FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

NEW YORK - GO SEE FOOT PATROL TONIGHT

Foot Patrol

are the most popular rock band in America and they're playing an early all-ages show tonight at

Highline Ballroom

. As we

told you last week

, the band members began collaborating in 1995 at the

Texas School for the Blind

with a super-obnoxious and hilarious album that threatened crazy amounts of violence upon the educators of that school called "Fuck the Teachers," composed by blind student TJ Wade and recorded in secret by school employee Hung Nguyen. The tape created a lot of underground excitement for TJ, and eventually involved him in a lot of discussions with major labels, which made him miserable.

Other famous recordings from the Blind School supposedly include the insane acid-punk classic "Weekend Bell," widely rumored to be recorded by an unidentified student and backed by the infamous acid-punk band Crust (track right below). We talked to TJ and Hung about this whole scandalous phenomenon.

So wait, the Texas School of the Blind was staffed by crazy lunatics who would get naked and cover themselves with raw meat and insects with their bands, and then go back to teaching blind kids inbetween tours? How'd that work?
Hung Nguyen: It started with John Hawkins, legendary singer of Crust. Nearly every Austin band had one of their musicians working there as a residential instructor – the Butthole Surfers, Ed Hall, Poi Dog Pondering, Nice Strong Arm--and they would put together shows for the kids. The Sun Ra Arkestra did a concert with TJ sitting in on keys, when he was a kid. TJ also tried to get the Ruins to visit Austin by covering their songs and sending them a recording. The tour fell through, but members of the Ruins still DJ his album in Japan. I first bonded with TJ because we both loved Prince, and I was the only one willing to help him record the hard stuff, like "Fuck the Teachers." TJ Wade: Recording "Fuck the Teachers" could have gotten Hung fired, so we had to be very careful about it. But if anyone did distract us, they would get a song written about like that "Horses' Ass." TJ, every song in Foot Patrol is about your foot fetish. How do you explain the enormous crowds you guys get, considering how few people are actually attracted to feet?
I've loved feet since age ten. Without the feet, the sex ain't complete. Feet are for all ages, religions, and creeds. Take your shoes off and let them toes breathe. OK then. When I first heard "Fuck the Teachers," I heard you were talking to all these big music labels, and collaborating with Norah Keyes. And then a few years later, you're self-releasing all these great albums with an eight-piece foot fetish funk band. What happened?
I graduated from high school and ended up meeting the guitarist of Tony Toni Tone, who at the time was starting his own label called Grassroots Entertainment. He tried to groom me into a pop commodity that was a cross between Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and Creed, but I was mostly influenced by artists like Prince, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Ruins, Kool Keith, and Tech N9ne. Needless to say, it flopped. So then I hooked up with Hung again, and started doing Terroristic and Foot Patrol. I guess that explains it all! See you at the show tonight. PATRICK HAMBRECHT