The all-powerful Reigning Sound roared out of Memphis with the realest soulful rock ‘n’ roll since the Flamin Groovies, the Real Kids and Esquerita all ruled the earth together. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Greg Cartwright makes ‘em scream, shriek, cry and weep and he visits California far too seldom, so don’t miss these shows at Alex’s Bar this weekend! (With the Strange Boys opening!? How will we ever go back to normal?) Win tickets here, and then read this interview by Chris Ziegler.

Your dad was a record collector—was record collecting your destiny?
It was a leg up! Having a parent who’s a music fan and a record collector can really point you in the right direction—it gets you to listen to a lot of different stuff early on, so you can decide what it is you like. Not everything my dad liked was something I liked, but I heard it all. And some things really helped me define the way I wanted to write. The genre doesn’t matter. You’re looking for the songs, and the artist who can deliver the good songs. Maybe the lyrics do it, or there’s an incredible hook and the lyrics are just total bubblegum. It’s gotta be aces in one of those departments.
You’ve spoken about the pre-Internet era, when you’d find a record by Andre Williams in a bucket at a flea market and have absolutely no idea who Andre Williams was and how his record got there—but that was the fun of it.
That was so great! When I first started collecting—I guess I am a collector, but I don’t think of myself as a record collector. It’s more from a practical framework. I buy them because I like to listen to them! I tend to think of record collectors as people who need a stone mint copy wrapped in plastic, and it goes on the shelf. And they want it to stay pristine til they die! They’re not gonna play it. I understand that, but it’s a different thing to me. The beauty for me is finding something I’ve never heard before, and I put it on and it’s amazing and I want to play it til the grooves are gone.
Where’s the most unexpected place you found a record you love?
I went to this restaurant supply place when I was working in Memphis—they had cooking gear and all kinds of accoutrements for kitchen workers, and at the counter was a little box with ten singles with a Doug Stone 45 and two Charlie Feathers 45s. It was bizarre! But when I lived in Memphis, those things happened surprisingly often. Those records were there! There’d been so many of them, and so many never left town, so they’d show up in the most bizarre places. I was spoiled growing up there. My wife teases me jokingly that I’m some kind of savant. I can only focus on a couple things, records being one of them. I can remember the numbers etched in the dead wax, but I can’t remember to wash the clothes!
Looking back at your time in the Oblivians and the Compulsive Gamblers, you said you were always ‘serious about making good art.’ What makes a band like Oblivians art?
Art is like a dirty word in rock, but it’s one of those things people take out of context. They think of art as being something pretentious. But it doesn’t have to be! If you define ‘art’ that way, you’re not looking at it the way I look at it. Art transcends reality—it allows you to look at things in a whole new way and be enlightened and maybe have some kind of epiphany. To me, that’s the motivation to make art—to have those experiences. I’m not pretentious, but even rock ‘n’ roll—even the dumbest boneheaded punk rock song, if it transcends just three chords and speaks to you and blows your mind … that’s art! That’s more than just what the other bands are doing. It’s heads above! Like a good two-and-a-half-minute pop song—listen to the radio and you’ll hear a million bad ones! Creating one that’s something more than it just seems to be on the surface is not easy, and the people who can accomplish it are craftsmen. I don’t care if they’re like illiterate or … it doesn’t matter! You’re a craftsman or a shaman or something if you can transform something into something more than just the bones of what it is!
How did you learn how to do that?
Trial and error. Watching other people. Seeing a lot of rock bands when I was young. I saw bands who were good and some who were bad and some that defied both! I saw Tav Falco and it was a terrible mess, and at the same time it was enlightening! I think that’s what we all want.
Why is it better to be interesting than perfect?
Character is the most important thing. The world has plenty of pitch-perfect singers and whizbang guitar platers. But the other thing can’t be learned, and that’s what makes it special. I don’t know why that is and I don’t know what brings people to … the truth? The way you were brought up? Your experience in life? How one thing leads to another?
What’s it like when you write for someone else—like Mary Weiss? When you have to step out of yourself?
With a person like Mary—you know their music before you know them. She’s a legendary figure in rock ‘n’ roll. I knew her voice and I knew the songs, and all that spoke to me before I knew her personally. People change over time, too. You can’t jump to conclusions with Mary, like try and sit down to knock out songs about teenage love affairs. Mary Weiss is not a teenager anymore! That fifteen-year-old melodrama is what makes the Shangri-Las so fantastic, but you can’t just look for that one piece. You gotta examine who the person is now.
Where did the songs on the new EP come from? Is this like Return to The Home For Orphans? There’s a re-done Tip-Tops song I spotted.
Five of the songs we cut recently with Dan Auerbach in Nashville. Three of them are earlier outtakes—‘Watching My Baby,’ ‘Lyin’ Girl’ … I’ll probably use the five songs with Dan further down the road to make a full LP and ditch the other tracks, so I wanted to make them available to fans in kind of a limited form.
So there’s a new Reigning Sound LP on the horizon?
Absolutely!
What do you think of ‘garage rock’ becoming this kinda-powerful cultural thing? As presented by Scion?
I never saw it coming! I never would have guessed in a million years we’d be in the situation we are now. I’m not judging—I just try and navigate the situation. It’s definitely strange. In 1992 or whenever we made records, the Internet wasn’t what it was now, and the fact that commercial entities are starting to see value in kinda odd little subcultures like garage music … in some ways it’s perplexing, but in other ways it’s kind of smart!
Greg Shaw wrote about this in an old Bomp!—wondering what would happen if people could access a bottomless database of good music instantly, and find out everything about anyone as soon as they heard a name.
Like everything else, there’s positives and negatives. The good things—people get any music they want, anytime and anywhere. On their phone! That’s great because people get turned on to really amazing things at the speed of light. But you don’t have the thrill of the chase and the hunt anymore. You don’t have to spend Saturday morning at some fuckign flea market at 7 AM looking for a record some crusty old guy told you about. You miss out on that experience! But you do get overwhelmed now—I think sometimes it’s hard for kids to distinguish what is truly great from what is merely mediocre but sounds mildly like something they like. It’s harder to make the call when you’re so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of music.
When you did the very first Reigning Sound 7”, you said you wanted to make sure you didn’t give your fans exactly what they wanted. Why?
I do believe that—never give people exactly what they want! People want a donut! They want something sugary to satisfy them instantaneously! They don’t wanna have to listen hard, and especially in this modern culture they don’t wanna do the legwork. If you just make what people want, there’s a catch. If you don’t, they’re like, ‘Ah, man—he’s not making what he used to make!’ But if you bow to that and do the same record you made ten years ago, then they’re like, ‘Ah, man—this guy’s like a broken record! He keeps making the same fucking thing!’ That way lies madness! You just have to please yourself!

