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MOTEL SEX
Donovan Brown-Vocals
Keith Calmes-Guitar
Steve Daniels-Drums
Yet another band that Steve Daniels played in! I'll
bet there's more bands that Daniels played in I don't
know about.
An interesting point is the lead singer, Donovan is
the son of 60's psychedelic rock singer
Lee Michaels.
I had forgotten about this band but, Shipe
refreshed my memory. One Haloween in the
mid-80's he worked at a haunted house with
Donovan and he remembers going to see them
practice in a garage. I also remember seeing the
MOTEL SEX logo on a gig flyer, a promo flyer and
in
Laughing Messiah zine.
I recently heard from Donovan Brown and he had
this to say about the short-lived project known as
Motel Sex:

Motel Sex… yup I was part of that, what there was
of it anyway. We may have played once or twice, I
seem to remember playing at the warehouse, but
it all seems fuzzy looking back at it. If I recall
correctly Steve couldn’t have been playing drums
too long by then, Steve and I were pretty close
back then, hanging out in his bedroom at his
mom's place,  being the little punk rock kids that
we were.
No drums in that apartment as I recall, just a
bunch of MRR tapes, zines and tattered clothes
marked up with sharpies.
Keith was the only one
who knew anything about operating an
instrument. It seemed more of a lark than a real
band, just some kids fucking around and making
some noise.  I do remember a few songs, “Dirty
Book Store”, ”America’s Bulldogs” But beyond that
it’s just fuzzy memories of days gone by.
I don't think I realized just how early I started
going to "punk" shows and stuff. I checked into it
and found I went to a Clash show in Monterey in
1979... I was barley 15 years old and had been
digging on punk for more that a year before. I
remember a Flipper show up in The City as well.
Was I really a 13 year old punk stuck alone in the
middle of Gallo vineyards?... it appears so, and all
because I so hated rock and roll, and rock stars so
much it hurt. No wonder the schools reacted so
strongly and with such confusion, they had zero
point of reference. In the end I found my place
with you lot, and life was easier, a bit easier
anyway... it was still Fresno where you could get
a beat down just for looking like "some kind of
faggot".  
My biggest regret is that I avoided cameras with a
vengeance, and now in my dotage I find I have not
a single picture of those days, not a one. This is
par for the course, I find that indeed I have no
pictures on any kind from any period in my life, in
retrospect maybe I should not have avoided every
camera every time, I must have had some sort of
"poser" hate or something back then.  I can’t even
seem to spot myself in a crowd photo or video of
gigs I know I was at, and from what I combed
through It seems I was at most of them through
around 84 or so. So sad… Whatever. Even to this
day I still hate rock stars so much I see them in the
"Punk Stars" of the past, headliner punk bands
partying backstage and acting every bit the rock
star, giving the "history" of punk interviews to
gullible reporters, contributing to books that
pretend to define a movement that belonged to
the garage not the dressing room.