Cover of the “Broken Toy” single on the Max’s Kansas City record label, 1981
The Fast were a glammy NYC-based punk/power pop band formed in NYC in the mid-70s by brothers Miki and Mandy Zone, with bassist Tommie Moonie and drummer Peter Hoffman. A third Zone brother, Paul, joined in 1975 and the group became a core part of the Max’s Kansas City/CBGB punk scene, with Blondie and the Ramones. They had two songs on the famous Max’s Kansas City 1976 album along with acts like Jayne County & The Backstreet Boys, Suicide, Pere Ubu and others. In 1978, Mandy Zone peeled off from The Fast and started his own band, Ozone. They released one single, but the trail goes pretty cold after that.
After becoming obsessed with Ozone’s music and thinking it deserved a wider audience, Weasel Walter has put out Mandy Zone & Ozone Live at Max’s Kansas City, 1981 on his ugEXPLODE label.
Weasel Walter writes:
“My discovery of Ozone’s devastatingly great music came in the most roundabout way possible. In the mid-2000s, when Netflix would send you DVDs in the mail, I checked out a seedy reissue of a 1976 Carter Stevens porn flick called Punk Rock, ostensibly a cheap quickie trying pathetically to capitalize on the then-nascent NYC punk club scene. Being a rock trivia geek, the main draw was the grimy footage of the obscure bands tacked on to the unwatchable sex and dopey “private detective” plotline. The main event turned out to be two songs performed quite raucously by the seminal power pop group The Fast, a combo featuring TWO sets of brothers, most notably the Zones - Paul, Miki and Armand. The maniacal low-budget genius of the group displayed in these film clips (shot at the legendary rock dive Max’s Kansas City, where they used to sit down at tables and watch the show!) blew my mind, particularly the weird, shrieking falsetto of the iron cross-laden, proto-goth keyboardist, Armand (or Mandy, for short). Inspired moments of genius like these, especially when they are excavated from obscurity out of the rubbish bin of the past, tend to etch themselves into my psyche permanently.
Forward to 2012: I am in Los Angeles, newly deputized as Lydia Lunch’s guitarist and bandleader in Retrovirus and, somehow, my predilection for these little clips of The Fast come up in discussion. Turns out that back in the day, the teenaged Lydia used to run in a pack with Paul Zone—the only remaining brother of the three, and bearer of the torch—so she introduces us. Paul is very happy to hear about my rabid enthusiasm, especially my ravings about his brother’s unique talents, and I am glad to make a connection with somebody I believe is an important historical figure. Paul and I kept in touch. Around 2015, Paul sent me a copy of a live set by his brothers’ band he had dug up, just for fun. I was immediately floored and played it on an endless loop. My life was pretty frickin’ complicated at that point, but after listening to it a few more million times over the following three years, I realized I should ask Paul if I could release it. Paul was happy to say yes, so the long process of editing and remastering began as well as sifting through the visual artifacts. So, here it is a labor of love and a tribute to Mandy Zone and his able cohorts.”
Buy Mandy Zone & Ozone Live at Max’s Kansas City, 1981 via ugEXPLODE
