The Weirdos

 

 

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.” 

 

Along with John Denney (lead vocals) and his brother Dix Denney (guitar), the Weirdos began working on some early songs like “Teenage”, “I’m Not Like You”, “Bad Bad”, “Go Kid Hugo”, “Scream Baby Scream”, and “I Want What I Want”.  Even though they had no drummer initially, 

the Nerves

 

 encouraged them to do a concert anyway, so they played at the Punk Palace without one.  Local DJ and fanzine writer Phast Phreddie – not to be confused with early rapper Fab 5 Freddy – began talking up the Weirdos and also introduced them to drummer Nicky Beat, who had recently left the Kim Fowley assemblage Venus and the Razorblades. 

 

 

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 inLos 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.’” 

 

 

 

“Destroy All Music” and “A Life of Crime” were instant favorites the second I heard them the first time, and the other music by the Weirdos has the same high quality wrapped in barely contained coiled chaos.  Sadly though, the quantity is not there, as these first-wave punk bands tended to burn out and break up quickly, due largely to indifference from the buying public.  The three songs from the 1977 Bomp session mentioned above are on the album, along with four demos that include those songs again plus “Teenage”. 

 

In 1979, backed by a studio rhythm section – Billy Persons on bass and Danny Benair on drums – the Weirdos enlisted top L.A. producer Earle Mankey (formerly a guitarist in Sparks) to engineer six songs for a mini-album called Who? What? When? Where? Why?; these tracks close the Bomp album, though the masters were difficult to locate after so many years.  But as Mick Farren put it:  “Finally, though, the 30th Anniversary collection of the Weirdos was assembled, proving beyond any shadow of doubt that, among seminal punk bands, the Weirdos were one of LA’s finest.” 

 

 

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.