Starjammer

There’s “friends” and then there’s friends. Although the specifics of how Kevin and I met have been muddied by time, I’m now thinking it was early 1976, at a La Jolla Shores beach party.

My memory stems from the fact that I had wanted Kevin to go to Wings with me and that was June (rescheduled from May) 1976. He already had a guitar and amp and was taking lessons, but a lot of the connection was over a shared love of music, starting with The Beatles and later Cheap Trick, The Zombies and many others. Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” was always a particular favorite. He didn’t make it to Wings, but we did manage to catch Queen with Thin Lizzy soon after.

From almost the moment we began hanging out, we talked about starting a band.

And we did.

Bart Mendoza of Manual Scan and the Shambles comes through with a cache of photos, sounds and a video montage of Scan and its predecessors, the Pedestrians and Starjammer.

First up: a photo of three-quarters of the original Manual Scan lineup from 1981. The band had recently formed when Bart Mendoza and Kevin Ring of the Pedestrians (guitars) joined forces with Dave Fleminger (bass) and Paul Kaufman (drums). Says Bart (on the left), “Here is an early pic for the site, I’d love to hear what Paul remembers of this day. I think it’s a transitional pic, just post-Pedestrians, probably a few weeks after.”

Paul Kaufman responds, “It’s a blast to see this! Yes, I remember when we headed down to Balboa Park, which provided nice backdrops for a photo shoot … But where’s Dave in this photo?… You can tell I wasn’t able to keep up with the Mod attire. I think the jacket might have been a last-minute addition from the Ring wardrobe.”

Kevin Donaker-Ring, center stage

Manual Scan in autofocus