{"id":27525,"date":"2024-05-22T05:30:23","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T09:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27525"},"modified":"2024-05-13T09:26:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T13:26:04","slug":"teenage-underground-the-beginnings-of-the-red-rockers-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/22\/teenage-underground-the-beginnings-of-the-red-rockers-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage Underground: The Beginnings of The Red Rockers (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

Between live dates in and around San Francisco, The Red Rockers pestered Howie Klein to give them a record deal. Klein and business partner Chris Knab had launched an indie label of their own, 415 Records; its growing roster showcased Bay Area punk and new wave. \u201cIt was probably a matter of finances more than anything that he was hesitating signing us,\u201d says Hill. \u201cEventually, he got the money together and enlisted David Kahne to produce us.\u201d Though he had limited experience at the time, Kahne would go on to a world-class and Grammy-winning career as a producer, working with The Bangles, Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, New Order, Regina Spektor and many other artists.<\/p>\n

The band began work with Kahne at the Automatt, a top-rated recording studio in San Francisco. \u201cDavid\u2019s expertise is knowing how to capture the sound of a band,\u201d says Hill. He characterizes the sessions for what would become Condition Red<\/i> as \u201cjust a matter of documenting our sound at that point.\u201d The no-nonsense session were done quickly and efficiently. \u201cThe record was done in about five days,\u201d recalls Griffith. \u201cNo longer than a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jello Biafra stopped by to add some \u201cYippie yi yay\u201d vocals on the album\u2019s sole cover, a reading of Johnny Cash\u2019s \u201cFolsom Prison Blues.\u201d Griffith says that it was Klein\u2019s idea to have Jello guest. \u201cHowie thought that would give us a little carte blanche clout, a little higher profile,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Singletary says that he wrote many of the chord progressions for the ten other songs on Condition Red<\/i>. \u201cDarren was very good at writing intelligent, clever words, so he picked a lot of the words to the songs. And without John being able to sing and be [competent] on the guitar, it wouldn\u2019t have worked. We all had a job, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI listen back to some of that Condition Red<\/i> material, and I’m amazed,\u201d Griffith says today. \u201cI’ll try to play along: \u2018Man, this is so fast<\/i>!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Singletary \u2013 who would leave the group after release of 1983\u2019s Good as Gold<\/i> \u2013 looks back fondly upon the band\u2019s debut record as well. \u201cI think it was pretty accurate for the statement that we wanted to make,\u201d he says. \u201cEnergy was our thing; we were just full on<\/i>. We all loved being on stage, and we all loved performing.\u201d He notes that the band\u2019s live set of that period included additional songs that didn\u2019t make it onto Condition Red<\/i>.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Johnny Colla, guitarist with Huey Lewis and the News, attended an estate sale featuring the worldly possessions of late producer Sandy Pearlman. A lifetime friend and longtime associate of Klein, Pearlman had taken over ownership of 415 Records near the very end of its run. And along the way, he somehow ended up with the master tapes of some of its artists. Colla called Griffith to tell him he had found the original multi-tracks masters for Condition Red<\/i>, long thought lost forever.<\/p>\n

With those tapes in hand, the core trio of Griffith, Hill and Singletary re-entered the studio. The analog tapes required \u201cbaking\u201d to restore the tapes for digital transfer. Once that was done, the trio took the opportunity to remix the album, with a goal of making it sound more like the group sounded onstage. \u201cWe took off that godawful reverb and echo that had been put all over everything,\u201d says Hill. \u201cNow it\u2019s more representative of us. And it sounds bigger<\/i>, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rescued master tape also included a number of songs left off the album, tracks the band had long forgotten. The first-ever CD release of Condition Red<\/i> also features recordings made in the group\u2019s earliest days back in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

On its original release, Condition Red<\/i> earned critical raves but sold minimally. By the early \u201880s, 415 Records had entered into a major label distribution deal with corporate giant Columbia\/CBS. The Red Rockers were swept along into that new arrangement, leading to changes in their sound. The most notable shift would be a dialing back of the political content of the band\u2019s lyrics.<\/p>\n

Moving in a much more commercial direction would yield benefits, most notably in the form of albums and singles that charted. And those led to national tours, sharing bills with the likes of The Cars, The Kinks and U2. But the most enduring music from The Red Rockers arguably comes from their early days when they were a scruffy punk outfit.<\/p>\n

Looking back on those early pre-fame years, Griffith says that The Red Rockers \u201cnever missed a beat. It really helped that we had three guys \u2013 the nucleus of the band \u2013 who were very focused and on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for an exclusive excerpt from my book, <\/em>Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave. The excerpt covers this same period of The Red Rockers’ story. — bk<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… Between live dates in and around San Francisco, The Red Rockers pestered Howie Klein to give them a record deal. Klein and business partner Chris Knab […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,59,62,73],"tags":[4390,4882],"class_list":["post-27525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-punk","category-rawk","category-vinyl","tag-415-records","tag-red-rockers","cat-41-id","cat-59-id","cat-62-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27525"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27544,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27525\/revisions\/27544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}