Ineradicable
RIP Stains guitarist Robert Becerra 1958-2023
Stains guitarist Robert Becerra, the ELA provocateur whose aggressive originality outpaced and anticipated punk rock’s evolutionary course and necessarily temporal nature, died September 1, felled by diabetes and liver cancer.
Becerra’s terminally rampaging guitar style, a volatile, violative, downright frantic elevation of established rock & roll norms, was wholly unprecedented. His musical range and orbit—mad-dogging from terse, reductive dynamism to opulent overkill—was a distinctive approach characterized by a metallic extravagance and propulsive acceleration which laid the foundation for 1980s hardcore and was matched only by Bad Brains ax augerer Dr. Know.
Founded in 1976, the Stains were chronically ahead of their time and quickly created a context and climate which fellow ELA punk insurrectionists Thee Undertakers, Los Illegals and the Brat eagerly rose to exploit.
The Stains were another generational upshift in the Eastside’s rich tradition of alchemical rock and roll enhancement, a phenom which had exploded in the early 1960s with such drastically able practitioners as Thee Midniters, Cannibal & the Headhunters, the Premiers and dozens more.
First commercially proposed by star-crossed Pacoima genius Ritchie Valens, the Chicano musical twist subtly injected a depth of melodic soul and smoldering emotion which lent their music a distinctive additional heft, fraught with atmosphere and color, that allowed many of them to make international impact (i.e. ? & the Mysterians, Santana, Los Lobos).
Historically, Eastside youth’s appropriation of any, every and whichever pop music reliably elevated the idiom at hand and the Stains were the most dramatic—and influential—example of this ethno-regional mystery dynamic. But another element always accompanied the ELA phenom—illimitable drama and internecine shenanigans (e.g. the bitter, decades long Stevie vs. Rudy Salas feud). The Stains, with frequent personnel changes and a penchant for serial, on-and off-stage hassles personified this.
“Robert was sort of like a Malcom McLaren—he would set us against each other,” drummer Jack Rivera said. “He was always saying stuff like ‘Gilbert said such and such about you,’ building up tensions in the band.”
Musically, the results were bruisingly spectacular and Becerra was an indomitable creative shot-caller. “Robert's playing style was unique and it fit The Stains perfectly,” Gears singer Axxel G. Reese said. “Their music mesmerized. It was like a car wreck you had to look at—you couldn’t ignore it.”
Way, way wild, known for disruptive, unpredictable behavior and on-stage fist fights, the Stains were largely ignored by Slash, Search & Destroy and Flipside but inevitably developed a large and loyal following. Their live shows were always irresistible, inflammatory, a guaranteed high-flying good time and the band’s distinctive sound made a significant impact. Black Flag’s Greg Ginn was a notable Stains acolyte, closely following, sharing bills with and eventually signing them to his SST label in 1980. It seemed a propitious, nigh-on-ideal arrangement.
They used $200 from a Whisky gig to record the album, done in a single overnight session, but SST sat on it until 1983—long after the band had broken up. “We recorded from three in the morning til, like, 7 [a.m.]. By 8:30, I was at high school with the tape,” singer Rudy Navarro said. “People knew about us and we had a following, but we had no album. The album didn’t come out until ‘83 and we broke up in September of ‘81.”
“I’d ask ‘Why won’t you put our album out?’”
‘Oh, we’re still working on the second Minutemen album.’”
And I go ‘What about our first?’ ya know?”
“I almost feel like they put us in the closet and said ‘we’re gonna make Black Flag [sound] more like the Stains and fuck you guys—we got your shit in the closet.’”
After imploding, the Stains ascended to shadowy, cult-status, the stuff of legend; it was said they had collectively kicked the asses of the same-named Texas-based Stains to ensure their moniker changed (the band, without ass-kicking, became MDC) and that the Stains conducted an armed break-in of the SST office, seeking to “liberate” the album; as time passed, their influence grew among musicians, the album attained minor Grail status (it currently goes for $1,200 online) but fewer and fewer people knew who they were or what they represented.
Finally, and against all odds, a reunion transpired, largely thanks to Los Illegals’ Jesse Ciuco Velo. “We’d always labored to bring the Stains back home, but first we had to find them,” Velo said. “It was a pain in getting them on board. Got them interviewed on the radio and put them on a Vex reunion show almost at gun point. They distrusted everything and everybody—we loved that.”
It was sporadic and ultimately didn’t last; Becerra contentedly receded into obscurity. Nonetheless, the Stains left a lurid, ineradicable mark on punk rock, one that should have (and, without Ginn’s typically onerous interference, would have) been far greater.
“Robert was a tragedy,” Rivera said. “He was God-gifted, a great musician but had his own demons, and he really had the ‘Oh, they won’t like me cuz I’m a Mexican’ thing going on, he really did. He was big on self-sabotage and it’s a tragedy. Whenever anything about reissuing the album came up, it was always ‘Let it die, let it die,’ that was the quote. Ask any of those big guitar guys, Pat Smear was always asking about Robert—he should’ve been up there with Metallica and all those guys.”
May him and fixx make satan regret he ever called on their souls!