L.A. RECORD AND BLUNDERTOWN PRESENT REIGNING SOUND WITH THE STRANGE BOYS AND SPECIAL GUESTS ON FRI., JAN. 27, AND SAT., JAN. 28, AT ALEX’S BAR’S 12TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AT ALEX’S BAR, 2913 E. ANAHEIM ST., LONG BEACH. 9 PM / $15 ADVANCE / $17 DAY OF / 21+. ALEXSBAR.COM. REIGNING SOUNDS’ ABDICATION… FOR YOUR LOVE EP IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM SCION A/V. VISIT REIGNING SOUND AT FACEBOOK.COM/REIGNINGSOUND.

Nick Waterhouse and the Turn-Keys “Some Place”
(from “Some Place” 7″ out now on Pres)

FUCK YEAH TO THIS, I say with grateful gusto. Back with Ty Segall’s Epsilons down in Orange County, there was also Nick Waterhouse’s Intelligista,  high school kids from HB smashing out Animals-style maximum R&B. Intelligista broke up—college robs us again—but now Nick has a new band.  A-side “Some Place” is risen-from-the-crypt Savage Kick early ’60s R&B. Wild or Norton or Jail Weddings or Hanni el Khatib fans, get this now because it will roll you over and kick you down a hill. Prime Kings of Rhythm Ike Turner or Andre Williams vibe from note one, and Nick stomps in with a primal “W-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-l-l-l …” peeled off Lux and Ivy’s Favorites. It’s like nourishment and medicine at once: barely-there back-ups, honk-honk sax, a fall-down-the-back-stairs guitar solo and a single-finger piano line that pokes a hole in the back of your head. You’ve gotta be one kind of maniac to produce like this and a whole other kind to shout like this and an even more frightening kind to make the first two maniacs work together. Nick pulling this all off simultaneously means preternatural powers in play. B-side “That Place” is the instrumental, sounding here like something off a Cobra R&B 45. Side A for staying up till sunrise; side B for trying to get to sleep afterward. Killer 45.

—Chris Ziegler

Stream: Luis and the Wildfires “Wild In The Head”

(from Brain Jail available now from Wild and Norton)

Luis & the Wildfires make records between egg crates and a tacked-up Charlie Feathers LP in a tiny backyard shed in Altadena where the spirit of the Sonics, Eddie Cochran, Little Willie G and Gene Vincent observe kindly from the corners. Wild Records started with Reb Kennedy plus Luis and drummer Angel Hernandez ten years ago as the Wild Teens in the Valley and now puts out the most materially honest CDs of the 21st century and 45s that will cost $100 in ten years. The hardiest die-hards of Wild meet after another backyard session for High Life and cookies doled out by Wild owner Reb’s wife and son. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

