Stockton, California. Late 70’s, early 80’s. Four friends: Curtis Clyde Hall, Graham Johnston, Iain Ross, and Evan Stewart. A kind of rock & roll filled their dull afternoons in that working class poor city on the San Joaquin River. By that time, being a musician and playing that style could turn out in two options: wear some spandex tights and become a musical crony of Journey or assault the clubs that the manager of Journey did not do before. Authorities chose the last one and it pretty worked out because they ended up playing in myhitical venues as San Francisco’s Mabuhay Gardens.
Their straight punk-rock reached a wide audience and, after some standstills and arrests, the band rejoined together again for recording the “Soundtrack for Trouble” EP where we could find themes like “I hate Cops”, “Achtung!”, “Shot in the Head” and “Radiationmasturbation”. These songs, among many others of their own crop, appeared in several punk compilations and made them live a sweet moment of fame and recognition.
Hall and Thalken left the band to attend college, and after Nick Kappos passing, Hall and Thalken decided to come back to the music and record the “Bourbon Decay” EP and play together sporadically until their official meeting in 2010. Three decades after, the band has a new album called “Kung Pao Au-Go Go” released with Get Hip Recordings label. This work collects a bunch of lost songs previously written, but never recorded before, and some new compositions. This 13-song album have been tested with the audience in 2010 after some important gigs in UK, Iceland, Seattle, Portland and in their home town, Stockon, sharing stage with Pavement. The result of the test was a quite warm welcome from fans and not fans and the secret ingredient is not any hidden treasure. It is quite simple indeed. Their sound is confident, agressive and powerful. If you don’t believe me, just check what they offer us on MYSPACE.
