Not only are we updating our page but we also recorded a new song and made a video for it. It’s called “Punch” and we sing about Donald Trump, proud boys, Texas and Florida. For the official record (looking at you, Mr. Government Man), this song does not condone violence and merely hyperbolic in nature. You can find it here on the YouTubez or download the song here.

BOMF! scored a dope new logo today from our pal Amber at 2is3.com. To quote Yoda, “stoked, we are.”

 

With their new lineup as a four piece, BOMF! set to work writing new songs and putting together a cover or two to fill in the set list. Mic Hole was heavily influenced by bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam and Live, whereas Liable leaned towards NOFX, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, The Accused and Poison Idea. Burnt, on the other hand, was the one guy in the band with any lengthy band experience and came with a wide variety of hardcore, punk, and post punk bands as his influences. Being that Garcia was the drummer… nobody cared what his influences were. His job was to keep the beat and make it fast.

BOMF! practiced several nights a week at The Palace, an old warehouse in what’s now called The Pearl District in northwest Portland. In the early 90’s, the only pearls to be found in that area were the ones you dropped when you were being mugged by a junkie. The Palace was spectacularly awful and fabulous. Practice spaces could be had for a nominal monthly fee and you only really had to worry about the place burning down with you AND your equipment inside. The rooms were hastily put together plywood walls with foam rubber pads and cardboard egg crates to “insulate” the noise from the other bands. Every band could hear every other band practicing and on at least a few occasions, BOMF! was told to “shut the fuck up”. BOMF! didn’t care, though… they had a practice space.

Since three out of the four boys were new to Portland, they didn’t really have a huge social life, so it wasn’t uncommon to find the band at the Palace, especially on the weekends when most other bands had shows to play. As luck would have it, it was one of those Saturday practice nights that led to BOMF!’s first show.

On a boring Saturday night somewhere around mid April 1993, BOMF! was interrupted while practicing at The Palace by a knock at the door. Being a Saturday night, the Palace was virtually empty and it wasn’t quite closing time, so the boys were a little confused by who was knocking. It turned out to be the night security/attendant at the Palace and he said, “hey… I have Satyricon on the phone and they’re looking for a band to headline. Do you guys wanna play?”

Anyone familiar with the Portland music scene is also familiar with the legendary music club The Satyricon. The Satyricon was the go-to punk rock and alternative bar for PDX. If you played anywhere in the NW, you were bound to at least try to get in the door to convince Bruno to book you. Burnt and Liable had been trying to get Bruno to book their new band on a Monday at open mic night with no avail. Suddenly, along comes the opportunity to go swing dicks with some heavy hitters. The boys wasted no time calling Bruno back and accepting the very generous offer to bat cleanup after local thrash favorites 90 Proof. The boys also got on the phone and called every person they knew in Portland and told them to come down to Satyricon for our debut.

When the boys started loading in at the end of 90 Proof’s set, the room was packed. Drinks were drank, drunks were drunk, cocaine was undoubtedly marking many noses and the crowd was rowdy and ready for more of whatever came before. But what came after whatever came before was not 90 Proof, nor was it any of the rest of the bands that opened that show. What slinked its way onto stage with its smallish practice amps and a cauldron full of angst was BOMF! and BOMF! was about to introduce themselves to the PDX punk rock scene. The crowd wasn’t nearly drunk and/or high enough for what happened next.

With a quiet “hey everybody, we’re BOMF!”, the boys broke into their first song. Nobody had a set list and the set was only about 8 songs long, but between the first chords of the first song and the fading feedback from guitars left leaning on amps, The Satyricon went from packed-to-the-gills to damn near empty, save for a few people that either enjoyed being insulted and told to “fuck off” by the band or were too hammered to realize everyone else left. More importantly, though, BOMF! had a few friends that made it down to the club in time to see the boys clear the room. It didn’t matter, though… BOMF! played their first show and it was at Satryricon on a Saturday night. They felt like legends already.

Shortly after forming BOMF!, Mic Hole, a friend of Liable More Than Likable and Burnt Carnage from Eugene, showed up on the front porch of their SE Hawthorne home and proclaimed, “I heard you needed another guitar player”… then promptly moved into the attic space outside of the upstairs bedrooms without waiting for an answer. Mic was exactly what BOMF! needed to round out their sound.

Mic Hole brought humor and a heavier, more grungy sound to BOMF!. Burnt tended to lean towards songs that were either cross-over/thrash or surf-inspired, and Liable tended to write songs that were angry and either poppy or straight hardcore. The addition of Mic Hole included songs that were either silly or thicker or both. Having three lead singers with three different songwriting styles meant that BOMF! had a little bit of an identity crisis.