What did you mean when you said you’ve been mouthbreathing for 31 years?
Luis Arriaga (vocals/guitar): They make fun of me because I have a deviated septum and sleep apnea and I smoke and I drink and I sing—
Reb Kennedy (Wild founder/owner): And he nosebreathes.
And he’s a nightmare on tour?
Angel Hernandez (drums): Yes, he is! The worst!
Luis Arriaga: I still seem to survive it. I should be dead! I’m living on borrowed time!
Reb Kennedy: I always tell him to keep his phone when he’s on stage, and if he has a heart attack to call me, and my first call can be to the record manufacturers. ‘Make another thousand, quick!’
Luis Arriaga: The devil’s been knocking on my door, and Reb’s like, ‘Don’t worry—we got a contract, and you can have him after.’
Reb Kennedy: We did a show in Vegas last year and our stage was outside on a rooftop, and Luis jumped up on this balcony with a bar—he had his arms out doing the crucifix pose and the whole audience just went quiet. The drop was a couple hundred feet.
Luis Arriaga: Fifty-five stories up!
Reb Kennedy: ‘Fall! Fall! Fall!’
Luis Arriaga: With the manufacturers on speed dial. ‘Fall! Fall! I need another thousand copies of Brain Jail!’
Why don’t you fake your death?
Luis Arriaga: I die every day I wake up. I’m only alive when I’m sleeping.
How do you wake up in the morning?
Luis Arriaga: I’m angry at the world for the fact my eyes are open again!
What do you dream about?
Luis Arriaga: That I’m skiing! But only because I had four guys in my bed. ‘Swinging my skis and the snow was melting …’ And all the guys in the bed woke up—‘This is the best bed ever! The best rest I ever had!’ Don’t print that—my mom’s gonna read this!
What are your nightmares about?
Luis Arriaga: They’re never really nightmares. My nightmare is waking up.
Does this have anything to do with the line in ‘I’m a Man’ about living in a badger cave?
Luis Arriaga: ‘Panther cave.’ Do they really live in caves? It makes no sense. Proof of my life.
I know you got into rock ‘n’ roll when you were 16, so what were you into when you were 15?
Luis Arriaga: Before I saw the light? There are two answers—you want the real one or the other one? The honest one—I know it sounds extremely goddamn cliché, but I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. North Hollywood. There’s a theater there—El Portal. My dad took me there to see La Bamba. I was like 7 years old whenever that movie came out—I saw the movie and had no concept of what rock ‘n’ roll music was and I absolutely goddamned loved it. I told my dad I wanted a guitar, and my dad went to buy drugs in Tijuana—prescription drugs because they’re legal—and he brought me back a guitar. I attempted to learn it, but I put it down because everyone was evolving into different things, but I’d still come home and attempt to strum ‘La Bamba.’ Oldies things, as I knew them. Growing up I got into everything—grunge, hip-hop, everything. Not until 16 did I pick it up again and I’d watch other people play on TV. I learned one chord and then a second chord—
Reb Kennedy: And then he stopped!
Luis Arriaga: Only two chords since 16! I went back once I learned those two chords—went back to remembering those songs, and once I learned those songs, I was the only guy around what I remember in the Valley … the change came from one day to the next! I don’t know what was in my mind. I attempted to comb my hair into a pompadour! From there, I learned more music and met people—and I met him. We were really young. He’s my brother.
Reb Kennedy: Angel is the only constant in Luis’ bands.
Luis Arriaga: See those wrinkles? See that gray hair? He’s still 17!
What’s the most delinquency you’ve committed within view of a police car?
Luis Arriaga: My parole officer might see this! When we started the Wild Teens, a lot of us were teenagers. Growing up the way we grew up, we did stupid things!
Reb Kennedy: The most obvious—walk out of a club, fall down, stand up, get in the car and drive away!
In what ways would you be a good role model?
Luis Arriaga: You’re asking the most ridiculous questions!
Reb Kennedy: Luis and Angel won’t answer that! It’d be immodest! One thing that’s interesting—I’m Irish, and obviously people find it very bizarre that all my friends are Mexican on my label. We’re called ‘Mexican Rock ‘n’ Roll’ but I’m not!
Luis Arriaga: People in Europe think he’s Mexican.
Reb Kennedy: It’s the blue eyes!
So you’ve seen The Commitments?
Reb Kennedy: I know the guys very well! What you see in The Commitments is what you see any Saturday night at any Mexican party. It’s a very dignified thing, the love of music. I grew up from the age of whatever—being in bars with my family, being in bars singing!
Luis Arriaga: It’s that Catholic background.
What happens when you combine Catholicism with rock ‘n’ roll?
Luis Arriaga: X-ray vision!
Reb Kennedy: Hatred! But I do wanna answer that question. One of the most important things we’ve achieved as a label is that young Mexican individuals in California don’t have much to look to musically. They have Ritchie Valens—
Thee Midniters?
Luis Arriaga: But they don’t look beyond certain things.
Reb Kennedy: There’s only a handful of things to look to. Luis and the Wild Teens and Luis & the Wildfires have given a new wave of teenagers something to look to! I tell Luis and Angel and the rest of the guys—it’s a really weird position. It’s very easy now to underappreciate what you’ve achieved because it’s now! But it will be looked back on as something significant. They are NOW role models for people—for Mexican kids who have nothing to look to.
Luis Arriaga: The young guys on the label started covering songs him and I did ten years ago. I heard and I went home and cried. And masturbated.
Angel Hernandez: Into a taco.
That’s a Saturday night.
Luis Arriaga: A fantastic Saturday night! Watching ‘Sábado Gigante’! Put in the fact I said ‘Sabado Gee-HAN-tay.’ Mexican!
How did the Wild Teens set the direction for Wild? They were the first band.
Luis Arriaga: We sucked! We truly did suck!
Reb Kennedy: They did! We just remastered the Wild Teens record a week ago—we really wanted something in existence to show the band was a good rock ‘n’ roll band. And back then the band couldn’t play.
Angel Hernandez: Sure could drink, though!
Reb Kennedy: Here’s a picture of the Wild Teens. They used to play my club almost all the time. The people who owned it were really cool people—gave them unlimited alcohol! Top shelf! They complained once because we drank $1,000 worth of alcohol. The owner came to me one night and said, ‘I have a problem. You know we give everyone as much alcohol as they want—but I don’t understand when the Wild Teens play why the bar is littered with bottles that they brought in!’ Free alcohol and they still smuggle it in—I think it gave them a hard-on!
Luis Arriaga: It was either that or guns! Guns, gangs, bandannas, whiskey—
Don’t give away the recipe!
Luis Arriaga: We were just silly boys. Silly boys. That first 45 was in 1999—ten years ago! There should be something in the liners about it being ten years. We revisited old songs that I never wanted to sing ever again. But Reb had the brilliant idea—
Reb Kennedy: I wanted to record something with guys who could now play! That band could not play!
Luis Arriaga: But we looked cool as fuck!
Sam Phillips said if you want a rock ‘n’ roll song, you gotta reach down and pull it out your asshole. Is that how you guys do it?
