CAVERN CLUB PSYCH-OUT

"... you know something�s happening but you don�t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones...�

PROLOGUE: She�s walking south on Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood, this girl is; �not 19 yet,� she insists, and wants to know WHY I�m following. Sees the recorder, �are you a poet?� Could be. Name is Janet, not-yet-19 Janet. She wears funny clothes. Like striped tight zebra-oid pants and luminescent day-glo pink top. Not a punk (�no way�), nor one of a handful of mod-squad refugees scattered about town (no Honda scooter in sight), n.y.19 Janet pledges allegiance to the groovy groups of the peace-and-love generation way back when and in fact relives the moments missed in their original incarnation circa 1967�s Summer Of Love (when she was not-yet-one) by way of a burgeoning incrowd intelligentsia of turtlenecked hipsters devoted to resurrecting the spirit and psyche of this time-tunneled era. There�s a focal point (Cavern Club, soon to be re-named Stone-Age Club), lots of bands (good, bad and wretched) aping the sounds and style, fashion (costume shops peddle orig artifacts for big bucks) paraded about in shameless trick-or-treat and ... d-r-u-g-s. �I�ve recently become aware of the power of LSD,� this not-yet-19-yr-old honest-to-god in reality says; and with emphasis: �kids today want to turn on, but they want to turn on right.� Truly a younger but wiser generation!

Not to be flip, there�s a dead-serious serious side to all of this, as evidenced by the rising tide of �60s-sound mania spreading fast and semi-furious across this country and abroad (Sweden has Nomads, Australia�s got Lime Spiders). X years ago, corporate forays spotlighted the likes of a Teardrop Explodes or Echo And The Bunnymen with R.E.M. and (say) Lords Of The New Church not far in pursuit. Lots of regional acts, considerably more deliberate in parroting the �60s-speak [Bosstown�s boss DMZ to L.A.�s Last and Unclaimed], carved deeper inroads that scene-seeded the nucleus of a cult fanatically refusing to let the message fade away. Suddenly there are Meat Puppets and Vipers and Bangles just as suddenly vying for large shares of a largeaudience market. More suddenly there are Cheepskates and Miracle Workers and Pandoras and Things—and things like Thee Forgiven and Philadelphia�s Fad and lots lots more lurking precariously in the more-obscured shadows waiting patiently for their moment in tyme. And while Lenny Kaye�s Nuggets anthology provided the initial documentation, the more recently compiled vinyl-volumes (Pebbles, etc.) of obscure �60s C-side classics (punk-rock to flower-power) are (now) memorized, digested and regurgitated by modern students of the genre. So the repertoire is a ceaseless diet of reverb and tuned-out tremolo, Vox guitars and Beatle boots. In this regard, the vision is strict retrograde and more imitative of well-worn prototype than anything terribly original or at least stamped in contemporary context. L.A.�s so-called Paisley Underground embraces all of this—the phonies w/the vanguards, the parrots with the visionaries. Hard to figure out what it all adds up to: passing fad or mounting ground-swell? Fashion show or music swap-meet?

Janet finds her way upstairs from the club�s back-alley past an imposing big-man called Mr. Bevis, a Cavern coowner not entirely certain of the scene�s intrinsic aesthetic value. She hunkers down somewhere in the murky depths back against the wall. Ten Tons Of Lies straddle up to the PA, ready to crank. The first number is out of tune, and a cover of �White Rabbit� is appalling. The white-wigged disaster on organ recalls to mind the monsters of Star Trek. She wears the plastic-flower necklace appropriate more for old Laugh-In segments than these standard �60s dress-up affairs. The entire band checks out so outrageously stupid, so godawfully lame above and beyond the more typical earmarks of this Halloween carnival in general, the standard so-bad-they�re-good tag becomes an increasingly viable handle. Like Plan 9 From Outer Space, the surreality of badness invites heretofore unrealized facets of fascination.

House DJ Audrey Moorehead shimmeys up and down, go-going the hell for all it�s worth out of each chord and vibrato�d half-rtote. Her two-piece green-and-white striped cage-dance outfit blends well with the girl an arm�s length away in the orange turtleneck and white miniskirt. Both gyrate at fever-pitch up and down, down and up. Ten Tons� set eventually grinds to the end, and Aud runs back to slap on some Downliners Sect and Pretty Things. A few in the know bop to the sounds with approval; others file outside to take inventory of haircuts and colored cloth.

