Trains, Planes, and Human Hands: The Band that Helped Shape Punk Rock

"Original photographic print by Fredrik Nilsen of the LAFMS at the Raymond Building, Pasadena, 1976." Photo and caption by Non Event (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The "Pasadena Art Mafia," as they were known, were a group of musicians out of Pasadena, California. These artists helped shape the music scene in Los Angeles, and helped develop what were, at the time, newer styles of music, like punk rock and the "new wave" genre. A major staple in the "Pasadena Art Mafia" group was the Los Angeles Free Music Society (the LAFMS, which in 1979, ran by the motto "The music is free, but you have to pay for the plastic, paper, ink, glue and stamps.").

But zoom in on five music artists who came out of the "Pasadena Art Mafia," all of whom were featured on the vinyl collection of LAFMS music, released in 2021. These five artists are Dennis Duck, Juan Gomez, Bill Noland, Rick Potts, and David Wiley. These five were all a part of the band Human Hands, which performed more than 50 shows in a two-year span. And during that two-year span, these musicians managed to help shape punk rock, art-rock and many other styles of music into what they are today, and managed to brush shoulders with some of the more recognizable bands that came out of that time period. This is the story of that band.

Human Hands is Born

Bill Noland on keyboard. Photo credit Edward Colver

The band members of Human Hands weren't all originally friends. In fact, some of them didn't even know each other.

Bill Noland, Human Hands' keyboardist, started going to punk performances in California. "...I kept bumping into this guy at these shows and it was David [Wiley]. And, so, eventually we started talking and he said that he was in a band called The Consumers and they were thinking about adding a keyboard player," said Noland. "...I never joined, but we stayed friends and we kept bumping into each other and he said: 'You've got to meet these friends of mine in Pasadena, the LAFMS, the LAFMS!'"

Noland was introduced to the LAFMS, which included other future Human Hands members: Dennis Duck (drums), and Juan Gomez (guitar), as well as the band's future addition of Rick Potts (bass guitar). The friends kept getting together and eventually decided to form a band.

The band, however, needed a name. One of the names pitched that the band remembers was "Coca Cola," which Duck pitched because everyone knows what Coca Cola is. Unfortunately, they realized that corporate lawyers exist and they decided not to go with that name. Eventually, Duck pitched the name "Human Hands," and they stuck with that.

Gomez and Duck had already written music together to begin with, which helped the band, knowing they already had a repertoire of songs to choose from.

The ad for a bassist posted in The Recycler by Human Hands. Credit Human Hands on Facebook.

But they had one issue. They needed a bassist. So, they posted an ad in The Recycler (an L.A. newspaper that has since been sold) for a bass guitarist. They rehearsed with a potential bassist, but eventually decided on "dragging" LAFMS member Rick Potts into the band. "Kicking and screaming," Gomez said jokingly.

The Frontman of the Band

David Wiley performing with the Human Hands. Photo credit Edward Colver

David Wiley, who Bill Noland kept running into at punk concerts, ended up being the group's lead singer and frontman.

Rick Potts said "...David was amazing. I mean, we’d rehearsed but hadn’t seen him perform live" ... "Our first couple of shows I realized ‘oh, I can hide in the background because this guy is going to command people’s attention.'"

Wiley was able to learn songs quickly, and perform in unique ways. "He’d have his hands in his pockets and stuff and just kinda saunter – just like 'well, I’m gonna move up to the mic'" ... "but it was hilarious!" said Noland.

Wiley was also not afraid to change his phrasing of the lyrics in the song. Potts said, "I think he had a real natural gift for phrasing the lyrics and I’m kind of remembering that he didn’t always sing it the same way. Like he would try different things and it usually seemed to work."

Duck later chimed in that Wiley's phrasing was "very spontaneous," and Gomez compared Wiley to Frank Sinatra in the way that he changed his lyrical phrasing every time.

Fans enjoyed Wiley's performance, too. Mike Levy, a fan of the band, said that Wiley "dressed like he might be an engineering or math student, the suburban genius kid next door, and was very nonchalant/dead-panned in his delivery which I found endearing."

Performing on Sunset Strip

A flier for the first ever Human Hands show from 1979.

Human Hands began performing in the summer of 1979. Their first show was on June 7th at Club 88 in Los Angeles. The other bands that played that night were Extremes and The Go-Gos (yes, that The Go-Gos, the band that performed "We Got the Beat," "Vacation," among other hits). Juan Gomez credits performing with The Go-Gos partly to the fact that Wiley roomed with Go-Go drummer Jane Wiedlin. Human Hands also shared a rehearsal space with The Go-Gos for a while.

Human Hands performed at the wedding of Bill Noland's friend a short time after their debut at Club 88. They got $300 for performing at that wedding, which, at the time, was nearly three times the amount that they had been paid at other performances. Because it was one of their early shows, they were all nervous leading up to the event, which some of the band members say led to Noland bumping into the amp during the wedding procession, causing reverb.

