What Is It?--- Punk Rock in SoCal, 1977-83

(Disclaimer--- this was posted a number of years ago on a website which used a variety of apps which are not available here, thus the comments about the font.)

Like the guys on this album would rip me a new one for using that fancy font, eh? Probably not because the musicians who made up a large part of the punk scene in Los Angeles in those days have moved on and, hell, it was a music scene, fer Chrissakes, and not an all-out war with the establishment like the record companies would have had you believe. Sure, there was angst and tension and even anger now and again. Welcome to Youthville! The only reason the young hippies were so mellow was that they were stoned all the time! Take away that nefarious weed and they could well have ended up spitting on sidewalks, each other and, worse, you!

I look back to those days and almost laugh. I say 'almost' because as crazed as some of these musicians thought they were, they were part of a small piece of music history which was luckily captured by Chris Ashford at What Records. Born and raised on surf and pop, Chris one day found himself surrounded by friends with spiked hair and safety pin piercings and, in pure self defense (he claims), he acquiesced. Well, not completely, because he refused to pierce anything, shall we say, too personal and his curly blond hair, no matter what he did with it, remained curly and blond. Know what? It may well have been wavy and blond. But I'm getting off the point here. Point is, he was there and so were they and damned if he didn't end up recording some of the bands being ignored by the established music interests and pretty soon here was a single and there was a single and eventually a compilation album and voila! What Is It?

This isn't the first time most of these tracks have been on LP. Most were there when the first compilation was released on, amazingly enough, What Records (this one is on Wondercap), but Ashford decided to blow the dust off of two tracks heretofore buried in his vaults (a handful of cardboard boxes stashed toward the back of a closet, a constant bone of contention between him and his girlfriend) and put two previously unreleased tracks on this one, those being by The Spastics. For the first time anywhere, the world is exposed to their recorded music (I'm a Spaz/Fuck the World and Baby, You String Me Up/Your Head Exploding) and might not be all the better for it. The Spastics, even supported by the future David Baerwald (David and David, Sheryl Crow), were not exactly crowd favorites wherever they played and, like the liner notes say, they “had the fire extinguisher turned on them during their swansong performance” at The Masque. An aside: The author of those liner notes is working on finishing up a book about those early punk days tentatively titled Destroy All Music.

You get the picture then, right? Throw in all of the standards of the time, though many would argue the term, and you have a history of oddball punk with tracks by The Germs (Forming and 'Round and 'Round), San Diego transplants The Dils (I Hate the Rich),The Eyes (Don't Talk To Me), The Skulls (On Target), The Controllers (Killer Queers), Kaos (Top Secret), and Agent Orange(Out of Limits). Hell of a lineup and including future names like DJ Bonebrake, the aforementioned David Baerwald, Johnny Stingray, Charlotte Caffey, and Darby Crash, among others.

Watch out, though. Though the young punks have mellowed and even burned out, the music is as brash as ever. If you were there, you will undoubtedly want to turn this up and recreate some of those adrenal rushes you experienced listening to the bands or the records in the old days. If you weren't, chances are you will want to turn it up anyway. There is something about these punks that doesn't sound quite right when played at a low volume and, hell, that would be defeating the purpose of this music in the first place. So turn it up, my friends, and be thankful that there is a Chris Ashford out there watching over your music. And if you don't agree, there are fire extinguishers everywhere. Chris will be that old surfer dude with the long curly (or wavy) brown hair. Tell him Frank sent you.

By the way, What Is It is available for download or will be eventually and the 10-inch vinyl record is ready for shipping from Wondercap Records. If you visit, check out the other releases, including a fine rock/jazz album by DJ Bonebrake Trio. The drummer for X playing vibraphones? Very cool. And doing one hell of a job on them, too.

(Frank Gutch Jr. writes and has written for numerous magazines and websites, presently including this blog and the prestigious Don't Believe A Word I Say site put together by musician and music pundit Bob Segarini out of Toronto. He specializes in the Indies, having fought hand-to-hand combat with major record labels for decades (talk about zombies). He believes music should be the core of the music business, though business it mostly be, and denies the accepted reality in the stead of the artistic one. Seldom does he receive pay for articles and/or reviews and believes that there is no place for negatives in a world in which one cannot keep up with the positives. He is, in a sense, a lost soul in a sea of music, drowning, but drowning gratefully.)

