1/13: Club 88, West L.A. : Berlin
1/24: Woodsound, Monrovia : Body English
Scott downed a pint of 151 before the show. Sample witty stage patter: "Linda Lovelace is coaching the Rams. She blows a few, but doesn't choke on the big ones." He passed out 5 minutes after the shows end.
2/2: My Shrink, Fullerton
2/18: KNAC FM, Live on the Homegrown Show
Hour long "Home Grown" show. Previewed cover of Jan & Dean's "Dead Man's Curve", which became a staple on KROQ's "Rodney on the ROQ" show. Jan and Dean approved of it, which was a neat vote of confidence. I ate about five reds before the show and Tim had to pull over for me about as many times on the way home. Drugs are awesome!
2/19: Club 88, West L.A. : Berlin
2/20-21: Rock Corporation, Van Nuys : Mick Smiley
Mick Smiley looked like a British rock star & had a track on the Ghostbusters soundtrack. He always had a killer band with him...
2/23-24: My Shrink, Fullerton
2/27: The Squeeze, Riverside : The Kats & The Scooters
Made mistake of flipping off unimpressed San Bernardino bikers, had to travel in packs after the show as to not get killed or anything :-) The Kats and The Scooters were in the millions of sudden Knack clones to get recording contracts, while great bands like The Weirdos dropped off the radar. New Wave sucked!!
2/28-3/1: Gazzari's, Hollywood : Atlantis & Atascadero
Atlantis were a Black Sabbath clone, complete with frizzy hair-do's & flashing devil signs. Sandy's response was to climb out of their view above the stage & do the "Freddie" in his tight-whites with the spotlight on him. Satan 1, Mechanics 10.
Atascadero were really from Atascadero (near Cambria) and came down to seek their fortune. They had a cute female band member hopping around on a pogo-stick one song, so the second night there were numerous drunks in the audience yelling "Pogo-stick!"
3/5: Club 88 with Paul Warren and Explorer
This guy had a major money record contract, then was never heard from again. Made a great pop record before he disappeared.
3/17: My Shrink, Fullerton
My Shrink was a dingy biker bar, but they gave us an unlimited bar tab... Hence the three shows in two months.
3/23: Grant High School, Van Nuys
Noonie. Scott belly-flopped off the concrete which went over really big with a school full of people named Tad and Muffy.
3/25: Troubadour, Hollywood : Crime & Video-Nu-R
Crime were a semi-legendary San Francisco punk band with a brilliant early single ("Baby You're So Repulsive.") By the time they came South, they went Rock-a-Billy and slowed their songs down to a crawl. Everyone who came to see them were quite disappointed. They still looked really cool...
Video-Nu-R boasted a mustached guitarist named Bob Deal, soon to be Mick Mars from Motley Crue.
4/1: Starwood, Hollywood : The Strand & The Vains
Two O.C. bands at the Starwood, must have been a first. Later that evening waiting for my girlfriend (who worked at the Rainbow Bar N'Grill) to get off work, I sat for an hour with John Entwistle who was waiting for his side project who worked there also. Had weeks of sheer joy telling people about "John Entwistle & me" waiting for our girlfriends :-)
4/6: Kappa Sigma Fraternity, Berkeley
Scott & me loaded up on two fifth's of Jack Daniels, hash oil, a ton of weed, and 4 hits of blotter acid we got from an honest-to-god Grateful Dead roadie. Later, I punched out a CIF wrestler after we exchanged words, after that said wrestler tackled me from behind as we came out for set #2 and 1. Broke my prized Flying V's neck off. 2. Knocked me out cold when I went face first into the concrete floor. Tim Racca was kind enough to put the guy's head through a window before he & his friends were tossed. Sandy (Our bad-ass 6'3 drummer) hid in the dressing room to avoid any bloodletting. My hero :-)
4/7: Mabuhay Gardens, San Francisco : V.I.P.'s & The Rondo's
The short lived V.I.P.s were the best band we ever played with, bar none. They had 2 ex-Nun's & played an unpopular blend of power punk & metal. The guitarist (ex-Nuns bassist) wore sweaters with a bow tie & played as big as Jimmy Page. Jennifer was pure sex. On the other end of the spectrum were the Rondo's. This was Greg's attempt after the Avengers to get poppy. Side note, those fuckers took our song "Warm Hollywood Welcome" and released it on the legendary Dangerhouse label as "Car Crash". Still like their version better though!
4/8: Mabuhay Gardens, San Francisco : The Rondo's, The Humans and Undersongs
Leonard Haze, the great drummer of Y & T (aka Yesterday and Today) came to visit our drummer Sandy who he befriended in L.A. They took off to party together and Sandy had a hard time not speeding up songs after that, if you catch my drift :-)
4/16: Starwood with The Balls
4/21: Club 88, West L.A. : The Rondo's & The Genius Bros
The singer of the Genius Bros did so many drugs after his stellar performance, that he sat screaming in a car for 45 minutes until the manager made someone drive him off due to neighbor complaints. Like the bands weren't loud enough or anything.
