(Excerpts from the story of the pioneering late-’80s alt-country band by founder Ray Brandes. Read the full version in our Related Bands section!)
The Town Criers was a country-rock band that featured many of San Diego’s Che Underground musicians, including myself and Dave Klowden of the Tell-Tale Hearts, Peter Miesner and Mark Zadarnowski of the Crawdaddys, Tom Ward of the Gravedigger V, and Dave Ellison of the Rockin’ Dogs. The group predated the alt-country movement of the 1990s by several years.
The last few months of the Tell-Tale Hearts’ existence were contentious times. Eric Bacher had quit the band in 1986, and many of the original San Diego scenesters had either left town or simply moved on. By the time guitarist Peter Miesner of the Crawdaddys arrived to save the day, the rest of the band members had begun to feel the effects of nearly four years together, and relationships were further strained by meddling outsiders and substance abuse.
For me, Peter’s addition to the group provided a welcome distraction from the band’s disintegration. Peter, David Klowden and I spent long hours listening to traditional blues and country music, as well as the mid-’60s Bakersfield sounds of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. 
A great inspiration for me was Gram Parsons, in particular the International Submarine Band’s “Safe at Home” album. During the last six months our set lists reflected the great divide in the band.
Pictures from a final performance in January in the basement of the building where Croce’s is currently located show a marked change in the group’s appearance.
When the Tell-Tale Hearts finally split for good in February 1987, the group disbanded into two factions. Bass player Mike Stax and keyboardist Bill Calhoun reunited for a short time with Hearts guitarist Eric Bacher and became the freakbeat Barons. (Mike and Bill would later give the Tell-Tale Hearts a second run.) The rest of the band — myself, Peter and David Klowden — joined forces with Gravedigger V bassist Tom Ward to create the Town Criers.
We practiced a few months in Tom Ward’s parents garage, where at 10:00 p.m. promptly, Tom’s father would enter and point to his watch. This was quite a contrast to the later Tell-Tale Hearts rehearsals, which often ended with one particular member unconscious on top of his instrument.
Listen to the Town Criers! “Slippin’ and Slidin’ ” • “Black Cloud” •
“Every Little Sin” • “Try It Again” • “Here Come the Tears”
In a sort of musical bootcamp, I learned to tune my guitar, pay attention to microphone technique and work on my songwriting. We played one of our first gigs at the San Diego Ballet Academy on Washingston Street, where several brand-new scooters with Style Council stickers were parked outside. Needless to say, if this new generation of kids had a hard time processing the Pretty Things, what would they do with Lefty Frizzell? We set our sights elsewhere, leaving the ’60s scene behind, and collecting a menagerie of old friends and new fans along the way.
Read the full Town Criers story!
— Ray Brandes
I’ve been listening to this stuff a lot since posting it … You guys were GREAT!
Ray, when did you start playing guitar onstage? Was it late in the TTH timeline, or had you done some public fretwork back in the day?
I agree! …the voice and guitars mesh beautifully around great songs, Peter’s riffs weave around the vocal lines…. twang for days interplays with Ray’s great melodies and a rocking groove.
Wish I had seen this band!
Ray asked me about digitizing the tape I have of The Town Criers at the old Casbah (from when I was in the band in 1989) to go along with this post, but I didnt get to it in time. Sorry about that…
It was a lot of fun playing in the Town Criers…that was the early days of the Casbah. Candy Cane, who we shared the bill with there once, probably still hates us…haha.
I almost forgot about the Barons… I played with them too for two rehearsals.
>>>”The group predated the alt-country movement of the 1990s by several years.”
At that time, there was no label for music like that… you could say “country rock,” but that sounded like you played Alabama covers…or “folk rock” …which like Loggins and Messina.
Now, more than ever, there’s a really big scene for that type of music in L.A., including two radio programs that play “alt country” extensively. The Town Criers would get a lot of attention if they were around right now!
When I joined the band, I was obsessed with learning to play pedal steel, and probably pushed the band in a much more country direction than what they were already doing…and what some members wanted to do…which was probably unfair to the other members.
