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Correspondence
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Random Davis 80s
music scene details culled from emails in response to davis80smusic.com
and davis80smusic on MySpace If you find anything in here that you'd prefer remain private, please drop me a line at robert@angrylambie.com |
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Popealopes - Spring 1985 to 1995 (Band
didn't "leave" Davis. Founders Steve Dueker still lives in town, and Pete Lohstroh lives in West Sac) Existence of venues (Antique Bazaar, Olive Pit, Davis Musicians Co-op) KDVS station managers - Mark Stevens - June 1984 - May 1985 Dave Econome - Station manager June 1985 - May 1986 John Nelson - Station manager June 1986 - May 1987 Geoff Lomax - June 1987 - May 1988 |
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KDVS station managers: Mike Sullivan didn't succeed Lomax - after Geoff, it was: Brian Grattidge Marg Tobias Ted Verani Marta Ulvaeus Thornucopia broke up in 1994, I think (I left in 1993 and Guy wasn't in it for long) - it wasn't 1995 because I was in another band called Little Henry Clump with Brian Grattidge in 1995 after Thornucopia dissolved. Zombie Motorcade briefly reformed somewhere between 1990 and 1992, when Jeff Yih moved back to Davis for a while - they played at one of the Vet's Memorial shows. I think the PiePets may have existed longer than 1988 There were a whole bunch of Eric Janssen bands in the late 80s-early 90s but I can't recall the exact timeline. The ones I remember: Mighty Strangers Nest of Saws Curbfeelers Lookyloos |
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i don't remember 218 Cortez, unless
that was a dorm or something that (the Suspects) played. i was
their "manager" which meant i got to call dirk dirksen on their
behalf and get yelled at. Steve Wynn paid me in candy bars.
so yeah, i guess i must've announced them that time, but my role in
the scene was more than that. i had a friday nite show,
6-10pm, as "Peter The Clutching Hand" for a couple of years. i was the guy who started getting the english bands in to davis...by calling information in the UK and getting the home number of XTC's bassist. i found a university phone that was open and would connect overseas so we starting calling for free, which ended up with them playing the coffeehouse. and that's how it got started. in the meantime, bands like chic were playing freeborn hall. we all must've seen the ramones 50 times during those years. best memory was a noon show, free, outdoors in the plaza in front of SF City Hall. 80 degrees and joey never took off his leather jacket. when i interviewed them, they were the dullest most inarticulate folks you could imagine. when i asked if they wanted to be on the cover of Tiger Beat, the answer was a resounding and immediate yes. iggy called me a cocksucker on the air. then he turned to tom gracyk, who was a bit husky, and called him a chunky cocksucker. good times. the stuff about the aggie and kdvs being in sync is truer than you know. karen johnson was the aggie editor while tom mckewan was the kdvs manager (1979-1980). they married t around the time they graduated in '80. she's a hotshot attorney and he's a househusband, having put her thru law school earlier. tell me more about the fate of Frank French - is he really still around? does he still surround himself with smiley-face stuff? |
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and we interviewed all of the
coffeehouse people. bet the station still has the tapes
banging around down there. after interviewing devo we went out
to the cars and hung out in the lot playing catch with mark
mothersbaugh with a potato. mark had several in his pockets.
chewed them up during the show and spat pieces on the audience.
devo were the kids nobody liked in high school, getting revenge.
