(Che Underground prodigy-turned-full-grown rocker Dylan Rogers tells the San Diego story behind the music.)
Unlike most people on this blog, I will be starting from the end, not the beginning.
Sonic Love Affair recorded “The Dirty Kids” summer of 2006 at Wally Sound in Oakland, California. This is one of the 12 songs recorded for a second album, which was not released. Soon after the band split.
Rob Alper (guitar); Curtis Franklin (guitar); Jerry Fiore (drums); Rudge (bass); Dylan Rogers (vocals). Produced by Wally.
I had written these lyrics about eight years earlier in my apartment in Brooklyn, New York, only to toss them aside for years.
I had been thinking a lot about my childhood in the neighborhood of Ocean Beach. I was not just thinking about myself but all the kids who grew up in O.B. Kids who led a fast-paced life at very young ages, dealing with adult situations and too young to cope.
For what it’s worth, the band had been listening to a lot of “Radio Birdman” at this time, and I think that shows in the sound. There’s also a slight nod to the later Flamin’ Groovies song “Shake Some Action” on the guitar solo played by Rob Alper.
Rob was the main contributor to the writing of the music. He wrote the music in his apartment on Page Street, San Francisco.
- For more musical San Diego history, check out Lemons Are Yellow’s “Thousand Island”!
If I close my eyes, I can go back to a time of sun-drenched streets. The smell of ether from the many meth labs in the back alleys. The taste of Now ‘n’ Laters on my tongue, bought with food stamps my brother Sam stole from my mom.
— Dylan Rogers
Note the reference to Buford’s infamous candy store. …
Dylan, this is marvelous! This song handsomely evokes the Che Underground Zeitgeist of disaffected youth gone wild in sunny SD. Much kudos to you and SLA.
Check this out guys, this bands rocks! It makes my little heart ache to find out what I’d been missing in SoCal all these years.
Dylan: It’s awesome! I like it better than anything I’ve heard in a while, and the OB details (I lived on Newport!) are perfect. Do the others have San Diego connections, too--or just you?
Nice work Dylan!
Dylan, this sounds great… In fact, I like all the songs on your myspace page. Makes me wish I’d gotten to see you guys when you were around!
Dylan, I totally hear the Radio Birdman influence here, along with the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Headin’ For the Texas Border”, which is fine by me as they are 2 of my favorite bands. Great tune! Too bad the album wasn’t released.
I had the pleasure of seeing Dylan’s band several times in the Bay Area but perhaps the best was seeing them play outdoors in the middle of 105 degree heat at the Crash-a-Rama in Sacramento. Those Wasted Weekend events were a blast despite the intense heat!
Simon: I am glad you dig the song because you were there! Curtis Franklin-Guitar spent his college years(mid to late 80’s) in San Diego and went to a lot of shows, he even got beat up by a bunch of skinheads at Jackie Y. You could say he paid his dago dues.
Rudge-Bass is from L.A. and played in a bunch of garage type bands there and some came down to San Diego. His first band was The Marsupials (83 till?) also he was in The Badgers, The Headhunters, Count Spatual and a band called Frizzy or Fizzy Bangers just to name a few. Rudge also was a roadie for The Bangs/Bangles and good friends with the likes of The Longriders, Redd Kross, 3 O’Clock and The Things.
I know he was friends with The Berry Pickers and came down for S.D. shows with them.
Dave E: you can kinda get a feel of S.L.A. live from a U-Tube video on the Myspace just scroll down alittle from those songs. thanks dave!
Dean: The slight nod towards “Shake Some Action” is the little “yalp” Rob does before his solo. But yes I can hear some “Texas Border” in there too and I must say I dig ealry Groovies the most.
The Crash O Rama shows were the best and I am proud to have been apart of them. The last one it was 110 degrees while played. I thought I was gonna die on stage.
I have a lot of respect for you, sticking it out and watching all the bands. Thanks for coming to all those shows!
I may have been there, Dylan, but I was clean. Now, like Paul McCartney’s grand-dad, I’m a very clean old man.
Hello Simon,
Havn’t spoke to you in years. I hope all is well with you!