Ray was being generous saying I carried the group…far from it! I think they were carrying me, as I was just learning to play. I would have to work out exactly what I was going to play in each song ahead of time, so for each rehearsal I’d try to have one or two songs ready to play…which made it hard for the band to get rolling. The band probabaly would have liked for me to play steel on only a few songs, but it was way too difficult for me to switch back and forth between that and guitar. Eventually we got Jim on guitar for a while.
Long before I joined (when Pete was still in the band), I filled in on guitar for one rehearsal…when they played in Tom’s garage. They had a female singer too at that time for backup vocals and duets…what was her name?
Thank you Misters Fleminger and Rothenberg for the kind words.
Matt: Our influences, which are listed above, were our antecedents twenty to thirty years earlier. In terms of bands we influenced, the branch pretty much stops with us. I suppose that our place on the tree is a question for a botanist to answer.
Dave: When you have that tape digitized, send a few songs to Matt so he can post them. It would be interesting to hear how some of the original songs evolved when you joined.
I still scratch my head a little over the Jim Frizell experience. I think he only played one show with us, at Montezuma Hall, but I could never really figure him out. He seemed a really nice fellow, but a bit strange. Maybe there were a few pieces of the puzzle I lacked at the time. The singer you remember was none other than Sheila Ahern, a friend of mine since the days she went out with Joe-boy, one of the early mods. She was part of my master plan to become Gram Parsons. I originally wrote the song as a duet, inpsired by George Jones’ “That’s All it Took,” the version Emmylou Harris sings with Gram Parsons. She sang it with us at Saigon Palace, but my plan was eventually thwarted by the rest of the group.
Here is a version of Big Mouth Blues from 1988:
Who’s read Ben Fong Torres’ “Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons”?
Ray: The Town Criers roster speaks for itself RE San Diego pedigree and influence! 🙂
I was asking a more generalized question in response to Dave Ellison’s (accurate) observation that “country” denoted something negative in the early ’80s (viz. our “heavy metal” discussion). Even when the term was seen as negative, the sound still percolated through the rocks in sneaky and interesting ways.
Matthew wrote:
“Let’s also look closer at that country connection. I sure remember the “cow-punk” sobriquet being used by the early ’80s.”
Yes, to be fair, “alt-country” (as a country-western offshoot from punk, as opposed to country rock) started earlier with bands like Rank ‘n File (SD guys from The Dils), and my favorite of the time The Long Ryders, who were lumped in the Paisley Underground scene (perhaps a good topic for a future blog post).
I think The Town Criers veered closer to the 60s Byrdsian roots of country rock, with sublime results. And their songwriting was better than most “alt-country” bands that I have heard since. Also, there were/are way too many “alt-country” bands with weak vocal skills, unlike these guys.
I have a book called Modern Twang that came out in 1999 as an encyclopedia of “alt-country” and “roots” music. The Town Criers are not even mentioned -- for shame!
Here’s the inspiration for that guitar:
Those were good times, Ray. Some of the best of my life, so far. I think the Bedbreakers (due to Tim and Al’s history with Tim Mays et al) played there at least once, if not twice, a week in those early days of the first Casbah (there was a BBQ day -- Wednesday?). It was such a tight knit group of bands back then, playing for the dancers (what was that rockabilly “gang” featuring Fernie, Gig, Brendan Mc Mullen and others?). I especially remember Romy Kaye, Candy Kane (she was dating Tom, the Paladins bassist back then), The Town Criers, and, who can forget,…Dino Lee (and his Love Machine?)! I loved that guy. Props to Joe Hughes for taking me back.
I never had the pleasure of seeing the Town Criers play live, boo-hoo. The tracks and live video sound great! The scribbled set lists are a nice touch, too Ray!
Thanks for posting the Kinks single cover..I see the inspiration…the two Rays (Davies and Brandes) on Fender acoustics…both “Palomino” or “Malibu” models..?
Those are strange but very cool guitars, I used to have one of the 12-strings (the Villager), huge internal neck block (bolt on) and the structural metal bar through the body. Rossmeisl designed (same guy who designed many of the classic Rickenbacker models)…odd imho as acoustic axes but they amplify quite well and the necks feel like classic Fender.
I have to agree with Dean… there’s a radio program every Sunday here in L.A. that plays lots of “alt country” …and a lot of it isnt great.
