(An excerpt from Ray Brandes’ saga of San Diego guitar hero Jerry Raney and his band that shaped the ’70s. Read the full version in Che Underground’s Related Bands section.)
In a 1978 Village Voice editorial, music journalist Lester Bangs proclaimed: “The music business today still must be recognized as by definition an enemy, if not the most crucial enemy, of music and the people who try to perform it honestly.”
By the mid-‘70s, multinational corporations had taken control of most of the industry, leaving independent record labels and local music scenes to fend for themselves. Longtime music fan and San Diego expatriate Harold Gee remembers the dismal state of affairs which would ultimately lead to the punk movement: “Everything, from the top down, from radio and all other media was total crap. The problem for me was the disconnect between the music that moved me, which mostly seemed to be either in the past or on jazz records, that only got played in a few people’s houses.”
Throughout the ‘70s, however, a few local underground acts had held firmly, David-like in their resistance to the corporate Goliaths. One such band was San Diego’s beloved hard-rock bad-asses Glory, who according to one critic, left “a big greasy mark (and a few stains) on Southern California’s rock & roll scene.”
It’s appropriate that a champion of the San Diego music scene should saddle up for a righteous campaign to raise consciousness and funds for those in need.
