Mr. Ugly

“I was initiated into the Phoenix punk rock scene in the summer of 1983. A short time thereafter,
for better or worse, I found I was part of a family of like-minded individuals.
A few of these individuals formed Mr. Ugly- a band influenced by national and international
bands like Social Distortion, Black Flag, Gang Green, Bad Religion, Germs and GBH.
I began as the band’s artist- designing fliers, stickers and of course T-shirts. Shortly thereafter,
they volunteered me to be their manager. I would need to call local club owners and plead for an
opportunity for them to play. I would also send the owners cassette recordings so they would get an idea of what Mr. Ugly sounded like so they could pair them up with other like-sounding bands.
Mr. Ugly began to play with local bands as well as national and international bands as well. It
was a time of my life that I miss dearly and wish I could return to – if only for one weekend.
I was eventually fired as their manager for embezzling the band’s hard-earned funds- around
$76. Understand that their average pay for playing was around $35 and most of that- if not all- went to post-gig beer. The cost of printing fliers, stickers and T-shirts was well over what they had in the band’s account. Me and Bernie Madoff- famous embezzlers. OK- I wasn’t fired. I WAS accused but never fired.
Assholes.”

Former Mr. Ugly artist and manager-
Karl Kroeppler