The Mike Farley Band--- Where We Stand

I've been having flashbacks. I walk down the street and see old girlfriends, old cars, beer signs which haven't existed for decades (Oh, Heidelberg, what happened to you?). I think about what life was like before the Internet and at certain moments really wish that we could go back and change things. I find myself closing my eyes to so many things which are part of the everyday now and shuddering to think how far we have come. The thing is, it has come with a cost. A billion people knowing the answer to everything but not knowing much of anything at all. A million sure that their way is the way. A hundred thousand who are sure that there is no good music anymore and have stopped looking. A hundred, if that many, who know music is better than ever but have no one to tell because the hundred thousand who claim interest have stopped listening. I get tired.

And then along comes an album which drops into your lap and gives you hope and, yes, that hope is in the past because those times were simpler and not as intense and more human. The album of which I speak is The Mike Farley Band's Where We Stand and don't be surprised if you don't know of it. In this time of information overload I am surprised that we know as much as we do. But it is there and it has made its way into my ears and my psyche and I find myself listening to it on an escalating scale--- to enjoy, to escape.

Lately my escapes have come through music values revisited, mostly those of the early seventies. I have been drawn to the past as much as those hundreds of thousands have refused to leave theirs, preferring the constant drone of the “classics” to anything new or exciting. My past did include Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones and, yes, The Beatles, but I have heard those ad nauseum and have turned toward others--- the lesser-knowns, shall we say. The music going through my head is that of early Sons of Champlin and The Damnation of Adam Blessing and Illinois Speed Press, not because they are cool, like others who have found them or carried them into their present, but because the music was (and is) good. Paul Cotton-era Poco. The Atlantics. Greg Kihn.

A couple of years ago I added Lost Leaders to the mix because of the small details in their music, naming it Album of the Year for 2014 and ready to defend it against all-comers, though no one seemed to notice. And this year, there is The Mike Farley Band.

I have known Farley for awhile now but not as a musician. As much as we have talked music, his personal involvement just never came up. And he has a band. Sonofabitch, and I mean that in a music manner. Who knew?

Turns out it's a damn good band, in fact, and though I was ready to give them a chance, it took a few listens. Mainstream rock is a strange animal and I have dismissed albums before which became real favorites over the years. The first hint of quality was Back To Before, a light poppish tune which had just enough Greg Kihn to make me take notice. Listen two uncovered my now-favorite track, Subtle No More, which could have easily been a hit in 1972 or 1973, the verse building toward the chorus which stuck in my mind and wouldn't go away. Rewrite History came next, an upbeat but smooth rocker, then Helpless and so on and so forth.

They are good songs. Solid songs. But what makes them better than good is the attention to detail--- the way they were recorded. Listen closely and you can hear the organ on this song and the smooth electric rhythm on that song and the lead guitar, which could have been recorded by the master of the studios back in the seventies, Dean Parks. Guitarist Jeff Nagel will appreciate the comment. Parks was (and hopefully still is) a master.

The one negative about the album is not a negative at all. Reading the track listing, one song stuck out: Evil Woman. My heart beat a little faster when I envisioned maybe a slightly toned-down version of the Spooky Tooth classic. Could it be, I thought. No such luck, but the alternative was not all that bad--- it was a cover of the ELO song. The good thing is that I didn't mind it. Maybe if they had attempted the Spooky Tooth song, I would have. I will never know (unless they cover that one on the next album).

I'm listening to Subtle No More as I end this. It's the chorus. It has to be the chorus. Or maybe it's the guitar. Or the harmonies. But goddamn, I am beginning to really love the song. I knew it was making headway when I found myself in line at the grocery store and hearing it in my head and wondering who it was. It took a good half hour before Mike Farley popped into my head. Of course! He's in good company in there, lots of Nick Holmes and Brian Cullman and Lost Leaders and others taking up space. So much better than the days I worked retail and had Springsteen or The Rolling Stones bumping the much better indie songs out of my consciousness.  It's called brainwashing, kiddies.

Music is better than ever. Where We Stand proves it. It may not be the best album you will ever hear, but it's goddamn good and close enough.  

