It's approx. 1979, I am out of high school and feeling rather worldly and wise. I have a cool job at a record store, I am "jamming" with some people now and again. I am in a new band "BUSTED" it was top 40 stuff but I was working with my friend Dave Ashley so it was fun for a minute, our name was wretched but it fit us. I sang a lot of Zeppelin, Alex Harvey, David Bowie, we were working dive bars and private parties and I was learning how to be a front person in a band which was not as easy as I thought it would be, I found that I didn't know what to do with my hands which always had a mind of their own and I looked like I was trying to fly, so I kept them in my pockets. People started talking about me and I found that to be exciting and disturbing all at the same time. Everyone was comparing me to this other female singer in a top 40 band called Twisted or Twister or Twisted Sister or some awful something like that. I heard people say things like "DAMN I think she's better than Cyndi Loo Hoo (or whatever the hell her name was) from Twisted"! Then, someone would say "I dunno man, she's got a better voice but Cyndi Loo Hoo has a great ass". It was strange to be talked about as if you were not there, I learned to boldly blurt out what I was thinking, things like "I hear you, you dumb drunk idiot and my ass is awesome, you moronic dip shit". It was at that point that I got defensive and developed a bad attitude, it carried itself right out of Busted and into The Vapors, I was sharpening my edge, it was a defense mechanism that ended up earning me the title of "blonde bitch in that punk band", I liked it. There were many times when the band hauled me out so I wouldn't get everyone beaten up because I was such a smart ass, turns out I wasn't much of a people person after all, who knew? I thought I was a real people person, before I spent time in bars, now I am most definitely not going to instantly like you, that is, if you are a people, if you are not...no worries.
Busted goes Bust about the time they added Double Vision by Foreigner to the set list, I split. I soon start working with Mark and Mike from Milestone, I record some back up tracks for them, at this point I was singing 2 words "Sloppy Baby" over and over. I will never forget hearing my voice back in the context of a song, recorded in a studio, it was cool. Mark and I decided we should start hanging out, playing some music with people at his place which was a cabin house hybrid thing in Tallmadge, Mike agreed and we started working, soon we had Augy and Bob in place and Satch Snatch and The Bowery Boys were born, we ended up being The Vapors, which ended up being Unit 5 eventually. I was developing into a hard ass, I was not comfortable with people I didn't know and I kept to myself and my band for the most part. Out of Busted and Bath Twp. came this ball of confusion in spandex who had a love hate relationship with everything and everyone, I had talked myself right into the limelight, then freaked out because it was to bright, I had created a monster and it's name was Tracey Thomas.
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