IMAGES


Photo by Melissa T.E.

Originally formed in the summer of 2004 in Carson, CA, with Ryan Miranda and James Carman, IMAGES (formerly known as Easy Image) decided to make their own interpretation of art through the form of musical expression. During high school, they began throwing their own backyard shows where they met Nick Faciane, who shared similar interests and views of the way a band should be. He was later asked to join IMAGES, in late 2005, which added a new element to help fulfill and master their sound, and finally completing the lineup for the group. After only two years of playing as a band, IMAGES were invited to play with the Buzzcocks in 2006 on two separate occasions, one at the House of Blues in Anaheim and the other at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. They have again played with the punk legends, opening their west coast tour in June, 2010.

The group had gone through a large cycle of partially successful drummers; but it was after the band traveled to New York City in the autumn of 2009 that James decided to play drums live, while retaining most lead vocal duties. This lineup recorded in Seattle soon afterwards (a three-track promo CD from that session called Limited Edition is now available) and played several shows so successfully that they have continued as a three-piece.

Thrashing through with a sound that is at once intense, melodic, and danceable, IMAGES are a group of diverse musicians who intertwine their influences, DIY ethic, and performances to create an art that is fresh and inspired in their Los Angeles hometown. Although formed in 2004 as a group of highly ambitious boys fourteen years young, they have since developed into a group mature for their age through years of experience.

 

(THEE ULTIMATE) BABY J


Photo by Shanty Cheryl.

How did little Jessica Feeney become "Thee Ultimate Baby J?" When she first started hanging out at backyard parties in San Pedro, CA, she was pretty young – she looked 12. We started calling her Baby Jessica, after the baby that fell in the Texas well (the biggest news story of 1987). The moniker quickly morphed into Baby J, and so it was for years. Present day – she has to put a name on this 7-inch and when she Googles "Baby J" to see if she has any competition … Fuck! Some UK rapper named Baby J that sounds like the Euro version of Del the Funky Homosapien. The cherry on top is Baby J is also what the Christians lovingly call, "baby Jesus" (gross). So keep calling her Baby J, but if you want to cyber-stalk her, Google "Thee Ultimate Baby J" please.

You might already know who Baby J is from her other two bands, CAN OF BEANS and STONED AT HEART.

The first time I saw Baby J jamming on the acoustic guitar, besides at drunken parties, was while Todd and I were recording the Recess Records Pody Cast, episode 2. Baby J walked in with a 12 pack and a guitar, sat down, took a few gulps and killed it. It was pretty fuckin' awesome. We wound up drunkenly singing a RANCID song … but when does that not happen? After she left I said, "Dude, she's really good!" Todd nodded and said, "She never fucks up, doesn't need to do second takes ever. I've never seen her fuck up."

She has about a hundred unreleased songs under her belt, so this is by no means the last we'll hear from her. She's always playing shows around California or Arizona and isn't above flying out to Florida or Texas to play a huge fest or backyard party. If you're lucky and buy her some beers you just might get a RANCID or F.Y.P cover in the encore, but don't quote me on that.

– Halbadal

 

MINUTEMEN


Photo by Glen E. Friedman.

As bassist Mike Watt explained a million times, early on in a sudden cultural revolution they purged all their rock ephemera: solos, choruses, harmonies, fans. The purge was bloody, costing decadent lead singer Martin Tamburovich his musical career and untold numbers of blow jobs. The name changed from the Reactionaries to the Minutemen, and then what? I'll tell you, then what: a goddamned three ring circus with a clown under each spotlight! Drummer George Hurley hit everything but a simple four-four and syncopated his syncopations. Bassist Watt turned up his treble and tried to knock guitarist D. Boon out of the box for alleged crimes relating to guitar tyranny. But D. weighed about 20 stone and wasn't exactly unarmed; he had a guitar and a fender twin with treble on ten.

What resulted was a torrent of shards and fragments signifying our common rock / R&B / metal / C&W / schmaltz inheritance fused together in the rock combustion of its execution signifying nothing but enormous entertainment. Then either D. or Mike would babble some San Pedro shuck over the top of the sculpture. And then the masses would roar and light their farts.

– Joe Carducci
Redoubt Press

 

SACCHARINE TRUST


Photo by Victor Sedillo.

