R.B. Korbet (King Missile, Missing Foundation, Even Worse, Pussy Galore, etc.)
"Missing Foundation was an island and didn't have friends. We weren't part of a scene, we weren't part of a clique. We were pariahs, man."
I first met R.B. Korbet in January, when she showed up to the Tompkins Square Library to watch me interview Jack Rabid, editor of The Big Takeover and Korbet’s former bandmate in the ‘80s hardcore band Even Worse. I was already familiar with her tenure as that band’s singer, as well as her stints drumming in an early incarnation of King Missile (she has since rejoined as a bassist) and playing bass in post-punk mainstays Bush Tetras from 2020 to 2023; I was also vaguely aware of her having been in the controversial noise band Missing Foundation at some point. Being in those four bands alone would give Korbet impeccable credentials, but as I would come to learn, they were merely the tip of the iceberg.
When Korbet showed up to the library again in February to see me interview antifolk pioneer Roger Manning, this time accompanied by her King Missile bandmate John S. Hall, I approached her for an interview. She graciously agreed, and surprisingly mentioned that she’d also been in one of my favorite NYC bands of the ‘80s, Pussy Galore (I’ve previously shared my interview with that band’s drummer, Bob Bert). “I’m known for playing in a bunch of famous bands, but not long enough to be on any of their records,” she joked.
That’s not strictly true, but it speaks to Korbet’s musical ethos. As she put it to me, “The pervading thing for me was that I never really wanted to be easily defined. I think I've always been searching for something I haven't heard before in music, and I think that's why I've moved around so much.” Indeed, before our interview last month, I sheepishly had to ask Korbet for a timeline of all the bands she was in; she sent back a list of nineteen bands that ran the gamut from punk to goth to metal to noise to antifolk, which included (but was not limited to) the Infested, Chop Shop, Big Stick, Bubba Zanetti, Hellvis, Wharton Tiers Ensemble, and her most recent project, Highly Effective People. After all that time and experience, Korbet remains committed to following her muse wherever it may lead.
What was your introduction into the punk scene in the city?
I was living in Detroit as a teenager; I moved out there [from New York] when I was nine. I got into weird music by way of Sparks, who I still absolutely adore and I think are probably still my favorite band. I started hanging out with these kids in high school that were into new wave, and I got a boyfriend who was Marshall Crenshaw’s youngest brother, so he had connections back in New York. We visited New York, and we went down to St. Mark's - he's like, “It's where all the punks are.”
And then when I was 17, almost 18, I moved back to New York. I was living on the Upper West Side, but right away I was like, I gotta get back to St. Mark's. So I became one of the stoop rats on St. Mark's Place. This was in 1980, and I made a lot of really great friends there that I'm still friends with today, like Mojo and Jack Rabid.
I started going to local shows, just word of mouth. My first Bad Brains show was at Botany in December of 1980; I went with Nick Marden [from the Stimulators] and Stephan Ielpe from the False Prophets. It was wild. [Bad Brains] really made me aspire to greatness.
Was Even Worse the first band that you joined?
First band in New York, yeah. I was the shampoo girl at Hairspace on St. Mark's, which was across the street from Trash and Vaudeville. In the spring or summer of ‘81, I was sitting on the stoop, and a badge-covered dude walked up and started talking to me. That was Jack Rabid. He was like, “What bands do you like?,” and he said he had a band and he needed a singer. “Do you want to sing in my band?” I was like, “Sure, when's the audition?” He said, “Oh, there's no audition. I just like your attitude. Turn up.” I started playing with them right away.
Do you remember where the first show was?
Probably A7 or 171A, one of those two places. We kind of were the house band at A7 - we were playing there every Sunday night for a long time. That's how I lost my next job, because I kept calling in sick on Mondays.
Between A7 and 171A, did you have a sense of allegiance to one more than the other? How did you see the relationship between them?
There wasn't a competition or anything like that. They were just a couple blocks from one to the other, and there was usually something going on at both of them. But I would say that I felt closer to 171, largely because I was close with [owner] Jerry Williams and the Bad Brains, and they were all living there. And the Rat Cage [Records] was downstairs, and I was best friends with [owners] Dave “Day-Z” Parsons1 and Cathy Ratcage. Eric [Keil] from Even Worse and Dave and Cathy and I were together all the time.
171 was like a big living room. I pretty much lived there. We'd be playing soccer and smoking weed there, with the Bad Brains bouncing in between the main room and the record shop downstairs. Even Worse practiced there for free; we played on the Bad Brains’ gear a lot. Jerry recorded the Even Worse album there on the Bad Brains’ gear, which was pretty cool. Eric and I eventually got an apartment right down the street at 524 East 11th Street.
