Best San Diego record?

(Ray Brandes puts out a call for swinging singles.)

Later this month, Mike Stax’s Ugly Things Records will release a celebrated local recording, the Nashville Ramblers’ “The Trains.” If one were to rank the best recordings ever to be made by San Diegans, this one would no doubt place in the Top 10.

On any list it would face some tough competition, though, from Rosie and the Originals’ 1961 classic, “Angel Baby,” to my personal favorite, the Crawdaddys’ “5 X 4” EP, released in 1980.

What is your favorite San Diego recording and what is your personal connection to it? (Feel free to consider artists from San Diego who moved or recorded elsewhere.)

— Ray Brandes

Music history from Ray Brandes:

Music and culture by Ray Brandes:

12 thoughts on “Best San Diego record?”

  4. Big ‘Oh Yeah!!’ for Unknowns Dream Sequence EP!!!
    Title track.

    ‘Prison Walls’ by The Injections.

    ‘Innagaddadavida’, baby!

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  5. Yes…dream sequence. SOOOO original…splendid, creative. Best band from SD…hands down.

    Dave Fleminger…you are tooooo kind 🙂

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  6. Ray,

    Happy to. Whilst Dream Sequence and Crawdaddys 5x4 are two of my all-time favorites from anywhere and would be on my list of 25 records on a deserted island, Walk the Beat still sticks with me as a reminder of a great point in time in the evolution of San Diego music and of a great many good times. At one point in the history of Matthew’s great work here over the past couple of years he was trying to pin down exactly what made the San Diego scene vibrant/cohesive/collborative or whatever you want to call it. I hold up this record as a historical portal to a time when it all came together for me and made me want to play music. Granted, that;s just ne & we’re all diffrent. I would never want to take anything away from the Injections, 5051, Manual Scan, or even Iron Butterfly -- but that’s the problem with picking a favorite. There are a lot of others that deserve mention and mean more to others.

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  7. Paul, you are indeed correct about Walk The Beat (and its accompanying EP) being an instant catalyst and a vital theme for the SD experience.
    I couldn’t imagine the scene without that song.
    Waves of people singing/yelling along with the Penetrators at shows were quoting the bands lyrics (I loved it when everybody did the nervous fingers) but it was clear those words spoke of a shared experience. The Beat was two-fold, an ever-present force of uniformed control that was able to literally stop our music at any time, but when music was indeed happening it was also The Beat that rocked us and helped us lose any sense of being held down. The protagonist in the song sounds alone in his thoughts as he does his sidewalk rounds, but its also an anthem about everyone patrolling around for something. Instead of moralizing, Gary proclaims he’s the cop…or what exactly is he trying to cop??
    And t’boot, it’s a GREAT song and brain virus, spooky ‘n slammin’, recorded in SD’s own Hit Single Studio in the basement of a shopping mall that brings to mind scenes from Dawn Of The Dead.
    5th and Bop, I-5….Nothing Town…more Pen’s Diego-specific songs that spoke universally in spite of the local themes.

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