Flier for a concert of Human Hands and Meat Puppets, circa May 1981. Photo credit Human Hands on Facebook.

Over the course of the band, they performed with, and opened for, many other bands. Some of the most notable groups that they performed with were The Go-Gos (mentioned above), Wall of Voodoo (which had the hit "Mexican Radio"), Meat Puppets (who sang "Backwater," which peaked at #47 on the Billboard Hot 100), as well as other groups who were popular among punk rock fans at that time.

Noland says that part of the reason that they performed with some of those groups was because the L.A. music scene around that time was very "inclusive." Noland says that bands, like The Go-Gos, would ask if a group wanted to play with them, and most of the time the response would be "yes."

Especially around the time that Human Hands began playing at the Whiskey a Go Go (a famous club founded in 1964, which many famous bands performed at), Human Hands' fan base began to grow.

Dennis Duck outside the Whisky a Go Go before a performance with Magazine, circa 1980. Photo credit Human Hands on Facebook.

Growing Fan Base

“Our audience just grew organically from a few people,” Dennis Duck said, “I think largely word of mouth probably.”

Gomez said that at one of their shows at The Hong Kong Café (a restaurant and music venue in Los Angeles), he looked out the window and saw a huge line of people. "I almost had a heart attack," said Gomez.

Some fans of Human Hands remember what made them so special to see on stage.

"It's hard for me to express in words what it felt like, but I remember at the time thinking that they were what I thought that new 'modern music' should be" ... "ways of putting chords together and creating songs that seemed unconventional at the time but made musical sense to me...it didn't sound like anything that the mainstream was doing. Like I say, it's hard to describe that feeling of discovering something that resonated, but the Human Hands did that for me," said Mike Levy.

Juan Gomez and Rick Potts performing with Human Hands. Photo credit Edward Colver

Erik Auerbach, a fan who saw them as an opener for The Feelies (best known for their song "Away"), recalls his memories of the band. "I remember that they had an air of cool about them and were a perfect opener for the Feelies. Both had their own level of 'nerd cool' going on in a good way! I loved the way each musician was so intense while they played and really not about putting on a 'show' but sharing the music."

Gomez also thinks that the radio station KROQ (based in Pasadena), helped the band's popularity grow. The band even heard some of their songs on the radio, like their song "Trains VS Planes."

"It was mind blowing, it was like a dream come true!" said Noland in regards to hearing Human Hands' songs on the radio.

Human Hands' music was played primarily by Rodney Bingenheimer, who was formerly the disk jockey for KROQ.

A feature in the Los Angeles Times about Human Hands from 1980.

Collaboration

As far as lyrics and songwriting go, “we all contributed,” said Noland and Duck simultaneously. Duck said shortly after, “Excuse me Bill, I’m trying to say that we all contributed, I don’t know if you heard that.”

Noland went on to say, "...it just worked really well and then we would make up stuff together, we would just start jamming in rehearsals, and then we would all write stuff all together. And a lot of what I found through the years is that collaborating, it always is a richer stew. Y’know, because somebody that you’re collaborating with is going to come up with an idea that you never would have come up with, and many, many times some really cool sparks fly or whatever and it works and it just kind of crackles and takes off."

A photo from a Human Hands rehearsal, taken around 1980. Credit Human Hands on Facebook.

The other members of the band agreed with Noland. While Gomez and Duck had previously written music that was performed by Human Hands, the group's members were always bringing in new ideas. They would record ideas on tape recorders and bring them into rehearsals to try out.

Potts credited the band's background in improvising to some of their collaborations. That background helped them create songs based on what they improvised in rehearsals. "[In] the context of the band it was really fun because we sort of had some more structure and some of our favorite songs I think came out of collaborations like that," said Potts.

Noland says that they each got better through rehearsing and collaborating. Noland says that the collaboration aspect of their band was important because it made them better, even if that meant just changing a small part of a keyboard riff.

'No Commercial Potential'

After about two years of performing, the band began to get frustrated because they weren't getting the attention of major record labels.

"That’s what they kept saying, 'no commercial potential,'" says Noland. Noland thinks that the major record labels "...didn’t have the vision. They just didn’t know what to do with the scene."

Potts says that bands that were being signed were popular, but they didn't sell well, and in Potts' opinion, "that tainted the waters, I think."

The band began to become frustrated, angry, and sad. "I thought we were really good, and I didn’t understand," said Gomez.

Eventually, the band decided that they didn't know what the next step would be. "It was sad, breaking up, you know, it was hard. We all were frustrated and we weren't getting signed," said Noland.

Their last known show was performed at the Whiskey a Go Go on July 28th, 1981.

David Wiley in North Hollywood, CA, 1979. Photographer unknown.

Drugs, Sex, Rock N' Roll

Paul Cutler of 45 Grave (as well as other bands) was a good friend of David Wiley and of Human Hands. Cutler also mixed some of Human Hands' shows. He said, "We came of age when one of the popular sayings was 'Drugs, Sex and Rock n’ Roll.' Turned out that two of those things could kill you. AIDS was running rampant around the late '70s and there was no cure." ... "So I lost a lot of friends to both of those things..."