let's just say neil young is still relevant, but devo isn't anywhere
to be found (altho mark and jerry still are making music, for movies). |
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i'm not so hot on having anything from
me on myspace, but sure you can put my ruminations up onto the davis
80s site if you'd like. just be sure to say it's my
**opinion** and is also probably clouded by time, if not completely
inaccurate! for example, i can't remember exactly who actually
interviewed each band, but i do know i was at least in the room for
most of them. i definitely asked questions for ramones, devo,
iggy, and xtc. and peter tosh got me so high i forgot my name
for 5 hours, but that's another story. the suspects thing really wasn't as glorious as it seems most people are seemingly remembering it. anyone who listens to those two live clips on your site can see that for themselves. but they get an a for effort, and they were first to try. i think that scott guy is probably more talented than they were. guy kyser was this weird silent dude who hung out at the station but didn't participate, and the others were all youngsters that sort of irritated us more senior people and were dismissed by them (because, of course, we were way too cool). and obviously a lot of them went on to have flashes of glory and sometimes a little more than that, as evidenced by your site. |
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it might be fun to ask steve suchil
for his memories, too. no, i think all would agree that the
suspects sucked - that's not the point. its really that they
weren't important ("central" is the word you use below) at the time,
to anyone except themselves and our circle of friends. it was
just a vanity project for a bunch of DJs trying to work out their
rockstar fantasies. and that four of them got into bands later
is kinda cool. but that none were ultimately truly successful
in music (or business) is also kinda sad. i guess i'm saying i have mixed emotions about it all. several others of us from the time, when we talk about it, wonder whether the rockstar fantasies prevented these people from having more productive or meaningful lives (or allowed them to not try to do so). most of these people went to the university of california, which was a pretty big deal then (and more so now). now, as i face putting my own kids into such schools, i recognize even more how bad it would be to waste such opportunity. i guess i just wonder how it is/was worth it, and whether it's worth glorifying. but it was fun, that's for sure. like when steve w. had placed his ad in the paper to find the drummer and bassist for suspects, and i called him as "Michael Washington" with a deep ghetto accent. poor little steve was trying hard to be polite and PC, as he tried to dissuade me from wanting to be in his li'l punk band... i'm also amusing myself today by noticing how much time i've spent on it all today. yeah, put up what you'd like out of what i sent. |
| An intelligent, witty and irreverent bunch of folks from diverse backgrounds in and around bands - a good scene. |
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I did sound at 7 events/venues or
more. Picnic Day, WEF, Black Family Week, the Coffee House, Olive
Pit, Silo, New Music Emporium (basketball courts at UCD), the Quad,
the Brewery, pretty much you name it.
I played with the Bluelight Basement Band, Dave Webb, Robert Crumb, Grey Bouquet, Bill Scholer, and with TWR at my going away party, etc. Some just one time parties, some more. I got the Violent Femmes to play at 616. I was the original bassist for Blah Blah Blah. I was just writing my brother, who
directed me to your group ... I joined! I have made to CD the Blah Blah Blah first ever "rehearsal", which was really composing a bunch of songs ... right across the street from 616 ... Geoff Ball lived there at the time. Tony Grimani was still at 616, and came over, asking if I could play a "ripping bass line" (on my Jack Casady Alembic) ... or course I couldn't, so I ripped him the big bass intro to The Other One. Obviously, I didn't get asked to join Vox Humana, yet, I remained the weirdo who was both Deadhead and Nu-Punk fan in the first half of the '80's. Grimani was previously in a very bad, little known band called the Assholes, who relied on offensive noise. However, as a result of my getting the Femmes to play at his house, he was asked to play in the Horns of Delusion at the VF's Freeborn Hall show. Millington moved to Hawaii, and is doing well. Geoff Ball is making a fortune doing massage in SF. Femmes were good at 616 ... someone stole a reel-to-reel from KDVS to record that, I'm almost positive. What's his name ... Dave? The keyboardist from Shep's Faithful Head? Yes, pretty positive that was the 616 show with the tape machine. VF's were cool, the drummer played a empty beer keg with brushes. How I got that to happen was nothing short of a miracle. |
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Hi Robert, my name is Eric Janssen. Some friends pointed me to your website and I'm finally getting around to writing. I went to school in Davis between 1984 and 1989 and was heavily involved with KDVS (music director one year) during the latter half of that time and after graduation. After school I continued to live in Davis and played in the bands Nest of Saws, The Mighty Strangers, The Curbfeelers, and most recently The Lookyloos. I realize this is mostly post-80s, but thought you might be interested nonetheless considering this fact: Davis 80's music had a profound influence on me. The main point that came across was to start a band and play music. My heart lies more in indie-pop, but the music of Thin White Rope in particular is something very special to me and was hugely influential. Nest of Saws never put anything out. Nest played for about a year or two, the most memorable gig was