Meeting Dick

“I first met Dick Bill at a party. He was grilling up some weird concoction of banana peels and attempting to get high smoking them. While he was working his magic on these, he was intermittently, and for no apparent reason, swallowing a container full of antifreeze. Honestly. Which seems like it would make it hard to judge the effectiveness of the banana peels, now that I think about it. I think it was the next time I saw him that he was eating a travel alarm clock, ‘So it would stop ringing,’ as he put it.”
–Michael McIntosh, Drop 35 vocalist

“I met Dick Bill at Rush Street in Muskegon, at a 1995 (or maybe 1996?) Playgrind show. I was sitting at a table watching the band, and turned around in time to see a wild-eyed, blond-bearded, leather-jacketed man in a tattered black hat hoist a testtube shotglass, drink the shot, and then chomp down on the middle of the shotglass with fervor, sending shards of shattered glass in every direction. It was impressive.”
–Kimberly Frantz, Recoil publisher

“I was at a trashy rock and roll bar in Muskegon watching a band play when I first met Dick Bill. I saw him checking me out from across the room. Finally, he approached me and instead of asking to buy me a drink, he crudely insisted that I should buy him a drink. I almost slapped him until he reminded me that it was ladies night – all women got their drinks for a dollar each. So he wasn’t being rude, just cheap. And he still is; I never did get my dollar.”
–Lyndi Charles, Mulligans manager

“The first time I met Dick Bill I wanted to beat the living shit out of him. Actually, I still kind of want to. Come to think of it, a lot of people I know seem to feel that way.”
–J-SIN, Eastown vagrant

“The first night I ever met Dick Bill he ended up saving my life. I was at The Black Rose going around trying to recruit somebody, anybody, to help me beat the shit out of a Hells Angel that was pissing me off. He got me too drunk to even try to fight a pillow.”
–Jerry Cabrera, record label representative