I’m very well indeed. Dylan gave me an update on you and your sister. Feel free to send me a PM here or to get my email from Dylan if you want. Best, --Simon
Simon: You were a very clean polite young man who lived in a jett black bedroom, not one of those dirty kids.
From what I can tell, SLA’s eponymous first album is still readily available from Dollar Record Records. It doesn’t have this track, but if you like this track you’re going to like what I’m listening to right now. It does have a roughed-up Dylan cover and a song called “Panther Piss.” Come on: you know what to do.
Simon: glad you have the CD in your hands. I always wanted to send you a copie, to thank you for turning me on to good bands when I was a kid, but I had no idea where you were, I have not seen you since I was 13.
Matthew Rothenberg: I want to thank you for pushing me to share this.
Thank You!
>>Matthew Rothenberg: I want to thank you for pushing me to share this.
Thank You!
Dylan: The victory lap is well-deserved! And thank you for sending me a copy of the CD. 🙂
Just a thought… If anyone went to the S.L.A. Myspace and requested to be a friend; I just want you to know that the space is not being run by anyone.
Curtis our guitar player ran the myspace site and when the band broke up he walked away from it.
So please do not feel snubbed if your request was not granted.
I will work my own Myspace in the near future, my blue collar job, 2 year old son and wife who goes to school full time do not leave me much time for Myspace or anything else. Thanks!!! dylan
dylan, i swear i still check in on it once or twice a month. very proud to have been in that band and met some friends for life. no complaints at all. well, maybe a couple.. hehehe… this is a great site and there is some real good music here that i missed out on when i lived there from 87-90. i guess most of it had moved on by then. i did get to witness the angry samoans, govt issue, vandals and crab grass? riot as well as the other riot at the palasades skating rink. i cant even remember who played that one but i do remember being chased by cops down the alley and running into some friends from santa cruz who drove me home. weird.
Wow, the Simbianese Liberation Army on myspace?? I had no idea! 😉
Curtis: Playing music with you was one of the greatest expriences of my life, I will always think of you as one of my closest friends.
We did a lot as band, our time in Detroit seems like some crazy dream now.
Tom: Yeah yeah yeah, like we have not heard that one before.
So are you still playing music with Daniel Collas?
Dylan, I just ran into Daniel Collas recently, and he asked me if play the upright bass--he seemed to say he’s been working on his improvisational chops on the keyboard. Maybe we’ll be playing some jazz or soul/jazz at some point. He actually produced a record for Joe Bataan awhile back, which probably qualifies as a Spanish Harlem Incident. Meanwhile he’s got a project on called the Phenomenal Handclap Band, and they’ve just begun to do some gigs over the summer. I always see Daniel when Bart Davenport is in town, and Bart and his girlfriend were here at the same time as the PHB’s first gig a few months ago. Both of them were onstage with the band to do some vocals and play percussion, augmenting the two girls who are the primary vocalists. Nick from several projects on the Daptone label is on bass.
I’m part of a rhythm section that is backing various soul singers up, under the name “the Solid Set.” Last night the vocalist was Dean Parrish, previous nights have included Don Gardner and Obie “Young” Jessie. Last night’s show was very special. It was his first New York show since 1967, even though he has been living in Staten Island all this time. We had three horns, and two of my associates from the (defunct) Dansettes sang with him and rocked the tambourine. Nine people onstage altogether, doing his material from ’65 -- ’67 including big-in-th-UK numbers “Determination” and “I’m On My Way.” These records have famous New York session players like drummer Bernard Purdie on them, so the things were made to a pretty high standard, making a good challenge for some hacks like us forty-five years later. One of my favorites turned out to be a mid-tempo hard blues called “Skate.” It contains a line that goes “Roller skatin’ a-mama, turn while you hear the music play” or something close to that. It was a laugh at rehearsal to quote it as, “Roller skatin’ Obama,” which creates a funny mental image. That was before Dean got to the rehearsal, when we were running the tunes with a “scratch vocal,” just getting the arrangements down. Mr. Parrish is in very fine voice all this time later! Everyone seemed to enjoy the show a lot, and the house was full for him; it was satsfying to see a decent-size audience. Also, I think he had two ex-wives and a daughter there! There were some poignant moments with them.
