THE WEIRDOS
The Weirdos are an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California. They formed in late 1975 and broke up in 1981, were occasionally active in the 1980's, and recorded new material in the 1990's. Critic Mark Deming calls them "quite simply, one of the best and brightest American bands of punk's first wave." (More from Wikipedia)
Bruce Joyner began hearing about the growing punk rock scene in Los Angeles – the Dils, X, the Blasters, the Weirdos, and the Zeros are bands that he cites – and he quickly put together a band called the Unknowns.
(June 2011)
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Of their own origins, the Dickies (Leonard Graves Phillips specifically) talk about that in the liner notes to Dogs from the Hare that Bit Us: “Back in the summer of 1977, Stan Lee took me to see what was then L.A.’s premier punk rock band, the Weirdos. . . . The Weirdos had a wonderfully inane sense of disposable fashion that was undeniably West Coast; on the other hand, their musically minimalistic sense of implied velocity, which was to become the hallmark of late ’70’s – Hey, I’m starting to sound like a freakin’ music critic – suffice it to say, I was impressed; so when doing this record, it was only natural to tip our hats to punk rock, hence the Weirdos, and in particular John Denney, the Don Van Vliet [Captain Beefheart] of Punk.”
Dogs from the Hare that Bit Us opens with a cover of a song by the Weirdos called “Solitary Confinement”, and follows that with inimitable covers by the Dickies of a variety of other numbers: “Easy Livin’” (Uriah Heep), “There’s a Place” (the Beatles), “Nobody but Me” (the Human Beinz), “Can’t Let Go” (the Hollies, and also Linda Ronstadt), “Epistle to Dippy” (Donovan), and others.
(March 2017)
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As punk rock began to gain ascendancy in an underground sort of way, Bomp! Records was there to release 45’s by some of the seminal bands and artists like the Germs, the Weirdos, the Zeros, the Romantics, Devo, Josie Cotton, and Venus and the Razorblades.
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An early release by Iggy and the Stooges on Bomp! Records is a 7” EP from 1977 called I’m Sick of You, consisting of “I’m Sick of You” b/w “Tight Pants” and “Scene of the Crime”. The catalogue number, Bomp EP-113 is in the original sequence for the Bomp! Records 45’s, so I’m Sick of You might even have predated the release of Kill City; anyway, it does not appear to be part of The Iguana Chronicles. The EP came out right after the release by the Weirdos on Bomp 112, “Destroy All Music” b/w “A Life of Crime” and “Why Do You Exist?” (all three massive first-wave punk rock classics by the way).
(December 2017)
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Anyway, here is what and who I talked about last year:
March 2017 – 1980’s/1990’s punk rock band THE LAZY COWGIRLS; Story of the Month on Ringo Starr’s pre-Beatles career; also, first-wave punk rock, Iggy Pop, the Stooges, the Avengers, Penelope Houston, the Weirdos, the Dickies, Pat Todd and the Rankoutsiders.
(Year 8 Review)
