough Punky Shecanery,was released a couple of days later on August 25 1973,and it sold incredibly well,selling 46M copies,making the band skyrocket to the top 3 biggest bands of all time in no time.Wouldn't you know it,an album this big is bound to start something,and it did:The punk sound,that later became important in 1976.