(Frank Gutch Jr. writes and has written for numerous magazines and websites, presently including this blog, his own website and the prestigious Don't Believe A Word I Say site put together by musician and music pundit Bob Segarini, out of Toronto. He specializes in the Indies, having fought hand-to-hand combat with major record labels for decades (talk about zombies). He believes music should be the core of the music business, though business it mostly be, and denies the accepted reality in the stead of the artistic one. Seldom does he receive pay for articles and/or reviews and believes that there is no place for negatives in a world in which one cannot keep up with the positives. He is, in a sense, a lost soul in a sea of music, drowning, but drowning gratefully.)

Ric Todd--- Drawing Lines

Look out! Time warp! As soon as I slipped Ric Todd's Drawing Lines into the CD player it was suddenly the seventies all over again, only better. Those were good days for rock, my friends. Larry the K and I worked at Licorice Pizza in L.A. and San Diego and, man, we were digging the music! We would get shipments in, put on a rocker like, say, the first REO Speedwagon or a Scorpions album, and we would rock the store, bopping heads with an armful of records, heading from section to section restocking the bins. One time, we passed one another, each playing a stack of albums like air guitar, leaned back and played a dual lead together. As soon as the guitar break was over, we headed toward the racks, laughing.

K and I recently renewed our friendship after a few decades of little contact and I think we both realize how golden those days were. We loved the same music and when we didn't, we tried. We shared our music like people share air. It just came natural. So when I heard Todd's EP, I thought of the K. This is classic rock with roots not unlike that of Pat Travers and Lone Star and early Aerosmith. True, Todd does not look like the bands of that era (if I didn't know better, I would have expected Americana or standard singer/songwriter fare) but he sure as hell sounds like it. And it's only partially in the guitar.

Most of it is in the groove because that replaced the ol' hook when pop gave way to rock. Think Savoy Brown and Foghat and Climax Blues Band--- louder and softer. Upbeat, unplugged on one of the five tracks, the other four pure groovers. Like the opening track, Red Letter:

Got the idea? Hell of a track with lyrics right up there with Shakespeare and Longfellow (seriously, this is possibly what they would be writing if they lived today). Dig this:

I stand up/Heavy is the hand that's had enough/I stand up/Bury me in lies and cover me in flies/I stand up/Blacken out the sky with anger/I stand up (red letter)/You cannot control what I do not submit

You getting this? That's not all. There's a chorus:

A bird in flight to your quicksand/A hammer strike to your nail/To live a life that you can't have/Bend now I won't to your will

Man, them's lyrics, Skeezix! None of this rhyming love with dove or blue with you. This cat stands up! And it doesn't stop there. Check out the chorus on New Religion:

Because every time you put your hands on me/I find a new religion/And I just gotta get my hands up

Beats the hell out of the lyrics of those ol' rock ballads.

The band backs it up, too. Two guitars (probably one of the guitarists playing bass at times)--- Todd and Dale Heib. Drums and percussion courtesy of Casey Smith. And they come ready to rock! Todd handles the vocals and does a damn fine job, Heib nailing down the high harmonies. They even have a hint of Trower on End of My Rope.

Sad thing is, this may be my only chance to write about Todd and crew. I write only about the music I like and then only because they need a leg up.  By the time this album is available everywhere, everyone will get into it. He will no longer need me to help spread the word. It will spread on its own.

The dude is from Fargo, sports fans. The last musician I heard from Fargo was Lucy Black who put out a solo album right after Betty Does Veronica split up. You might have been watching the TV series. Now you can hear the music. Buy this EP. Consider it an investment in happy.

Frank O. Gutch Jr.

(Frank Gutch Jr. writes and has written for numerous magazines and websites, presently including this blog, his own website and the prestigious Don't Believe A Word I Say site put together by musician and music pundit Bob Segarini out of Toronto. He specializes in the Indies, having fought hand-to-hand combat with major record labels for decades. He believes music should be the core of the music business, though business it mostly be, and denies the accepted reality in the stead of the artistic one. Seldom does he receive pay for articles and/or reviews and believes that there is no place for negatives in a world in which one cannot keep up with the positives. He is, in a sense, a lost soul in a sea of music, drowning, but drowning gracefully.)