The saving grace was that BOMF! had Garcia on drums. Garcia, an ardent fan of GG Allin, loved punk rock and loved being able to flip the bird at society in general. Garcia’s rapid fire drumming ensured that BOMF! stayed on punk rock target… especially with his constant threats to shove a drumstick up his ass when we played on stage. Alas, that never happened, at least not at a BOMF! show.

By the time BOMF! was ready to play shows the boys were all happy with the name, although some confusion remained as to whether the name was an onomatopoeia or an acronym. There was also some confusion as to whether or not the name had an exclamation point at the end. Bunch Of Mother Fuckers was the name Liable was shooting for. Burnt, on the other hand, was all in for BOMF!, a word that conveyed a sound. This debate lasted well past their first show.

 

With the ashes of Dynachrome still smoldering, Burnt Carnage and Liable More Than Likable set to work looking for a new drummer. When the guys were playing in their respective Eugene bands, Yes Ma'am and 10 Steppin' Jains, they only provided backing vocals. With the new band in the works, they figured they'd each sing the songs they wrote. A 3 piece was much easier to manage than a 3 piece with a singer (and conversely the one band member that usually feels they don't need to move any equipment) and the only thing either really felt they needed was maybe a second guitar player to round out the sound somewhere down the line.

It wasn't long before Burnt and Liable found Chris Garcia, a mutual friend of Scotty's from Witch Throttlegush & The Green Devils, and asked him to give the new band a try. Garcia already had a room in The Palace (practice spaces in old town PDX), so Burnt and Liable moved their rigs across the hall to his room and went with the first song they all knew, a cover of "Subliminal" by hardcore greats Suicidal Tendencies. After blundering their way through the cover, they knew they had a thing going and that thing was a new band.

By this time, Burnt and Liable had moved from the recently cramped two bedroom apartment occupied by four guys, all new to Portland (Burnt, Liable, Carl & friend Andy), to a four bedroom house in Southeast Portland near the Space Room Lounge on SE 47th and Hawthorne. With the four guys now occupying a bigger space and each one having their own bedroom, it was time to figure out what to call the band. Within a few practices, all three bandmates felt pretty good about playing, but a band name was elusive.

It was then that Burnt came forward with BOMF!, an onomonopia, or a word that makes a sound. At first, Liable just laughed and proclaimed something along the lines of "that's fucking stupid, dood" and Burnt just looked sad. Then after some discussion, Burnt described it as "it's like the sound that a wet bag of flour hitting a wood floor would make". Liable then laughed and repeated his oft spoken mantra, "that's fucking stupid, dood" (or TFSD from here on out).

Then Burnt tried another description, "or, you know, the sound that a nazi skinhead makes when you drop him from a four story building". Suddenly Liable was intrigued. Burnt, being ever the salesman, then went for the coffee. "Or, it could be an acronym, like 'Bunch of Mother Fuckers'"… and with that, Burnt got his coffee. He closed the deal and Liable was sold on the name BOMF!!

Every band needs a beginning, and for BOMF! it was Dynachrome. Prior to 1993, Burnt Carnage (Brent) and Liable More Than Likable (Lyle) were friends and worked together in Eugene, Oregon. A few years earlier, Burnt (a punk with long hair) introduced Liable (a metal head with slightly long hair) to punk rock by taking Liable to his first show: D.O.A.. Liable then reformed his hair metal ways and started looking for a band to play with.

Before moving to Portland, Burnt played in a hardcore band called Yes Ma'am and Liable played in a punk band called 10 Steppin' Janes. Both guys were looking for a change, and it just so happened that Burnt's fiancé was moving to Oregon's largest city. Liable and Burnt had been to Portland a few times together and both loved the feel of the small big city.

Grunge hadn't quite broken yet, but the music scene in Portland was teeming with talent. Burnt and Liable were itching for something new and change wasn't easily had in the small confines of the home of the Oregon Ducks. Portland offered more music venues, both for the underage crowd and the beer swillers, and more bands to play with. In January of 1993, Burnt and Liable packed vans with all their belongs and met at an apartment on the hill near OHSU. The guys didn't have a drummer yet, but they had some songs they'd been working on, so they spent their time off from jobs in the burgeoning coffee scene writing new music.

Shortly before moving to PDX, Burnt had made friends with the guys from Witch Throttlegush & The Green Devils, a sludgy punk band from Portland. Witch Throttlegush played heavy songs with a tinge of Black Sabbath and Mudhoney, and had been booking shows in Portland for a couple of years. Burnt and Liable quickly befriended them and started looking for a drummer to round out a new, as of yet unnamed punk band. Before long, Burnt's friend Tym came into the picture.