at the UCD Coffeehouse. We actually sounded like a band that night  . The Mighty Strangers (featuring JoeBecker ex TWR, a member of Zombie Motorcade, a member of Shep's Faithful Head and maybe one or two other folks along the line) played mostly at house shows in town. Mighty Strangers are on two compilations: the 4 Lips From One Mouth Compilation (I should actually confirm that title) and the Eyes Calm Film compilation. The Curbfeelers played in Davis, Sac, Chico, SF at house shows and clubs in the mid-1990s. We put out 2 tapes and 3 singles. The Lookyloos (featuring ex Zombie Motorcade, Grey Bouquet, Dig to China folks) were together for over 10 years (about '96-'06). We put out 2 CDs, the latest one just recently last November called You're Looking Very Beautiful Man (www.latherrecords.com), and participated in two compilations, one called Rock Scientist and the other one called Pop's Not Dead. Since 2003 I've also been running/admin'ing a band rehearsal room that started out in 1984 as the Olive Pit and has managed to survive, albeit in different locations. A very brief history is located on the website the bands use for communicating with each other: . I hope this finds you well, thank you for putting up your website |
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A couple of band names you might be
missing... The Curbfeelers (Eric from Nest of Saws, Steve from Dig to China) The Lookyloos (Eric from Nest of Saws) Acme Rocket Quartet (Roger from TWR) Lick Me Village Vanguard (Gary Saylin) The Mighty Strangers Holiday Ramblers Speed Bump (Johanna from Thornucopia and the Toasted Sweeties) |
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(re the Harsh Realities) some history that I'll include in blog someday. It turned out that the Antique Bizarre became more than our home base: Let's figure percentage wise, if we played clubs a total of 24 times. And it would be like this: we played the Antique Bizarre 12 times Mr.B's (also in Davis I assume you remember) once. The other 11 times were other places once each. None of us were students at UCD. I'm 3 or 4 years older than you. My wife and my father worked at UCD. My wife was a secretary there and my Dad was an electrician, in fact he did a lot of the work for a lot of the big shows there including Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense". I saw them at Berkeley and at UCD. I took some photographs of that UCD show and wrecked them by trying to use 1000ASI -thinking this would work best in the darkness. Will put up one when I find it. I am pretty sure it was my wife who got us the gig at the Antique Bizarre. Myself and most of the band came from the other side of the tracks -meaning, in Yolo county, the other side of the bypass: Broderick, Bryte and West Sacramento. We'd all, except the drummer married early and our wives showed up at the Antique Bizarre about once and that was enough for them. They are the ones who usually took (the bad) photographs so I am worrying if we will find an A.B. photo in the bunch. They and the band and especially the drummer wanted better gigs. Pressured me to get us outta there. I had a better idea of how limited our skills were and why we should be grateful to have a place to hone them. And, of course, the Antique Bizarre didn't pay worth talking about. Also was a tough gig because, as I mentioned we were always booked alone. For a band playing all originals this is demanding playing from 9 till almost 2 - and all of us holding down jobs. When I send some mp3's of what we played in Davis there is a way I'll use them to explain my changing material and even how it worked in the demise of the band.....so THANKS again and as always for keeping things going. |
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Sherri Trahan was the entertainment
director at UC Davis during that time. Well, that's about all I can remember at the moment. |
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The BITE's lead singer was named Kelly
Brock - her name came to me a couple of days ago. Funny that I could visualize her, but not remember her name |
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The main band
Geoff Ball was in was called "Blah Blah Blah" with Jon Cypher, Fred Juhos, Laura lash and for a short period, Joe Becker. |
| Around 1984 several bands (Thin White Rope, Grey Bouquet, Zombie Motorcade, Bill Scholer and others) organized cooperatively to create the Olive Pit, a rehearsal room in one of the warehouses at the end of Olive Drive, west of Richards Blvd. in Davis. The mysterious Hutchmo tended the Olive Pit with the assistance of his accomplice, Von Feldt. The Olive Pit was forced to shut down in 1989 (link to TWR playing last show at the Olive Pit:here) and some of the Olive Pit bands moved to a building, aka the Lab, in rural Yolo County. Capt. Long Brown Finger and his band of swabs took lead duties and outfitted the room for rehearsal use. This lasted only several months and was shut down due to neighbor complaints. The bands then moved to a West Sacramento warehouse (dubbed the Pit) where bands came and went but the cooperative organization lived on under the watchful eye of The Suburban Panther from 1990 to 2003. (There was one move in West Sac: from a north facing warehouse to a south facing one directly on the other side of the building.) Eventually the bands were forced to move again because the chop shop next door wanted to expand. The Suburban Panther needed a break from his administrative commitment and Eric Lookyloo took up the reins. After 2 or 3 months in the commercial Beehives during which time everyone scoured real estate ads, in September 2003 the Coop moved into the Fort: a warehouse in the Richards Boulevard neighborhood of Sacramento. On January 6, 2007 the Fort moved about 100 feet to a newly constructed room on the same property. That brings us up to the present. |