Not really an influence on the Town Criers, but one of the biggest influence on any band calling themselves alt country nowadays is Gun Club… even if the bands themselvs might be unaware of it. They were definitely a big influence on both the Rockin’ Dogs AND Hair Theatre. I dont think many people realize how influencial they were back in the 80s…even bands like REM took a lot from Gun Club.
The only show I remember seeing was when The Town Criers played somewhere in the Gaslamp (on 5th. St. perhaps). I went with my wife at the time and some friends (Al Brown among them). I remember liking them a whole lot!
Matt, you mentioned Brendan McMullen, but he is a friend of mine here in the Bay Area and he never lived in San Diego. Could there be two?!
Yeah Dave, The Gun Club were great live. Too bad the records didn’t come close to seeing them live. Early REM were great too. Remember when they played at the Del Mar Fairgrounds? Good show. But not as good as James Brown at the fairgrounds!
Brendan McMullen is Sean McMullen’s brother.
Oh, I have a friend up here by that name who is not Sean’s brother. Funny coincidence!
Brendan younger, vince older and wouldent buy me beer, but saved sean and i from a riot after an x / circle jerks show & dident hit me when i barfed in his car. So, 2 to 1 a good guy.
Dean, I was hoping someone would mention James Brown at the Del Mar Fair. It was a fantastic show! I wound up seeing him a number of times in the next 20 years and this easily the best. Years later I saw him at the Wiltern when he was well into his drug addiction. While not a very good show, it was memorable for how crazy and bad it was.He did this big crazy medley towards the end of the show which included a straight ahead version of “There’s no Business Like Show Business” as well as the theme song from Entertainment Tonight (which has no words so he just sang “Entertainment Tonight… Entertainment To-night-night-night”. The crowd was full of music industry folks (Clem Burke from Blondie was in row in front of me) which made it even stranger. Jerome, the guy with the mirror from Morris Day and the Time, somehow made it on stage at one point.
Also, thanks for confirming the hazy memory of seeing an early REM show. While never a fan, it was cool to see them before they became intergalactic-mega-stars I suppose.
Wow Jason Petteway. There’s a name I haven’t heard or seen in a while. I remember Hedgehog parties at your parents house in Mission Hills. Where are you now?
ray, didn’t you also play joe & loris’ wedding @ joshua tree? carla and i were enlisted to bring the generator out.
p.s. i have vague memories of seeing a band called the wickershams?…
Hi John,
Hope all is well with you. I ran into Carla a few years back and as I recall she was a cosmetics rep. That was Joe and Lori’s wedding, all right. There’s a clip from a recording made at the wedding above, in which you can hear Carla laughing hysterically. I believe Joe has a video tape of the event, but I’ve never seen it. Good times.
Even though i miss san diego, especially it’s organic products, so much sometimes it makes me sick, i do enjoy tremendously about where i am now, texas and oklahoma, hanging out with people who love to get really drunk and listen to george jones and merle haggard…i’ll be with a group of them this weekend at the only rodeo behind the walls in mcalester oklahoma…if you see a man in clothes thats old and ragggedddddd….
Hey Matt,
Good times, indeed. There was a brief period of time in San Diego that coincided with the death of the mod-garage scene and the fall of techno music, and occurred before the Seatle backwards-baseball cap-mudhoney-soundgarden slop took over, in which the Pink Panther and the original Casbah were the places to hang out. Most of the bands were blues-country-rockabilly based: the Bedbreakers (whom I used to refer to as the Breadbakers), Town Criers, Paladdins, Downs Family, Hooligans, etc.
The Pink Panther was great! Especially when some of the regular girls would dance on the bar!
Hey Ray, I am waiting for the delivery of a vhs to dvd device and once I figure it out I’ll try to burn a copy of the infamous wedding tape. I think John Nowell also had a video camera at the event and if I am not mistaken, I may have that version as well. Don’t remember if there is much band footage but the soundtrack is all you guys.
Pre-show rally at Ski Beach — Go! Go! Go!
Looks like I’m now in a band with Jim Frizzel:-), great guitar player, he said he did more than one show with The Criers but was not in the band very long… Very interesting guy, he has a cat named Fred Sonic Smith.
He says hello:-)