It’s great to be playing out a lot, and I will have to bug Daniel to do some music. If he’s in the mood for upright bass, fine. I’ve got one.
My next show is in Boston with a rock band called the Davenports. It’s a bit on the indie pop side, but I hope the good kind, and the somewhat weird words, unlikely turns of lyric, make it worthwhile. You have to work to guess what he’s on about sometimes, even though it’s just everyday existential stuff. I don’t sound any different on the bass for this project than I do in more Sixties-oriented projects. I get to be myself, with flatwound strings and an old-school approach. It fits. We’re opening for Mike Viola from the Candy Butchers.
Just when were you in Detroit, Dylan? I know you from San Diego, New York, and San Francisco. I didn’t really know you were in Detroit. That’s a lot of cities.
Tom: Tell Daniel I say hello, we were in a band together back in New York, that guy blows me away. I heard he had worked with Joe Cuba also.
I did not live in Detroit just passed threw there on tour, Detroit is a very cool place but kind scary.
I have lived in alot of cities thow you can ad Seattle to the list, I would have made a great driffter or hobo.
I am making one last move back to San Diego, hope to live there till the end. If your every in town lets hang out.
Tom, that Dean Parrish show sounded like a blast. Did people dance? I would have been inclined to by the sound of it.
Hi Dean: yes, people danced, and there was a good dance floor scene after the live set, too. A consortium of excellent collector / deejays are behind this series of shows. Not sure which singer will arrive next, but this has been going for about four months now. The singer I did not mention yet is Tami Lynn--she played in June. She was great, and I wish I’d been on that gig. But by not being onstage, I got to see the show from out in front--and so I could dance as well. If I’d been onstage all I would have seen would’ve been the back of a big, broad-brimmed hat. Though it was an excellent hat!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tami_Lynn
I note that she sang on the Stones’ Exile On Main Street…I guess that is her pushing her voice to the limit in that one amazing spot….
Dylan: I will definitely pass along your greeting to Daniel when I see him. And I’ll have to ask about what he did with Joe Cuba. I imagine it may be on Vampisoul--I am looking right now on the label’s website.
I caught Joe Cuba in Prospect Park in 2007. What a show that was! There must have been a couple of thousand people there. You can imagine, they place went crazy when they played his big hit, “Bang Bang.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdCkb8lEAXE
Tom:Yeah I am pretty sure Daniel did something with Joe Cuba, it was sometime ago, maybe it was Joe Bataan. It was before you moved back to New York.
Drifter.
“Drifting Blues”
I spy a Joe Cuba reissue 12″ (“Bustin’ Out”) and 7″ of “Bang Bang” (which would be a bit more energetic than that mellow version on that clip I linked) on the Vampisoul label--which is Daniel, of course, in the A&R role…. There may have been more; a lot their stuff is limited pressings. Although I would hate to think something that new would be out of print already. Anyway, folks, do have a look at the website. There’s a lot of cool vinyl to be had that doesn’t make it to the local record store anymore. I can never say enough good things about Daptone, for example.
Drifting, not too much grifting.
Keep it riffin’, if need be some spliffin’ so that you ain’t missin’ the blissin’. Or Donner, or Blixen. Maybe Santa bring me some Vampisoul….
The obvious “Brian Jonestown Massacre”-type overlapping punk-rock band name here is probably ‘Joe Bataan Death March,’ I’m sad to have to say…. Another tasteless joke that has probably been made before!
One of the first of those overlapping names I recall was JFKFC. What made it worthwhile was the accompanying graphic….
I like to spin Joe Bataan’s “Subway Joe” when I do a deejay gig here in New York. The Latin bugalu thing is great, and so very Nueva York. It also reminds me of Kitty in Berkeley who was always deep into that stuff, way more knowledgeable about it than I’ll ever be. I hear she’s running a cool bar up there these days? Is it on San Pablo or something, anyone know? Dean, maybe?
I do not know much about Bugalu but what I do, it’s very cool.