Tym was an artist. His house was adorned with paintings, costumes, and sculptures that he had created. Tym was also a drummer and had an electronic kit set up in his house. The boys got together and floated the idea of a concept band that blended the industrial electronic sound of Ministry combined with the stage show of Gwar. Within a few days, Dynachrome was born.

To round out the band , Tym, Burnt and Liable enlisted friend Carl to sing. Carl loved to write poetry and loved metal and punk rock, so it seemed only natural that he write lyrics for the new endeavor. The one thing that nobody had considered was that Carl had no sense of rhythm or timing. Dynachrome put together 3 songs, rented a small room at The Palace (a former-defunct-warehouse-now-turned-condominiums in the Pearl District) and went to work.

Unfortunately… it didn't last long. Dynachrome was done within a few short weeks of starting. Although Tym's costumes were incredible, his drumming lacked the backbeat needed to play industrial or punk rock. As well, Carl could never wrap his head around putting the lyrics to anything that resembled an in-time rhythm. Liable had no patience for such nonsense so he talked Burnt into starting another band.

Within a few short weeks, Burnt and Liable were trying out a new drummer, Garcia, and putting songs and lyrics together for a straight up, old fashioned, fuck-you punk rock band. The only thing they needed next was a name.

BOMF! has always had a revolving door when it came to drummers. After Dynachrome ended its brief stint as a practice band, BOMF! was formed and enlisted the help of Garcia to play drums. As a precursor to moving to Sacramento (Sacramental), Garcia quit and BOMF! convinced Dynachrome drummer, Tym, to move with them to California. After a few short months of practicing in Sac-O-Tomatoes, the boys then dumped Tym and recruited Marshall to play drums. A return to Portland in 1995 meant a new drummer, and they found what they needed in Drew Scarymore. Unfortunately, that was short lived and BOMF! added Stevie to pick up where Drew left off. After a three and a half week tour around These United States in 1997, BOMF! encouraged Jim from Redding, CA, punk rock band 3 Out Of 4 to move north and play drums for them. Jim moved on and left BOMF! with an empty drum stool.

Enter Dylan. Dylan came with the reputation of solid drumming and incessant snarkiness, which was exactly what BOMF! needed. Dylan had played in a number of bands before taking the rhythm reigns of BOMF!, and he continued playing in bands while simultaneously playing with us. Dylan was the type of guy that could be counted on for a snarky reply and a smile, and while he could be as negative about things as the next guy, he always tempered that with a measure of charm and ever underlying humor.

Even though BOMF! was nearing the end of their first run, Dylan was always happy to play and was our first drummer to keep the promise that “he was going to play (that) show naked”. For many a show, Dylan’s drum stool ended the night with his hairy bare ass sweat all over it, and on too many occasions, the other three guys in BOMF! saw his junk proudly displayed from behind the drumkit. He also drummed on the last recording we did before the big hiatus, a cover of “What’s This Shit Called Love” for a tribute album to punk legends The Meatmen.

After BOMF! called it quits in 1999, Dylan remained a friend to all of the band members. Dylan could often be seen on one of his three cylinder late 1970’s Yamaha motorcycles or at a local show with a beer in hand. When BOMF! reunited for a few shows in 2007-2009, Dylan offered to retain his seat as our drummer. While the rest of the band struggled to remember 15 year old songs, Dylan picked right up where we had left off as though we had taken no off time at all.

Dylan eventually moved back to California and was not available when BOMF! reunited again in 2016, but he still remained a friend to Brent, Scotty and Lyle. Dylan passed away on April 11, 2017, after an accidental overdose of painkillers and alcohol. Although he is gone, he will never be forgotten. The world is a slightly darker place without Dylan Richter Skiles. He left behind a lot of love and a legacy filled with snark and humor.

Rest in peace, my friend.

BOMF!

 

If you’re bored, head on over to YouTube for our premier of Jody on drums and Stevie on guitar, as we open for D.O.A., Don’t and The Anxieties on October 11, 2016, at Dante’s in Portland, OR.

Here’s a few shots from our show at Centaurpalooza 2016 at Centaur Guitar . It was a bittersweet show. It was sweet to be back together playing music, but a bitter goodbye to Big Scotty since he was moving to Spokane shortly thereafter. It was also bittersweet since it was the last of the Parking Lot Rock shows put on by Jason, Kelly, Jody (new BOMF! drummer) and the crew at Centaur Guitar. I’m glad they drug us out of the woodwork to play some rock! It was a good time with a lot of old and new friends.