ACT I, SCENE I: Dressing room backstage at N.

Hollywood�s C&W watering hole, The Palomino. Sid Griffen, a Long Ryder, aficionado of most anything Byrds-related and co-founding member of psych-out revival kingpins the Unclaimed, waxes meditative with thoughts on Paisley and the rebound of sound reincarnated from the tombs of the living dead.

�The Unclaimed was founded in my apartment in April of 1979. We were the first to really go all-out with the hardcore �60s sounds. Maybe at that time the only other acts to consider were the Chesterfield Kings or The Droogs, but the Unclaimed were the only ones really making a point of doing that kind of stuff. This was, of course, long before it was considered hip or OK. And now, my experience with the Long Ryders going from town to town, well, you may not know this, but every city in this country has got some kind of band doing this kind of stuff. I mean, you go to Nashville or Minneapolis or St. Louis—Athens, Georgia!— Memphis, Jackson, Mississippi—every town has got at least one �60s punk band.�

Do the kids show up to play and watch decked out in the same silly costumes?

�Right, they wear the bangs and the stripes and all that kind of stuff and uh, and uh, well I have, y�know, mixed feelings about all of this. Like it�s a really valid music to play and it�s fun to listen to but, uhm well... I love Shelly (Ganz, Unclaimed co-founding singer/songwriter) and I love the Chesterfield Kings but.. personally I can�t do those things any more than I can personally pretend Lyndon Johnson is president. We�re not in Vietnam anymore and Lyndon Johnson�s not president and just because Brian Jones wore a polka-dot tie or shirt to play rock�n�roll doesn�t mean I have to do the same... What it all boils down to is the importance of being contemporary. I don�t see the point of aping something dead and buried 20 years ago. Those days are over. I can close my eyes without having some stupid VCR in front of me, I can close my eyes and see the Beatles or the Stones on Ed Sullivan, right now. I can even tell you what they were wearing! Like it was a wonderful experience—but it�s over. Over. Gone. Now is what counts.�

ACT I, SCENE II: Shelly Ganz is the lead singer, songwriter, driving force behind the Unclaimed, �60s punk-rock connoisseurs-turned-executioners of the sound. Ganz professes literally a lifetime of devotion to the various bands and personalities responsible for the origins of the music, and in the present tense maintains contact—scratch that, COMMUNION—with more than a handful of his heroes.

These include John Sean Byrne, singer for the Count 5 (�Psychotic Reaction�), Sean Bonniwell of Music Machine (�Talk Talk�) fame, and Sky Saxon (Seeds) among assorted others. It was Ganz, the long black-haired troglodyte-looking neanderthal, who bounded stage-front from the back of a packed crowd at a Hollywood showcase nightclub featuring the Standells (reunion performance), offering assistance when singer Dick odd blanked out on the lyrics to �Riot On Sunset Strip. � I Ganz is the embodiment in flesh of the genre as documented on vinyl and spirit. Listening to the guy unravel his tortured psyche—discoursing all that�s mindblowing w/each twist and turn of every 45 and LP—one imagines an Outer Limits episode where chords and lyric are transmutated into the image of man. This would not be far from the reality of the Shelly Ganz experience and a concept that he, most probably, would be quite pleased to admit.

�Oh man, one of the greatest moments of my life was meeting John Byrne of the Count 5. He was so cool, you have no idea. I was with some friends up in San Jose, and we called to arrange a meeting. When we got to where the cat lived, man, HE WAS WAITING OUT IN FRONT FOR US. He was up for the meeting, it was so unbelievable! I was going crazy asking all these questions about instruments used in different tunes, certain lyrics I never could understand—and he was really blown out! I guess he found it hard to believe someone put the time in to digest all the nuances. It was really wild...