How did that scene around Avenue A relate to what was happening over at CBGB at the time?
We got a lot of stick from the older punks who weren't as welcoming as they could have been. Even though the CBGB generation of punks had cut their teeth and gone through a lot of the stuff we did, they looked down their noses at us - like, we didn't have a pedigree. Like, what, you had a fucking pedigree?? And then when the thrash thing started, I think there was this belief that all these hardcore bands just want to be really, really fast or something. But there was a lot of diversity in the nascent hardcore scene before 1984.
That's really interesting, because the hardcore scene, at least as it progresses, ends up getting tagged as this very white/male/straight, loud/fast/angry thing. But early on, it's incredibly diverse, arguably more so than the ‘70s punk scene.
The music scene down around Avenue A between 1980 and 1983 was really diverse, really creative. There were a lot of different influences, different ethnicities, different gender identifications; it wasn’t like what it eventually [became]. That wasn’t even necessarily the bands, you know - I think it was more the people that started coming to the shows, who were kind of like the football hooligans that we'd all tried to escape in the first place.
I remember very distinctly outside of 171A one night, when a van full of punks from DC pulled up, and they were clearly intent on kicking some New York pussy ass. They were saying, as they came out of this van, “Let’s get these New York faggots” or whatever. We were just inside jumping up and down pogoing, and these guys came in like a SWAT team and just started beating the shit out of people while we were trying to dance. Moshing became a competitive sport that night.
When did you leave Even Worse?
It was April 1982, when we played Irving Plaza with the Misfits. We weren't getting along with Jack. We were all young, and we fought a lot. Jack and I fought about who was going to do the art for the posters; [there were] arguments about lyrics and stuff. It just was really messy.
Jack lent Eric's bass to Tim Sommer so they could go jam one day while we were all at work. We came home and Eric was like, “Where the fuck is my bass?” This is back when people would break into apartments and steal bass guitars and things because you could hock them. A couple hours later, Jack walks through the door and he said, “Oh, I lent it to Timmy.” We already thought Timmy was kind of ridiculous because he would scream on Noise the Show, [screeches] “This is Timmy, and this is Noise the Show!” We're great friends now, but at the time, we just thought he was so obnoxious.2
So Jack decided to bill our show with the Misfits as “Jack and Tim’s Birthday Bash,” and he went and made his own flyer. The rest of us, Bobby and Eric and I, were just up in arms about it. So at the end of the set, I said into the mic, “This is the last show of Even Worse, we're breaking up tonight,” and Jack's jaw just dropped open. We literally broke up on stage. And then Harley [Flanagan] came out and started taking Jack's drums apart - I guess Jack had some of Harley's drum hardware or something, and [Harley] just came and was like, “Fuck you, man” and started taking stuff.
So then you, Eric, and Bobby then go start the Infested?
We were really friendly with the Beastie Boys when they were just getting going. We were at Rat Cage the day Dave brought home the “Cookie Puss” 12 inch, and we were laughing our asses off and [saying,] “This is great!” You know, it's funny - white guys doing rap, haha. [But] Dave Parsons was like, “This is it, man. This is the future. These guys, they're fucking going places,” and he was absolutely right about that.
Eric and I hung out with Mike D. a little bit, and Dave and Cathy were really good friends with Adam Horovitz - they were living with him and his mom on the west side for a while. I was friends with Kate [Schellenbach], and she was a cool chick. I think it was Bobby's idea, like, “Let's start playing with Kate,” and she was totally into it. We couldn't decide on a name, but then we got a gig and we very quickly came up with the Infested, I don't know why.
We only had one show with that lineup, at the A7 Annex. [Sex Pistols guitarist] Steve Jones was in the audience, and he was leaning against the bar going, “What the fuck is this?!” Those guys thought it'd be funny to start playing the songs fast and slow and fast and slow, so they were screwing around with the tempo, and then Eric's hand started bleeding until there was blood dripping down his bass. After that, I decided I never wanted to be a singer again. I threw my lyrics in the street, and that was the end of the Infested.
Jerry Williams was living in our living room on 11th Street for a while, and I was like, “I'm never singing again, Jerry, it sucks. I hate it. I’m playing guitar.” I’d played guitar as a kid. So he was like, “Okay, first thing you gotta do is file your nails, they’re too long,” and he drew me a circle of fifths and explained a little bit of music theory to me. I don't know if any of it stuck, but I felt like I could say so much more with a guitar or a bass than I can with lyrics.
