Carl Rusk

CARL RUSK

The blog entry on the Crawdaddys is headlined: “In a Ché Underground exclusive, Ray Brandes offers the first comprehensive history of San Diego’s original retro-visionaries.” Ray Brandes was previously a member of the Mystery Machine, which contributed a mind-bogglingly great song called “She’s Not Mine” (written by Carl Rusk) to a Voxx Records garage rock band “competition” called Battle of the Garages, Part 2.

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The bandmembers in the Crawdaddys listed on the Here ’Tis CD are Ron Silva, Fred Sanders (actually Keith Fisher, with the name petulantly changed due to his threats to file suit to prevent the release of the CD), Peter Michael Miesner, Jack Lopez, Mike Dixson Stax, Gordon Moss, and Steve Horn. Also mentioned are Carl Rusk as “production consultant”, Josef Marc as “sort of the producer” on some tracks, and Jeff Scott as “definitely like a father to us”.

(January 2015/2)

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The Mystery Machine was formed in 1982 by veterans of several other like-minded bands like the Hedgehogs, the Crawdaddys, and Manual Scan. Bandmembers included Ray Brandes (vocals), Carl Rusk (acoustic and electric guitar), Mark Zadarnowski (bass guitar), Bill Calhoun (keyboards, saxophone), and David Klowden (drums). The band stayed together only about one month, but that was long enough to create one of my long-time favorites called “She’s Not Mine” that was included on three different Bomp! Records/Voxx Records compilation albums: Battle of the Garages, Part 2, The Roots of Power Pop, and Destination: Bomp!.

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In 1989, the Tell-Tale Hearts reformed with another line-up for a one-off single “Circus Mind” b/w “Flying” on Nevermore Records (in a limited release of 800 copies), with personnel Bill Calhoun (lead vocals, harp), Mike Stax (bass), Ron Swart (organ), Jon McKinney (rhythm guitar), Carl Rusk (lead guitar on “Circus Mind”), Paul Carsola (drums on “Circus Mind”), and Craig Packham (drums on “Flying”). A tribute by Phil May of the Pretty Things that I found online says of “Circus Mind”: “The Tell-Tale Hearts’ recording of ‘Circus Mind’ picks up on echoes of early electric Dylan (as in Bob), which I’ve always thought ran through our version. . . . They’ve turned what was just a vignette in the Pretties’ version into a whole song that drives the distance.”

(September 2017)

Under Appreciated