�There was the time I went down to the (Club) Lingerie to check out the Standells about six months ago. I was bugging all of them at the sound check, go up to Tony Valentino, �Hey, Tony, where�s the bats?� (cut-out bats adorned the man�s instrument once upon a time, not unlike those conspicuously plastered to the front-body of Ganz�s Vox guitar). And there was Larry Tamlin in back of his Roland Moog Amitron or whatever the fuck that is and I asked him what happened to his Vox. But they�re a good bunch of guys, Dick Dodd was real swell. I can remember sitting in a car in 1975, hearing �Time Won�t Let Me� and it occurred to me that you�re never gonna see bands like that again and that no one is ever gonna make sounds like that again. So I kind of felt that, y�know, wouldn�t it be a gas to do it. The point being that since I�d never see these bands again, I might as well try to cover them. That was the inspiration necessary to motivate an Unclaimed in the first place. I got so excited I could hardly wait...�

I think there�s two important things to point out when you�re talking �60s punk-rock. One Is that bands like the Seeds—and their ilk, those cut from the same cloth, as it were—were really pretty foul. They couldn�t play very well and most of the material, once you factor out the �Pushin� Too Hard��s and the like, is pretty unlistenable stuff. Close your eyes and reach in a �60s bargain bin for the blindfolded pick of the day and chances are you�ve selected a real piece of crap. How many people, even the collectors, can sit through an entire side of Alexander�s Timeless Blooze Band? Second point is that when you�re talkin� �60s punk, most of these guys were bona fide assholes. Real creeps, like Dave Aguilar of the Chocolate Watchband, Jim Sohns of the Shadows Of Knight, Sky Saxon, etc. Whether in reality they actually were as creepy as the personas offered is pretty irrelevant. The attitude was one of rebellion and snottiness, this brash arrogance in the face of conformity. Don�t you think the troops today going through the motions to resurrect the sounds are sort of missing this?

�I�m sorry, I really love those singers a lot, so I have a hard time calling them creeps—but I think I know what you�re saying. And in fact it has been said that Dave Aguilar (Choc Watchband) was kind, of an asshole. I know what you�re saying, but uhh....well....do / look like an asshole when we play?�

Yes, you do. And that�s good. You stomp around like a dehydrated walrus and you look like an asshole. People probably aren�t aware that you�re really a docile, fun-loving kind of guy.

�I suppose there�s a compliment buried somewhere in all of that.�

Right.

�It�s the music of being bugged, that�s for sure. When you listen to �Knock Knock� by the Humane Society you know exactly what he is saying. The cat is really acting tortured. And the kids today miss the boat if they can�t translate the psychosis hand-in-hand with the chords and words. They can file into the Cavern Club decked out in whatever costume fits their mood, but if they can�t decode the wavelength of crazy it�s all going over their head,

I agree.�

ACT II, SCENE I: Twelve O�clock back in the back-alley behind Hollywood Blvd., scenesters congregate in cliquish circles prior to traipsing upstairs and into the bowels of the �60s watering hole. A new installment of girls in go-go suits, guys with beads and shag-cuts mill about, taking inventory of the costume party in abstract detail. Some dig the flowerpower groove, others are punks, some still aren�t sure WHAT they�re supposed to be. This hip-parade appears to be a rather stable clientele or sound-seekers: there are leaders and there are followers....Here comes Paula Pandora, female chanteuse of the female punk-rockin� Pandoras. Paula digs the Sonics and the Gerry Rosalee scene; she can scream just like him whenever they cover �He�s Waitin��� or �Cinderella� (and they do), she can scream just like him whenever they do their own stuff! Guitars are channeled through a fuzz-box, this is mandatory. The sound of the combo is, in fact, not all that distant from the 20-year-ago sound of the combos back then. Paula and the Pandoras have accrued a respectable following despite charges that the band is but marginally original or not all that different from others mining the same turf. She responds:

�All of the others, all they want to do is imitate. They don�t want to be caught wearing one piece of clothing that someone can accuse of not being �60s, y�know what I�m saying? They don�t wanna have any different kind of sound or anything...they want to have that crummy, shitty amps-up type of... they want to have that sound, that thin guitar �cause it�s like their heroes in the �60s... And I�d say we used to be like that, but since we�ve been playing longer we�ve kind of developed into our own thing. And like it took some time. At first we were totally authentic but then we started doing our own thing. I mean, we always looked kind of radical—girls with shorter skirts. And we look different with the real wild colors we wear and the way we sound—we sound really different �cause our guitars are more rock, they�re more chunky It�s still taken from that sound, it�s got reverb and stuff, but it�s just louder and chunkier sounding. I use a fuzz, lots of fuzz... The whole point is that instead of saying we�re gonna sound like this, we say we�re gonna sound like us.�

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47

What do you think is the selling point, the real lure behind the kind of songs you perform that drive people wild?

