I hope everyone understands by now how influential and incredible the Cro-Mags were. Since they are one of my favourite bands I can easily say that writing this was the most pleasurable thing I have had the chance to write for Enforcer. There is still no consensus on some of the Cro-Mags' history because of the band's internal, still unresolved quarrels and this article reflects that inconsistency. I personally side with the singer, John "Bloodclot" Joseph, however it is possible that Harley Flannagan and Parris Mitchell Mayhew are the ones telling the truth. The article will probably also reflect my bias towards John Joseph. Without further ado, here we go.

There was a time when the Cro-Mags were the greatest band on earth. High-octane punk bombast wrapped in a vicious metallic riffage, the Cro-Mags weren't only New York's most important hardcore band, they were a way of life. Frighteningly fearless and fatally frenetic, tattooed and down for life, they broke the sonic and cultural barriers in the highly stratified music world. For those of you unfamiliar with underground rock history suffice it to say that every New-Jack corporate punk-metal crossover band owes its musical livelihood to the path blazed by these musical marauders. Most 'upstart' rock acts talk tough; these motherfuckers would rip out your spleens if you started up with 'em.
-Steven Blush NYC, 1994

John Joseph McGowan was born tough. He didn't grow up with his mother, he grew up in 'boy's homes' and he was on the streets by the time he was fourteen years old.
When he was seventeen years old, he joined the navy and was stationed for training in Norfolk. On his time off he went to punk and hardcore shows in Washington, DC, which was not too far from Norfolk. On one occasion he saw the Bad Brains play with a punk band called the Stimulators featuring a ten year old drummer named Harley Frances Flanagan.
In the months to come, John Joseph got more and more into the hardcore and punk scene until about four or five months later, when he was through most of his training he went AWOL.
He decided to go up to New York and stayed with the Bad Brains who had relocated there. He met up with young Harley Flanagan and the two became friends. Harley was starting a band called the Cro-Mags, and he wanted John to be a part of it. In the first Cro-Mags' lineup, John sang. Their first drummer, Dave Hahn, who has since died of AIDS, was the manager of the Bad Brains.
Near the end of 1980 John quit doing the Cro-Mags and went on tour with the Bad Brains as their roadie for about a year. During the tour he and the rest of the Bad Brains roadies formed a band they called Bloodclot as a joke "because when the Bad Brains first got into Rastafari, every time something went wrong on stage they were like, 'Bloodclot, fix the Bloodclot!'. Bloodclot this and Bloodclot that." Even though the band was very short lived, many people call John Joseph 'Bloodclot' to this very day. When he got off the tour (1982) he lived in a Hare Krishna temple in Hawaii (as he is a follower of the religion) until 1983 when he returned to New York.
The most widely known Cro-Mags lineup was formed. Mackie Jayson (who recently drummed on a tour with Shelter) joined as the drummer, Harley was on bass, Parris Mitchel Mayhew played guitar, and Bloodclot returned as singer since the guy they had gotten to replace him "couldn't even remember the lyrics on stage". Roger Miret of Angostic Front had also auditioned for the spot as singer. The Cro-Mag demo 10" soon came out and is now very rare. From what I have heard it contains mostly the same songs that appear on their first album but is more rough-cut, less produced. Apparently, some guy in Europe keeps pressing it without paying the Cro-Mags anything. John Joseph says: "We went over and took a bunch of records off him and we were like, 'Yo, don't sell it anymore unless you pay us.' And he hasn't been paying us."
In the early years of the Cro-Mags, they had feud with another old school New York band, Sheer Terror. Apparently, Sheer Terror once tried to throw a cinderblock through the driver's side window of the Cro-Mags' van. The Cro-Mags got out of the van and gave Sheer Terror a beatdown. One of the Sheer Terror guys even got put in a coma. When Sheer Terror came to Winnipeg last year, a couple of Winnipeg scenesters asked about the feud. The answer was: "I don't want to talk about it. It's personal." (With a heavy NY accent). Speaking of Sheer Terror, John Joseph once said "Yeah, fuck that fuckin' mother fucker."
Soon their first album, the Age of Quarrel, was released on Profile records. If you have never heard this album, put down this zine and go buy it right now. It's hardcore at its best. It was revolutionary back then, and to be honest, though hundreds of bands were influenced by the Cro-Mags, I still haven't heard anything like it. It is also one of the first hardcore albums to bring spirituality into the lyrics, featuring songs like "We Gotta Know". This was probably their famous song. A video was made for it with footage of a live Cro-Mags show that was taped for a movie the Cro-Mags appeared in called "The Beat". Apparently in the middle of the movie, the characters just decide to go see the Cro-Mags, except in the movie they're called 'The Iron Skulls'. Tuff huh?
