So, the shopping spree at Ugly Things mentioned the other day included two back issues of Ugly Things, a book of Bomp magazine reprints and Look Out, an excellent compilation of San Diego bands from 1958 -1973. This spree was saturated. Any one of the items arriving in my mail box would have been be a treat. It's going to take a while to digest all of it.
One thing I was looking forward to was an in depth interview with the Weirdos in an Ugly Things back issue. I'd been meaning to pick it up for a while and knowing how thoroughly Ugly Things covers bands I expected it to be good. It was excellent. Eighteen pages with a lot of shit I didn't know. I've followed the band from their first few months of existence and I've read at a half dozen books on the early L.A. punk scene and countless fanzines over the years. Nothing I've read yet comes close to this interview. To the few of you that are Weirdos people, that issue of UT is marked down. Snag it before they're gone, and by the way, if you know the Weirdos, you likely know the Screamers. There's another back issue with a length interview with them (by Jon Savage).
The Weirdos interview whipped me into a Weirdos binge. The OG Weirdos, with both Denny brothers, Cliff Roman and Nicky Beat. The early videos linked below carry that line up. Tonight's long video is more recent, but better quality and one thing that stands out is how well they hold it together with just one guitarist. It's not easy mixing chords with short licks where they need to be, and Dix Denny does a great job.
One thing about the Weirdos. There's no one like them. Particularly the earliest incarnations. They were as much what they were as what they were not. They were out there, always serious on stage despite some of their songs being kind of silly. And they were tight, and intense. I haven't seen them in the last few years, but I've seen them in different line-ups over the course of decades and it has always been a hoot and a half. I'm not sure if you can get that from the videos, but regardless they're a slice of L.A. punk history. There were a lot of good punk bands in L.A. back in the day and the Weirdos were one of the best.
The Weirdos - Destroy All Music mp3 at Killed By Death
The Weirdos - Life of Crime mp3 at Killed By Death Go there to get it.
The Weirdos - Why Do You Exist mp3 at Killed By Death Ditto
The Weirdos - We Got The Neutron Bomb mp3 at Killed By Death ditto
The Weirdos - Solitary Confinement mp3 at Killed By Death
Tonights features and shorts:
The Weirdos - Live, on L.A.'s "TV at Night" (1978) at YouTube 17 minutes
The Weirdos - We Got the Neutron Bomb, Live at the Mabuhay at YouTube By Target Video 1978
The Weirdos - Life of Crime, Live in L.A. 1978 at YouTube
The Weirdos - Full set, Las Vegas Dive Bar 2014 at YouTube 56 minutes
Visit:
Weirdoism - Band bio by John Denny (lead singer) at Break My Face
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