�You wanna know the truth? OK, this is something I�ve thought about for a while and I really think it�s true.�

Yeah, what�s that?

�It�s sexual music...�

Oh yeah, you think so?

�Uh huh... It�s like, the beat turns people on. It makes you want to fuck. Sometimes I can�t stand it, I want to screw so bad when I hear...�

Yeah..?

�Well I sure as hell know that I get wet listening to... all that great stuff. Yeah, I really think it gets people excited. Turns �em on. I think that�s why Rhino records is pressing so many copies of our LP.�

How many is that?

�About 300,000.�

How many??

�About 3 or 400,000 copies...�

That�s a lot of records.

�It sure is!�

ACT II, SCENE II: BompA/oxx Records head-honcho (and, from the beginning, the causal force behind the Cavern—soon to be renamed Stone-Age—scene and club) Greg Shaw expands on the short and long-term impact of what he feels to be a movement in its infancy.

�One thing I�m really aware of from this scene is the cultural relevance. It has nothing to do with what�s going on today. The issues that are being discussed in these songs are the issues of 1966. Girlfriends and high school and that stuff. I like the sounds, but what made punk important in the �70s was that it was talking about now and was handing out answers for now and that�s why it touched so many people. It gave them a way to express how they felt about things happening in their lives. Right now we are at a transitional point in culture where this whole �70s narcissism is just kind of peaking and drawing to a close—and kids are looking around for something else and it�s going to take a while for everybody to focus in on the positive energy. I think what�s going to happen in the late �80s is what happened in the late �70s, similar to punk only on the opposite side of the spectrum: instead of negative energy and pessimism there�ll be a creative energy force.

�As far as this club goes, I�m trying to keep it really pure. That doesn�t mean just bands doing Pebbles covers but it does mean no New Wave bands and nobody who�s not sincere, none of that kind of stuff. That�s what this place is essentially all about. All the people that come here either know the bands, or they�re starting the bands themselves and so every six months you see a new generation of bands come into the picture. That�s a really healthy regenerative process. These people don�t just come to the club and then go home and forget about it—they are really involved in it, and I think that�s always been a crucial element to getting anything going in youth culture.

�One of the problems is that it�s hard to be a drop-out and a rebel in today�s society because everything�s been done and everything has been so heavily marketed that there are few attitudes which can�t be considered derivative. Like, you can get some really weird looks and be considered a nut by having long hair right now, but it�s not the same as it was in �66 when you were seriously endangering your life by having hair that was long. When I was becoming a hippie I was hanging around with Allen Ginsberg and people like that and I was sort of initiated into this tradition of underground alternative culture. That doesn�t exist anymore. From the late �60s on, every idiot had long hair. And it�s really much more difficult for a person now to be an individualist and a drop-out. What is important about the �60s look is that there is, an attitude that means something to people, something identifiable. Maybe these kids haven�t guided themselves into the naivete that was there in the beginning, but they�re emulating it and they believe in it.

�People tend to go along with trends. Very few people on their own drop out of society and become totally creative; it�s much easier when a lot of people are doing it together. What�s facilitating movement in this direction is the use of psychedelics which is increasing. I think that people taking psychedelics now are a lot more aware of how to use them and aware of some of the pitfalls than they were in the �60s. And I think this is going to lead to a more constructive renaissance of creativity and energy flow.�

ACT III: Acid-room free-association with two in the know: LSD-dealer Tabitha and LSD-legend Roky Erickson, singersongwriter of the �60s-fabled 13th Floor Elevators. Is there an acid-relevance secured to the fabric of this decade? Bad trips? Flashbacks? It�s all there, deep in the kingdom of your mind. Stay tuned to this wavelength for proper transmission....