All of the money from the first album unfortunately went to their manager, Chris Williamson, since he had set it up that way to rip off the band. Bloodclot even says: "To tell you the truth I've never gotten one check from any Cro-Mags record. People say that we do it for the money... that's like a fuckin' joke. I make more money in NY doing my construction than I do going on tour."
At this time, Harley and John Joseph's friendship was good, John even says that they were like brothers. However, "once the band started gaining some popularity, I began to notice things changing in [Harley's] attitude. I'd say after 'Age of Quarrel' had been out it all went right to his head."
Bloodclot had been picking up on some things their manager at the time had been doing, like forging the band members' signatures. The manager knew that Bloodclot had picked up on what was going on, and he decided to try to get rid of Bloodclot. He manipulated the rest of the band, suggesting that Harley should sing, for instance, in order to try to get Bloodclot out of the picture.
During the tour, the Cro-Mags made a stop at the world's rippinest town, Winnipeg. A bootleg of this show "The Cro-Mags live at Wellington's" was made, only 300 were pressed, but I have heard that they have since repressed it. This album features pretty much the songs off of the first album too. From what I've heard, at a party after one of the Winnipeg shows, Harley was apparently shooting his mouth off and bit off more than he could chew. A bunch of guys beat him up and he could be seen wandering down the street crying like a baby.
Later on Bloodclot found out that right after their 'Age of Quarrel' tour was over Harley and their manager had been talking. According to Bloodclot "they said, 'Yo, that's the entire tour money for the band; those guys ain't gonna get no money!' and Harley was like 'Fuck those motherfuckers!"
By this time, Harley was in Denmark. In Bloodclot's own words "That's when I said, 'Fuck this; Yo, I quit the fucking band'. So Harley came back off his European vacation and we had words and I was like, 'Look, I'm not fucking ever doing anything with you again. How can I play in a band with you after this... You're supposed to be my friend... All the times I saved you from getting your ass kicked.' I mean, you don't know, I've saved that guy so many times from getting an ass whipping."
So the Cro-Mags continued without Bloodclot. Harley sang and played bass, Parris remained in the band, Doug Holland played second guitar, but Mackie had left and ironically, Pete Hines, who had been the one who told Bloodclot about Harley and their manager ripping off the band filled in on drums.
Bloodclot: "When we got Doug, [Harley] wanted to get rid of Parris because Parris used to hide behind his amp when we would do the early Cro-Mags shows, because they were really wild. He's like a little rich boy from the Upper East Side who would play behind his amplifier so that no one would bump into him."
Bloodclot says that Harley asked him to sing on the second album, but that he had said, "I'm not doing shit! I don't want nothing to do with you people." According to Harley though, they had kicked John out of the band because he was drug addict. It was a low time in Bloodclot's life and he was using some drugs then, but that had nothing to do with why he was no longer in the band. He says that he even told Harley not to use his lyrics on the new album but that after Harley whined a bit he gave in and let him use them on the condition that Harley would give him credit for them. When the album came out again on Profile Records, John was more than a little surprised when it said: "thanks to: the Bloodclot brothers". John asked Harley about it and he said that it must have been Profile who had made the mistake because he had told them what to write, but when John went down to Profile they told him that Harley said he had written everything on the album.
In any event, the second album, entitled Best Wishes which came out in 1989 marked the beggining of the end for the Cro-Mags. Don't get me wrong, it's worth listening to, but it just doesn't compare to the earlier mentioned releases. Harley's rockstar fantasies and his illusions and delusions of grandeur seem to have made the band go metal, definitely a turn for the worse.
Bloodclot decided to try to get away from the whole Cro-Mags thing, and put together a new band called Both Worlds, and around 1990-91 Harley came back and asked John to go on tour with the Cro-Mags again. He convinced John to do it, and that was when the Cro-Mags third record, Alpha Omega came out. John Joseph says he wrote 95% of the songs but that Harley claimed he did and wanted to take all of the publishing money. Harley knew that Bloodclot wasn't going to let this one go by so he imitated Bloodclot's vocals on Alpha Omega so you couldn't tell who was singing. "His theory was, 'If [Bloodclot] quits the band and we play live, then no one will be able to tell the difference about who was singing.'" Harley wouldn't allow Bloodclot to be there for the mixdown, and for two or three of the songs, Harley completely eliminated Bloodclot's vocals. My opinion about this album: I refuse to admit that this album is the Cro-Mags. There are one or two songs that are not so bad, but other than that, I don't want to talk about it.