Unfortunately, one of those friends was David Wiley, the Human Hands' frontman. Wiley passed away due to AIDS in the late 1980s. He was a heroin addict.

Gomez thinks that part of the reason that Wiley was exposed to hard drugs (not just experimenting with them) is due to the music community, and L.A. in general. “It’s hard to avoid in Hollywood,” he said. "I thought of it like a curse. I absolutely hated the person I knew who was dealing to all those people,” he added. “[But], people have to make their own choices, y’know.”

"That’s one reason that I don’t glorify the punk rock years, I just lost too many people that I cared about. It was fun, it was crazy and it was sometimes deadly," said Cutler.

Duck doesn't think that Wiley's drug use was a major issue during the course of the band. “It wasn't really a part of our band culture,” he said.

In regard to Wiley's death, Cutler added, "It was devastating. ... He was my best friend for many years so it was really tough." ... "I still miss him."

"The actual, original, Human Hands." Photo and caption credit Human Hands on Facebook.

Hereafter

On one of the band's compilation releases following their breakup, titled "Hereafter," they dedicated the record to Wiley.

After the band broke up, Duck, Gomez, Noland, and Potts, all went on to different bands. Duck became a part of The Dream Syndicate (primarily known for their album "Medicine Show" which hit #171 on the Billboard Top 200), and Gomez was a part of The Romans, part of the underground rock scene in Los Angeles. Gomez later went on to be a part of Pasadena band Joyheads, which released an EP in 2019. Noland went on to perform with Wall of Voodoo. He performed with Wall of Voodoo at the US Festival in 1983. He later published a solo album. Potts was a part of multiple smaller groups, such as Dinosaur With Horns and Le Forte Four.

Human Hands later had a reunion when they were invited to perform at the 1999 Punk Rock Hall of Fame Awards, hosted at the Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif. Shortly before their reunion, they released a CD titled "Bouncing to Disc," which features many of Human Hands' songs. They kept playing together for a while, and Gomez and Duck kept the band going until 2014. Ironically, the band's reunion stint lasted longer than they did in their original form.

Nonetheless, Human Hands helped shape the Los Angeles punk rock scene, and also helped groups like the LAFMS grow as well. Without Human Hands, who knows where punk/art rock music would be today.

Listen

Click here for a playlist of music from Human Hands and it's band members.

Make A Difference

In remembrance of Human Hands' frontman David Wiley, consider donating to the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which is an AIDS Organization dedicated to being "a powerful force in ending the AIDS epidemic."

Donate Here

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Works Cited 1999-06-05 – Santa Monica, ca – Track 16 Gallery – Punk Rock Hall of Fame Awards – Booji Boy’s Basement. boojiboysbasement.com/product/1999-06-05/. Accessed 7 July 2023. “Artists/Discog | Lafms.” Lafms.com, lafms.com/content/artistsdiscog. Accessed 7 July 2023. “History.” Whisky a Go Go, whiskyagogo.com/calendar/history/. Accessed 7 July 2023. “How Chinese Food Fueled the Rise of California Punk.” Topic, www.topic.com/how-chinese-food-fueled-the-rise-of-california-punk. Payne, Chris. “Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged” 20 Years Later: Meat Puppets’ Curt Kirkwood Looks Back.” Billboard, 18 Nov. 2014, www.billboard.com/music/music-news/nirvana-mtv-unplugged-new-york-meat-puppets-interview-6319909/. Accessed 7 July 2023. “The Dream Syndicate.” Wikipedia, 18 June 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_Syndicate. Accessed 8 July 2023. “The Feelies | Biography, Music & News.” Billboard, www.billboard.com/artist/the-feelies/. Accessed 7 July 2023. “The Recycler.” Wikipedia, 30 Apr. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Recycler. Accessed 7 July 2023. “The Romans Biography, Songs, & Albums.” AllMusic, www.allmusic.com/artist/the-romans-mn0000414279/biography. Accessed 7 July 2023. Trust, Gary. “The Go-Go’s’ Biggest Billboard Hits.” Billboard, 17 Aug. 2015, www.billboard.com/pro/the-go-gos-biggest-billboard-hits/. Accessed 7 July 2023. “Various - Los Angeles Free Music Society -1974~1983+.” Www.discogs.com, 2021, www.discogs.com/master/2239246-Various-Los-Angeles-Free-Music-Society-19741983. Accessed 7 July 2023.

Much of the information in this article (other than the sources listed above), was acquired via interviews with the band, and with friends and fans of the band.

The first photo in this article is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, and is by Non Event, as is the caption included with the photo.

Images in this article (other than the first photo) were either given to NWP by the Wiley family, or were taken from the Human Hands' Facebook page with permission.

Cover image credit Edward Colver.

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