The Fuzz--- Best Kept Secret

Ever drive and have a great song come on the radio or maybe have a CD in the player and you all of a sudden notice you're driving 20 miles over the speed limit? Happened to me tonight and I'm surprised I wasn't pulled over. What could I do if I was? Crank The Fuzz's new album up louder and let the music plead my case? I could have done it, especially if Loaded was the track playing when I rolled down the window. Or Wilt. Hey, officer, I lost it for a minute because of this rockin' tribute to Wilt Chamberlain's sex life. Here, let me turn it up for you. “He shoots, he scores.” Get it? What's that? Get out of the car and put my hands on the hood? Are you listening to this, man?

It would have been worth a ride to the police station, sports fans. The album started out normal but the more I heard it, the more I had to turn it up. By the time it got to Track 8, the aforementioned Loaded, I might as well have been. Loaded, that is. I was headbanging, for Chrissake, and I haven't done that for years! Got tired of the migraines, I guess. But there I was, hair a lot shorter and the head bobbing like a madman, screaming “I'm loaded... and I don't care...” and “I've wasted... all of my time... and I'm losing... most of my mind... and I... don't... care!!!!!!” and listening to this guitar solo which I swear to God is as close to Randy Bachman as I've ever heard--- Bachman at his best! Remember the solo on Guess Who's American Woman? Think that cranked up to 11 on a stack of Marshalls and you're almost there. In fact, I want to hear this through a stack of Marshalls cranked up to 11--- a big stack! In an arena! This is the kind of stuff I saw back in the late sixties when The Wailers took on The Sonics at the Albany Guard Armory. When Stray opened for Caravan at the Starwood in the mid-seventies. When Motorhead... wait. I've never seen Motorhead! See what this stuff does to me?

There is raw power here. Raw power! Play it low and you won't get it. This kind of music you have to crank up!!! Wild freaking take-no-prisoners, slashing guitar and vocals as raw as the guitars. Riffs! Noise! Pounding beat! It's all here. Again, though, crank it up!!!

  All tracks are good but rockers are going to really get off on opening track I Can't Wait, Wilt, The Stones-oriented Charley Horse, the demon speeder She Believes, Locked Out which reminds me a lot of many of the bands from the seventies New Wave movement, and Loaded, which starts out pure funk and turns wall-of-sound riff-heavy hard rock quickly, with an extended groove over which two guitars run rampant--- God, you gotta love them dual leads!!! Call the Cops ends the madness and it's just as well. My heart can only take so much exercise these days. Just ask my girlfriend. By the way, I don't have one. Just threw that in to see if you were paying attention.

Garage freaks, metalheads, Power-Poppers and speed freaks are going to love this album. Hell, I'm not any one of those except maybe a Power-Popper, and I love it, and the last time I looked in the mirror, I was an old man! Not as old as I had thought, I guess. If I am, this music makes me forget it for awhile. Ah, to have the Maxell sound system. This is the kind of stuff that makes your hair blow back. And, yes, I still have hair. But I probably won't have it too much longer. Not if I keep listening to these guys.

Available from Green Monkey Records.

Frank O. Gutch Jr.

(Frank Gutch Jr. writes and has written for numerous magazines and websites, presently including this blog, his own website and the prestigious Don't Believe A Word I Say site put together by musician and music pundit Bob Segarini out of Toronto. He specializes in the Indies, having fought hand-to-hand combat with major record labels for decades. He believes music should be the core of the music business, though business it mostly be, and denies the accepted reality in the stead of the artistic one. Seldom does he receive pay for articles and/or reviews and believes that there is no place for negatives in a world in which one cannot keep up with the positives. He is, in a sense, a lost soul in a sea of music, drowning, but drowning gracefully.)

Jenn Lindsay--- Uphill Both Ways

There was something vaguely familiar in Jenn Lindsay's music when I first heard Uphill Both Ways and it took me a few listens to nail it down. It turns out Jenn Lindsay plays (wait for it!) New Wave! I tossed genres around to see how they fit and none seemed to corner exactly what it was until the late 70s popped up and that was it! Jenn Lindsay, my alternative pop-ites, plays music for which Ken Barnes and the late Greg Shaw of Who Put the Bomp lived—60s influenced pop with creative flare. Lindsay displays just the kind of creativity and flare that could well have garnered her a cover of the rejuvenated Bomp zine, the project Shaw was working on when he so unfortunately left us. Her music fits all of his criteria—melody, hooks and drive.

