DESTROY ALL MUSIC
I recently picked up a 2007 retrospective album called Destroy All Music by the Weirdos, one of the earliest Southern California punk bands, having formed in late 1975. Cliff Roman (guitar and bass) recalls: “I saw the [New York] Dolls at the Whisky and got their autographs. I saw the Stooges at the Whisky, and Iggy [Pop] got on my shoulders. When he was lying on the floor, I drew a red ‘X’ on his chest, and we watched his sweat melt it as the band finished their set. Walking out of the show, I told my friend David Trout (guitar) that we should start our own band.”
Mick Farren starts his liner notes for Destroy All Music by noting: “On August 16th, 1977, at least two events occurred of major rock & roll significance. Elvis Presley died on his Graceland toilet, and the Weirdos cut three songs for Bomp! Records, ‘Destroy All Music’, ‘A Life of Crime’ and ‘Why Do You Exist?’. The session – in a home studio in Tujunga – was produced by Craig Leon, who had overseen the Ramones’ first album. It was a hot damp night in Los Angeles, and, by all accounts, the weather was much the same in Memphis.
“Even the Weirdos copped to the fact that the death of Elvis was fractionally more important than their first record. ‘The King Is Dead’ was scratched into the metal stamper of the Bomp release ‘Destroy All Music’ that became a classic of late 1970’s L.A. punk, and prompted critic Mark Deming to call the band ‘one of the best and brightest American bands of punk’s first wave.’”
Allmusic reports that the Weirdos reformed in 1988 with original members the Denney brothers (John Denney and Dix Denney), Nicky Beat, and Cliff Roman, plus Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers; they released a new album in 1990 called Condor. I haven’t heard that record, but I couldn’t resist sharing the above cartoon that was on the back cover of Destroy All Music. Greg Shaw used to put this kind of thing in his Bomp! Records releases and publications like Bomp! Magazine all the time.
(March 2017)
