The Plugz

THE PLUGZ
 
 
The Plugz  (also known as “Los Plugz”) were a Latino punk band from Los Angeles, California that formed in 1977 and disbanded in 1984.  They and The Zeros were among the first Latino punk bands, although several garage rock bands, such as Thee Midniters and Question Mark & the Mysterians, predated them.  The Plugz melded the spirit of punk and Latino music.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
The CruzadosThe Cruzados – The bandmembers in the Cruzados were previously in the Plugz, the first Latino L.A. punk rock band and one of the best L.A. punk bands, period.  They showed up on New Wave Theatre more than once and also performed the score of the 1984 cult classic film, Repo Man.  The Cruzados were more of a pure rock band that were being, er, plugged as the “next big thing”.  I had heard of them already, and these two albums were what drew me to that CD rack at the flea market in the first place.  The first track on this album is called “Wasted Years”; it is a good opening track on a good CD, but I have never been able to shake the feeling that this song was a comment on the band’s years as the Plugz, and that ruins the effect for me. 
 

(December 2015)
 
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The soundtrack album, Repo Man: Music from the Original Motion Picture collects a variety of punk rock classics plus others made especially for the film.  The opening theme music, “Repo Man Theme” (a gut-busting, guitar-driven instrumental that is the best music of all, though it is not on the album) and the title song, “Repo Man” (performed over the ending credits, which crawl downward rather than upward) are by Iggy Pop, while the score is performed by L.A. punk stalwarts the Plugz.  I have watched Repo Man a few times with subtitles; that has helped me follow the stream-of-consciousness lyrics in the Iggy Pop song and pick up on some of the other fine points of the movie.  For instance, Dr. J. Frank Parnell is mumbling “Oh My Darling, Clementine” to himself in the opening scene, where he warns the doomed motorcycle cop when he asked about the trunk:  “Oh . . . you don’t want to look in there”. 
 
(March 2017)
 
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Madeline Ridley of SS-20 has a short performance called “Monitoring Madeline for Two Decades and Other Scenes” on a double-LP compilation album of alternative rock, spoken word, and poetry called English as a Second Language (1983) that has an amazing 84 cuts.  Others represented on the album include Charles BukowskiDave Alvin of the BlastersJohn Doe and Exene Cervenka of XHenry Rollins and Chuck Dukowski of Black FlagTito Larriva of the PlugzSusanna Hoffs of the BanglesJeffrey Lee Pierce of the Gun Club, record producer Craig Leon, prominent DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, and Kim Fowley.
 
Her work is also on two other similar compilation albums, Voices of the Angels (Spoken Words) and Neighborhood Rhythms (Patter Traffic) that feature many of the same artists and were released in the same time period. 
 
(December 2017)
 
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Since I am down to a quarterly schedule rather than a monthly schedule, my annual list is a lot shorter, so I will try listing all of the people that I have discussed in some depth rather than just the Under Appreciated Rock Band and the Story of the Month. They are all punk rock bands of one kind or another this year (2015-2016), and the most recent post includes my overview of the early rap/hip hop scene that an old friend, George Konstantinow challenged me to write – probably so long ago that he might have forgotten.
 
 
(Year 7 Review)
Last edited: April 7, 2021