So then after the one Infested show, you started Chop Shop?
Yeah, that was my first guitar band.
And that's sonically a shift away from the kind of earlier hardcore stuff.
Even in the Infested, you know, we had been taking some acid, and we were really into Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus, some of that Batcave stuff. So the material for the Infested wasn't straight hardcore at all. I think we even had a cover of “White Rabbit.”
When did you join Missing Foundation?
Spring of ‘85. I met Pete Missing outside of [Tompkins Square Park], and Donna [Damage] from No Thanks introduced us. He's like, “Oh, you're a guitar player.” I'm like, “Yeah.” He goes, “We need a guitar player. Come to this thing that we're doing and bring your guitar, we'll have an amp or something.” Our first shows were literally out in a vacant lot, standing inside of a ring of fire.
Were they already established when you joined?
In a weird way. If you were local and you knew the kind of the people that we hung around with, you knew who Pete was. He was really into stirring things up politically: he organized little demonstrations, and he had his megaphone. There was usually a theme, and that was very much anti-gentrification, anti-police-state kind of stuff. [He] was really a mastermind of PR and self-promotion and organizing interest in his gigs and demonstrations. I really admired that about him.
I know a lot of Missing Foundation shows got pretty wild, but are there particular shows that really stand out in your mind?
The first time we played CB’s - and I can't believe they booked us a second time - we were really good friends with the guys from the Rivington School. They had access to metal and tools and things, and somebody brought chicken wire to the show. During the song “Red Boy,” Pete’s up there chanting “Rope ‘em!,” and these guys are in the audience making a chicken coop - they were roping people up with chicken wire in the audience!
And then the backstage of CBGB’s got destroyed: It used to be a kitchen, so there was this metal hood that hung down, I guess there used to be a grill or something back there - it got pulled off the wall. I think it was Carol who booked the show, [she] called me and she was trying to sue me for $400 to fix the backstage, [but] then Hilly intervened and said, “Come on, you know these people don't have any money.”
Hilly said to me, “I will book anything you do.” He just really liked my musical vision, and we had really fun conversations. So Missing Foundation got booked a second time, which I couldn't believe. More shit happened, I think people were lighting fireworks and stuff, but I was out of the band by then.
Danceteria was crazy too. The backstage at Danceteria got trashed pretty bad. People brought in sticks of rebar, which is this metal wire stuff that they use in construction, and they were bashing holes in the wall. I didn't really understand why that was going on. All these people got up on stage and were banging on random pieces of metal in time, and then somehow, a toilet appeared on stage - it must have been backstage, off in the wings somewhere, unplugged. Someone threw it off the stage at the end of the set; it hit the floor with this incredible thundering crash and shattered, and all this white dust [went] up into the air.
Where were you rehearsing?
El Bohio, it was this school on 9th Street between B and C. I had met [free jazz saxophonist] Jemeel Moondoc, and he was like, “Yeah, I got a rehearsal space,” so we moved into the classroom there. That's how the song “Jameel’s Turmoil” came about: He lived there, and one day we found a pair of his underwear. We were all throwing it at each other, but no one wanted to touch it, so we were using the drumsticks to throw a pair of Jemeel’s underwear back and forth.
Pussy Galore also rehearsed in that building, right? Or maybe even in that same space?
It was the same room. When I joined Pussy Galore, they were looking for a space they could just move their gear into and not have to pay like [they would] at any of the hourly places. I'm like, “Talk to Jemeel.”
When was that?
Probably ‘86. It wasn't a long time; I was in Pussy Galore for probably six or seven months. They’d just moved here. I was friends with Gerard Cosloy, and he said, “Hey, my friend Jon Spencer just moved here, and [he’s got] a pretty cool band and they got a bunch of records out. They’re like the Stooges, you might like it. Check them out.” I met Jon, and the same thing [happened] - I was like, “When's the audition?” He goes, “No audition, just turn up.”
Do you remember where your first Pussy Galore show was?
It might have been Maxwell's, and I think it was with Sonic Youth. And then we played Halloween at CBGBs. Those were the two shows I did with them, or there might have been a third show. [It was] a really short period of time, because Jon and I didn't get along.
There’s some musical similarity between Missing Foundation and Pussy Galore, but were they part of the same community?
Not at all. Missing Foundation was an island and didn't have friends. We weren't part of a scene, we weren't part of a clique. We were pariahs, man. A lot of the other bands hated Missing Foundation and hated Pete, because they didn't get him. He was intimidating, the Missing Foundation vibe was intimidating. There wasn't a lot of camaraderie.