They were always in the process of becoming whatever it was precisely that existed in guitarist Joe Baiza's head. This, plus rhythm section personnel changes explain certain time lapses in their recording and touring. But even in those periods the gigs in L.A. were always excellent. The rhythm section of Bob Fitzer on bass and Tony Cicero on drums was sharp, solid and flashy, and Baiza's tense and spindly lines crawled all over it to great effect. It was Jack Brewer's assignment to sing on top of this sound, and he was the man for the task. He used his clutzy manner shrewdly to bait the listener off guard for his species-shaking sermonizing. How unfair Jack, yet how rock and roll of you. One of my favorite Jack lines goes, "When the world becomes perverse / All that is left is our imaginations. / When our imaginations become perverse / All that is left is … is …."

Jack explained to the Los Angeles Times when they showed up in 1986, "I think we've been ignored because we're actually too hard to ignore."

– Joe Carducci
Redoubt Press

 

TODD CONGELLIERE


Photo by Shanty Cheryl.

In case you don’t know who Todd is, here is a short list of facts and achievements:

  1. He was the lead singer of F.Y.P
  2. In the ‘90s he was a pro skateboarder.
  3. He owns and runs Recess Records.
  4. He plays pick-up basketball games at his local YMCA.
  5. He is the lead singer of Toys That Kill, Underground Railroad to Candyland and Stoned At Heart.
  6. The kid is constantly on tour and not just in America.
  7. When Tony Hawk and Shaun White throw parties, Todd is the DJ.
  8. He totally knows Mike Watt (Minutemen etc. etc. etc.)!

– Alan Velasco

 

EPIC DEBAUCHERY


Photo by Shanty Cheryl.

Billy Fleps - bass and vocals
Moe Maldonado - guitar
Denis Fleps - drums

These guys have played in tons of bands:

Rosemary’s Billygoat, Spinning Ceilings, E.Coli, Iambic Pentameter, Toys That Kill, Megahurts, The Law and the list goes on.

This is one of the few bands that can pull Hollywood hipsters away from their iPhones and hold their attention for the set. When I asked Denis Fleps how he would describe the band he said, “Mid ‘80s, Valley Girl rock, played by guys going through a mid-life crisis … too stubborn to turn down the volume and play real music.” That sounds about right to me. One time in San Pedro, CA a girl came up to the guys after they played and said she loved the band, but had to leave because the vibrations were hurting her uterus. It turns out the guys got a bunch of free CRUNK energy drinks just before they played, and drank three each. As of late, I hear the boys have been hanging around Trader Joe’s scoring STEAZ energy drinks. So if you think you might be pregnant and you’re at an Epic Debauchery gig, get some earplugs for your uterus.

– Alan Velasco

 

SEAN COLE


Photo by Susy Sharp.

What's up with Sean Cole?

If the name sounds familiar that's because Sean Cole has been around for a while. Let's break it down and feel the full gravity of this man:

  1. Sean grew up in Whittier, CA playing in grindcore bands.
  2. Joined F.Y.P in 1995 as drummer before he got "promoted" to bass.
  3. When F.Y.P morphed into Toys That Kill (2000), Sean hopped on guitar and to this day shares the singer/songwriter spotlight with Todd Congelliere.
  4. Sean has played on six full-length records, three 10" records, too many 7-Inch records to count and this tape.
  5. Sean can grow his hair and moustache to become Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) whenever he wants!
  6. Sean has toured the world and will do it again.
  7. He's more of a cat guy than a dog person.

– Alan Velasco

 

THE REACTIONARIES


Photo by Noelle Tamburovich-Vuoso.

THE MINUTEMEN WERE REACTIONARIES


For most of the music world – or rather the much smaller rock world – of the early 1980s, the Minutemen seemed to arrive fully formed, as if from some other planet. Questions must have immediately crossed minds: Where are these guys from? What drugs are they on? Are they carbon-based life forms?

Those reactions were understandable, as it was the 45-song, double 33rpm Double Nickels On The Dime (SST 028) that introduced the band to most folks outside of Los Angeles. If I remember right, the initial sales jumped from the five thousand range for Buzz Or Howl Under The Influence Of Heat (SST 016), to fifteen thousand for Double Nickels. (Of course all those releases sold far more after the day.)