Indeed, Shaw would have taken this CD on himself, not trusting anyone else to point out the positives: the Percy Sledge-like organ of Belong Alone giving way to the perfect three-chord chorus behind the bopping rhythm; the punchy acoustic rhythm of Brain which echoes the production of some of the best the 60s and 70s had; the fast, upbeat rhythms of the acoustic guitar and Lindsay's intriguing song stutter of Uphill Both Ways, not to mention the intriguing harmony vocals. What would have really done it, though, would have been the magnificent pop opus, It Came 2 Me, which mixes elaborate production with voice sans production until the end, a strange but captivating combination—and who could resist her inclusion of two lines from Lennon and McCartney's Got To Get You Into My Life as she crescendos "I was alone, I took a ride/I didn't know what I would find there". This CD is worth it for that alone.

She isn't all power pop, of course. She folds House of the Rising Sun and Amazing Grace into a strange folk song lamenting the tragedy of recent New Orleans (and the Bush Administration's bungled response) which she titled House In New Orleans. Christmas Song, Part 2 has a folky Hem sound and shows that she can feel as well as dance. If that doesn't satisfy your folk craving, she goes overboard in the monumental eight minute-plus Kitchen Sink in which she laments love gone bad with only acoustic guitar, occasional added voices and a classic sense of humor. And there is the eerie "Postolka", minor chords and weird chord progressions and all.

Sonics freaks might pick this apart if they heard it, but I contend that the production is spot on. You can't pull off something this creative in a sterile environment, just as you couldn't in the 60s and mid- to late-70s. It is the feel of the music as much as the music itself which gives this CD its edge. It feels good to me. Really, really good.

Until I heard this, Maggi Pierce & E.J. headed my list of groups to see. Now I have fantasies of a double bill. I don't even care who opens for who.

Jon Pousette-Dart--- Talk

I remember Pousette-Dart. I remember the Pousette-Dart Band, in fact, and the reaction their first album received on the West Coast, mainly as the band which opened for Peter Frampton on the Frampton Comes Alive tour--- when was that? 1976? They were also known for their mime-themed album jacket, universally panned by mime-haters worldwide, which at the time stopped more than one of my friends from even considering either album or band--- not a death knell in itself, but one wonders how universal was the attitude. And to open for Frampton, who just months before was virtually unknown in the States in spite of, how many, four solo albums? Whose followers from his days with Humble Pie deserted him en masse because of what they considered his descent into pap hell? Who, months before the live album was even released, became a god to millions who would not touch his previous four studio albums while begging with tears in their eyes for the new one? God knows what it must have been like going onstage before thousands of such people, but it had to be daunting.

Truth be told, I liked that first album in spite of the cover (yes, I too am a mime-hater) but the West Coast did not. In spite of a modicum of airplay, usually coinciding with said tour, they made a very small splash in the ponds of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, though they would do much better with the second album, thanks to airplay for Amnesia and County Line, the band's only real charters on radio. Still, they were East Coast, and in those days there was that schism.

I had not thought about them in years--- in fact, until this new album, Talk, dropped in my hands. Immediately, that first album jacket passed before my eyes and with slight shudder, I put it reluctantly into the CD player only to find that I liked this album. Liked it a lot, in fact. There is a very seventies feel to it, in fact--- a leaning toward the soulful. Jon Pousette-Dart still has a voice and uses it to full effect, helped along by an outstanding group of session men and three wonderful female vocalists with whom to duel--- Bekka Bramlett, Rhonda Vincent, and Jonnell Mosser--- voices which fit his like a glove.

All of the references I have found relating to Pousette-Dart mention soft rock and I guess that fits this album too, but there is more here than that. There is that soulfulness I mentioned and a slew of solid songs, many co-written by songwriters of stature. There is a feel which flows beginning to end which ties the songs together. And there is a sound--- a very pleasant sound--- thanks partially to Bil VornDick, a producer I know from his work on The Dixie Bee-Liners exceptional Ripe and Susanville albums (each was among the top picks the year of release). What did I say above? That I liked it? I do.

