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Beat Farmers, Frank Zappa, Lester Bangs

San Diego music in a nutshell

Band room, SOMA, early '90s.  "SOMA has the horrible system where you flyer for the shows, and when people come to the door they ask them, ‘Who are you here to see?’ and if you say ‘Powerdresser,’ they give us a dollar."
Band room, SOMA, early '90s. "SOMA has the horrible system where you flyer for the shows, and when people come to the door they ask them, ‘Who are you here to see?’ and if you say ‘Powerdresser,’ they give us a dollar."
  • Birth of the Beat Farmers

  • Jerry Raney: “This guy from El Cajon High named Jack Chan knew how to play, we’d go out and get the Beatles songbooks and go through 'em and he’d teach me the chords.”
  • By Roger Anderson March 16, 1989
Jerry Raney: "The guy from Iron Butterfly, Darryl DeLoach, for instance — he had this Hollywood guy who wanted to be our manager."
  • The Hardback Lester Bangs

  • I think it’d really be groovy to give the readers an idea of what it was like growing up in El Cajon and reading Burroughs and Kerouac and Ginsberg and listening to Mingus and Coltrane and the Stones.
  • By Roger Anderson, Nov. 26, 1987
Lester Bangs' high school classmate, Roger Anderson: "You were right, you loved music more than you loved yourself."
  • The Lost Powerdresser

  • I grew up as a teenager in an extraordinary music scene, the folk music scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1960s, which gave me the chance to see artists like Skip James, Howlin’ Wolf, Richard & Mimi Fariña, and many others in a small club
  • By Paul Williams July 24, 2003
Denver Lucas at Lou’s Records, 1994. Lucas greeted me warmly the next few times I visited Lou’s used record and CD section, gave me copies of Powerdresser’s records.
  • Dirty Zappa’s Dirty Little Secret

  • In the mid-1950s a high school kid from El Cajon named Frank Zappa read an article in Look magazine that said Sam Goody was so good at selling records, he could unload a copy of Edgar Varèse’s Ionisations. This piqued the curiosity of the restless, inventive young rocker.
  • By August Kleinzahler Sept. 23, 1999
Frank Zappa. The Doors, the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead — unspeakable dreck. That’s why Zappa was such a tonic.
  • Vinyl Reckoning

  • In 1976 or ’7, to persuade Robert Christgau, my bag-o-wind editor at the Village Voice, to let me write about jazz (he considered me a “rock-identified critic”), I did a non-rock “think piece” in which I claimed, among other things, that increasing the aural input of jazz around the house will enliven (for example) your dreams and sex acts.
  • By Richard Meltzer Jan. 28, 1999
Billy Altman, Legs McNeil, John Holstrom, the author, and Rosa Hoffman, 1976. Right now I’m reading Please Kill Me, the Leggs McNeil/Gillian McCain oral punk thing.
Paul Anke moos. Neil Sedaka shouts. Lesley Gore whines. Robert Goulet merely talks. Seals and Crofts sound like drunken grigs or munchkins weeing away in high report. Olivia Newton-John alternately shrieks and then sounds like she’s on Valium.
  • The Grammar of Rock and Roll

  • No, it shouldn’t be “Love Me Tenderly” of “All Shaken Up.” The song “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” is exactly as it should be.
  • By Alexander Theroux July 20, 1995
  • Sponsored
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Band room, SOMA, early '90s.  "SOMA has the horrible system where you flyer for the shows, and when people come to the door they ask them, ‘Who are you here to see?’ and if you say ‘Powerdresser,’ they give us a dollar."
Band room, SOMA, early '90s. "SOMA has the horrible system where you flyer for the shows, and when people come to the door they ask them, ‘Who are you here to see?’ and if you say ‘Powerdresser,’ they give us a dollar."
  • Birth of the Beat Farmers

  • Jerry Raney: “This guy from El Cajon High named Jack Chan knew how to play, we’d go out and get the Beatles songbooks and go through 'em and he’d teach me the chords.”
  • By Roger Anderson March 16, 1989
Jerry Raney: "The guy from Iron Butterfly, Darryl DeLoach, for instance — he had this Hollywood guy who wanted to be our manager."
  • The Hardback Lester Bangs

  • I think it’d really be groovy to give the readers an idea of what it was like growing up in El Cajon and reading Burroughs and Kerouac and Ginsberg and listening to Mingus and Coltrane and the Stones.
  • By Roger Anderson, Nov. 26, 1987
Lester Bangs' high school classmate, Roger Anderson: "You were right, you loved music more than you loved yourself."
  • The Lost Powerdresser

  • I grew up as a teenager in an extraordinary music scene, the folk music scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the early 1960s, which gave me the chance to see artists like Skip James, Howlin’ Wolf, Richard & Mimi Fariña, and many others in a small club
  • By Paul Williams July 24, 2003
Denver Lucas at Lou’s Records, 1994. Lucas greeted me warmly the next few times I visited Lou’s used record and CD section, gave me copies of Powerdresser’s records.
  • Dirty Zappa’s Dirty Little Secret

  • In the mid-1950s a high school kid from El Cajon named Frank Zappa read an article in Look magazine that said Sam Goody was so good at selling records, he could unload a copy of Edgar Varèse’s Ionisations. This piqued the curiosity of the restless, inventive young rocker.
  • By August Kleinzahler Sept. 23, 1999
Frank Zappa. The Doors, the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead — unspeakable dreck. That’s why Zappa was such a tonic.
  • Vinyl Reckoning

  • In 1976 or ’7, to persuade Robert Christgau, my bag-o-wind editor at the Village Voice, to let me write about jazz (he considered me a “rock-identified critic”), I did a non-rock “think piece” in which I claimed, among other things, that increasing the aural input of jazz around the house will enliven (for example) your dreams and sex acts.
  • By Richard Meltzer Jan. 28, 1999
Billy Altman, Legs McNeil, John Holstrom, the author, and Rosa Hoffman, 1976. Right now I’m reading Please Kill Me, the Leggs McNeil/Gillian McCain oral punk thing.
Paul Anke moos. Neil Sedaka shouts. Lesley Gore whines. Robert Goulet merely talks. Seals and Crofts sound like drunken grigs or munchkins weeing away in high report. Olivia Newton-John alternately shrieks and then sounds like she’s on Valium.
  • The Grammar of Rock and Roll

  • No, it shouldn’t be “Love Me Tenderly” of “All Shaken Up.” The song “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” is exactly as it should be.
  • By Alexander Theroux July 20, 1995
  • Sponsored
    Sponsored
Comments
Sponsored

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Conductor Payare even looks like Mahler
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Live Five: Greyboy Allstars, Acoustic Revolt, Scary Pierre, Thee Sacred Souls, Glass Spells

Anniversaries, record releases, and fundraisers in Solana Beach, Ocean Beach, Little Italy, and Midway District
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4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
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