D. Boon, Mike Watt and George Hurley were always deflecting the effusiveness of fans in clubs, or in interviews – it was part of their charm. But think about it, the Minutemen were telling kids that they could pick up instruments and do the same! Nobody who saw them live believed that for a second.

I was at Systematic Record Distribution and got their first record, Paranoid Time (SST 002), from the label and ordered it for distribution to shops around the country. It was hard enough for me to discern how great they were from that and their early follow-up records and compilation tracks. To my ear, I don't think I really heard what they were capable of until they were playing the Anti-Club regularly in 1983-84. There was just so much music packed into their short, fast tunes. And at each gig a few older, simpler tunes were replaced by new, even more masterful tunes. At their first San Francisco gig at the Mabuhay, Dirk Dirksen (who ran and MC'ed the club), strolled out on stage to introduce them and the first thing he saw was a four-foot long set-list taped to D.'s mic-stand and Dirk said, "What is this, the history of music?!" It was! When we recorded the long tail of the song "More Spiel" for Project: Mersh (SST 034) I joked to D. that he'd just laid down a six-minute history of the guitar solo. At SST, hearing guitarists Greg Ginn, Joe Baiza and Curt Kirkwood all the time, it was easy to underestimate how great a guitar player D. was. That radical reformation the Reactionaries performed on themselves to become the Minutemen encouraged that, because it elevated Mike and George to co-lead players.

But their world-historical, musical summation had a history as well. And that was their late-seventies band, the Reactionaries. Mike and D. had known each other since junior high. They met Martin Tamburovich and George Hurley at San Pedro high, although they wouldn't claim they knew George because in Watt's words, "he was a happening cat," whereas D., Mike, and Martin were on the not-so-happening end of the high school social spectrum. As George tells it: "For a long time Mike would ask me to play music with him. He wanted to jam out, but I really wasn't into it 'cause I was a Surfer then and he was sort of a geek. I don't know, we were kids. Finally, I agreed to it." This kind of transgression of school social hierarchy is common when music brings young kids together in their first band. It's an under-appreciated aspect of the power of music.

Thankfully the Reactionaries recorded a practice in their attempt to get gigs so we have these 10 songs to contemplate. What you can hear are the rudiments of the Minutemen's sound, only unlike most bands, they only got rid of stuff as they improved. D. is already a good guitar player with his trebly sound in place. Mike and George play more standard-rock bass and drums parts, and Martin sounds like he belongs on the mic, though the quality of the lyrics varies widely. Chuck Dukowski saw them and reports, "Martin was a cool singer and I liked his style." They were just out of high school and though they already had their obsessive interests, the lyrics (by Mike, Martin, and friends outside the band) show an awkward adaptation to the punk style as they understood it. Like a lot of lyrics by seventies punk bands, television is of particular concern – punks who were determined to create a music scene thought watching TV was a fate co-equal to Death.

In February of 1979, Chuck and Greg Ginn were flyering a Clash, Bo Diddley, Dils show at the Santa Monica Civic when they met D. and Mike. The flyer was for what would be the second Black Flag gig, and it was going to be in San Pedro. D. and Mike were amazed to learn of a gig in Pedro and Chuck hadn't known there was a punk band there, so he put the Reactionaries on the bill. It was their first gig; they played with Black Flag, the Descendents (their debut too), the Alley Cats, the Plugz, and an impromptu mini-set by the Last. A world-historical night, however many paid at the door.

The Reactionaries played only two more gigs, opening for the Suburban Lawns at their practice pad in Long Beach. They made a pass at getting a gig at the Other Masque up in Hollywood, but the band was falling apart. Mike's description of D.'s loss of interest in the Reactionaries is interesting. Apparently D. didn't offer his songs to the Reactionaries and then found them another guitarist (Todd Apperson) so he could quit. They broke up around mid-1979. George found a band in Hollywood called Hey Taxi! and is on their 45. Though soon enough, D. and Mike regroup and eventually pull George back into their new, improved mess after their new drummer (Frank Tonche) walked offstage and quit during their second gig. At the Minutemen's first gig (May 1980), Greg asked them to do a record for SST.

– Joe Carducci