{"id":27526,"date":"2024-05-21T05:30:32","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T09:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27526"},"modified":"2024-05-22T13:32:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-22T17:32:52","slug":"teenage-underground-the-beginnings-of-the-red-rockers-part-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/21\/teenage-underground-the-beginnings-of-the-red-rockers-part-2-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage Underground: The Beginnings of The Red Rockers (Part 2 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Red Rockers played locally and began to develop a following. And they traveled as far as Houston and Atlanta, playing gigs in those larger markets and connecting with the wider punk movement. \u201cBut we knew we had to get outside of New Orleans to do anything,\u201d Hill says. \u201cGranted, we were the biggest punk band in New Orleans when we left, but what did that actually mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

First, they had to make some recordings to help land gigs outside the American Southeast. \u201cI booked studio time in Austin, Texas,\u201d says Hill. \u201cWe enlisted the help of this guy, [guitarist] John Burton, who was in a band called the Huns, a punk band out of Austin.\u201d Today that 45 r.p.m. single featuring \u201cGuns of Revolution,\u201d \u201cTeenage Underground\u201d and \u201cNothing To Lose\u201d is a rare and sought-after collectors\u2019 item. \u201cI remember going to Kinko\u2019s [copy shop], xeroxing record covers, folding them and gluing them,\u201d recalls Hill. \u201cWe\u2019d put them in little bags and distribute them to record stores and whatnot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hill also mailed some of those records to like-minded bands and radio deejays around the country. \u201cI was just trying to network,\u201d he explains. \u201cI started hearing back from quite a few people. And when some of the bands I sent it to \u2013 like Black Flag, X and Circle Jerks \u2013 would come to New Orleans, we would be the opening act.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of those record packages found its way into the hands of Howie Klein, then a deejay at KUSF in the San Francisco Bay area. \u201cHe had a great punk show,\u201d Hill says. \u201cHowie loved the record and started playing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually The Red Rockers took to the road, deciding that the scene out West looked more promising than the one in New York City. \u201cSo just on a dream, I talked the guys into moving out to California,\u201d Hill says. \u201cWe sold everything we owned, pissed off our parents, and said goodbye to them.\u201d they bought a U.S. government surplus van, packed up their equipment and a few belongings and took to the road.<\/p>\n

The drive across the country was not without incident. \u201cOur drummer was still in high school,\u201d Hill explains. \u201cHe was 16 or 17 at the time. On the way out there, he got scared, left and went home.\u201d So when the band arrived in Los Angeles, they were short a drummer. Luckily, they soon found Patrick Jones. \u201cHe was such a different drummer,\u201d says Singletary. \u201cHe played with a jazz grip as opposed to a rock and roll grip, and he was very fast. He helped us stand out with the sheer dynamics that he created for the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only was Jones a powerful drummer, but he had a place to live. \u201cWe all lived on the floor of Patrick’s apartment in Hollywood,\u201d Griffith says. That was the band\u2019s base of operations as they scrounged for gigs in L.A. and \u2013 soon enough \u2013 in San Francisco. When in town, The Red Rockers often crashed at the home of a new friend, Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra.<\/p>\n

During the day, Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco\u2019s North Beach neighborhood was a Filipino restaurant. But at night \u2013 under the guidance of manager\/booker Dirk Dirksen \u2013 it became a magnet for punk bands and their growing audience. The Red Rockers impressed Dirksen and landed some gigs there. \u201cIt was on a Saturday night when Howie Klein [showed up],\u201d Singletary recalls. \u201cWe blew him away! He said to us, \u201cWhy don’t you guys come to the radio station tomorrow, and we’ll play your single, and we’ll talk about the band.\u201d Singletary laughs as he admits that the band ignored Klein and instead drove home after their set. \u201cBut Howie started getting us some gigs, bringing us back up there,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Los Angeles wasn\u2019t turning out to be what the band had hoped. \u201cL.A. was very clique-ish\u201d says Singletary. \u201cIt was very hard to break in to that scene. A lot of the music in L.A. was really fast, just slam dance, a lot of yelling and not a whole lot of melodic overtones to it.\u201d The Red Rockers decided that the city 400 miles up the Pacific coast might be a better place to pursue their dreams. \u201cI think that our sound fit in San Francisco a little better,\u201d says Singletary.<\/p>\n

Arriving in San Francisco, once again the band members found themselves looking for a place to sleep. \u201cJames and I wound up befriending a group called the Mutants,\u201d recalls Griffith. \u201cThey were really nice to us. One of the girls in the band, Sally [Webster] had this loft down on First and Mission.\u201d Griffith and Singletary would live in the Mutants\u2019 loft for a few years.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… The Red Rockers played locally and began to develop a following. And they traveled as far as Houston and Atlanta, playing gigs in those larger markets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27539,"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-27526","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\/27526","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=27526"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27560,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27526\/revisions\/27560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}