Reb Kennedy: It is! All ours guys have really big assholes. There’s a lot of stuff stored there!
What are the Wild Christmas parties like?
Angel Hernandez: The last ten years are pretty hazy.
Reb Kennedy: The public parties? They vary in so many ways. We had different places. We were every Friday at my house before my son was born—annihilation sessions. Friday and Saturday and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—
Luis Arriaga: Reb was a massive drinker.
Reb Kennedy: I drank for the Olympics. Some of the younger guys don’t see me drink. When my son was born I stopped. Partly because of my son and partly because I wouldn’t be successful if I kept drinking. When we do a Wild showcase in Green Bay or Vegas—right now we have sixteen bands on the label. An Australian band, two English, one Portuguese—I have to get every one of these fuckers on stage and off stage! I used to try and do that drunk and it was a problem! We did a show in Green Bay and had a review in the Metro Times that said we were the new Jesus Christs of music—they said amazing things about us! That day the show lasted what—fourteen hours?
Angel Hernandez: Plus the drinking session!
Reb Kennedy: Absolutely incredible show.
Is this like when everyone on Motown would come spilling out of the same tour bus?
Reb Kennedy: That’s the way it works.
Luis Arriaga: We pride ourselves on being the ‘Wild Records Family.’
Reb Kennedy: That’s corny as shit! Put a ‘TM’ and ‘R’! It’s the most ridiculous corny bullshit but we do function that way. If you were here two hours before, there’d have been another fifteen or twenty people.
Luis Arriaga: All doing handclaps on the record!
Reb Kennedy: It’s how we survive! We are a traditional label. Labels don’t exist like us where my job is to do everything. I try to do it fairly.
Luis Arriaga: It’s underrated sometimes. The guy who sits in back? Nothing would be possible for any of us if it wasn’t for him. He’s not just my boss—as sort of the manager and label owner—he’s one of my best friends. His work is never ever done. Ours is—we come here and we’re done when we leave the studio. He goes back in the house and thinks about what the hell just happened!
Reb Kennedy: And fix it!
Luis Arriaga: Clean up the studio and wake up the next day after five or six hours and make sure his son is at school and his wife is fine and then think, ‘What the hell is gonna happen again?’
Angel Hernandez: He has 47 children, basically!
Luis Arriaga: I want it to be known—it’s ridiculous!
That’s how they ran labels in the ’50s and ’60s—all those tiny family labels putting out soul in Detroit.
Luis Arriaga: We’re a DIY label—if that makes us ’77 punk, good!
Reb Kennedy: We’re not 1956! We’re 1976! That’s where I come from. I worked at Rough Trade in London.
Luis Arriaga: We’re gonna do a Joy Division cover—‘Digital.’
Reb Kennedy: I thought it should be ‘Isolation’!
Luis Arriaga: That would ruin me! But you know what’s cool? I’m already ruined! I can only go up from here! It cannot get worse!
What’s the most you were ever ruined in one night?
Reb Kennedy: He doesn’t remember!
Luis Arriaga: Punched in the head by Omar [Romero] in his own house!
Reb Kennedy: Last week was good—all these naked photos of Luis circulating among us! He was so mad!
Luis Arriaga: The hell with you, Reb! My mom is gonna read this! Don’t print it in Spanish. This isn’t a bilingual paper, is it?
What’s the most you ever had to fight through to finish a song?
Angel Hernandez: Do you mean fighting each other?
Reb Kennedy: What’s amazing is the condition he can be in and still get on stage and take your breath away. I’ve seen him in the most fucked-up state of any human being—he’ll get out and do the business. He’ll hurt before, he’ll hurt doing it, he’ll hurt for days after—he physically will hurt! He has asthma!
Luis Arriaga: I should be dead! Reb will tell the devil when to take me!
Reb Kennedy: I’m keeping him going for a little bit.
How do you cure your hangovers?
Luis Arriaga: I drink every day! I’ve never not had a hangover. My mom is gonna read this! Can I say, ‘Happy birthday, Mom? I love you!’ My parents have never seen me perform but they support that I do. He’s my brother—we were teenagers together—16, 17, from the San Fernando Valley. We’d stay at my mom’s house. We’d come home at 3 or 4 in the morning drunk as fuck—underage! We took the bus home!—and my dad would wake us up at 7 AM to pick oranges or mow the lawn.
With an evil smile?
Luis Arriaga: My family is the most amazing family. They tried to teach us a lesson and also laughed at us. A Mexican traditional family—they know we were gonna get drunk.
Angel Hernandez: After his dad would make us do chores, his mom would be like, ‘I don’t cook on weekends … but you earned it.’
Luis Arriaga: It’s a weird thing—music in my family. I never heard music growing up. At all. It was a very odd thing to play at home. If you were playing music, something was going on in your life, so you’d try not to play it. It was very hidden. If I played music, I was sad or happy and my mom would ask, ‘Why are you sad? Why are you happy?’ So there was no music in our household. I think that’s the opposite of most people in music? So I hid all my music. Or not hid, but I’d listen to it on my own. Headphones, old cassettes, Walkmans and shit. A lot of Brenton Wood. ‘Gimme Little Sign.’
Which you translated for Los Straitjackets?
Luis Arriaga: Yeah, and that’s how I met Cesar Rosas.
Did you tell him about La Bamba?
Luis Arriaga: I didn’t! I should have! What I did do—they put me on the spot and it was so awkward. They gave me the address and one day’s notice—‘Can you come tomorrow?’ I also translated Barbara Lynn—‘You’ll Lose a Good Thing.’ Freddy Fender did it too but I did my own—which I thought was amazing! Which I think I still have? Which Gizzelle should do. So they took me down to the house and asked me to do a few translations and who opens the door but Cesar with the goatee and sunglasses? I’m like, ‘Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!’ He has a whole section where it was the studio and lounge area. All the Straitjackets were there and some of the guys from Los Lobos and all over the walls were gold and platinum albums, and then a section where it’s all the guitars from all the albums they ever did! Like he never used them again type of deal! It’s a fucking shrine! I don’t think he did it—his wife did it, maybe? And he had a big long TV set with Grammys all over it, and there was a Grammy on the floor! So for the first time in my life and maybe only I picked up a Grammy and dusted it off—
Angel Hernandez: And put it in your pocket?
Luis Arriaga: And it’s right here on my keychain! The first and only time I ever held a Grammy.
So far.
Luis Arriaga: I’m too old! If I haven’t made it yet, I’m not gonna make it now! My looks are fading as we speak!
Reb Kennedy: There must be some quirk or perversion—women who like guys who look like hound dogs.
Luis Arriaga: People who like licking awkward things?
What’s the one thing you’ll never get tired of writing about?
