Sonny Outlook

Turns behind bars ensued. Infractions included, but were not limited to, reckless driving, drug possession and assaulting police officers. Jailhouse walls became a sight as common for Vincent as the blue and green hues of stage lighting.

"I was in and out of jail ever since I was old enough to get in jail," he cracks contritely.

Vincent eventually hooked up with Bob Stinson, the late, storied guitar player who got kicked out of the Replacements, the drunkest band in the world, for being too drunk.

"We opened for the Replacements," Vincent recalls. "Stinson came up to me right after the show. I mean, Stinson was a very unique character. There was nobody like Stinson. He came up to me and the first thing he said was, 'I want to join your band.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He goes, 'I like your stuff, can I join?' And I go, 'But Bobby, your band is on the cover of the Village Voice!'

"Bob was really sweet; he was one of those types that never said a bad word about anybody. He was kind of damaged like the rest of us. He had a screwed up childhood and all that. There are so many stories I could tell you about Bob that were just crazy stuff. Just strange behavior. Like getting lost and being only 200 yards from the club in Germany and calling home to Minnesota to ask his wife the club's address. He had these weird habits like having to eat his food from a chair next to his chair. He wouldn't eat from a table, the food had to be on another chair. Very weird. Bob was great.

"I was on and off with that kind of [drug] stuff. My heaviest period with drinking was with Bob. I was actually going broke from it. I had all these ATM cards and was jacking around my bank account so we could drink all night in bars."

Vincent and Stinson formed Model Prisoner and made a record that remains unreleased. Vincent owns the master tapes and plans to release them if he can find a record company that's interested. "I would want it to be done in a nice package, you know, and kind of make it in Bob's memory or something like that. When he died [in 1995], it was very sad. I had just talked to him and he was going to do another tour with me."

Vincent formed the raucous punk ensemble Shotgun Rationale and recorded Who Do They Think They Are?. The record was produced by Velvet Underground's Moe Tucker. Soon after, Vincent joined Tucker's band as a guitarist and started touring Europe. He toured with Tucker on and off for nine years, an endeavor that earned Vincent overseas cult fame.

"The thing about touring with Moe over there is it was like the Beatles," he explains. "There's a lot of people out there who [think] the Velvet Underground is holy. I got a lot of contacts in Europe touring with Moe. I do have a nice situation where I can tour over there and make albums consistently."

At one point, Shotgun Rationale included both Bob Stinson and Cheetah Chrome -- a legendary punk lineup. The union of unsung guitar heroes lasted only a few months, but included short tours of Canada and the U.S. again.

"Somebody actually videotaped a show of that in Minneapolis," Vincent recalls. "It was a pretty funny show because they were playing each other's guitars and kissing each other."

In the early '90s, Shotgun Rationale released two more records -- Beyond Rebellion and Roller Coaster. The band's cast of players reads like a who's who of hipsterville A-listers: Sylvia Reed (Lou Reed's wife), Gumball's Don Fleming, Tucker and Sterling Morrison from the Velvet Underground, Ron and Scott Asheton, Richard Hell, and the Plasmatics' Chris Romanelli.

Vincent spent the next few years continuing to record and tour Europe and the U.S. with Shotgun Rationale, playing guitar in Tucker's band and fronting a short-lived group he formed in Holland called the Dons. His discography at this point was extensive, an endless list of singles, albums and one-offs. His following in Europe had grown to sustain headlining gigs and a meager existence.

In 1997, he put together a quartet called Sonny Vincent and His Rat Race Choir that featured Scott Asheton on drums, Captain Sensible from the Damned on bass and Cheetah Chrome on guitar. The resulting slice of punk rock rave-ups was called Pure Filth. The disc, which garnered thumbs-up from underground journals the world over, was followed up with a few extended plays and singles.

Vincent's just-released Parallax in Wonderland was produced by Ron Asheton (who adds guitar bits here and there) and again features Sensible and Scott Asheton, plus Kick Out the Jams guitarist himself Wayne Kramer. The music on Parallax is the bastard brat of Iggy's Raw Power -- guitars so loud that the bass and drums become a postscript. Vincent's frothy-mouthed vocals recall Iggy himself. It's a hummable collection of three-chord slices as good as anything ever to come from the Lower East Side.