He recruited the only miscreants willing to take the journey with him, and formed a band to fill the void.
Several months later, Poetic Justice, fronted by Purtle, talked its way onto a bill opening for Agnostic Front at the legendary Jockey Club in Newport, Kentucky.
By 1987, having never been a band “encumbered by the shackles of ambition or continuity,” Poetic Justice eventually settled on a core lineup, with a revolving cast of drummers and bassists.
In 1988, it played its last show.
Now, 40 years later to the day, Poetic Justice is reuniting March 8 at Yellow Cab Tavern to commemorate the anniversary of that first show.
The Crosses (Milwaukee), Caught Dead (Dayton) and the Sipes (Dayton) will also be on the bill for the reunion.
In an East Dayton basement, adorned with mid-century modern furniture, vintage board games and a wide body “Twilight Zone” pinball machine, I sat with Purtle and Jeff Brelsford, PJ’s guitarist, as they reminisced about their short-lived band.
The PJ lineup this time around features bassist Mike Doomsday (the Stoics) and drummer Nathan Bush (the Migraines). Brelsford, a guitarist who joined the band later, also currently plays with Purtle in Dark Backward.
As a cloud of cigarette smoke forms a stratosphere above our heads, we listen to the band’s recent GarageBand demos — the learner tracks for the members who don’t live in town — some of which are the only recordings of the songs. In fact, aside from some tracks featured on the 1986 punk compilation cassette on Limited Potential Records, and an ultimately discarded three-song EP, Poetic Justice studio recordings are hard to come by.
The learner tracks were recorded in Brelsford’s home, which isn’t much different from how the band formed in a bedroom back in 1984. Most of the tracks have new arrangements, considering Purtle is 40 years older than he was when he wrote them.
“I had to take a couple of liberties because I don’t remember all of the words,” Purtle said. “Frankly, a lot of it I wrote when I was a teenager. The cadence that I was doing, I couldn’t pull it off when I was 20. And some of the lyrics were just too dumb, dude. So, we punched out about a third of the syllables and half of the stupidity.”
They scrapped references about high school jocks and about going to the drive-in. They swapped lines about short shorts, opting instead for yoga pants to make things era appropriate.
Essentially, there’s a little more nuance now, whereas before, as Purtle put it, “there was absolutely zero nuance.”
Credit: Jim Ingram
Credit: Jim Ingram
“There was definitely an underlying sense of humor,” Brelsford said. “We have noticed, going back and revisiting some of these songs, that a lot of them don’t have the song structure that we’ve normally adhered to over the past 15 years. These songs are definitely better now than they were originally.”
“We were teenagers,” Purtle said. “We hadn’t been playing long at all. It was the first batch of songs we ever wrote. I’m not going to dumb it down because it’s 40 years later, but you still have to capture the spirit of it.”
Purtle is the only remaining member from the original lineup. But Brelsford was a pivotal piece to the PJ puzzle early on, too, and helped solidify the band’s caustic sound — described as a cross between the Dickies and Toxic Reasons.
Purtle painted the punk scene at the time as a “solid classic ‘77-style punk chassis, with a Midwest hardcore body and a funny punk detail package.” His influences spanned from Bay Area hardcore, like Fang and Reagan Youth, to new wave, alt-rock, industrial and the remains of disco.
And even though there is a clear shift in perspective and lyrical sensibilities, Purtle does recognize a throughline from his songwriting in Poetic Justice versus what he’s written since: deceptively simple chord structures, upbeat tempos, nifty middle 8s and hooks, melodic or otherwise.
We eventually fired up the pinball machine. Both Purtle and Brelsford are masters of placement, viscerally reacting to the rolling metal balls as they hit bumpers and trigger events throughout the game.
Purtle’s on the leaderboard, and he won’t hesitate to tell you that. They’ll both let you in on techniques — ones they’ve channeled since the ’80s.
“There’s a tendency to overly romanticize,” Purtle said, of the early days. “I would hate to see [this reunion] come off as a nostalgia trip instead of a party. I think if we were to extend the shelf life, we would be in danger of perhaps doing that.”
Poetic Justice typically had short sets, often padding them with the shtick of giving away free stuff to the sweaty crowd, like dollar items—or, once, an ill-advised axe. PJ is bringing that segment back for the reunion.
“It also gives us a breather,” Purtle said. “Then, we needed it to stretch the set. Now we need it just to catch our breath.”
Brandon Berry writes about the Dayton and Southwest Ohio music scene. Have a story idea for him? Email branberry100@gmail.com.
How to go
What: Poetic Justice / The Crosses / Caught Dead / The Sipes
When: 8 p.m., March 8
Where: Yellow Cab Tavern, 700 E. 4th St., Dayton
Cost: $15
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