Luis Arriaga: Everything I do is absolutely based on love. ‘Let’s Party’ was written while I was in love. It’s not necessarily about a corny love story, it’s about drinking and having a goddamn good time! Because I was in love and in a good place. ‘Wild in the Head,’ which is also on Brain Jail, is also love as well. Every song I ever write based on how I felt is because of love. It’s the leading force in anything I do. I’m very emotional—probably more than I wanna admit! More than I should admit. At some points embarrassing to admit. But everything I do is based off of love. I think some of my best friends know. Whenever a song is written—it can be the most minimal lyrics, but there’s a line in there that explains myself. I try to write a hook or a party song but I always try to incorporate me. If I’m happy because I felt that that day or was in that state of life, and if it’s a bad song … ‘Mouth Hug’ is not about blow jobs at all!
Reb Kennedy: You don’t give them! Or do you?
Luis Arriaga: People think that song is about hugging somebody. Really? I’m gonna write a song about a hug! I was receiving a mouth hug? I listened to everything there is about music. When I was a lot younger—when I met Reb I was probably 20 or 21, eleven years ago or twelve—I thought I knew what was happening with music, but I always wanted to experiment. Being around him made me wanna look for other music. He knows absolutely everything there is to know! Because he’s 75 years old! He was in World War I! He’s seen it all!
Reb Kennedy: Square wheels on cars!
Luis Arriaga: The first television set! Amazing! Not that he necessarily taught me, but knowing someone I was around was listening to something else made me wanna listen to something else. Made me say, ‘Why are they doing this? Who influenced them?’ Like Devendra—one of my biggest things at the moment. I don’t wanna follow anybody! I don’t follow anybody! I love every aspect of music—from rockabilly to soul to blues to garage to punk to indie to folk to freak folk. I don’t wanna be somebody else exactly. There are things I wanna do. Since I’m into the Devendra thing, I’d love to do something like that, but I’d never follow him. I do what I do and hope it’s a different direction. I don’t wanna stay dormant in one sound. I think I will die if I did the exact same sound for ten years—I will die! Sometimes I’m nervous to move on but …
Reb Kennedy: What’s really important with Luis and all our acts—everyone as individuals, Angel and Luis, they all like music. They all like music and they all listen to music. But I don’t see a heavy influence by anything out there. We all go to shows all the time. We’re not people who you don’t see out—we pay our money and watch whatever! We did the Rolling Stones song for Norton and did Van Morrison for Norton, but that’s not saying those are necessarily influences. Our guys are influenced by what we are doing as a unit more than the past or present. We’re lucky. Luis writes a lot of material. A lot of acts write a lot. Omar—it’s almost like competition. Not as winner or loser, but the guys try and write very clever things! Luis explaining how he writes songs is a very cool thing. Anybody can write, ‘I fell in love today, my heart was broke tomorrow …’
Angel Hernandez: Can we use that?
Luis Arriaga: It’s a hit!
Reb Kennedy: That’s what they wrote for the last 50 years! You have to listen and find where the emotion is! Even in rockabilly—Omar writes about the heartache he goes through, but he doesn’t write, ‘I fell in love today, fell out of love tomorrow …’
Luis Arriaga: Totally a hit!
Reb Kennedy: The guys are clever—it’s not writing by formula writing.
How does Luis & the Wildfires fit into L.A.? You seem so self-contained.
Reb Kennedy: L.A. has no influence! We could be anywhere in the world.
Luis Arriaga: Michigan! No Mexicans in Michigan. There isn’t—we were there! Rarely any Mexicans.
Angel Hernandez: Even the taco stand didn’t have Mexicans.
Reb Kennedy: People talk about indie music—we ARE independent music. Anyone else is full of shit! We are independent! This is our studio. We are self-sufficient! It’s all material by our own people. We record, mix and master our own material. We manufacture our own sleeves. Nobody influences how we sell or who we sell to. We’re truly independent. So it doesn’t matter where we are. We’re in this garage—we can take that anywhere!
Link Wray actually did that.
Reb Kennedy: It makes no difference we’re in L.A. We are the new wave and a lot of old acts are threatened by the new wave.
Luis Arriaga: We surpassed the people we saw—I know it’s a bold goddamn statement to say but we have surpassed… don’t print that! I don’t wanna get jumped later! They look to us but never wanna admit—the old generation don’t ever wanna let another generation in.
Reb Kennedy: The old guard may read that and say ,‘Fuck off! You can’t play as good as me!’ They missed the point! Luis isn’t saying that structured guitar playing is better—we have true energy, true soul… We’re not jaded! We were out last night absolutely fucked and we just did a ten hour day—
Luis Arriaga: And we’ll have some drinkin’ later on! [And we did.—ed.]
Reb Kennedy: We have that youth you lose as days go past.
Is soul real?
Reb Kennedy: It is!
Luis Arriaga: I signed mine to Reb!
Reb Kennedy: I have them all in bottles! I keep their souls! It keeps me looking young! If people feel they need to label music—we are a rock ‘n’ roll label, but the key word to everything we do is soul. You may not hear it in Brain Jail—if you’re deaf!—but soul doesn’t mean Otis Redding, or it does—soul is putting your heart into what you’re doing. Our guys do that—our guys are here today doing it!
Luis Arriaga: We do what we do—we have soul and heart and we’re all friends and we work hard for each other. It’s a DIY label … and this mustache is itching me.
Reb Kennedy: Give it back to the woman you took it from.
What’s the biggest difference between the crowd at a bar mitzvah and the crowd at the release party for the porno movie you soundtracked?
Luis Arriaga: So many years between! The bar mitzvah was when we were kids—all we had was that 45! That kid found me in Vegas and took me to a burger joint. He remembered me! ‘You played my bar mitzvah!’ ‘Who are you? Who is this awkward drunk?’
Reb Kennedy: Funny thing about the porno—a lot of acts aspire to get movies and soundtracks and we’d like that.
Looking for a Mitsubishi commercial?
Reb Kennedy: We are! I like Cadillacs.
Nick Tosches says rock ‘n’ roll was invented by a lot of guys who wanted Cadillacs.
Reb Kennedy: It’s the truth!
Luis Arriaga: We’ve done other pornos.
Angel Hernandez: Pizza delivery boy number one!
Luis Arriaga: The same guy that did Bad Luck Betties asked me and Angel for a favor, so we played a lot of music on it.
Angel Hernandez: So yeah, we did a porno together.
Luis Arriaga: Don’t print this! My mom is gonna read it! No—if it’s not in Spanish, it’s cool.
Angel Hernandez: ReBelle Rousers.
Luis Arriaga: Look at the credits. Just me and him—we recorded every single instrument. We didn’t know how to play.
Reb Kennedy: Skin flute?
Angel Hernandez: Rusty trombone.
Luis Arriaga: Now this is serious shit. It was nominated for an AVN award for the soundtrack because of us—they started the category for us! And check this shit. Bad Luck Betties—the next one—again in the category we helped start—print this shit! Let me help you type this! Bad Luck Betties was also nominated for ‘Best Soundtrack’ and we lost … to Eddie Van Halen! Not a bad second! He provided one song while Wild Records did a whole soundtrack.
So did you all gather round together and watch your porno proudly?
Luis Arriaga: The circle jerk? What was the question?
Reb Kennedy: The jerk-off competition?
Angel Hernandez: And everybody won!

