Joe Franke

Alameda is a small island in the San Francisco bay. A few short bridges and congested tunnels give access from Oakland. I first started crossing these in the mid '90s. Live 105 surely played something utterly unbearable or simply perfect through my Honda’s one working speaker during those trips. My friend had gotten a new apartment and new job on the island and I’d stay there between tours, sometime for weeks at time, while various associates were crashing in my Channing House room. Parts of Alameda did give more traditionally urban Oakland vibes but Park Street was very quaint. It felt like a small town cut out of time. On Park were mom and pop Italian restaurants, hobby shops, toy stores, book shops, and a delightfully ominous looking independent record store: Axis Records and Comics. When I first saw the hand painted sign featuring a giant Baphomet, I knew it was the place for me.

The first time I entered the small indie store I did so with caution. Back then, these types of spots frequently had a “locals only” vibe and were often run by less than friendly owners. That evening when I first slipped through the doors, I was the sole customer inside. Ozzy sang Paranoid from a slab of thick vinyl. The long walls were lush with comics and Japanese toys, all both new and used. Low record bins ran the length of the right side of the shop. The CD racks were centralized. Tee shirts hung in the back corner and along the left wall, over a glass case of Dungeons & Dragons paraphernalia, leaned the shop owner, reading a zine. He had yet to notice me. The man was wearing black jeans with a large silver belt buckle. A black sleeveless tee shirt was tucked into his waistband. His muscular arms were tattooed, but not sleeved, with various black pieces of artwork. Think Rollins, not Crüe. His long black hair hung down past his shoulders, revealing his black mutton chops. He was giving first record era Danzig. I was certain he was going to be unfriendly. Sensing my presence, he looked up from his copy of Maximum Rocknroll. I gazed at him, breathing that sweet, independent record store scent. “Hey,” he smiled his big warm smile, “How ya doin’?” His voice had the inflection and tone of a gleeful Humphrey Bogart.

“Hey, man,” I said approaching the counter, “This place is killer.” I extended my hand, “I’m Davey. I’ve been staying around the corner.”

“Nice to meet you, man!” With a firm grip, he vigorously shook my hand. “I’m Joe. Nice shirt.” I looked down to check what I was wearing. It was a Batastrophe tee. I knew then that we were going to be friends. I was correct.

Joe Franke was one of the warmest men I’ve met. And he exclusively liked cool music, cool literature, cool movies: cool everything. I spent hours hanging with him in his shop, talking about everyone from The Cramps, to the Flesheaters, to Sabbath, to Talking Heads, to Throbbing Gristle, to 13th Floor Elevators, to Wesley Willis. We decried the escalating deconstruction of punk culture with the new “pop punk” headlines and omnipresent, frat boy friendly boardshort sounds, while praising the latest locals for keeping our community’s ethics and edge alive. We both loved the Nerve Agents.

The Axis employees Joe chose were equally cool. With Switchblade Symphony playing, pink haired Amber and I would spill the bat tea from the Death Guild dance party the night before, questioning whether :wumpscut: would play America, or grieving the loss of Rozz, while Joe arranged his Manzinger Z figures, or restocked the Jhonen Vasquez Comics. Joe introduced me to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. He surely sold me the Happy Noodle Boy shirt seen on my tiny body in one of the few photos that the internet offers of me from these times.

Joe loved great art in all its forms and recognized its nuances. A tattoo on his forearm read “Life is a Joke.” When I first read the script beneath the skull in the jester hat, I was drawn to the bleakness of it. The way Joe lived, however, was the embodiment of the carefree freedom and resplendent playfulness such a philosophy imparted. He was often simply blithe. Yet, he was also a bit of…well…a maniac.

Joe had a punk band called Fracas. Live, he was explosive. If there were a bottle, it would be smashed. If there were a chair, it would be smashed. If there were a body that belonged to him, it would be smashed. At one show, I believe it may have been at Ruthie’s Inn, Joe broke his leg falling from the rafters. Getting into and out of the tiny live-in loft he built in the back of his shop became much tougher for him on crutches. Though he did navigate it, tapping along for months with a smile.