Pussy Galore - you know, Jon was the world's biggest Rolling Stones fan, and he was like, “I'm going to be a pop star.” Not like a pop star, but he knew what he wanted. Pete couldn't have been more diametrically the opposite of what Jon Spencer envisioned for himself. I think that there was a very, very different agenda between Missing Foundation and Pussy Galore.
How did you end up in King Missile?
John [S. Hall] did spoken word stuff at the ABC No Rio open mic. That's where I met him, because Billy Syndrome and I were tight. Billy brought me into that scene, I met John, and John told me, “I have this thing, King Missile (Dog Fly Religion). It's acoustic - me, a guitarist, and this guy who plays bass harmonica.”
I started hanging out with John and his brother - they lived on West Houston Street with their mom - and I was over at their house all the time. Dogbowl [Stephen Tunney] would come and rehearse, and I would just start playing percussion because it was there. It sounded really good, so Dogbowl was like, “We're a band now.”
We started booking gigs in places that had sound for bands, not just acoustic [instruments]. I played a child's drum kit, so it wasn't like this loud John Bonham experience, but there was definitely percussion. We started playing places like Knitting Factory and Siberia.
Having played in all these different bands that are so musically disparate, did you see the different communities engage with each other at all? Or were they completely self-contained worlds?
The common denominator [was that] we were all outsiders together. There was this thing about playing in the East Village and the Lower East Side, where you felt like you belonged because you were earnest and you were just doing something you believed in. It didn't really matter what the genre was; if you weren't an asshole, you got traction, and you got support from the other artists.
It really wasn't until Nirvana came to town, and suddenly it was all about being the next big thing. It put all this pressure on everybody, and it really changed things. All the rock bands suddenly were like, “We're going to be the next Nirvana!” “We're going to be the next Foo Fighters!” “We're going to be the next Green Day!” It got really competitive and really weird.
And that lines up chronologically with the East Village and Lower East Side really starting to gentrify.
As the rents went up, you've got a club where your rent is $5,000 a month, then you've got some asshole upstairs who's calling the cops and making it hard for you to even put on a show. You can't have a ton of shitty little shows [anymore, so] when you're gonna have a show, you want to sell it out. You’ve got to make all your money in one night. It wasn't just that the clubs wanted to fuck the bands, it was really hard for them to survive!
When I came back from England in 2017, I worked at Coney Island Baby, and I finally understood it from that perspective. When I was just a performer, I was [dismissive of the clubs], but there's real pressure when you have to run an art and music venture like it's a commodity. It's a financial commitment, it's not just about the art.
Does New York still feel like a viable place for bands?
It’s like how in economics, you've got your short wave and your long wave cycles…When I think about the way things are right now, the logistics for an explosion of art and music are just not there yet. But I think the attitude of young people that are switched on makes it possible.
This is what I find really, really inspiring about young people right now: I'll go see Pinc Louds, and the kids that go see them are so amazing, because they're not any one kind of genre or look, and they're not even gender-specific. [A lot of them] are biracial, and they’ve got a crazy style of dressing - are they punks, or are they hippies, or are they metal? Who knows? Who cares? And they're really young - like, 15-16 year old kids. That's so cool, because when I was 15 or 16 and going out looking like that, I was scared, and it was really hard to find other people like me to hang out with.
So I love seeing this scene, and maybe if the ivory towers come crashing down and we have to start over again, these are the people that are going to run the next art scene, who are going to be interested in having authentic, earnest music happening again. A lot of the young people, they're not all buried in Tik Tok. A lot of kids are really disaffected and really disillusioned, and they’re like, “I want something else.” I’m really hoping they're gonna get the opportunity to make that happen.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.
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Several years after Rat Cage’s closure, Parsons came out as transgender and began using the names Donna Lee and Day-Z. As with most people who’d hung out around Rat Cage Records, Korbet referred to Parsons using male pronouns and the name “Dave” in her memories of that time, while using female pronouns and “Day-Z” to refer to her post-transition. Parsons passed away in 2003.
Sommer went on to play in the Glenn Branca Ensemble and Swans, among other bands, and reportedly inspired the Sonic Youth song “Kill Yr Idols.” However, his most pervasive contribution to music history is arguably that, as an A&R rep, he discovered both Hootie and the Blowfish and Maroon 5.
thanks for the interview & insights on flow of history & music during 1980s' shift away from late 70s bands' flimsy record deals, squatting & shooting up in Alphabet City, to new attitude & creativity in music. loved Bad Brains, still play 999