Pousette-Dart revisits the aforementioned Amnesia and County Line on this album and I have to admit that it is good hearing them again. Dinosaurs like myself might remember hearing them on the radio back when radio mattered. I miss those days. If this world of music was not in such chaos, this album would have a good chance. It may have, anyway. It is good enough, that's for sure. And it deserves a chance.

(Frank Gutch Jr. writes and has written for numerous magazines and websites, presently including this blog, his own website and the prestigious Don't Believe A Word I Say site put together by musician and music pundit Bob Segarini, out of Toronto. He specializes in the Indies, having fought hand-to-hand combat with major record labels for decades (talk about zombies). He believes music should be the core of the music business, though business it mostly be, and denies the accepted reality in the stead of the artistic one. Seldom does he receive pay for articles and/or reviews and believes that there is no place for negatives in a world in which one cannot keep up with the positives. He is, in a sense, a lost soul in a sea of music, drowning, but drowning gratefully.)

Zombie Garden Club--- Zombie Garden Club

Holy shit! Zombie Garden Club? I don't know what I was expecting but this is way beyond what the name leads me to believe. This is crunch. This is part Legendary Shack Shakers and early Them without the harmonica and part sixties garage--- the part featuring a driving beat and cheesy Farfisa organ. But mostly what this is is heavily-reverbed vocal laid over some of the best guttural guitar I have heard in some time. Too Slim pulls it off when he wants to, prodding The Tail Draggers God knows where with that almost evil guitar sound. Th' Legendary Shack Shakers nailed it when David Lee was twangin' the strings around, say, Pandelirium time. Joe Bonamassa and Stevie Ray Vaughan occasionally strayed into the mania and I am sure there were others. But when I put this puppy into the player and heard a riff straight out of The Music Machine's Talk Talk on Track One (Call It Love), all comparisons vanished.

Here's the thing. I could compare every song on this album to something, if I really wanted to. The tunes are so good and so well put together, I just don't want to. I just want to listen. Even to the two oddballs on this rockin' album--- Diamond Daze, a track as much jazz-based as it is rock, and Calling Andromeda, straight out of the Mike & The Mechanics or Barclay James Harvest playbooks.

I have three pages of scribbled notes which sounded like something when I wrote them but now seem disjointed and vague. Call It Love--- Music Machine Talk Talk riff beneath sixties Brit Rock vocals. Judgement Blues--- Brash, bluesy guttural guitar with Swamp Rock vocals, a more controlled Legendary Shack Shakers. One Step, Two Steps, Three Steps Gone--- Sixties-sounding rocker complete with very prominent Farfisa organ. Fuzzface--- Groove heavy with fuzzed-out overamped guitar. They give you an idea, but I swear you have to hear this to get it.

I know this is a band, but not on the record. One Johnny Douglas put this together all by his lonesome but it sure as hell sounds like a band. The drive is there. The riffs are there. The sound is there. And more importantly (well, equally as important), the songs are there. Douglas has a touch when it comes to capturing the various areas of influence and it makes me laugh, he's so good at it. I love stuff like this.

Every track a gem, too. Fourteen songs, all dipped in roots--- my roots, evidently, because I have not been able to set this aside since receiving it. I feel like saying, though I am too close to the music to know if it would ring true or not, that this is one of the best garage roots albums I have ever heard, Makes me want to dance.

And already in the running for my pick for Top Album of the Year.

(Frank Gutch Jr. writes and has written for numerous magazines and websites, presently including this blog, his own website and the prestigious Don't Believe A Word I Say site put together by musician and music pundit Bob Segarini, out of Toronto. He specializes in the Indies, having fought hand-to-hand combat with major record labels for decades (talk about zombies). He believes music should be the core of the music business, though business it mostly be, and denies the accepted reality in the stead of the artistic one. Seldom does he receive pay for articles and/or reviews and believes that there is no place for negatives in a world in which one cannot keep up with the positives. He is, in a sense, a lost soul in a sea of music, drowning, but drowning gratefully.)