LUIS & THE WILDFIRES WITH EL VEZ, THE LOVELY ELVETTES AND LOS STRAITJACKETS ON FRI., DEC. 18, AT THE TROUBADOUR, 9081 SANTA MONICA BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8 PM / $15-$18 / ALL AGES. TROUBADOUR.COM. LUIS & THE WILDFIRES’ BRAIN JAIL IS AVAILABLE FROM NORTON AND THE “I’M A MAN” 45 IS AVAILABLE FROM WILD RECORDS. VISIT LUIS & THE WILDFIRES AT MYSPACE.COM/THEWILDFIRES OR WILDPRESENTS.COM.

Stream: Kim Fowley “Underground Lady”

(from One Man’s Garbage available this October on Norton)

We here at L.A. RECORD are diligent students of L.A.’s Animal God of the Streets and so we are happy to learn that Kim Fowley’s classic ’60s output (as producer, musician and fearsome inspiration) will be corraled on two separate LPs for the unstoppable Norton this October—One Man’s Garbage and Another Man’s Gold! Huge news for all reality seekers, and if you’re reading this and you didn’t get that Black Randy reissue, you best … get right. Details below:

ONE MAN’S GARBAGE IS ANOTHER MAN’S GOLD!

Norton presents a Golden Decade (1959-69) of Kim Fowley’s elusive, previously properly unheralded mega genius escapades that reinforce the fact that Kim is… GODHEAD! Posh gatefold LPs feature extensive liner notes from Mr. Fowley, presented in his own inimitable MEGA GENIUS steeltrap-memory way. Stand now and salute the man, and each of these great records which blast right today as they did back when the chicken was the egg!

KIM FOWLEY – ONE MAN’S GARBAGE (Norton 355)
BRUCE AND JERRY – I Saw Her First/PATTERNS – Late Late Show/U.S. ROCKETS – Bodacious/RITUALS – This Is Paradise/DONNIE AND THE OUTCASTS – Big Fat Alaskan/RENEGADES – Charge/PLAYERS – The Rebel/KIM AND THE SKIPPERS – Daybreaker/MO AND JO – The Yo Yo Song/JOHNNY C AND THE BLAZES – Inferno/KIM FOWLEY – Music Is The Magic/BLUE BELLS – Moccasin/ALTHEA AND THE MEMORIES – Dedication Time/KIM FOWLEY – Underground Lady/KIM FOWLEY AND MARS BONFIRE – Surf Pigs*/ALTHEA AND THE MEMORIES – Worst Record Ever Made (* = previously unissued)

KIM FOWLEY – ANOTHER MAN’S GOLD (Norton 356)
RENEGADES – Geronimo/KIM FOWLEY – Big Sur, Bear Mountain, Ciro’s, Flip Side Protest Song/GAMBLERS – Teen Machine/VAQUEROS – Vaquero Beat/PLAYERS – Memories Of A High School Bride/ASTON MARTIN AND THE MOON DISCS – Fallout/COVER GIRLS – Gone But Not Forgotten/DAYWINS – Heartbeat/RITUALS – Surfers Rule/BONNIE AND THE TREASURES – Eleventh Commandment Of Love*/RENEGADES – Ghost Train*/ HOLLYWOOD ARGYLES – Long Hair, Unsquare Dude Called Jack/DONNIE AND THE OUTCASTS – Bounty Hunter/ALTHEA AND THE MEMORIES – Daddy Said/U.S. ROCKETS – March Of The Siamese Children/RITUALS – Gone (* = previously unissued)

]]> http://larecord.com/news/2009/08/26/norton-to-issue-double-kim-fowley-retrospectives-this-october/feed 0 http://larecord.com/interviews/2009/06/04/the-sonics-we-might-try-to-blow-peoples-heads-off http://larecord.com/interviews/2009/06/04/the-sonics-we-might-try-to-blow-peoples-heads-off#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:55:21 +0000 lar_import http://larecord.com/?p=31322 Here Are The Sonics! devours most of the million punk rock records that timidly followed it. This will be their first Los Angeles-area show ever. This interview by Dan Collins.]]>
josh slater

Download: The Sonics “Strychnine”

(from Here Are The Sonics! available now on Norton)

The Sonics weren’t pioneers so much as cavemen—the first humans to discover tools, fire and the absolute rudiments of chemistry. Their original ‘60s songs still sound wild and feral today, and their debut Here Are The Sonics! devours most of the million punk rock records that timidly followed it. This will be their first Los Angeles-area show ever. This interview by Dan Collins.

