As Ron Silva of the Crawdaddys left high school, he advertised for a rock band that he was thinking of forming; after being contacted by vocalist Jeff Scott (who had just left the seminal punk band the Dils) and drummer Josef Marc, he instead became the guitarist in their new band called the Hitmakers. They quickly became part of the growing DIY music scene in San Diego. A joint show in 1977 at the Adams Avenue Theatre by the Hitmakers, the Dils and the Zeros was the first big punk rock concert in the city. Later Steve Potterf joined the Hitmakers as their second guitarist, and Joel Kmak became their new drummer.
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Jeff Scott phoned Ron Silva, and they patched things up over Silva’s leaving the Hitmakers. Scott was about to go to L.A. to play their band’s demo tape for Greg Shaw at Bomp! Records, and he offered to bring him and Steve Potterf along if they could lay down some tracks first. The Crawdaddys assembled in the Silva garage and recorded two original songs plus Chuck Berry’s “Oh Baby Doll” and Bo Diddley’s “Tiger in Your Tank”.
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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)
