Dec 14

The Tell-Tale Hearts

Under Appreciated

THE TELL-TALE HEARTS
 
 

Members of the Crawdaddys went on to populate many other California bands; I have already mentioned several of them.  The future UARB (probably by year’s end) and another like-minded San Diego band called the Tell-Tale Hearts (named after a famous Edgar Allan Poe story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”) has numerous connections with the band.  Former Crawdaddys bass guitarist Mike Stax was a founding member, as were Mystery Machine alumni Bill Calhoun and Ray Brandes (I praised and heavily borrowed from Brandes’s fine biography of the Crawdaddys in preparing this post).  Another past Crawdaddy, Peter Miesner contributed guitar on two tracks on the Tell-Tale Hearts CD that I have, High Tide (Big Noses & Pizza Faces), with the name adapted from that of the first Rolling Stones retrospective album, Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) (1966). 

 

(January 2015/2)

 

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The Under Appreciated Rock Band of the Month for June 2017 is THE LOONS, a self-described “psychotic beat music” band founded by Mike Stax – editor of Ugly Things magazine and a former member of past UARB the Crawdaddys. They have been around more than 20 years – a lot longer than I had thought – and arose from the ashes of two other San Diego bands that Mike Stax helped start, the Tell-Tale Hearts and the Hoods. I anticipate naming the Tell-Tale Hearts as a UARB within the next couple of posts; that would give me an Under Appreciated “hat trick”. 
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Besides the Loons, and according to Discogs, Mike Stax (real name: Michael Dixson) has been in several other rock bands over the years: past UARB the Crawdaddys, future UARB the Tell-Tale Hearts, the Hoods, Evil Eyes, and the Barons. These bands were active in the 1990’s except for the first two.  
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Mike Stax (vocals) evidently first formed the Loons with Eric Bacher (guitar, organ) – who was lead guitarist for the Tell-Tale Hearts from 1983 to 1986 – and John Chilson (drums) of the Hoods, plus Andy Rasmussen (bass guitar); or at least, that is the earliest line-up that I have been able to find on-line. 
(June 2017)

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Yet another SS-20 song, “Still I’m Sad” (the Yardbirds song) is on a split 45 that was given away by an Italian magazine called Lost Trails, with the other side being a live performance of the Patti Smith Group song “Dancing Barefoot” by the Australian punk rock band Celibate Rifles.  Discogs has several more of these free 45’s listed that feature other bands from the Bomp! Records roster, such as past UARB the Tell-Tale Hearts, Gravedigger V, the Fuzztones, the Steppes, and the Miracle Workers. 
 
(December 2017)
 
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Under Appreciated Rock Bands (UARB’s) and Under Appreciated Rock Artists (UARA’s) are hard to come by, but I came up with a fine batch this past year.  The least likely UARB of them all, to my way of thinking, came along in March:  Iggy Pop got his name from his first band called the Iguanas; and somehow, some way, no punk rock fan had yet prepared a Wikipedia article on this band.  Also in the mix this past year were two bands featuring Mike Stax, founder and editor of one of the premier music magazines Ugly Things and one of greatest experts on 1960’s music on Earth:  his current band the Loons and another from the 1980’s, the Tell-Tale Hearts.  Rounding out the quartet this year are the Lazy Cowgirls, a long-time favorite punk rock band whose music is often called “outlaw rock” that put out 11 albums – not counting the 4 albums put out by frontman Pat Todd’s new band the Rankoutsiders.
 
Even with having only a quarterly rather than a monthly schedule, I almost blew off my last post for September 2017 (which didn’t actually come out until mid-November).  I was starting to run out of stuff to talk about, or so it seemed to me; and even though I really loved the Tell-Tale Hearts (not to mention the Edgar Allan Poe story “The Tell-Tale Heart” that the band was named after), coming up with yet a third post about Iggy and the Stooges was just not frying my bacon.  Once I decided to talk about my early bootleg record acquisitions, however, the words flowed forth like old times.  But I am dragging my feet again since I still have not discussed The Iguana Chronicles that I had intended to get into last time. 
 
(Year 8 Review)
Last edited: March 22, 2021