When was the last time you guys played the Los Angeles area?
Larry Parypa (guitar/vocals): I don’t think we ever did. We recorded down there a bunch. We went to the Whisky a Go Go and the Turtles and the Doors were there, before they got really popular.
Gerry Roslie (vocals/organ): We saw Ike and Tina Turner! It was extremely happening down there. We were like wide-eyed country boys.
A lot of L.A. bands really emulated the Beatles. But you guys didn’t seem to be Anglophiles.
LP: We loved the Beatles, and we even played some of their songs, but in no way did we try to emulate the Beatles. We were a very minor, dark sounding group for those days.
GR: We’d try to do a pretty song, and it’d just end up getting ‘nice and rough!’
Rob Lind (sax/harmonica/vocals): We loved the Kinks. We actually traveled with them and opened a number of shows for them.
LP: We played the way that we played, which was without a whole lot of technique, and real hard. A live performance—I mean, the room would almost breathe because it was so powerful. Knowing that we weren’t masterful musicians or anything, knowing that we weren’t a vocal group, we were there to pound it out. It was our style. Nobody was doing 1-3-4 progressions, real minor progressions. And they weren’t singing about the topics we sang about. And nobody was screaming!
You both had brothers in the band. Did Larry and Andy ever fight like Ray and Dave Davies did?
GR: When didn’t they? They had some real sessions. We were heading down around the Portland area, and Larry had a brand new Buick, and had his radio on real loud, and me and Andy were in the back seat. Andy was like, ‘Turn that volume down back here at least!’ And finally Andy had enough getting Larry to do it, and he was drinking a bottle of grape pop, and he poured it down Larry’s speakers while the car was going down the freeway, and the speakers go ‘bloooblublublublublublublu!’ And he pulled over, and I think they were just about ready to go to blows right there on the side of the freeway. Andy was always on Larry’s case for playing too loud.
Why did you decide to scream about things like drinking strychnine? It seems like that would kill you.
GR: Well, I’m kind of crazy by nature. I do crazy things and think of crazy things. But I’m not dangerous—heh heh. Honest, judge!
RL: The PA systems were normally pretty bad. Sometimes we just had metal horns. And so Gerry started screaming so he could hear himself.
GR: It’s a wonder I’ve got a voice left! I screamed myself silly. I was inspired by the voices of Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis of course. I liked their energy, but I don’t remember anybody doing witchy stuff. It’s just a crazy, psychotic thing. After we got going, there did start to be crazy, witchy things, like Ozzy. Everything was kind of like, ‘love and marriage, la la la la la,’ and I went ‘Nah! That’s not dirty enough! That’s not the way I feel!’
A lot of your songs seem to be about revenge—particularly upon some girl! Was there a particular relationship in your life where you’re like ‘I’m going to get even with her and write a song about it?’
GR: Do you have a couple hours, my friend? Who hasn’t been screwed over—guys or girls?
Do you secretly hope to yourself that some day, that girl is going to walk into a record store and see a Sonics poster and think to herself, ‘I blew it!’?
GR: Oh, yeah, I do hope that happens! That would be sweet!
You guys are often cited as the original punk band. Did you feel a kinship with bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols?
RL: The Clash, I thought they were hard-rocking gods. The Sex Pistols, I didn’t like a whole lot of the stuff they did, but I liked their attitude, and every once in a while I’d hear one of their songs and go ‘Whoa, that’s good. Way to go, guys!’
LP: After the late ‘60s, I didn’t listen to music much. If I did, it was probably more country.
RL: Yeah, more the Seattle guys—that’s really where garage rock started with us, and it was like Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney, and Screaming Trees, and Alice and Chains—it was kind of like those guys were our sons! We were real proud of them.
Let’s talk about the earlier Northwest scene. It seems like the first breakout bands were instrumental combos like the Ventures and the Frantics.
RL: The Frantics and the Ventures and Paul Revere kind of predated us. I think one of the first rock songs I ever heard was ‘Walk, Don’t Run,’ and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
LP: God, the Frantics were just a fantastic group! Even today, they really stand up. The first interest I ever had in guitar was Duane Eddy—actually it was ‘Rumble’ by Link Wray, but then Duane Eddy had a song out that was all instrumental, and just really got me stimulated to want to play guitar. Not long after that, the Ventures came out with their stuff, and I tried to learn every song on the Ventures album. Another band that was more regional was the Wailers. They came out with instrumentals that had much harder rhythms than what the Ventures were doing, but then they got Rockin’ Roberts, and Gail Harris, and they would do vocals.
I used to have their album Live at the Castle. Did you ever play at the Castle in Tacoma?
LP: Yeah! In fact, we turned down Jimi Hendrix there, before he was the Jimi Hendix. He came and wanted to sit in, and we told him to get lost! It was a big club—a big dance spot for the Seattle area. You’d maybe get a thousand kids in there. There was a place called the Crescent Ballroom in Tacoma, where the Wailers played a lot. It’s like the first time I ever played there—I was 14 or 15, and probably didn’t have a clue about what I was doing. Lesley Gore came through town and for some reason, my brother [Andy] and I were part of the backup group for her. We did that with the Shangri-Las also, and we just ruined them! We knew we were going to back them up, but we didn’t learn their songs! Their songs had a lot of breaks in them, and we’d play right through them.
RL: The lead singer of the Shangri-Las said something snarky about us. So next time we played with them, we made fun of them. They were doing ‘Leader of the Pack,’ and Gerry was riding his piano like a motorcycle, and I was down on my knees, being like, ‘No, Danny, please please don’t go!’ We just humiliated them. You don’t come to Seattle and trash the Sonics! So they said they’d never play with us again.
We interviewed Mary Weiss last year. Do you want to tell her publicly that you’re sorry?
LP: We’re sorry! We played in Barcelona last year, and she was also on the bill. And she remembered! Oh, yeah!
RL: We smoothed things over. She’s playing with the guy from the Smithereens, Dennis, and we drank a lot of Scotch in the hotel in Barcelona, and we sat and chatted with Mary and her husband. Things are fine now.
How about Paul Revere and the Raiders? Any bad grudges there you want to settle? Like, who played ‘Louie Louie’ better?
RL: Oh, I think we did! I don’t think there’s any question!
Did you get just a little pissed off when the Raiders got to be on TV and in Teen Beat and you guys didn’t?
RL: Not at the time. I used to know Paul Revere, and Paul is the epitome of a businessman. The problem with Northwest rock ‘n’ roll bands—with the exception of the Ventures who broke out and became worldwide—was that us and the Wailers got trapped in the Northwest.
LP: We didn’t even think too much about what we were doing musically or where we were going. We’d hardly ever practice or anything. We would throw our instruments in the van maybe Sunday night after doing some weekend stuff, and wouldn’t pull them out again until we’d play again. We were more interested in whether we could get girls into the motel rooms that night.
It was kind of the cusp of the Summer of Love! Did you guys get to have drug orgies?
LP: We’d have the bathtub full of beer and stuff—to try to ply them with liquor. That really was a key objective. The music was just a vehicle to get us in some parties! You’d hit the road in summers, just playing one-night-stands all over the place. That was an exciting way to spend your teenage life!
The Meters recorded a live album on the Queen Mary—are you guys planning on recording one there too?
RL: No, we’re not doing that. We’re actually planning on going back into the studio in July. All new material. We need to get new stuff out.
LP: We don’t know what’s going to happen because we don’t practice. We go months and don’t touch our instruments. For this show we’re going to get together for an hour and a half at my house before going to L.A. and run through the songs again just so we can make sure we remember them. And sometimes we don’t!
I’ve heard a couple cuts from your previous 1972 reunion, which Norton added as a bonus on the Sonics Boom album. It sounds even more hard than your sixties recordings. How did you guys resist the urge to get all bluesy like Foghat?
RL: We never sat there and scratched our heads and said ‘What could our gimmick be?’ We always played real hard. Larry played guitar as hard as he could. Bob Bennett played drums as hard as he could. Jerry screamed and banged on the piano. I tried to play sax the way Larry played guitar. I tried to play as hard-dirty-nasty as I could. We used to play dances in armories or big roller rinks, where we’d have three-four-five thousand people. And we didn’t want people standing around with their arms folded staring at us. We wanted people to start dancing immediately. What a lot of bands would do is blow two or three songs and get the level right and then get into it. We wanted to get into it as soon as we hit the stage, so we came out blasting from the get-go! And that’s exactly what we do now. We are going to come out blastin’ and attempt to blow the place up.
GR: We don’t tone it down! We don’t try to blow people’s heads off, but… well, yeah, we might try to blow people’s heads off. What the heck?
Ar the end of your career, suddenly a basketball team starts up in your own town and calls itself the ‘Supersonics.’ Did you feel your name had been usurped?
LP: We thought it would be good publicity to sue them, even though we’d lose—just to say, ‘Hey, the Sonics are suing the Sonics!’
GR: It was kind of a shock! But we were out of the business. But now they’re gone, and we’re back!