ROKY; Be careful of today s LSD. They make it with strychnine and arsenic now. So when you take it you could shrivel up and die. t�m reading up a lot on nuclear energy, nuclear bombs. And I have one built in my basement—-but it won�t go off. It scares me sometimes, though. Because that acid�s full of arsenic and strychnine. They want to kill you so they give you the acid. And when you get the acid there�s really nothing you can do. You have to take it once it�s given to you. And then you�ll drop dead. They know this but there�s nothing you can do.�

TABITHA: �I�ve fed acid to the Meat Puppets. They�d go crazy for the purple pyramids and it got to the point where every time they played they came over to eat acid first. They liked it and they needed it. The way they�d contort their faces while playing—that was for the people on acid in the audience. Henry Rollins, D.Boon and Mike Watt of the Minutemen all heavily into acid. Acid is something really nice, really positive. It makes you feel good about yourself, good about life. Acid is a powerful catalyst that releases the right kind of adrenalin from the centers in your brain. On my very first acid trip I was at a Burger King and my very first hallucination was the manager walking by—he in reality was like the only black guy in the entire town—and I looked over at him and noticed that his rear end instead of going out, went in—and not realizing that all of this was some sort of hallucination I managed to go up to him and tell him about it...I wanted to know if he knew... later on we went back to my girlfriend�s house and she had all these blacklight posters in a tripping, room—and her mom had this bright red hair; I had thrown up and me and my girlfriend were sitting there tripping; laughing at our puke. The vomit was moving and we saw worms crawling out of it. Puking and laughing at our puke, watching for worms and then her mom comes downstairs with the dyed red hair and bright green fuzzy slippers and a pink nightgown and she was getting ready to go out so she had ratted her red hair all the way up and had sprayed it—and she walks in the room looking like this and were flopping around laughing at all this puke— we looked up at her, then back down at the vomit...and...

. �I would recommend acid to people into bands like the Pandoras and most of those groups hanging out at that Cavern Club. I�d like to turn the whole place into an LSD emporium....�

ACT IV: Bangle + Oldsters speak out.

SCENE I: Dick Dodd (Standells) and Sean Bonniwell (Music Machine) are still alive and, unlike some compadres of the era, function as unwarped, not-brain-damaged or otherwise chemically or psychically-impaired organisms-of-the-�80s. Both of these cats, are in fact, quite articulate and eager to share any insights as to what the hell this �60s punk-rock revival is all about...

DODD: �Well, all of this resurgence and renewed interest does make me feel pretty old! I look around and there�s the obvious stuff from the past still going strong—Flo and Eddie, that kind of stuff. But when you speak of the resurgence of the kind of material we were doing back then in the �60s—I think that�s really grqat.�

(The much-heralded �asshole theory� of post-�66 punk is once again brought up)

�I know what you�re saying. There was that element ot brash ness, but we were never too focused on it. When we (Standells) played not long ago in Hollywood that cat from the Unclaimed, Shelly, seemed a bit disappointed, y�know, �You don�t sound mad anymore!� Well, I�m not mad anymore. I�m happy!�

BONNIWELL: �What I was trying to get across in the songs was just the normal teenage rebellion, especially of �Talk Talk� and the horrors of going to high school. But not only this, but in �Mother Nature Father Earth� which addressed ecological ques^ tions way before anyone else thought of raising this as an issue in the scope of pop music. And then I had �The Eagle Never Hunts The Fly� which was about starvation. And �The People In Me� was slightly narcissistic but this too posed psychological questions about the individual as well as society. Keep in mind that we came out as the hardest rock at the time—y�know, the whole market was going soft right about then.

�I think the times now have transcended a feeling of futility. I see three camps. One of the more refreshing things about the kids who are picking up on �60s music is that they refuse to rebel for the sake of rebellion. And they appear to be not that much into the drug scene. Into trying to wipe their psyches out so as not to have to confront these adult problems. There�s that faction and I know because I�ve received a lot of letters since the re-issue of the Best Of The Music Machine (Rhino Rec�ds).