While they had still been recording Alpha Omega, Parris discovered that all of the music on Alpha Omega was stolen from him, even though Harley claimed to have written it all. Parris was starting to get upset about it. Harley had a friend who was dying of AIDS. Harley wanted Bloodclot to jump in Parris' window one night, "fuck his ass up", inject AIDS infected blood into him, and steal his videos of Cro-Mags footage (which he had refused to give to Harley). "Not only that, but when we were in the studio, he was talking about starting his own religioin, 'Let's get the hardcore kids to go out and collect money for us! Dude, we're like the icons! I'm telling you man, everyone will follow us, we can go up to the mountains..." He wanted to start his own commune, like his own David Koresh Society, or whatever!"
Bloodclot was mad about that, but he got over it and decided he just wanted to do the Alpha Omega tour and get it over with. When Bloodclot wanted to go buy equipment, Harley said they had used up all of the money in pre-production. As it turned out there was over twelve thousand dollars that was unaccounted for.
According to Bloodclot: "One day he was saying all this shit about my girlfriend, like she wanted him but she had to settle for second best. So, I walked up to him in Central Park, and he goes to hug me at first and I'm like, 'You just robbed me, you're talking shit about me and then you go to give me a hug.?!' So I pused him away and he reached for this knife that he carries in his waist, so I smacked him right in his face, knocked him to the ground, in front of all his skinhead friends that regard him as the Fuhrer of the hardcore scene. He ran away saying, 'You're going away, you're going to jail, you're going to jail!"
A year later, Bloodclot got a call from the record label saying that they recorded enough tracks during Alpha Omega for another album if he would come to the studio and sing on those tracks and do a tour. If he didn't, he wouldn't be released from his contract. John's words: "'I'll do whatever, but I ain't doing nothing with Harley.' And they said, 'You don't have to; replace him!'"
Near Death Experience, the worst of the Cro-Mags albums, which Bloodclot didn't even want to do soon came out. "[Harley was out in California, running rampant, living with junkies, doing heroin like crazy."
In late 1994, when Bloodclot got off the tour, he started getting calls at 3 in the morning telling him he was going to jail and that the police were going to be told everything. Bloodclot was still AWOL from the army at this time. Harley came back from the West Coast in early 1995.
Parris was talking shit about Bloodclot to someone who he didn't know was a friend of Bloodclot's. One John found out, he saw Parris in a bar. Parris denied the whole thing. John said "Look, the next time I hear you said any slanderous remarks to me, me and you are going to have a fight! And I don't care how much martial arts you think you're taking, you ain't gonna win."
March 18, 1995, John got a call from the police telling him that Harley had pressed some charges against him and that Parris had pressed a charge against him for harassment. Bloodclot asked what he did, "and he says, 'Did you approach him in a bar and threaten physical [violence]?'...Right then I knew they knew I was AWOL."
John turned himself in and a benefit show lots of New York bands played at helped to pay for his lawyer.
"[Harley and Parris] thought I'd be going away for so long that nobody would ever fucking rememeber me. But that didn't happen."
The whole thing was worked out although it happened at a very unfortunate time for Bloodclot. He had about $18,000 worth of construction in the works, which had to be given to other people.
Bloodclot now has re-formed his band Both Worlds, whose 10" is incredible, and apparently Harley and Parris have a new band, White Devil, going. John says: "[The only thing that will give me closure will be] kicking his fucking ass. I'm gonna fuck the kid up. And I don't care! I'll go to jail for assault. He says he's not scared of me and that I just talk a lot of shit, but I'm not a bully, you can ask anyone. When I lived on the streets, sleeping in trains, and people trying to slice my pockets to rip me off, I had to fight. I did it to survive, not to be 'bad' so that I could hold something over someone else. I don't have nothing to prove. I very rarely ever fight. But when someone does something like this to me, then they got something coming to them. It may take a year, it may take two years, but I don't forget."

Sources of information:
HARDWARE summer 1995 interview w/ JJ
MAXIMUMROCKNROOL interview w/ JJ
RIP magazine's Sept '89 article (HF)
All albums & liner notes (listed below):
Age of Quarrel
Best Wishes
Alpha Omega
Near Death Experience
Hard Times in an Age of Quarrel (Live CD)
Age of Quarrel/Best Wishes

A big Thanks to Mark (Check out his homepage) for sending me this article, which he also published in his Zine. If anyone has some info on Cro-Mags or D.R.I., please let me know