THE SONICS WITH THE FUZZTONES, THE WOGGLES, THE VOODUO, GIZELLE, THE NEW FIDELITY AND MANY MORE ON SAT., JUNE 6, AT THE INK-N-IRON FESTIVAL AT THE QUEEN MARY, 1126 QUEENS HWY., LONG BEACH. DOORS AT 11 AM / BANDS AT NOON / SONICS AT 10 PM / $35-$70 / 7+. COMPLETE FESTIVAL LINE-UP AND MORE INFO AT INK-N-IRON.COM. THE SONICS’ RECORDS ARE AVAILABLE NOW ON NORTON. VISIT THE SONICS AT MYSPACE.COM/THESONICSBOOM.

]]> http://larecord.com/interviews/2009/06/04/the-sonics-we-might-try-to-blow-peoples-heads-off/feed 3 http://larecord.com/news/2009/04/30/sonics-to-play-queen-mary-in-june http://larecord.com/news/2009/04/30/sonics-to-play-queen-mary-in-june#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:35:56 +0000 lar_import http://larecord.com/?p=30332

L.A. RECORD is very excited to learn that the Sonics are headlining one of the days at Long Beach’s Ink N Iron festival this June 5, 6 and 7. As far as we know, this is the only Sonics show in Southern California in decades? And their only show close to L.A. in recent memory, barring that SXSW date. Now all we need is the Mummies chucked in here somewhere. Visit ink-n-iron.com for more info and get tickets here!

]]> http://larecord.com/news/2009/04/30/sonics-to-play-queen-mary-in-june/feed 0 http://larecord.com/uncategorized/2008/02/19/sun-feb-17-the-a-bones-with-roy-loney-mr-ts-bowl http://larecord.com/uncategorized/2008/02/19/sun-feb-17-the-a-bones-with-roy-loney-mr-ts-bowl#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:30:58 +0000 lar_import http://larecord.com/revs/2008/02/18/sun-feb-17-the-a-bones-with-roy-loney-mr-ts-bowl/
mitra khayyam

The A-Bones rocked L.A. like it hasn’t been rocked since the Rev. Roky Erickson tore it up at the El Ray this summer. From the first song on it didn’t let up—the whole event reminded me of that Animal House frat party, high voltage R&B, rockabilly and just plain old can’t-stand-still rock ‘n’ roll. They didn’t come on til midnight so that should tell you something—on a Sunday night, I’m usually in bed with my little wooden head screwed off and sitting on the night stand. But the whole place was jumping like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs, and all the coolest kittens and rockabilly grandpas were there, like Johnny Legend, Charmin’ Allen Larmen, and Big Sandy. The biggest commotions of the night were of course Miriam’s “A-Bone Bop” and a heartfelt rendition of “The World’s Greatest Sinner” dedicated… well, let’s just say it was dedicated to the one I love. Ah, shucks—it was ME! They dedicated the song to ME! Me and nobody else! Nobody but me! Then as we thought the show was over, Roy Loney from the Flamin’ Groovies—this little drunk pixie of a man!—went through a few of their hits, including a most excellent version of “Teenage Head.” I hope we don’t have to wait another fifteen years for the A-Bones to come back!

— Malibu Mike Murphy

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