�And the punks—well, punk expression has seen its day. It�s hard not to keep current when that was happening—I was called the Grandfather of Punk! I like to think that my era generated a healthy rebellion; there is such a thing. But I�d also like to mention that the original �60s sounds had very little to do with anything demonic or Satanic, and as a Christian I feel very relieved that I can disassociate myself from the Satan-music that some of these kids latch onto. And because the �60s stuff had nothing at all to do with any of that, this new generation of people into the songs will not be infected with any demonic messages— any of that stuff. I just don�t feel.comfortable with the modern expression of Satanism, that�s not what the sounds back then were about. The issues that we addressed were intended to make a statement, but not a statement of death or of negativism.

�There�s so much hope involved in people choosing to find the answers, to find a direction that attempts to solve problems. I think that�s the most encouraging thing about the vision that some of these �60s revivalists are locked into: the energy of hope.�

SCENE II: Me and Bangle Vicki Peterson sipping Sunset Bivd-coffee-shop iced tea sometime after the sun goes down. She has v. nice eyes.

�If you�re gonna listen to a song on Nuggets and try to be that I think you�re really selling yourself short. It�s wonderful to listen to this stuff in a whole collection like that, but a lot of it isn�t that great. Y�know, those bands didn�t become superstars for a reason. It�s valid and it�s good stuff, but people shouldn�t lose their perspective in how they perceive its importance in the grand scheme of things. I just think it�s dangerous to lock yourself into something and say �nothing good has happened past 1966. Therefore I cannot play a guitar which is not vintage 1965.1 can�t wear clothes that have anything to do with possibly being past that date. That�s ... psychotic. It really is.

�Rodney Allen Rippy�s back on television—and he�s not the same. He�s different. But he still says �Jummo Jack.��

What about this identification of the Bangles with the, uh, so-called Paisley Underground? It seems as if your name is inseparable from the label. And what�s started as Paisley has sort of turned and changed color, you know what I�m saying?

�The term was coined by the singer of the 3 O�clock. And it consisted initially of a group of people who, at the time, were very small. Who had a strange and unconnected love for �60s music. And it was strange only because all of us were of an age group too young to have experienced it first hand—as teenagers or children. The first time I came across anyone who was remotely like me in that sense was opening—this was when Debbi (Peterson) and I were playing pre-Bangles for this band called the Unclaimed at some dive in Santa Monica. We didn�t know what to expect; when they came onstage with their black turtlenecks and started doing �Hey Little Girl� we just melted. This was when most bands were playing Tom Petty covers, somewhere in �78. Soon we became entrenched in a network that included the Salvation Army (pre-3 O�clock), the Long Ryders, Shelly and the Unclaimed, of course. It was a network, almost a support group actually, of album exchanging, lots of phone calls. Going to check out Arthur Lee in West L.A. was the first time we even congregated. And the unification became just stronger and stronger from that point on.�

FLASHBACK (epilogue): I remember a tourists tour of Haight-Ashbury back in the San Francisco Summer Of Love, 1967. I was all of 12 yrs-on-this-planet, not really making any sense, y�know, of these dirty, grungy humanoids slumped over awnings, doorways or just piled three or four deep snoozing on the sidewalk. And since this was to be an important lesson re: society drop-outs and anti-establishment justrewards as presented by parental-unit hierarchy (�look at that one over there...�) there were no holds barred as to the exploration of the seedier sides of life and lifeforms. We sifted into a record store, eventually wandering over to an adjacent room in the back. Tin foil lined the walls and ceiling. A color-wheel sprayed prisms of yellow, purple and red up and down, horizontal and vertical. There were two kids, a dog and a handful of assorted catatonic zombies, twitching their necks and eyes in cadent synch with the shower of color. �Look at them, I�ll bet they�re on LSD,� one of my parental tour-guides offered. Something smelled really rotten, but before sinus-cavities provoked an overwhelming urge to evacuate, one particularly deep-fried, older woman looked me in the eye and extended her hand. A moment of silence, then she stared down at the green-purple floor then back directly into my eyes: �Fuck me,� she grunted. �Come over here and FUCK ME.�

18 years later inside the Cavern: Paula is rubbing her bod against a friend�s crotch demanding �boners.� The Mersey-surf Fad from Philly set up equipment ready for the evening�s final set. DJ Audrey bounds about, high-strung for the first crunch of rhythm. Shelly Ganz looks forlorn and faraway—there�s always the chance the next band will cover a Watchband tune, then again...