True West: after their final demise Steve Packenham played for a little while with guitarist Steve Randall as 'Two Named Boy.' Steve Randall has played with numerous bands and now teaches guitar and plays with Sacramento-area bands including the Arlenes, Richard March, Anton Barbeau and the Universal Steve.

In the 03-04 school year there was a house called the
'pirate house' in Davis that threw a bunch of shows.  They were exiled from
their house on Mulberry lane so they relocated to (you guessed it) 616
Anderson.  In late 04, early 05 the house was a veritable night club,
hosting shows almost twice a week.  This was during a drought of
'legitimate' live music spaces in Davis.  They were shut
down around March or April, when they were told they'd be evicted if they
received another noise complaint. 
Houses like that that contributed to attempts
at control on the part of the city council/police. For example, $300 noise
violation tickets that can double and triple upon second or third offense,
also the rather unique ordinance that allows police to arrest a Davis
citizen upon their third noise violation within one year. This
Fall the house was hit with four tickets in one night, $600 in total
citations for one night!  The police threatened them with arrest if they had
to return again within the next year.  I'd be curious to hear stories about
what it was like fighting the square community in the 1980s.

Back in 84-85 we had some great shows at the old coffeehouse - The
Replacements who were too drunk to play anything.  They tried to do a Husker
Du cover and then it all descended into a Help Me Rhonda sing-along after
the power had been cut.  The story there was that they got to town early and
***** ***** who worked for the EC took them out to a bar and got them
falling down drunk.
We also had The 3 O'Clock, Del Fuegos, and Jonathan Richman that year.  Good
year for the Coffeehouse.
There were also some great shows out in the surrounding area - there was a
barn that Pete Lohstroh and Sherrie Trahan used for a couple of "Barn
Shows" with 28th Day and Camper Van Beethoven; TWR played at one of those
as well.  The Aggie Hotel had some great shows: Honeymoon Killers,
Spot1019, the Meices, etc. TWR played many many shows at the Aggie Hotel -
we were all sad when that was shut down and demolished.

Toasted Sweeties never practiced at the Olive Pit, but did play there once. 
They also played many house parties with Nest of Saws - Eric Janssen's band.
After the Olive Pit closed, TWR set up a new rehearsal space at an old lab
between Davis and Woodland - called "The Lab." 
Toasted Sweeties practiced there as well as TWR and Go Dog Go. 
That didn't last because of noise complaints from the neighbors so Pete started the co-op out in West Sac. 
I practiced there with each band I've been in (as well as some other places such as Will Cotter's garage studio on Drexel).

 The scene was pretty incestuous and lots
of folks played in each other's bands. 

A bit of stuff about the good ol' California Aggie, which intersects much of what's notable elsewhere:
It was Steve Wynn covering the Pistols that prompted him to start a band.
Tom Gracyk--major domo/musical guru for Wynn & others who started bands then--wrote for the Aggie,
as did other KDVSers, like some guy named Crozier, another guy named Strauss and assorted others,
including a computer brainiac/ gifted music writer named John Ruston.
Pound for pound--for a little college paper on a campus that didn't even offer a journalism class, much less program--
the Aggie carried some astonishingly good writing about music then.

John Cypher of Boy's Life (with Fred Juhos) was 
also was a member of the band "Grey Bouquet" with Geoff Ball.
 
You mention the KDVS "Gang of Six" as being quite influential in the
changeover...and surely they were...as prior to Tom Gracyk, Russ Tolman,
Connie O'Donnel, Steve Wynn and their associates at KDVS there was definitely a
strong tide at the station to program stultifying pop jazz during the
prime-time hours. The GM/Music Director basically had blocks of time mandatory
for such programming. Parallel changes were occurring over at the Sacramento
State Student Radio station KXPR...and essentially that station was taken over
by their Trustees and converted to a National Public Radio station playing only
Classical music. The changes instituted at KDVS by the "Gang of Six" created a
different trajectory. Throughout the 1980's the Administration and the
Conservative Student Government consistently tried to "domesticate" KDVS, to
little avail.
 
This battle for KDVS's identity as a Free Form station directed by students who
"created" the music was an ongoing issue throughout the 1980's. I think that
the fact that the station existed provided a means to disseminate the music of
these bands, communicate where they were going to play on a consistent basis,
and even provided a site for them to play live, on the air (the weekly "Live in
Studio A" started about 1983).
 
 And of course, KDVS playlists were regarded by many record labels as an
untainted means of assessing whether acts would be successful or critically
accepted. And enough of the alternative stuff was being heard by students and
others in the community to support a campus record store for awhile (though I
understand pilferage caused it to fail), but also maintain several
alternative/independent record stores in town over the years (Flipsides,
Barney's, the CDealer, Armadillo). Barney's had some in-house gigs (e.g. I
recall seeing Roger Miller of Mission of Burma play there)...but one guy also
hosted shows out in West Davis with bands like Savage Republic. And Dave
Fleming, the Manager of Barney's, also ran the Palm's (and still does).
 
KDVS also co-sponsored many of the Entertainment Council shows (Sherri Trahan
was one of those that was key to the the EC bringing in acts like Orchestral
Manoeuvres in the Dark, Gang of Four, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie, the Police, Mojo
Nixon, the Dead Kennedy's, etc.). I recall her working closely with Liz Pullen
and others down at KDVS. In fact, I first heard about the Suspects because Liz
Pullen set up a gig for them in the evening "cafe" that I managed at the
Tercero dorms. This must have been one of their first ever shows...about 1979. 
 
And many of the KDVS DJ's were also linked into the Aggie
art/production...which is how we ended up getting the regular "KDV-iations"
Program Guide started up about 1983. One of those early program guides has a
"geneology" of Davis Bands...made by Jeff Yih and (I believe) Dave Haney. It
would be useful for showing the incestuous ties of many of those early eighties
groups.

Aggie Hotel... and that place
eventually became the club referred to as the "Aggie Hotel" when a guy named
Mike Sullivan (Music Director at KDVS) began holding regular gigs there with a
mix of local and touring bands. Before that it was mainly TWR's rehearsal
space, and they'd hold a party/show there about once every couple of month. 

When Mike Sullivan moved in it was almost a show a week sometimes....he and
Alex Abey, and the Hutchinson brothers knocked out a wall between the bedroom
and the living room to make it a larger performance space. Then they created a
"false wall" to fool the landlord. I don't think that the landlord ever knew
that this had ever been done...maybe even up to the point the place was
demolished!

 Guy was a DJ at KDVS for a short period,
and one of his best friends was Lloyd Handler, a Program Director at KDVS who
was placed right in the midst of all the "formatting" battles that the
myrmidons appointed by the University Media Board tried to institute at the
station.
 
The Entertainment Council WAS really important in
the development of what was happening on campus. They were the folks informed
enough to bring the Police, Bob Marley, the Blasters, X and the Dead Kennedy's
to campus.
 
In addition there was the whole Experimental College/Whole Earth Festival thing
as well. While there was an ongoing tension between the "hippies" and the folks
who were into alternative/punk music at times... there was also a great deal of
synergy between the two camps. Both were very much DIY and into tweaking the
contemporary system of education.
 
As well there was the innovative Art Department that played into the mentality.
That clearly went even back to the Sixties...with students like Bruce Nauman,
whose influence is just now becoming recognized,
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/nauman/index.html
 There was also some influence by folks like the poet, Gary Snyder, as well. I
recall that the Art/English Department brought Laurie Anderson to campus back
in the late 1970's and there was this sudden creative explosion.