Joe was never purposefully violent towards others, nor volatile, but happily put himself at risk of extreme self-harm. Once, after Axis had closed for the night, we were sitting on the carpeted floor setting up Taboo. You know the game? Joe says, “In the Flat…” to get you to answer “FIELD!” We’d often play ’til dawn, yelling clues and buzzing the buzzer when someone said a forbidden word. Swans ground through his stereo as we slid our cards into the holders, prepping for the other players to return from the 7-Eleven with our soft drinks.

“I’m thinking of having Carrie shoot me,” Joe confessed. Carrie, soon to return with the Arizona Iced Tea, worked at the shop. She was Joe’s girlfriend. She was not a photographer. But Joe did own a handgun.

“What?” I asked, fearfully.

“Yeah—“ Reading my horror, Joe clarified, “—oh. Not to kill me. I just want to see what it feels like.”

“Joe, don’t do that. That’s a terrible idea.” I insisted, though I suspected my reasoning moot.

“It’s fine,” he assured. “I researched where the safest spot to get shot is.”

“Your…ass?” I postulated, incredulously.

“No, around here.” Joe nebulously motioned to one side of his midsection. I furrowed my groomed brows. Getting up, Joe ducked behind the polyhedral dice counter to produce an ancient anatomy tome. He flipped open to a drawing of a skinless corpus. Joe pointed to a less nebulous spot on its midsection and said something about missing vitals. I wasn’t sold.

“Joe, this is a terrible idea.” Michael Gira droned about god and sex as I continued to insist. “Don’t do it.”

“If I can convince her to do it, I’m gonna have her take me straight to the hospital after. Don’t worry man!” Joe reassured me with a smile before intimating, “Don’t tell anyone though. People will think I’m crazy.”

Joe, I’m sorry. I’ve told. Please forgive me. And Substack people, please believe me: Joe was neither a threat nor crazy. He was simply a curious man—who did go through with his experiment. Upon his survival, I asked, “Well, fuck man…how did it feel?”

“It fucking hurt!”

I believe it was the early 00’s when my friend got rid of the apartment around the corner from Axis. I definitely recall writing the lyrics to Narrative of Soul Against Soul while crashing over there on that island. With the loss of my Park Street board and the lengthy Art of Drowning touring cycle, my time at Axis Comics diminished. In the immediate years that followed, the internet started killing record stores. The smallest indies were of course the first to go. Axis had to move from the small island to a marginalized warehouse space in Oakland, before going entirely online to purge its stock. Eventually, Joe himself left California.

Sadly, I’ve not seen Joe in decades though he’d send me a birthday message every year. Occasionally, I'd receive a surprise text from him telling me “great show man!” only after I’d left the venue in Vegas or Arizona. Joe would never ask for tickets though I’d encourage him to do so “next time.”

Joe was there when AFI last played in Phoenix. Having gotten his own tickets again, I received a post-show text. I really wish he’d been next to Adam and I in that 103 degree heat as we watched Glenn sing the heaven out of those infernal '80s songs. Joe was also in a Misfits cover band called Plan 9.

For years, I’ve thought, “Oh, hopefully this tour I’ll see Joe Franke somewhere out there.” Last Tuesday my dear friend Jeremy, of Dispute fame, gave me the news that Joe has passed away. We don’t know how. I don’t know if he was ill. I am heartbroken. I wish you could have known Joe. Perhaps you were lucky enough to have met him upon trading him one of the Five Flowers, a rose, for a ticket to the secret San Francisco Decemberunderground pre-release show. I wish you could have sat in Axis records with him, listening to Swans, reading zines, and quipping, “Field!” after he prompted, “In the Flat…” with his joyous Bogart voice. I wish I could again, if only one more time. Joe Franke, you were one of the good ones. Thank you for being my friend.

Paul Scissorhands, your author, a short haired Joe and one of his crutches.