ION INDIE MAGAZINE February 2016, Volume 21 | Page 22
JP: Describe the climate surrounding the Missing Foundation and New York’s
Lower East Side in the 80's
PM: In the 80's, the Lower East Side was invaded by rich kids from outside New
York; the bands that were getting ahead were backed by money parents. I come
from the Bronx from a poor family background, so my struggle was REAL. Missing
Foundation was interested in Tribal Industrial, but it had not become a genre
yet. In the eighties, I stood alone against the trendy hardcore, which was
devoid of anything we were working on. Missing Foundation is not just a band,
it was a movement and the political awareness back then, to sum it up, was GABBA
GABBA glue! I basically had enough of Rock ‘n’ Roll when I did my first
performance in 1979 opening for NON. I always was annoyed by guitars, so I made
sure they were never allowed in the studio except for sampling. I never liked
the sound of PUSSY
GALORE or SONIC
YOUTH or THE SWAN-the list is long-so I decided to go
the
opposite
direction to come up
with something
o r i g i n a l ;
a
documentary of my
time. Most of
Missing Foundation
were squatters I had
a squat on 6th
S t r e e t
i n
Manhattan. I used
this time of freedom
from the landlord
enslaver to get my
project off the
ground. Some things
I dreamed at that
time was that I
would replace the
peace sign with the
“Party’s Over”
logo. The “Party’s
Over” logo has many
messages in it. It's
an inverted martini
glass depicting the
demise of the elite
that created the
pyramid. Anything with this logo means that it is a dead end and we must re
track before extinction. At the bottom are three 777’s and three XXX’s. 777 is
a symbol of God or Creator, and the three XXX’s are Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
My God is the Nature and I chant “Nam Meoho Renge Kyo”. The “T” at the top is a
symbol of man. The full meaning is--the party's over for western civilization
due to the destruction of the environment. The logo has become the antigentrification symbol of the LES NYC, and was also co-opted by “Occupy Wall
Street” on all their tee shirts. It has also become an anti-police brutality
and anti-corrupt landlord sy