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No matter the type or person or where they grew up, there’s no person on Earth who’s never wondered, “who am I, really?” For children of adoption, those questions often come early in life with much intensity.
Phoenix five-piece punk and new wave band the Blankz was born out of the search for identity. The group was founded when Tommy Blank (a.k.a. Slope Records founder Thomas Lopez) approached musician Jaime Blank (Jaime Paul Lamb) about collaborating on some new material. Their first song became “White Baby,” Tommy’s autobiographical account of growing up in Arizona in the 1970s and 1980s as a white child adopted by a Mexican-American family—a match that was a rarity at the time.
Back then Phoenix was a much smaller city than the sprawling metropolis it is today, and as the only white kid in his neighborhood growing up in a Chicano household with a Mexican last name, Tommy was often subjected to the curiosity of both his peers and strangers. Eventually, that became bullying, too. Taken with the ups and downs any teenager faces, it all enhanced his feeling that he didn’t really fit in.
Like many outsiders, Tommy naturally gravitated towards punk rock, which was alive and thriving in Phoenix. “Being adopted and being kind of a misfit, so to speak, even though I was loved at home I knew I was different—and so you kind of carve your own path to define that.”
The disparate elements of Tommy’s story come together in the music video for “White Baby.” Filmed in the area around Slope Records HQ in the Sunnyslope area of Phoenix with additional locations in South Phoenix, the video mixes snapshots of the city’s punk subculture and Chicano spirit—close ups of lowriders and local shops are presented in vivid color—with snippets from the Lopez family’s 8mm home movies of relatives dancing, playing music, and generally celebrating life.
“The video was fun to make and finding out my family still had the 8mm films was a score—it really pulled the vibe together,” Tommy says. If you look closely, you might even notice some similarities between “now” and “then.” “The guy driving the lowrider is my cousin and he is also the little boy playing maracas next to me playing guitar in the [home] video.”
Though it’s rooted in Tommy’s personal experiences, “White Baby” creates a vibe that anyone can relate to—at least anyone who has ever ridden around a hometown that’s changed, but thanks to familiar scenery can’t help but think about the people and places of their past.
For more information on The Blankz or Slope Records, please contact Fly PR: T. 323-667-1344 E. flypr@flypr.net.
About Slope Records
Slope Records is a Phoenix, Arizona based (mainly) vinyl record label founded in 2015. Started by Phoenix native, Thomas Lopez, the label caters to fans and collectors of first-wave punk as well as contemporary hardcore, garage, psych, and rock ‘n’ roll acts. All records are pressed on highest quality vinyl and the packaging is designed with vinyl aficionados in mind. In addition to their commitment to quality, the label is dedicated to tirelessly promoting the music they love and curating the history of the scene that made Slope possible in the first place. Slope Records are purveyors of independent disruptive punk rock with releases by artists such as the Exterminators, Feederz, The Bulemics, Fuckemos, The Father Figures, Cocky Bitches, The Linecutters and many others.
The label is distributed by Independent Label Distribution. Radio promotion is handled in-house.