From original bassist Brett Alexander!:
"The Genius Bros were Butch Ruston on vocal, Sandy Hancock on bass, 
Tim
Racca on drums, and Malibu Burt (AKA Brett Alexander) on guitar. Born out of a love of beer
and loud music with nothing much to say other than a tongue-in-cheek,
'Hey, we're genius!' ...Right. Hey, it's always fun to switch
instruments and see what happens. Tim liked to play drums, I was always
a guitar player first, and Sandy... shit, he could play the bass, no
problem. He loved to do those dive-bomb slides up and down the neck like
Gene Simmons. He was rock solid. Sandy was hilarious. Butch did some
singing, I think, back in his Troy High School days. He was too funny.
We would write songs on the fly by having Butch point to various places
on the neck of my guitar and basically I would just play chords in those
positions, establishing the arrangements (if you could call it that) in
a fast and loose manner as soon as Tim clicked his drumsticks 1-2-3-4.
Sandy quickly learned by site what I was doing, and we were off and
running while Butch screamed his lines, simply that we are Genius Bros.
No profound statements here. If you weren't drunk, you wouldn't
understand it."
5/10: Keystone, Berkeley : Pearl Harbor & the Explosions
Pearl was also known as being Paul of the Clash's girlfriend. We played the best set of our lives to complete silence, then watched the stage get rushed when she went on like they were N'Sync. Side note, I have a rare 45' by Leila and the Snakes with a lovely, full page shot of Pearl's nude bottom on it. Had that had been a part of their set, I certainly would have rushed the stage as well :-)
5/12: Victory Park, Pasadena
Outdoors festival. Whole front row consisted of people from a local special education school. One girl told our managers, "Your singer cute like Beatles." Scott was very flattered.
5/14: Rockola, Long Beach Cable TV
30 minute T.V. show hosted by Bobby Blue, ex-KMET DJ. Had a room full of all our friends, played fairly well considering how nervous (OK, completely fucked up :-) we were. Tried to get copy of show after but the station lost track of Bobby who took the masters with him. No video of us exists from this era. Life's like that, eh? :-)
Update, video found!
5/7: Starwood, Hollywood : The Front & Skin
The Front were a pre-fabricated punk band put together by Angie Bowie, Davie Bowie's ex-wife. The night ended with: 1. Angie letting them know them how horrible they played. 2. The band breaking up after a screaming match. They yelled and threw a bunch of crap at each other, so I suppose they were kinda punk.
5/21: Starwood, Hollywood : Loose Change
6/2: Eagles Club, Garden Grove : Social Distortion
Too fucked up to play and in a hurry to get back to the studio to get more fucked up. Say nope to dope kids...
6/12: Troubadour, Hollywood : Mick Smiley & The Real Kids
The arrival of Pharaoh Sandy. Bob Jones (Manager) & I were talking to a female drug casualty while Sandy was crusing around with his T-Shirt over his head, pre-Cornholio-style. She was riffing... "Y'know.., When I have a kid, I'm gonna name him Bobby or Alan or..." Sandy raises an eyebrow from across the way, darts over right into her face and barks, "NO. You will name him Ramses!" O.K., you had to be there :-)
6/17: Hong Kong Cafe, Los Angeles : Rubber City Rebels
6/21: Bla Bla Cafe, Studio City
The 20th, the reformed Cowsills. The 22nd, Diana Canova from Soap. This was a quaint little piano and coffee bar in the Valley. Have no idea what we were doing here with stacks of Marshall's. Timmy Maag's farewell gig...
7/14: Club 88, West L.A. : Fear
The weirdest looking show of our lives. Fear was a great punk band on their way down, and our female fans were on a Spandex kick. The two crowds looked extremely goofy together. Fear were a blast to hang out with and Lee Ving made it a point to see that everyone beer was topped off. A very polite host... Welcome Michael Dane.
7/15: Cuckoo's Nest, Costa Mesa : The Plimsouls & Suburban Lawns
Suburban Lawns were the nifty band that sang 'Janitor' and 'Gidget Goes to Hell', both staples on KROQ. My wife works with their guitar players wife. They should wrestle over whose husbands band was better. I'll videotape it if they do, I promise.
7/27: Hong Kong Cafe, Los Angeles : Bates Motel
8/14: Bla Bla Cafe, Studio City
8/21: Hong Kong Cafe, Los Angeles : The Flyz
10/13: Mike Mountain's Birthday Party, Chino
Mike Mountain (blond gentleman rolling the doobie) was the coolest guy we knew. Miss getting stoned with him and thumbing through his record collection (big on T-Rex.) This party was funny in that we were up on a hill in almost total darkness, and when the police helicopter showed up with it's spot light, we saw there were about 1500 people down below us in a field. Some party!
10/27: Julie Perrah's, Cypress
11/3: Jenny Taylor's, Fullerton
I met Rikk Agnew's cousin Terry Montalvo this night and she broke my heart within a month. Even rock gods like myself defer to brunettes with bob cuts :-)
11/16: Troy High School, Fullerton
11/27: Starwood, Hollywood : Spoilers
12/21: Julie Perrah's, Cypress
On to 1980 »
