Flashback

11.12.25

I guess I was waiting for the posed photo to come through, but it never did. The Polka Cowboys played Sunol, we got band photos, it was great, I had a neat outfit. I had gone to Canyon on the Friday to load gear because Art had had emergency surgery and wasn’t supposed to lift more than 15 pounds–Art made dinner, I spent that night in my Westyhaven, we carpooled in the big Tesla to the gig, then got to set up and play, break down and load, and back to Canyon for another night, because we were too tired to pull all that equipment out. It was pretty sweet tho. Sputnik was recovering from shoulder surgery too, his arm in a sling, and played drums through it. Woah. Trooper.

A great band photo to come . . .

A couple of weeks ago I heard from Grif that he had found a VHS tape from our November 1990 performance on La Val’s downstairs stage–I forget what we called Down There. During two broken strings I shirked the opportunity to tell the very long story of how I worked at La Val’s from just after they opened in 1976 through early 1979; before I was playing music, when I was breaking up with Pilmer and hence nearly homeless, and via some strange interactions out in the street around a protest over the cancellation of Tim Yohannon’s show on KALX met up with the Frank Mooreons and thereby found myself playing drums at the Mabuhay Gardens weekly Thursday night dinner shows for four months with the Outrageous Beauty Review and the Superheroes . . Thus began my music and stage career.

After playing in some funky little garage combos I met Grif on Thanksgiving of 1984 at the new home of our ex-neighbor and mutual friend. Grif had brought about a dozen LP’s for entertainment, and I pored over them with surprise and delight–oh! yes!–HP Lovecraft, the Incredible String Band, and Oh, what’s this?? Robin Hitchcock! the Comsat Angels! He played guitar and wrote songs, so we arranged for me to bring my little Yamaha traps around the corner to his place and see what’s what. We hit it off, and found a bass player, and that was Tiger Swallowtail, which became Wingfinger, until Lou left after some random couple of years.. We designed logos and cassette covers and fliers.

La Val’s kitchen is where I met Melokie, and when they opened the basement as a venue we got to wait tables and see the music events, and when there was zero business we would hang out by the backdoor and smoke Export A’s. She and I would take off after work for San Francisco and the clubs on Broadway and thereabouts, or around campus to Cloyne Court or Barrington Hall or Berkeley Square or the International Cafe to see some really great bands of the era, the Mutants, Tuxedo Moon, the Avengers, the Jars, friends of ours. And then there was Rather Ripped Records, a small record shop where live bands would play, I think the Police played there, maybe Patti Smith? And on campus where there were free shows like the time Talking Heads played to a spillover crowd in Sproul Plaza. All this before I was a Musician per se.

Meanwhile I played with other groups as well, the bluegrass-influenced Magpies around 1985, and a jazzy trio where I met Stevie and joined him in the band INCHES–which would eventually become the Cavepainters, and further down the road, the Lost Hippies.

And there was Spent- a thrash combo of 22-year-old college students, who all graduated and left town that spring after a trip to Portland to play the Satyricon, and Gilman Street. And there was Zenarchy, and the Waterdogs, and a couple other opportunities to make the drums-to-bass transition.

Around the time of this gig at La Val’s Grif and I had been playing little cafes up on College Avenue or University, and too bad, we felt like just us just wasn’t enough. I had always wanted to play bass, and it appeared to be easier to find a drummer than a bass player. So it was sometime in spring of 1991 that I took $150 cash to Guitar Center and waved it around, and ended up with a pretty neat Japanese fake-Fender Jazz bass, gig bag, strap and cord. I taught myself to play–heck I knew these songs by heart, I played drums and sang harmonies on them for five years–so I plunked it out until I felt up to speed. I think the first tune I learned was Grif’s Big Dream. Then we did get a drummer, and another name, Hoddyman Dodd, after an English counting poem–and we put out a couple of cassette tape albums.

Somehow, another misspellable name on a marquee lead to a name change, and then we were the Ravines, with a key board player, and eventually another drummer. But that’s all written up elsewhere, perhaps.

Then there were the Silver Kittens, and that crazy year 2009 when everything broke up and the Possum Family Singers were born, and then the Lost Hippies . . . and that sad story. I could have gone on and on.

Looking back, though, this was a good show. Tight harmonies, good stage presence, catchy material. I could have told a good story in the break, or I could have mumbled inaudibly for three minutes, I dunno. Coulda been somebody, y’know. Still are, really.

Shout out to my friends John and Linda on cameras and master control.