They Never Had the Good Hair

Playground Slap didn't sound like the other local bands during their 1982--'88 run.

"We had punk and jazz and psychedelic and funk, but back then everything was called new wave," says guitarist Marcelo Radulovich, one of three original members of Playground Slap who have reformed the band.

"We were compared to the Talking Heads. For a while we were called New Romantic.... We never had the good hair. It wasn't very poofy.... We opened for Midnight Oil at Montezuma Hall. Their lead singer was a bald, spooky-looking dude who was a freaking dick to us....

"We played with Ministry at the Spirit [now Brick by Brick]. I don't remember that night, except that I was 19 or 20. I had to wait outside while the rest of the band could go in....

"Back in the day it was so much harder to make a basic recording. Basic studio rates were outrageous. We had 15 hours in the studio to record our [1985] record. We pressed 500 [vinyl] copies. But we had no money to promote it. It kind of just sat around."

Radulovich says Playground Slap musicians have stayed close to music. Radulovich writes and records his own solo material. Bassist David Ybarra has played with the Cloud Merchants, the Wild Truth, and Carlos Olmeda. Keyboardist Ray BeZonia is a sound tech for the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

"We have encountered so much bullshit about age," continues Radulovich. "It's like the young bands have all the power, which is total bullshit. But it's like old blues players. You love them because they lived it."

Playground Slap performs Sunday at the Casbah.